Carl Foreman
Carl Foreman (
July 23,
1914 â€"
June 26,
1984) was an
American screenwriter and
film producer who was
blacklisted by the
Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.
Born in
Chicago, Illinois to a working-class
Jewish family, he studied at the
University of Illinois. As a student in the 1930s he became an advocate of
social reform and joined the
American Communist Party. At the time,
political ideology was being by the rise of
fascism abroad and domestically by the ruthless business tactics of
capitalists such as
John D. Rockefeller while at the same time the unemployed and working poor of the
Great Depression were suffering terribly.
After graduating from university, Carl Foreman moved to
Hollywood where he used his writing talents and training to work as a
screenwriter. From 1941 to 1942 he was involved with writing three films but his career was interrupted by service in the
United States military during
World War II. Returning to writing commercial scripts, by the end of the 1940s, Foreman had become one of the top writers in
Hollywood whose successes included the 1949
Kirk Douglas film
Champion for which Foreman received an
Academy Award nomination.
In 1951, during production of the film
High Noon, Carl Foreman was summoned to appear before the
House Committee on Un-American Activities. He testified that he had been a member of the American Communist Party more than ten years earlier while still a young man but had become disillusioned with the Party and quit. As a result of his refusal to give the names of fellow Party members, Foreman was labeled as an "uncooperative witness" and blacklisted by all of the Hollywood studio bosses.
Carl Foreman was the screenwriter of
High Noon, a film that is seen as an allegory for
McCarthyism. He was not credited for his associate producer role when the film was released in 1952 but he did receive an Academy Award nomination for his script from his fellow members of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The
Western film is considered an American classic and is consistently on the
Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films, was #33 on
American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies, and has been selected for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry. This would be the last film he would be allowed to work on by a Hollywood studio for the next six years. Unemployed, Foreman and some others who had also been blacklisted such as
Ring Lardner, Jr. moved to
England where they wrote scripts under
pseudonyms that were channeled back to Hollywood. As such, the film that was Foreman' greatest screenwriting accomplishment made no mention of his name. In 1956 he co-wrote the screenplay with fellow blacklisted writer,
Michael Wilson for the equally acclaimed
The Bridge on the River Kwai. Based on the novel by
Pierre Boulle, the two were not given
screen credit and as such the
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay went to Pierre Boulle. This was only rectified posthumously in 1984 and his name was added to the award.
In addition to his writing of screenplays, Carl Foreman produced ten films, including both producing, writing, and directing 1963s anti-war epic
The Victors filmed entirely in the
United Kingdom. In 1965 he was made a governor of the
British Film Institute, serving until 1971. In 1970, Foreman was made a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Such is his influence on the British film industry, that there is a
British Academy Award or
BAFTA that bears his name - the
Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer.
Near the end of his life, Carl Foreman returned to the United States where he died of a
brain tumor in 1984 in
Beverly Hills, California. Both of his children were born in
London, UK. His daughter,
Amanda Foreman graduated from
Columbia University and
Oxford University where she received a
Ph.D. in history. Son,
Jonathan Foreman has a degree in modern history from
Cambridge University, a law degree from the
University of Pennsylvania and is an editorial writer and senior film critic for the
New York Post.
In 2002, made a two-hour film about Foreman's ordeal during
McCarthyism titled
Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents. It was written and directed by outspoken
conservative Lionel Chetwynd.
Foreman was also the subject of an episode of
Screenwriters: Words Into Image, directed by
Terry Sanders and
Frieda Lee Mock.
Force 10 from Navarone (1978)
Young Winston (1972)
Mackenna's Gold (1969)
The Victors (1963)
The Guns of Navarone (1961)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
A Hatful of Rain (1957)
The Sleeping Tiger (1954)
High Noon (1952)
The Men (1950)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
Young Man with a Horn (1950)
Champion (1949)
Home of the Brave (1949)
Spooks Run Wild (1941)
Bowery Blitzkrieg (1941)
Wins
* 1953 :
WGA Award for Best Written American Drama -
High Noon* 1958 :
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay -
The Bridge on the River Kwai (awarded posthumously)
* 1973 : Writers' Guild of Great Britain for Best British Screenplay - Young Winston''
Nominations
* 1950 :
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay -
Champion * 1950 :
WGA Award for Best Written American Drama Champion * 1951 :
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay -
The Men * 1951 :
WGA Award for Best Written American Drama -
The Men* 1953 :
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay -
High Noon * 1953 :
Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture -
High Noon* 1962 :
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay -
The Guns of Navarone* 1962 :
BAFTA Award for Best British Screenply -
The Guns of Navarone * 1973 :
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay -
Young Winston
