Hollywood on Sinclair
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Re “Lost in the Hollywood jungle,” Opinion, Feb. 19
I had a different reaction from Ernest Freeberg to the movie “There Will Be Blood.” Granted that Upton Sinclair’s socialist message was not explicit, I thought that the character of Daniel Plainview and his ruthless, evil drive was a metaphor for the strengths and evils of the oil industry itself.
Shirley A. Conger
Corona del Mar
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Sinclair’s book, “Oil!,” was published shortly after the Teapot Dome scandal. We continue to celebrate a crook named Edward L. Doheny, who made a fortune from a bribe. Freeman quite rightly points out that Hollywood has a long record of distorting Sinclair’s novels, just as the studios used motion pictures to distort his positions in his run for governor of California in 1934.
John Howard
Toluca Lake
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