MARSHA HUNT'S SWEET ADVERSITY (2015) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Roger C. Memos
A documentary look at the long life and curtailed career of Marsha Hunt, told mostly in Hunt's own words. Hunt was still in her teens when she started in movies in 1935, and by the late 1940s, her skill and range had earned her a reputation as "Hollywood's youngest character actress." The blacklist threw a wrench into that phase of her life, but she embarked on another, as a social activist with a particular focus on poverty and hunger. She was never a communist, or even (she claims) very political, but she was a member of the Committee for the First Amendment, the planeload of industry figures who flew to Washington in 1947 to protest the HUAC hearings, and unlike some of the others, she wouldn't back down. It cost her professionally. Roles on the big screen all but dried up, and from 1952 on, she worked mostly on the stage, and sporadically on television. She's an articulate witness to an especially dark chapter in Hollywood history, and a voice worth paying attention to. And at 103, she's outlived practically everybody. History isn't just written by the winners. It's written by the survivors.
