American actress Marsha Hunt (1917–2022) was one of the guests of honor when the Film Museum and the Viennale jointly presented an extensive program of films by the Hollywood blacklist victims in October 2000. The stage and screen actress had appeared in upwards of fifty films between 1935 and 1949 before her defiant protest of McCarthyism landed her on the infamous blacklist. During a round table discussion, Hunt chillingly described the onset of anti-Communist paranoia in Hollywood in the late 1940s. As this clip clearly shows, her personal account of one of film history’s darkest periods was a highlight of the discussion.
Courtesy of the Viennale – Vienna International Film Festival & ZONE Media GmbH
