Sam Mithani: The Hollywood Left -- Cinematic Art and Activism in the 1930s

THE HOLLYWOOD LEFT: CINEMATIC ART AND ACTIVISM IN THE 1930s
by Sam Mithani

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CINEMA-TELEVISION—CRITICAL STUDIES)
December 2007

ABSTRACT

The dissertation re-examines the Thirties in its artistic, cultural and political
specificity to place leftist cultural productions in their complex contexts, particularly the ideological. It concentrates on radical/proletarian fiction and Hollywood leftist cinema as expressions of prevalent “crisis” conditions, such the Great Depression and the New Deal, anti-Semitism, anticommunism, labor unionism, racism in the South, and the rise of fascism/Nazism. It demonstrates how the leftist favored genres in literature (proletarian fiction) and cinema (the social-problem film) underwent transformations in response to the changing national and global conditions, leftist political positions and debates on the inter-relations between art, ideology and culture. Working in the tradition of American social criticism, the Hollywood Left responded productively to the challenges by creating a vibrant cinematic counterdiscourse. Leftists strived to create a “popular Marxism” and a “leftist populism” by interpellating their critique within popular Hollywood genres, albeit subject to the commercial mandate of the studio system and its heavy-handed censorship apparatus. This contentious and creative engagement produced some of the most memorable “critical” works of Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” such as I am a Fugitive
from a Chain Gang, Fury and Dust Be My Destiny. The dissertation critically examines these films, compares them to the mainstream “populist cinema” of Frank Capra, and argues that the Hollywood Left creatively reworked this populism to fashion a far more critical, even abrasive, cinema, giving rise to the foundational works of American film noir. The dissertation also frames leftist cinema as a committed response to the remarkable changes in race, class, gender and ideology taking places within American culture. In particular, the totalitarian ideologies of fascism and Nazism presented grave challenges to democracy. The Hollywood Left led the filmic battle against these forces and produced energetic cinematic propaganda in films like Blockade (1938), Juarez (1939) and Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), which are the focus of this work. In essence the dissertation calls for a re-evaluation of the “Red Decade” as one of great cultural and artistic renaissance for American culture and the Left rather than one of disappointment, disillusion and disenchantment as has been popularized by conservative critics.

Chapter One: Dissertation premise, method and organization

Chapter Two: The “Red Decade” and its Influence on American
Cinema, Literature and Culture

Chapter Three: A “Marxist” Cinema in Hollywood? Leftist cultural
productions in their Social, Political and Cultural Contexts

Chapter Four: Antifascism, the Hollywood Left and the transformation
of the social-problem film

Chapter Five: Leftist anti-Nazism, Warner Bros. studios and the further
transformation of the social-problem film

Chapter Six: Further research on Leftist studies of the Thirties

To Read the Dissertation