Review by Booklist Review
Bricklin shines a light on a pivotal female producer who defied the tyranny of blacklisting. Hannah Weinstein, a political organizer who worked in the 1940s to improve relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, was a natural target for the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In 1950, Weinstein left the U.S. for Europe, eventually settling in England, where she founded her own production company, Sapphire Films. Weinstein used Sapphire Films to produce several notable shows, including Colonel March Investigates and the hit, The Adventures of Robin Hood, which also found a large audience stateside. Weinstein made every effort to employ writers who were persecuted by HUAC, including Ring Lardner Jr., one of the infamous Hollywood Ten, who served 10 months in federal prison for his Communist affiliations. These writers had to be credited under fake names and their checks distributed through a sympathetic law firm. Sapphire Films ultimately fell prey to Weinstein's profligate second husband, who drained the company's assets, but the sad demise of the company doesn't undermine how vital Weinstein's contributions were.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Bricklin (The Notorious Life of Ned Buntline) rescues from obscurity the career of Hannah Dorner Weinstein (1911--84), a U.S. journalist and founder of Hollywood's left-leaning Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions. During the anti-Communist Blacklist period of the 1950s, Weinstein voluntarily exiled herself to France and the UK and established her own production company, Sapphire Films. The book guides readers through the convoluted trails of the Communist Party USA, which adherents and their allies followed. Utilizing declassified FBI and CIA files, interviews, and archival materials, the book adds the complex Weinstein to the list of those whose work was blacklisted but later exonerated in the cultural industries. Weinstein hired blacklisted writers for her short films and TV work that portrayed iconoclastic characters challenging deleterious stereotypes of politically or culturally marginalized groups. Bricklin emphasizes that Weinstein retained a commitment to promoting progressive causes, especially via mass communications. VERDICT Written with the pulsating pace of a thriller, this book will likely attract readers and scholars interested in political journalism, women in film and television, and mid-20th-century pop culture history.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A biographer and historian introduces a singular woman who helped sustain blacklisted writers and directors during the McCarthy era. Hannah Weinstein (1911-1984) had a profound but largely underestimated influence on 1950s TV. The daughter of progressive Jewish parents, Weinstein became a campaigner for prominent New York City Democrats during the 1930s. Later she became a strategist for a public relations firm and came into contact with socialist groups, which made her appear, by association, to be part of the supposed internal communist threat to American democracy. She went on to work with many left-leaning Hollywood celebrities, many of whom she brought together in an organization called the Independent Citizens Committee for the Arts, Science and Professions. When the House Un-American Activities Committee began investigating members of the entertainment industry for subversion in the late 1940s, Weinstein formed committees to help the artists who became HUAC targets. Weinstein eventually came under investigation by the FBI and left the U.S. for England in 1950. In London, she launched a TV production firm called Sapphire Films. Over the next decade, her company covertly employed dozens of blacklisted writers, including Ring Lardner, and directors who transformed Sapphire Films projects--e.g., the British and American TV hit The Adventures of Robin Hood--into "thinly veiled commentary on the plight of the blacklisted writers and McCarthy hysteria in general." The strength of this well-researched book lies in the abundance of information it provides about Weinstein's contributions to the often entangled worlds of entertainment and politics. However, those same details--like those pertaining to the many colorful actors and directors who came into the Sapphire Films orbit--occasionally detract from Weinstein's story. Still, readers seeking to understand the McCarthy era and how it resonates today, as well as those interested in women working at the intersection of media and politics, will find this book of interest. Illuminating reading. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
