Jarrico, Paul

JARRICO, PAUL (1915-97).Paul Jarrico, born Israel Shapiro, was one of the few Hollywood Communists with deep roots in the socialist movement. His father and uncle, both lawyers, had become Zionist socialists in Russia, and they became staunch members of the Workers Circle movement in the United States. Paul was the only member of the family who joined the Communist Party.

Jarrico attended UCLA, where he joined the National Student League and participated in a campus protest against ROTC and the West Coast maritime strike of 1934. He also wrote a humor column for the Daily Bruin. In 1935, he transferred to the University of Southern California, to get a law degree, but that idea quickly fizzled, and, to amass the credits to graduate, he enrolled in what were considered easy cinematography classes. He married Sylvia Gussin, in January 1936, and decided to become a screenwriter.

He had a few lucky breaks, including the patronage of Dore Schary, and he worked steadily, but he was never considered an “A” writer. His forte was romantic triangles (e. g., Tom, Dick, and Harry, RKO, 1941). His most controversial film turned out to be a musical appreciation of the Soviet Union, Song of Russia (MGM, 1943). Co-written with fellow Communist Richard Collins, it became a favorite target of anti-Communists when the war ended.

Jarrico was part of a cohort group of young Communist screenwriters, including Collins, Ring Lardner, Jr., Maurice Rapf, and Budd Schulberg. They challenged the older generation of Communists, who argued that screenwriters could not change movies. They should, rather, organize unions and educate audiences. Jarrico and the other believed they could write scripts that would alter the consciousness of movie audiences.

Jarrico served in the Merchant Marine and Navy during World War II. His screenwriting career resumed in 1946, but it did not take off. He was working on an urban corruption script, The Las Vegas Story at RKO, when he was subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, in early 1951. When he told the press that he was going to challenge the Committee, Howard Hughes, the owner of RKO, fired him. The day before Jarrico testified, he was named, along with 22 others, by Collins. Jarrico was one of the few witnesses who was allowed to engage in a dialogue with one of the Committee members, Clyde Doyle (D-CA).

Jarrico did some work on the script black market, and he was an avid supporter of law suits against the studios. He lost his own case, however, to gain screen credit for The Las Vegas Story. And, as a result of that case, the studio bosses were able to dictate that no Communist or suspected Communist could receive a screen credit.

Jarrico’s most notable anti-blacklist act was his role in producing, distributing, and arranging for the showings of Salt of the Earth. He, along with Michael Wilson and Herbert Biberman, conceived and brought to the screen this film about Mexican American workers on strike and the efforts of their wives to be involved. No other American movie had addressed these issues. The filmmakers had to overcome huge obstacles, as the cold-war machine of oppression did everything in its power to block the film being made and exhibited.

In 1957, frustrated by the Communist Party’s unwillingness to change to meet the challenges of the cold war, Nikita Khrushchev’s criticism of the Stalin years, and the Hungarian revolt, Jarrico quit the Party and moved to France, to try to resuscitate his screenwriting career. He was moderately successful, but he had to claw and fight for assignments, credits, and pay checks. He earned only three screen credits between 1950 and his death, in 1997. He also wrote several plays.

Before he died, he had one more victory. He was the main force behind the Writers Guild of America’s effort to restore screen credits to blacklisted writers. Close to one-hundred films were credited to those who had written under pseudonyms or behind fronts during the blacklist years, including five of those written by Jarrico. The night before his death, he accepted, along with Lardner, the apologies of the four talent guilds for their roles in the blacklist, at a gala evening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (“Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist”).

Ceplair, Larry. The Marxist and the Movies: A Biography of Paul Jarrico. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2008.

Jarrico, Paul. Interview. Paul Buhle and Patrick McGilligan, eds., Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.

Jarrico, Paul. UCLA Library. Center for Oral History Research. http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0008zk8j&title=Paul%20Jarrico

_____. Papers. Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University.