Red & Black (2026) | New book on Hollywood blacklist

 

Red and Black: Hollywood Left and the Blacklist

Edited by Ehsan Khoshbakht

Published by Les éditions de l'oeil

Out in late July 2026 | Pre-order here (Shipped from August)

In the period now known as the McCarthy era, a climate of fear bordering on paranoia took root. Communists, it was claimed, had infiltrated Hollywood for its profits and its immense global propaganda power. They had to be purged. A series of governmental “hearings” followed, deliberately designed as, and functioning like trials. Hundreds suspected of being leftist “subversives” or “un-American” were effectively barred from employment in the film and television industries.

Red and Black, featuring a dozen new essays – several by leading scholars in the field – revisits the work of the Hollywood Left and the blacklist that haunted American cinema from 1947 well into the 1960s. It traces the careers of the blacklistees – from radical communists to committed liberals – before and during the witch-hunt, following them through years of anonymous work behind pseudonyms and, for some, exile.

The book presents a group portrait of figures such as Charles Chaplin, Dalton Trumbo, Joseph Losey, Adrian Scott, Paul Jarrico, John Berry, Hugo Butler, Cy Endfield, Bernard Vorhaus, and Irving Lerner at a moment when their civil liberties were under attack by the very institutions meant to protect them.

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Featuring 140 stills from the collection of the BFI National Archive.

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Content:

Red Inflections: Hollywood Left and the Blacklist by Ehsan Khoshbakht

An Alienated Eye: Hollywood’s Blacklisted Exiles by Rebecca Prime

A Different Way through the Swamp: Women and the Blacklist by Farran Smith Nehme

Black Market: Capitalism as Crime by Imogen Sara Smith

Lonely are the Brave: The Hollywood Western and the Blacklist by James Bell

“Propaganda for a Better Life”: Blacklisted Actors from the Group Theatre and the Actors’ Laboratory by Chris Fujiwara

Surviving a Time Without Pity: Howard Koch, Ben Barzman, Adrian Scott by Melanie Williams

Dalton Trumbo: The Screenwriter as Hero by Pamela Hutchinson

Paul Jarrico: Power to the Word by Phuong Le

Hugo Butler: Dear Enemy by Haden Guest

Ben Maddow: A Poet Adrift by Tanya Goldman

Making of an Exile: Chaplin and a Red Flag by Cecilia Cenciarelli

Cy Endfield: Struggle and Survival by Imogen Sara Smith

John Berry: “To All Who Lived Through It” by Bernard Eisenschitz

Bernard Vorhaus: The Blacklisted B-Movie Powerhouse by David Cairns

Irving Lerner: Man in the Dark by Adrian Martin

Martin Ritt: The Blacklistee Who Came in from the Cold by Neil Sinyard

Joseph Losey: The Intimate Stranger by Hannah McGill