3 Review(s)

Hidden in Plain Sight is Paul Buhle and David Wagner's last book in a trilogy that explores the Hollywood Blacklist and its aftermath. In this book, Buhle and Wagner take up the question of where the blacklistees went after they were hounded out of Hollywood. Some left Hollywood for careers in television with many of them working in children's and family programming such as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (remember Boris and Natasha?), Daktari, Lassie and Flipper. Many wrote adult sitcoms such as Hogans Heroes, The Donna Reed Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, M*A*S*H and Maude and All in the Family while others worked on socially-themed series such as Justice, Naked City, The Defender and East Side/West Side. Ultimately, many returned to Hollywood in the Sixties to work creatively on films that contained a dose of radical politics and influenced the development of films in that decade including Riffi, The Go-Between, Norma Rae, The Front, Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Planet of the Apes, Midnight Cowboy, and Coming Home. Though they were banished from Hollywood, clearly these men and women never stopped writing and directing.