Ben Barzman

Ben Barzman (October 12, 1910 – December 15, 1989) was a Canadian journalist, screenwriter, and novelist, blacklisted during the McCarthy Era and best known for his screenplays for the films Back to Bataan (1945), El Cid (1961), and The Blue Max (1966).

He was born in Toronto, Ontario. He was the screenwriter or co-writer of more than 20 films, from You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith (1943) to The Head of Normande St. Onge (1975).

No Credit on Movie Z
Ben's work on L'attentat probably led Constantin Costa-Gavras and Jacques Perrin to send Ben the screenplay for Z. I had read the book and thought it was terrific. Ben and I read the screenplay and thought it was awful. Jacques, who was producing, and Costa came to Mougins. Ben told them what he thought was wrong with it. They asked his advice. Ben came up to the bedroom to ask me what he should tell them. I said that they should just go back to the book, which was wonderful. He told them that. They threw out their screenplay. Ben did an adaptation that followed the documentary nature of the book. Jorge Semprún rewrote and took a sole credit. Nevertheless, Ben helped them make a deal with the Algerians, permitting the movie to be shown there.

Like many of his colleagues in the movie business, Barzman was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Norma Barzman, at least, was a CPUSA member during 1943-1949. In 2014, she told the Los Angeles Times, "one should be proud to have been a member of the American Communist Party during those years. Hitler was invading the Soviet Union, so there was no reason to be anti-Russian, they were our allies."

The couple moved to England so Barzman could work on the film Give Us This Day (aka, Christ in Concrete, 1949). Following his return to the United States after directing Give Us This Day, Edward Dmytryk, one of the Hollywood Ten, testified about the Barzmans to HUAC in 1951. "To get out of prison he named us and a lot of other people," said Norma Barzman in 2014. In the 1950s, the family moved to Paris, where friends included Pablo Picasso, Yves Montand, and Simone Signoret, and later southern France). Barzman did not receive credit for some films because of the Hollywood Blacklist.

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