Trivia

A victim of the blacklist in Hollywood, about which he was often eloquently scathing in his later years.

He was the screenwriter or co-writer of more than 20 movies.

Barzman did not receive credit for some movies because of the Hollywood Blacklist.

In 1960, Barzman became a science fiction author, with his novel Out Of This World. It dealt with the idea of a twin planet of Earth in the same orbit as Earth, hidden from our view by the sun. The two planets had developed almost identically from creation-but World War II never happened on the twin Earth. Philosopher Bertrand Russell said of it that Barzman "has a rare gift, he manages to treat serious themes amusingly.".

During the 1950s, the he and his family relocated to Paris, where friends included Pablo Picasso, Yves Montand, and Simone Signoret, and later southern France.

His wife Norma had her passport revoked from 1951 for seven years. The family remained abroad in London, Paris, and Mougins (France) until 1976, during which time he wrote his novels and screenplays for French and Italian movies.

His wife, Norma Barzman, was a Communist Party USA member from 1943 to 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.".

Barzman was a Canadian journalist, screenwriter, and novelist, blacklisted during the McCarthy Era and known best for his screenplays for the movies Back to Bataan (1945), El Cid (1961), and The Blue Max (1966).

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

With his wife, he wrote two films, "The Locket" and "Never Say Goodbye," and a second novel, "Rich Dreams.".

The French named him an officier of the Order of Arts and Letters.

In 1982 Ben Barzman was honored with a film retrospective at the Paris Cinematheque.

After 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.

His U.S. citizenship was revoked from 1954 to 1963.