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Quiet Americans: The CIA and Early Cold War Hollywood Cinema

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2012

SIMON WILLMETTS
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Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Hollywood film industry from 1947 to 1959. Surprisingly, the CIA was almost entirely absent from American cinema screens during this period, and their public profile in other popular media, including television and the press, was virtually nonexistent. This conspicuous lacuna of publicity coincided with what some scholars have termed the “Golden Age” of US covert action – an era of increasing CIA intervention in Italy, Iran and Guatemala, to name only the most prominent examples. How was it that the CIA managed to maintain such a low public profile and in the process evade popular scrutiny and questions of accountability during such an active period of its history? Utilizing extensive archival research in film production files and the records of the CIA themselves, this article suggests that Hollywood filmmakers adhered to the CIA's policy of blanket secrecy for three interrelated reasons. First, it suggests that the predominance of the so-called “semidocumentary” approach to the cinematic representation of US intelligence agencies during this period encouraged filmmakers to seek government endorsement and liaison in order to establish the authenticity of their portrayals. Thus the CIA's refusal to cooperate with Hollywood during this period thwarted a number of attempts by filmmakers to bring an authentic semidocumentary vision of their activities to the silver screen. Second, up until the liberalization of American defamation law in the mid-1960s, Hollywood studio legal departments advised producers to avoid unendorsed representations of US government departments and officials through fear of legal reprisal. Finally, this article suggests that the film-industry censor – the Production Code Administration – was instrumental in reinforcing Hollywood's reliance upon government endorsement and cooperation. This latter point is exemplified by Joseph Mankiewicz's controversial adaptation of Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Overturning existing scholarship, which argues that CIA officer Edward Lansdale played a decisive role in transforming the screenplay of Greene's novel, this article suggests that Mankiewicz's alterations were made primarily to appease the Production Code Administration.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 127 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 “Charade First Draft Screenplay by Peter Stone and Marc Behm,” 12 July 1962, Cary Grant Papers, Folder 10, The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (hereafter AMPAS), Beverly Hills, CA, 32.

2 See Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, “The Golden Age of Operations,” in idem, The CIA and American Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 81–99.

3 John Foran, “Discursive Subversions: Time Magazine, the CIA Overthrow of Mussadiq, and the Installation of the Shah,” in Christian G. Appy, ed., Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of U. S. Imperialism (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 157–82.

4 Kackman, Michael, Citizen Spy: Television Espionage and Cold War Culture, (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 17Google Scholar; Maurice Unger to Eddie Davis, 3 Nov. 1955, United Artists/Ziv Production Files, Man Called X Correspondence File, Wisconsin State Historical Society Special Collections, Madison, WI.

5 See Saunders, Frances Stonor, Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta Books, 1999), 289–90Google Scholar, 459; Alford, Mathew, Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy (London: Pluto Press, 2010), 11–12Google Scholar; Jenkins, Tricia, “Get Smart: A Look at the Current Relationship between Hollywood and the CIA,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 29, 2 (2009), 229–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boyd-Barrett, Oliver, Herrera, David and Baumann, Jim, Hollywood and the CIA: Cinema, Defence and Subversion, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Tricia Jenkins's monograph on the subject, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2012).

6 Saunders, 290.

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11 Animal Farm was produced by the British animated-films studio Halas and Batchelor.

12 There are a number of often conflicting accounts of why Mankiewicz altered the content of Greene's novel. See, for example, Whitfield, Stephen J., “Limited Engagement: The Quiet American as History”, Journal of American Studies, 30 (1996), 65–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bushnell, William S., “Paying for the Damage: The Quiet American Revisited,” Film and History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, 36, 2 (Spring 2006), 38–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lewis, Kevin, “Graham Greene and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Quiet American”, Film History, 10 (1998), 477–91Google Scholar; Brian Neve, “Adaptation and the Cold War: Mankiewicz's “The Quiet American’,” in James M. Welsh and Peter Lev, eds., The Literature/Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation (Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press, 2007), 235–44; Geist, Kenneth L., Pictures Will Talk: The Life and Times of Joseph L. Mankiewicz (New York: Scribners, 1979), 264–78Google Scholar; Nashel, Jonathan, Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005), 149–86Google Scholar. Alford, 12.

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14 See Koppes, Clayton R. and Black, Gregory D., Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

15 For more on the FBI's involvement in the making of House on 92nd Street see Shaw, 52–58.

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19 “Motion Pictures of OSS Activities,” 19 Oct. 1945, Louis De Rochemont Collection, 5716, Box 7, Folder 5, AHCW.

20 O.S. S. (Paramount Pictures, May 1946; prod. Richard Maibaum, dir. Irving Pichel, screenplay by Richard Maibaum).

21 General William J. Donovan to Louis de Rochemont, 3 July 1946, Russell J. Forgan Papers, Box 1, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA.

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23 Colonel Forgan to William Donovan, 1 March 1946, Russell J. Forgan Papers, Box 1, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA.

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25 Bosley Crowther, “The Screen,” New York Times, 16 Jan. 1947.

26 “Forthcoming Movie by Paramount Apparently Involving the Name of CIA,” 3 Jan. 1951, CIA Records Search Tool (hereafter CREST), CIA-RDP58-00597A000100070144-7, National Archives, College Park, MD.

27 “Daily Staff Meeting,” 6 Feb. 1952, CREST, CIA-RDP80B01676R002300080010-0, National Archives, College Park, MD.

28 “Report on Principal Matters Pending,” 16 June 1958, CREST, CIA-RDP75-00001R000300340007-1, National Archives, College Park, MD.

29 Tracy Barnes to William H. Godel, “Meeting in Pentagon on 29 September 1953,” 1 Oct. 1953, CREST, CIA-RDP80R01731R001300220008-0, National Archives, College Park, MD.

30 Barnes and Wisner's role in the CIA's covert sponsorship of cultural programmes is discussed at length in Saunders, Who Paid the Piper.

31 For more on the relationship between Hollywood and other US government institutions see Lawrence H. Suid, Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Image in Film, revised 2nd edn (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2002); Robb, David L., Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004)Google Scholar; Valantin, Jean-Michael, Hollywood, the Pentagon and Washington: The Movies and National Security from World War II to the Present Day (London: Anthem Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Boggs, Carl and Pollard, Tom, The Hollywood War Machine: U. S. Militarism and Popular Culture (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007)Google Scholar; Herzberg, Bob, The FBI and the Movies: A History of the Bureau on Screen and behind the Scenes in Hollywood (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2006)Google Scholar; Powers, Richard G., G-Men: Hoover's FBI in American Popular Culture (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

32 For example, the 1956 spy drama House of Secrets used the fig-leaf of the “Criminal Investigation Authority” in place of the actual CIA.

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34 New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964).

35 For example, Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 US 130 (1967).

36 “Former CIA Agent Interviewed – radio broadcast transcript from Barry Gray show on WMCA,” 19 May 1960, CREST, CIA-RDP75-00001R000200350014-3, National Archives, College Park, MD.

37 “Forthcoming Movie by Paramount Apparently Involving the Name of CIA,” 3 Jan. 1951, CREST, CIA-RDP58-00597A000100070144-7, National Archives, College Park, MD.

38 North by Northwest original manuscript, Pt. 1, 22 Nov. 1957, Ernest Lehman Screenplays Collection, TC127, Box 1, Firestone Library Special Collections, Princeton, NJ.

39 The professorial depiction of the head of the CIA in North by Northwest was undoubtedly a reference to the long-standing and renowned CIA chief Allen Dulles, who carefully fostered his avuncular image. Leo Carroll, who played “The Professor,” would later reprise this role as Alexander Waverly in The Man from U.N.C.L. E.

40 “North by Northwest continuity script,” in James Naremore (ed.), North by Northwest: Alfred Hitchcock, director (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993), 132.

41 R. Monta to Alfred Hitchcock, 1 Aug. 1958, Alfred Hitchcock Papers, North by Northwest Legal File, Folder 536, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

42 Peggy Robertson to Herbert Coleman, 23 Jan. 1959, Hitchcock Papers, North by Northwest Production File, Folder 542, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

43 Black, Gregory, Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Walsh, Frank, Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

44 For the full Production Code see Doherty, Thomas, Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007)Google Scholar, Appendix, 351–60.

45 The Production Code's response to Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking satire of the Cold War, Dr Strangelove, stated that “one is always a little uncertain as to how a satire involving the president of the USA and the armed forces is going to be received by the public. This gets the PCA into the area of what we call ‘industry policy,’ which means that after reviewing the picture, if we have any serious doubt on this score, we reserve the right to get counsel and advice from our superiors in New York, Eric Johnston and the Board of Directors, as to whether the picture could conceivably give rise to any industry problem over and above what is set down in the Code.” Geoffrey Shurlock to Stanley Kubrick, 21 Jan. 1963, “Dr Strangelove” Motion Picture Association of America Production Code Administration File (hereafter PCA), AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

46 Joseph I. Breen to David O. Selznick , 25 May 1945, “Notorious” PCA File, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

47 Geoffrey M. Shurlock to Sol Schwartz, 23 May 1962, “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home” PCA File, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

48 Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 149–86; Bushnell, “Paying for the Damage,” 38–44; Alford, Reel Power, 12.

49 Nashel, 166.

50 Joseph Mankiewicz to Geoffrey Shurlock, 23 Dec. 1955, “The Quiet American” PCA File, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

51 Geoffrey Shurlock to Joseph Mankiewicz, 5 Jan. 1956, “The Quiet American” PCA File, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

52 Joseph Mankiewicz to Geoffrey Shurlock, 9 Jan. 1956, “The Quiet American” PCA File, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

53 Geoffrey Shurlock to Joseph Mankiewicz, 16 Jan. 1956, “The Quiet American” PCA File, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

54 Joseph Mankiewicz to Geoffrey Shurlock, 9 Jan. 1956, “The Quiet American” PCA File, AMPAS, Beverly Hills, CA.

55 James Grady, “Rhyme,” preface to idem, Six Days of the Condor, repr. (Aylesbury: No Exit Press, 2007), 13–14, original emphasis.