Edward Huebsch

Edward Huebsch, AKA "Eddie Huebsch" and "Ed Huebsch," (1914–1982) was a 20th-century American Communist screenwriter whose career was cut short by the Hollywood blacklist.

Background

Edward Huebsch was born on February 20, 1914, in New York City. He often adapted books to film, as in Best Man Wins, adapted from a story by Mark Twain. Blacklist scholars Ceplair and Englund grouped Huebsch among those screenwriters who considered movies a "high art." a Popular Front group organized by the Communist Party in 1935 and disbanded in 1943. (His relative B.W. Huebsch of Viking Press was also a member.

Hollywood Blacklist

Investigation into Communist infiltration into Hollywood commenced nationally with hearings by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in October 1947 that led to indictment of the Hollywood Ten for contempt of Congress.

On April 17, 1951, Huebsch's name came up during hearings. HUAC investigator William A. Wheeler testified: The last individual which I wish to bring to the committee's attention is Edward Huebsch. He resides at 11200 La Maida, Los Angeles, Calif. We received this subpena rather late on our first trip to California, and when we received it we accompanied the United States marshal or deputy United States marshal to the home of Mr. Huebsch. The marshal talked to Mrs. Huebsch and was informed that her husband would be home later that same date. We stayed around the place until fairly late at night, and Mr. Huebsch did not return. Inquiries around the neighborhood disclosed that the next day Mrs. Huebsch loaded the station wagon up and left. No one has been there for the last 5 weeks. We contacted the residence again on April 6, and no one was at home. (The HUAC hearing transcript includes a footnote with corrected address: "Edward Huebsch, 10200 La Nida, North Hollywood."

During testimony by fellow screenwriter Stanley Roberts, Huebsch's name came up again on May 20, 1952. Roberts described himself as a "motion-picture writer" who had worked in that business since 1936 for studios major (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia, Universal) and minor (Monogram). Roberts tried to explain to the committee that, "It is very difficult for us to understand, but communism in Hollywood, as I have seen it, is on a purely local level. It doesn't seem to go anywhere." In 1938, Roberts first met Ben Barzman's home, where members like John Howard Lawson asked him to join. In late April or early May 1945, right after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt ("the death of liberalism in America"), Bernard C. Schoenfeld got him to join. Two or three other "delegates" came to visit Roberts after that, one of whom was Edward Huebsch. These delegates, including Huebsch, persuaded him that "The party was merely interested in the things that I was interested in, better conditions in the Screen Writers' Guild, better labor conditions in Hollywood, higher wages, and so forth, and in furthering Roosevelt's policies." Roberts left the Party in 1946, but Huebsch came back to ask him to rejoin and support the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) strike (see "Hollywood Black Friday").

Roberts then went on the name Huebsch as a member of Communist-dominated groups in Hollywood: Screen Writers Guild: Ben Barzman, John Howard Lawson, Bernard C. Schoenfeld, Paul Trivers Conference of Studio Unions: Herbert Biberman, Edward Biberman and wife Sonja Dahl, Michael Uris and wife Dorothy Tree, Hugo Butler and wife Jean Rouverol, John Berry (director), Bernard C. Schoenfeld, Irwin Lieberman, Carl Foreman, Alex Greenberg Screen Writers Magazine: Lester Cole, Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Gordon Kahn, Hugo Butler, Richard Collins

Comeback

In 1977, Huebsch tried to make a comeback with Twighlight's Last Gleaming, directed by Robert Aldrich. Variety called it "intricate, intriguing and intelligent drama." The New York Times called the movie a "deadly solemn, gadgety suspense-melodrama about a disgruntled, liberal-thinking United States general, a Vietnam veteran whose out-spoken antiwar views got him railroaded to prison on a trumped-up murder charge." While the newspaper summed it up in 1977 as having "no star," in 2012 a new review said it "epitomized a paranoid, quintessentially ’70s moment in American history and imagination... a nerve-racking procedural."

In 1979, Huebsch published the historical fiction novel The Last Summer of Mata Hari, whose review by Kirkus Reviews summarized it as "Noble banalities pulse endlessly from Mata's tear-drenched heartstrings and drown whatever sense of realism this yucky pseudo-historical novel might have had. Bathos supreme."

Death

Huebsch died age 68 on July 7, 1982, in Los Angeles, California.

Legacy

In 1980, Victor Navasky named Huebsch as a communist with the following passage in his book Naming Names with regard to Carl Foreman, a fellow American screenwriter: Another party interested in Foreman's testimony was the CP itself. They sent the screenwriter Eddie Huebsch to interview Foreman: I was assigned by the Party to find out what Foreman's testimony was going to be. I had lunch with him--he was doing High Noon at the time. I sat for eleven hours with him. We went to Lucy's, the fanciest restaurant in Hollywood--across from Paramount. I could not get him to assert that he would take an anti-Communist position. So I reported that he was an informer. Nothing he has said then or since has convinced me I was wrong... The main point is, Carl wouldn't tell the Commies to go fuck themselves... I would have recommended expulsion. Interpreting the meaning of this event, Gordon concluded: "It means that the fear of the consequences were so pervasive for anyone who was seen to opposed the extreme right wing that no one dared to take such a stand openly" and opposed the blacklisting. In 2000, the Writers Guild of America West issued further corrected blacklist credits that included Huebsch: LITTLE GIANTS (Producciones Olmeca) Original Credit: Written for the Screen by Hugo Mozo and Eduardo Bueno. (1958) Corrected Credit: Written for the Screen by Hugo Butler and Edward Huebsch. (04/01/97)

Works

Screenplays: Millie's Daughter (1947) Sport of Kings (1947) Black Eagle (1948) Best Man Wins (1948) The Wreck of the Hesperus (1948) Your Show Time ("A Lodging for the Night") (1949) The Son of Dr. Jekyll (1951) Lux Video Theatre ("Millie's Daughter") (1956) Little Giants (as "Eduardo Bueno") with Hugo Butler (as "Hugo Mozo") (1958) Los pequeños gigantes (as "Eduardo Bueno") with Hugo Butler (as "Hugo Mozo") (1960) Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)

Stories for Scripts: Cigarette Girl (1947)

Books: The Last Summer of Mata Hari (1979)