16. A link between McCarthy and the Hollywood blacklist
When McCarthy received his dressing down during the Army investigation hearings, it came from Joseph Nye Welch, the Army’s chief counsel. It was Welch who famously addressed McCarthy with the question, “Have you no decency sir, at long last?”. When Welch cut off another McCarthy diatribe by addressing himself to the Chairman, Karl Mundt, he drew applause from the crowded gallery, which drowned out McCarthy’s shouting. In 1959, Welch appeared in another role, this one in a major Hollywood film. He portrayed the judge in a murder trial, in Anatomy of a Murder, which starred James Stewart and Ben Gazzara. Welch later quipped the role, “…was the only way I’d ever get to be a judge”. The film was directed by Otto Preminger, a longtime critic of the Hollywood blacklist.
Preminger at the time planned to produce and direct a film based on the Leon Uris novel Exodus. Having read the novel, he recognized the difficulties in adapting it to the screen. Long defiant of censorship of any type, he determined there were serious problems with the script’s content. Preminger knew of Dalton Trumbo’s ongoing work as a screenwriter, though using pseudonyms, or receiving no credit at all for his contributions. Otto Preminger decided to approach Trumbo to write the screenplay for Exodus, offering both a substantial retainer and a screen credit as Dalton Trumbo, defying the blacklist. Trumbo accepted. When Exodus appeared in 1960 it included his name in the opening credits. Preminger though, was considered a Hollywood outsider. The same year another film, produced by and starring a Hollywood insider, struck another blow against the Hollywood blacklist.
