University Communications
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

Release date: Feb. 24, 2000
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Assistant Director, 404-727-0644, or dhammac@emory.edu

Blacklisted Screenwriter Bernard Gordon To Speak At Emory March 6, Two of His Films To Be Screened March 5

WHO: Bernard Gordon, blacklisted screenwriter and author of the autobiography, "Hollywood Exile: Or How I Learned to Love the Blacklist"

WHAT: Lecture and book signing

WHEN: 4 p.m. Monday, March 6

WHERE: 103 White Hall, 480 Kilgo Circle, Emory. For a map of campus, go on-line to www.emory.edu/MAP/.

COST: Free and open to the public. For more information, call Emory's film studies program at 404-727-6761.

Screenwriter Bernard Gordon was subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947, just as his career was getting underway. After being blacklisted for his unwillingness to name names, Gordon worked anonymously for years in Hollywood before joining the expatriate filmmaking community in Europe. He managed to enjoy a long, successful career as a writer and producer whose credits include Nicholas Ray's "55 Days at Peking," the 1964 version of "The Thin Red Line," "The Battle of the Bulge," cult films "Earth Versus the Flying Saucers" and "The Day of the Triffids." He even wrote the screenplay for arch anti-communist Ronald Reagan's film "Hellcats of the Navy."

Gordon's name was prominent in the news again last year for leading the protest against the special lifetime achievement Academy Award for Elia Kazan, who had cooperated with the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Gordon's recently published autobiography, "Hollywood Exile: Or How I Leaned to Love the Blacklist," recounts with humor and candor the futile nature of the Communist Party in Hollywood, the workings of the blacklist and the ways writers circumvented it, as well as his various experiences with films starring Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Ava Gardner, James Mason and Tony Curtis. He provides an insider's perspective on the craft of screenwriting and on the often frantic, fantastic nature of commercial moviemaking.

The day before Gordon's talk and book signing, two of the films he scripted, "The Day of the Triffids" and "Custer of the West," will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 5 in 112 White Hall. The screening also is free and open to the public. For more information, call Emory's film studies program at 404-727-6761.

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