Lillian Hellman

Writing

Biography

Lillian Florence Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an American playwright, prose writer, memoirist and screenwriter known for her success on Broadway, as well as her communist views and political activism. She was blacklisted after her appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) at the height of the anti-communist campaigns of 1947–1952. Although she continued to work on Broadway in the 1950s, her blacklisting by the American film industry caused a drop in her income. Many praised Hellman for refusing to answer questions by HUAC, but others believed, despite her denial, that she had belonged to the Communist Party. As a playwright, Hellman had many successes on Broadway, including The Children's Hour, The Little Foxes and its sequel Another Part of the Forest, Watch on the Rhine, The Autumn Garden, and Toys in the Attic. She adapted her semi-autobiographical play The Little Foxes into a screenplay, which starred Bette Davis. Hellman was romantically involved with fellow writer and political activist Dashiell Hammett, who also was blacklisted for 10 years; the couple never married.

Filmography Movies

Acting

MOVIE

Julia

6.5(0.2K)

At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.

The Rehearsal

5.4(0.0K)

An indictment of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. The film tries to give a reconstruction of the events during the students' uprising in the Athens Polytechnic (November 1973) by documents, rehearsals, interviews, songs and poems.

Play Trailer

The Rehearsal

MOVIE

Directed by William Wyler

Not rated yet

A documentary on the film director William Wyler (1902-1981), this feature was conceived by his daughter, Catherine, as a loving tribute. Utilizing a wealth of film clips, many in black and white, the movie features interviews with Bette Davis, Samantha Eggar, Greer Garson, Lillian Hellman, Audrey Hepburn, Charlton Heston, John Huston, Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, Ralph Richardson, Terence Stamp, Barbra Streisand, Billy Wilder, and the director himself, interviewed only a few days before he died in 1981.

Play Trailer

Directed by William Wyler

Self

The Case of Dashiell HammettMOVIE

MOVIE

The Case of Dashiell Hammett

6.5(0.0K)

A one-hour public television (PBS) biography of Dashiell Hammett, creator of the "hardboiled" modern detective novel and author of "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man." It follows Hammett's life from Pinkerton detective in San Francisco to his career as fiction and screen writer, companion of playwright Lillian Hellman, and leftwing political activist. The biography investigates why Hammett stopped writing at the height of his fame.

Play Trailer

The Case of Dashiell Hammett

Production

MOVIE

Dead End

7.1(0.1K)

The lives of a young man and woman, an infamous gangster and a group of street kids converge one day in a volatile New York City slum.

The Little Foxes

7.5(0.2K)

In 1900, a clan attempts to strike a deal with a Chicago industrialist to get him to build cotton mills in their Deep South town.

The Little Foxes

7.5(0.2K)

In 1900, a clan attempts to strike a deal with a Chicago industrialist to get him to build cotton mills in their Deep South town.

Watch on the Rhine

Not rated yet

Written and set during the rise of Hitler’s Germany, Watch on the Rhine is a play about an American family, suddenly awakened to the danger threatening its liberty.

Watch on the Rhine

6.9(0.1K)

On the eve of World War II, the German Kurt Müller, his American-born wife Sara, and their three children, having lived in Europe for years, visit Sara's wealthy mother near Washington, DC. Kurt secretly works for the anti-Nazi resistance. A visiting Romanian count, becoming aware of this, seeks to blackmail him.

These Three

7.2(0.0K)

Close friends Martha and Karen build a private boarding school together with the aid of the local doctor Joe. The school takes off and many students enroll, one of whom is a trouble-maker who tells a scandalous lie that threatens to destroy the trio's lives.

Toys in the Attic

6.0(0.0K)

Julian Berniers returns from Illinois with his young bride Lily Prine to the family in New Orleans. His spinster sisters Carrie and Anna welcome the couple, who arrive with expensive gifts. The sisters hope Julian will help with their expenses, and he tells them that while his profitable factory went out of business, he did manage to save money. It turns out that Julian pulled off a real estate scam and took off with the money. Carrie is obsessed with her brother. Her jealousy of Lily pushes her to discover the shady land deal for herself and she does everything she can to wreck their marriage.

The Spanish Earth

6.6(0.0K)

Joris Ivens’s advocacy documentary for the Republican cause intercuts a besieged Madrid with a nearby village digging an irrigation canal, linking the war to bread, land, and survival. Produced by the writers’ collective Contemporary Historians, edited by Helen van Dongen, scored by Marc Blitzstein, and narrated in its U.S. version by Ernest Hemingway (after an initial Orson Welles track), it blends frontline reportage with persuasion against Franco’s forces and their German–Italian backers.

Play Trailer

The Spanish Earth

Writer