A true-blue red in Hollywood: an interview with Paul Jarrico.

Summary

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Interview

Screenwriter Paul Jarrico believes that his job involves a lot of challenges. He started his career as a junior writer for MGM in 1936 before moving to Columbia. He feels strongly about promoting political issues in his works, especially in war films. Some of Jarrico's film credits include 'Tom, Dick and Harry,' 'Song of Russia,' 'The Search,' 'Thousands Cheer,' 'The Las Vegas Story,' and 'The White Tower.'

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A true-blue red in Hollywood: an interview with Paul Jarrico.

Screenwriter Paul Jarrico was a man of tireless radical zeal. He was, during the HUAC sessions, one of the most-named Hollywood communists, his traducers led by his sometime writing partner, Richard Collins, a "friendly witness. "A stalwart of the Hollywood section of the Party, Jarrico had doctrinal differences with John Howard Lawson, whom he succeeded, in time, as section chairman. In addition to fighting the blacklist in court, Jarrico went on to produce the enduring Salt of the Earth (1953), a militant strike film made against great odds during the McCarthy era. Created by the collective effort of blacklisted talents, Salt of the Earth remains a testament to the faith of these privileged Hollywood 'camrades' in the grit of ordinary people.

Jarrico was often a spokesman for his politically-committed generation - a figurehead at events, a key interview for journalists, a campaigner in the Writers Guild to restore blacklisted credits, a speaker at funerals. Yet he rarely talked about himself in terms of his remarkable career - he was Oscar-nominated for his original screenplay for the Ginger Rogers comedy, Tom, Dick and Harry (1941), and also had a hand in the script of another Oscar-nominated film, The Search (1948). His credits span six decades - often, during the blacklist era, under pseudonyms - and he remained active as a screenwriter throughout the Nineties.

On October 27th, Jarrico was an honoree at "Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist," a fiftieth-anniversary commemoration of one of the film industry's darkest chapters. The event was sponsored by Hollywood's four major talent guilds - The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), The Directors Guild of America (DGA), The Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and The Writers Guild of America, west (WGAw) - and included film dips, commentary, and dramatic presentations featuring Kathy Bates, James Cromwell, Billy Crystal, David Hyde Pierce, John Lithgow, Jimmy Smits, Kevin Spacey, and Alfre Woodard. The next day, while driving home from a luncheon honoring blacklisted screenwriters, Jarrico's car skidded off the highway and crashed into a tree. He died before rescuers could pull him from the wreckage.

Paul Jarrico was a good friend of Cineaste for many years. Whenever we were preparing material for publication on Salt of the Earth, the blacklist, the Communist Party in Hollywood, or the recent efforts to restore the credits of blacklisted writers, he could always be counted on for good advice, the loan of rare photos, or providing the addresses and phone numbers of important sources. He will be sore...

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