Edward Dmytryk

Edward Dmytryk, the director of “Murder, My Sweet” and the Oscar-nominated “Crossfire” was one of the “Hollywood Ten,” the screenwriters, directors and producers who in October 1947 were subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee at the outset of its investigation into alleged Communist influence in the motion-picture industry. All ten refused to answer the committee’s central question — “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” — arguing that the inquiry violated their First Amendment rights of belief and association. On November 24, 1947 the House cited them for contempt of Congress; they were convicted the following year, and after John Howard Lawson’s and Trumbo’s appeals failed as test cases and the Supreme Court declined to hear them in 1950, all ten served federal prison terms. Every one of them was blacklisted by the studios under the “Waldorf Statement.” He, too, went to prison for contempt — but partway through his sentence he changed course, and in 1951 he appeared again before HUAC as a cooperative witness, admitted his former Party membership and named more than twenty others, becoming the only one of the Ten to renounce his stand and be removed from the blacklist. Before serving that sentence Dmytryk had gone into self-exile in England, where he directed Obsession and Give Us This Day (both 1949); when his British passport expired he returned to the United States in 1950, served his prison term, and then appeared before HUAC as a cooperative witness in April 1951.