The Blacklist Reunion Hollywood Almost Lost Twice
Hollywood loves remembering Hollywood. Preferably after everyone involved is dead, the rights are cleared, and somebody has found a tasteful way to monetize the trauma. Which makes the rescue of deteriorating footage from a 1981 gathering of Hollywood blacklist survivors particularly wonderful. The reunion brought together writers, actors and filmmakers connected to the era when refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee could transform a working Hollywood professional into yesterday's lunch reservation. Careers vanished. Credits disappeared. Some writers worked behind fronts. Others left the country. Hollywood, displaying the legendary courage for which major corporations are universally celebrated, mostly went along. But decades later, blacklist veterans got together—and somebody rolled 16mm film. Then Hollywood nearly lost that , too. The surviving reels warped and deteriorated. Roughly 104 quarter-inch Nagra audio rolls also had to be recovered, di...