New Delhi, Oct. 23: When Karan Johar and fellow producers succumbed to Raj Thackeray's threats yesterday and promised not to hire Pakistani artistes in future, they were reviving a seven-decade-old script.

In 1946, at the onset of the Cold War, a tirade by an influential news publication against perceived communist sympathisers in Hollywood had started a witch-hunt that destroyed the careers and lives of hundreds of artistes and robbed the US film industry of some of its brightest talent for two decades.

That witch-hunt would dovetail into the broader anti-communist frenzy characterised by the show trials held by the US Senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, and named McCarthyism after him.

But the script of Bolly 2016 carries a few deviations from the original. The US artistes who were accused of being "unpatriotic" were blacklisted from work, jailed in some instances or, as with Charlie Chaplin, refused re-entry into the country.

Johar, true to his style, has chosen a softer script with a happier ending (for him). His Ae Dil Hai Mushkil will release next Friday in exchange for an acceptance of the mob's diktat, which includes a ransom.

Here's the original, with its plot and protagonists - victims, cheerleaders and those who stood up to protest.

(Disclaimer: Any resemblance to persons with roles in the 2016 script is purely coincidental.)

Plot summary

 

Amid rising anti-communist xenophobia in post-World War II US, the Hollywood Reporter, the industry's most influential magazine, published a column titled "A vote for Joe Stalin" in July 1946 that listed 11 leading artistes as communist sympathisers.

In October 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee of the US House of Representatives subpoenaed 43 Hollywood artistes to either accept their communist leanings or testify against communist sympathisers in the industry.

Nineteen refused to appear. The committee again subpoenaed 11 of them. One among the 11, Bertolt Brecht, eventually agreed to answer the committee's questions; the remaining 10 refused.

The committee's interrogation in each case included the infamous question: "Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"

The Hollywood Ten who held out questioned the legality and moral authority of the committee's sessions. They were charged and convicted on grounds of contempt of Congress and, after failed court appeals, jailed for a year each.

When they came out, they were "blacklisted" by the Hollywood studios, and many could not find work under their actual names till the 1970s.

By then, many other famous artistes had been blacklisted and denied jobs in Hollywood, with films they had contributed to being forced to run without crediting them. Broke for years, some committed suicide.

Key protagonists

 

Ronald Reagan: The future US President was then president of the Screen Actors Guild and was the first to appear before the committee in 1947. He told the committee that a clique within his union was using "communist-like tactics" but he did not know if they were communists and that the guild had their activities under control.

He did not name any colleagues and though he publicly backed the committee's work, he later assisted some of the blacklisted artistes find work after they apologised to the committee and named communist artistes.

Walt Disney: The producer and animator named industry colleagues who he thought were communists, and called their influence a "real threat".

Bertolt Brecht: The legendary playwright was one of the 11 artistes who initially refused to respond to the questions of the committee. Brecht eventually did answer, on October 30, 1947, but made it clear he was doing so only because he was a foreigner and did not expect the same rights as his American colleagues.

Brecht said he had never been a Communist Party member either in Germany or the US, but defended his anti-Nazi writings that some in the committee said were "revolutionary" and therefore problematic. He did not name any colleagues with communist sympathies.

Dalton Trumbo: The most sought-after screenwriter in Hollywood at the time, Trumbo was a part of the Hollywood Ten. He insisted that holding diverse political views was consistent with the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

After coming out of jail in 1950, Trumbo found that the studios had revoked their contracts with him. Broke, he began ghost-writing scripts.

He wrote the script for the 1953 Academy Award-winning Roman Holiday but gave it to his friend Ian McLellan Hunter, who received the award and later acknowledged that it belonged to Trumbo.

In 1956, he won the Academy Award for best screenplay for Brave One under the pseudonym Robert Rich, but never showed up at the ceremony to claim his award. In 1960, a decision by the makers of Exodus and Spartacus to publicly name Trumbo as their scriptwriter broke the back of the blacklist. He was retrospectively awarded the Oscars for Roman Holiday and Brave One.

John Howard Lawson: Also a part of the Hollywood Ten, the writer compared the committee's intimidating tactics to measures used in Nazi Germany. "I am not on trial here," Lawson declared before the committee. "This committee is on trial."

Lawson moved to Mexico, where he worked and settled.

Charlie Chaplin: The actor, with his themes on the working class in America, was long viewed as troublesome by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover although his work generated millions of dollars in revenue for his adopted country.

For Hoover, Chaplin's expression of admiration for the Soviet Union's role in World War II, refusal to cross the pickets during a Hollywood strike, and support for Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace in the 1948 presidential election reflected his communist sympathies.

In 1952, while Chaplin was in Britain promoting his film Limelight, the US decided to revoke his entry permit, preventing him from returning.

"I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ were President," Chaplin said. "My prodigious sin was, and still is, being a non-conformist. Although I am not a communist I refused to fall in line by hating them."

Paul Robeson: The actor-singer was blacklisted from 1950 to 1955. He wasn't just denied work in the US - the state department denied him a passport, preventing him from travelling abroad for work. But Robeson refused to retract his words of praise for the Soviet Union. He was eventually issued a passport in 1958.

Humphrey Bogart: The actor led a grouping called the "Committee for the First Amendment" that argued that one couldn't be penalised for holding diverse political views.

Lauren Bacall: The actress joined Bogart in the Committee for the First Amendment.

Kirk Douglas: The actor persuaded director Stanley Kubrick to hire Trumbo as the publicly acknowledged screenwriter for the 1960 movie Spartacus, insisting he would not act in the movie otherwise. Trumbo's named credit in the film helped break the Hollywood blacklist.

Philip Loeb: The stage and screen actor was blacklisted in 1952, and found no work for the next three years. In 1955, he committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.

Edward Dmytryk: The Canadian-born film director was a part of the Hollywood Ten but then testified before the committee and named colleagues with communist sympathies. In exchange, his career was rehabilitated.

William Wilkinson: The editor of the Hollywood Reporter named alleged communist sympathisers in his 1946 column, which became the basis for the committee's first summons to the artistes. He kept up his campaign against the Hollywood Ten, Chaplin and others.

Hedda Hopper: The actress and gossip columnist led the "outing" of communist sympathisers in Hollywood. She picked up leaks from Hoover on Chaplin's alleged sex scandals to damage his popularity and worked with the committee to ensure the blacklist's continued enforcement, threatening the studios she would expose them in her writings if they allowed a violation.