The Road to Deceit and Betrayal : Posthumous awards by Writers Guild to blacklisted writers reinforce a valuable lesson

The facts never come to us pure, wrote historian E. H. Carr--they are refracted through the prism of the times. Even seemingly incontrovertible “facts,” like who wrote what, are sometimes contextual; they may be correct, certainly in the political sense of the times, but as the years pass, they fester and irritate our sense of justice and fairness. Those “facts” then become something else, something a little less accurate, but no less revealing of our attitudes, beliefs and values.

At its annual awards dinner Sunday, the Writers Guild of America corrected two longstanding factual errors. And in so doing it has issued a timely reminder about the relationship between works of art and the sometimes unpopular views of the people who make them.

The guild presented awards to the widows of two screenwriters who were blacklisted, Albert Maltz and Dalton Trumbo. The awards for Maltz’s “Broken Arrow,” named the best-written Western of 1950, and Trumbo’s “Roman Holiday,” which won for the best-written comedy of 1953, correct the earlier presentations of those awards to writers who “fronted” for Maltz and Trumbo when they were prevented from taking credit for their stories.

Maltz was in prison in 1950 when the guild award for his script went to Michael Blankfort. He was imprisoned, along with other members of the so-called Hollywood Ten, for refusing to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American Activities in its investigation of communist influence in Hollywood.

While waiting for the appeal of his contempt conviction, Trumbo wrote the story for a film that became “Roman Holiday.” Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton wrote the script; they won the Writers Guild award in 1953, and Hunter won the Oscar for best story. The record now shows that Trumbo’s story was their inspiration.

Almost seven years ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences posthumously gave Oscars to blacklisted screenwriters Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman for “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” On Sunday the Writers Guild corrected what might have been the last film officially credited to the wrong writer.

The awards to Maltz and Trumbo come as artistic works and the artists who produce them are under a new wave of political assault from both the right and the left. The guild’s action should remind us that when we seek to constrain artists, by imposing ideological or political tests of value, we are drawn onto a path that leads inexorably--now, as it did in the shameful days of the 1950s blacklist--to deceit and betrayal.