"In Hollywood, kids used to say to my children in school, 'Your father is blacklisted, he has to go to jail.' You know how kids are. Charming. They're hearing it from their own parents. So I took my children out of that and we went to New York where the children said, 'Your father's blacklisted? Oh, how wonderful! He's a famous man."
"I always write about the same things . . . how people seek to fulfill themselves and what society suppresses in them through convention and force. To keep suppressing what's powerfully present in your character is to deny your existence as a human being. Not to fulfill yourself is not to live." In 1947 Abraham Polonsky wrote the film Body and Soul and was nominated for the academy award for best original screenplay. In 1948 he wrote and directed Force of Evil, an acknowledged film classic starring John Garfield. In 1951 he appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Rather than naming names, he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. For the next sixteen years, he was blacklisted in Hollywood. In the words of Martin Scorsese, "It's one of the great losses to American films and world cinema." Scorsese credits Force of Evil "as a major influence on my work, particularly on Mean Streets, Raging Bull and GoodFellas."
"You Are There is based on historical incidents and famous people in general. But the minute we three start to work on it, they get to be certain kinds of famous people whose historical significance depends on the kind of events that were then, in the 1950s, dominating American society and life," explains Polonsky. "The Execution of Joan of Arc" (air date March 1, 1953), "The Crisis of Galileo" (air date April 19, 1953), "The Fate of Nathan Hale" (air date August 30, 1953), "The Scopes Trial" (air date May 16, 1954) are universal stories of intellectual and political freedom. According to Polonsky, "the show was deliberately political, but it was not political propaganda . . . I can't make it strong enough that we really tried to make these things as accurate as we could insofar as the research demonstrated what happened in history." Woody Allen's film The Front, penned by Walter Bernstein, is drawn from the Polonsky-Manoff-Bernstein experiences writing episodes for You Are There. Looking back at a career that includes such films as Odds Against Tomorrow, Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, and Guilty by Suspicion, Polonsky is self-effacing in his analysis of his life. "If I were younger, you might say that I showed promise." When discussing the blacklist, Polonsky is more somber. "The blacklist is a way of getting rid of your imaginary enemies . . . I tell you, there has never been a time when the blacklist did not operate in America." The words of Andrew Marvell as penned by Polonsky (in "The Tragedy of John Milton") seem to summarize best his feelings towards the event which molded his professional life: "I am not eager, sir that my tombstone should read: Here lies a man who survived despite all. He who dies after his principles have died, sir, has died too late." Polonsky's 88 years have been eventful, the type of life one expects from a top notch writer and director. Born of Russian Jewish emigrants in New York City, he has practiced law, served in the OSS (CIA) during World War II, been a member of the Communist Party, been blacklisted, and survived to carve a film career against all odds. His view of life is repeated often in his many scripts, but none is more poignant than the ending which he wrote for each You Are There episode: "What sort of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events which alter and illuminate our time . . . and you were there." Abraham Polonsky died October 26, 1999. |
In 1953 the CBS television series You Are There went on the air. Each episode investigated a historical event as if it were breaking news. The reporters included Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and Bill Leonard. The director was Sidney Lumet. The cast featured such notable actors as Paul Newman, James Dean, Lorne Greene and Robert Culp. And the writers were Jeremy Daniel, Paul Bauman, and Kate Nickerson . . . at least that's what the screen credits read. The real writers were Abraham Polonsky, Walter Bernstein, and Arnold Manoff. All three were blacklisted, and all three were determined to conduct "guerilla warfare against McCarthy and the Committee."