And like Hemingway, Schulberg was a huge fan of boxing, about which he wrote prodigiously and well. The movie was produced in 1954, three years after Schulberg testified in front of HUAC and named names. He revealed that he was a member of the Communist Party from 1936 to 1939, leaving in protest at the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Instead he appeared and testified voluntarily after himself being named by a former associate as a former member of the Communist Party. Schulberg maintained that he testified before HUAC as a patriotic American.
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