A Face in the Ground

Budd Schulberg, who managed to name names during the Red Scare without the lasting taint, has died at the age of 95. Best remembered for the Oscar-winning screenplay to On the Waterfront, Schulberg also wrote a short story helped make Andy Griffith a star in A Face in the Crowd, which showed a country singer going from power-mad star to populist demagogue. He had some successful collaborations, like having a screenplay re-written by a drunken F. Scott Fitzgerald and arresting Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl while working with the Office of Strategic Services after World War II. He joined the Communist Party after a trip to the Soviet Union in 1934, but when he felt pressure to make his screenplays meet Party agendas, he left and later told the House Un-American Activities Committee who he’d left behind, including Ring Lardner, Jr. and Herbert Biberman. His was seen as a principled stand against free speech by many, letting him keep his career. He used his screenplay for On the Waterfront to help make his case, as Father Barry argued, “Getting the facts to the public,” the priest continues. “Testifying for what is right against what is wrong. What’s ratting to them is telling the truth for you. Can’t you see that?” That was actually his second attempt to piss off Hollywood, with his debut novel about back-stabbing and ambition in 1941’s “What Makes Sammy Run?,” considered such an accurate indictment that Schulberg was told he’d never work in the movies.