Hollywood Divided: The 1950 Screen Directors Guild Meeting and the Impact of the Blacklist

On October 22, 1950, the Screen Directors Guild (SDG) gathered for a meeting at the opulent Beverly Hills Hotel. Among the group's leaders were some of the most powerful men in Hollywood—John Ford, Cecil B. DeMille, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, John Huston, Frank Capra, William Wyler, and Rouben Mamoulian—and the issue on the table was nothing less than a vote to dismiss Mankiewicz as the guild's president after he opposed an anticommunist loyalty oath that could have expanded the blacklist. The d...