Carl Marzani and Union Films: Making Left-Wing Documentaries during the Cold War, 1946–53

Abstract

the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) had a file for People's Congressman, which I eagerly opened-only to find a single scrap of paper that read "Jay Leyda knows who made this film."Once again, an unexpected but not unfamiliar sense of loss hit me.Once again I was overwhelmed by a sense of stupidity and guilt.To be sure, I have paid a serious penalty for my lack of appreciation-for failing to ask him for his favorites in the genre.For more than a decade I have looked for the answer to a question I could have easily asked my mentor before he died in 1988. 2 Who made this film?My own interest in People's Congressman began when I was a consultant for the Paul Robeson Cultural Center at Rutgers University: its director, Rae Alexander Minter, was organizing a touring exhibition celebrating the centennial of Robeson's birth and she brought me on as a film specialist.3 The 12-minute motion picture had gone unmentioned in Robeson biographies, but Larry Kardish at the MoMA had conducted a wide-ranging search of the archives at the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and the title had popped up, with MoMA in possession of the only known copy.A viewing quickly confirmed that Robeson both narrated and appeared in the film.Again this was

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