AL JOLSON WAS A COMMIE RAT

I'm surprised that Libertas did not remind their readers that "The Jolson Story," the 1946 bio pic that brought both Al Jolson and Larry Parks to the forefront of America, was on TCM on Monday night. The Jolson Story was the biggest hit of 1946 and the sequel Jolson Sings Again was almost as big two years later. The star of both movies was Larry Parks who became a huge movie actor as a result of his performance. Whatever is said about this movie other than the music is fantastic and Parks was great---the story was trite, contrived, pure fiction---the sad ending of the career of Larry Parks is what most remember. You see Parks had been a member of the Communist Party in the 40s (along with half the town) and in 1951 he was called before the HUAC (not Joe McCarthy as is usually supposed) and they basically forced him to rat out his friends. He was reduced to tears, sobbing on the witness stand in a secret hearing. With his body shaking he said:

"I would prefer, if you would allow me, not to mention other people's names. Don't present me with the choice of either being in contempt of this Committee and going to jail or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer."

But he broke and with tears streaming down both cheeks named names. Worse, the testimony was leaked (there were Comminists on the committee) so his "friends" refused to associate with him; even worse, Harry Cohn at Columbia fired him. He was in effect, blacklisted anyway. His was the classic blacklisting and everyone in Hollywood feels they were there. Was he a great actor who was ruined by the HUAC? Hardly, he was a small time actor before the Jolson movies and he did forgettable stuff when the blacklist ended ten years later. But the spectacle of him crying and helpless before the committee still sticks in the Hollywood craw. If you want a single reason for the Left sentiments of the current Hollywood, Parks collapsing in tears of surrender before the committee would be it. What is truly sad about it is that the actors involved in the Party were just that era's limosine liberals---all limos and no garages---they just talked; but their goal, as was the goal of the Soviet, was to get the entire labor force of the movie business under one labor union so that they--the Soviet and Stalin--- could dictate content. However actors like Bogart and Bacall, along with 300 actors and other Hollywood luminaries, stood up in public and denounced their association with the Party. Poor dopey Larry Parks did not. BTW: to get a feeling of how the committee could intimidate people go here, but keep in mind that the subject of the page, a writer named John Howard Lawson, was a hard core communist, an actual obedient servent of the COMINTERN (per the Venona Intercepts) and the enforcer for the Holywood Communist Party; a particularly vicious SOB. His phony speech struck a chord, and still strikes a chord today---Hollywood is doing their best to be sure Lawson appears as a victim, even to this day. Lawson's speech is a classic example of why you don't fuck with actors or writers, they will get you in the end. People like Lawson were really tough guys in tough times and the Communist Party was a tough bunch. Poor blind Larry Parks was a pussy cat in the lions cage.