The House I Live In (1945)
On a break from a recording session, Frank Sinatra steps outside to find a gang of boys chasing a Jewish kid and stops them with a song and a plain-spoken plea against the bigotry dividing wartime America.
Written by Albert Maltz, soon to be blacklisted as one of the Hollywood Ten, and directed uncredited by Mervyn LeRoy, The House I Live In turned a ten-minute lunch break into one of Hollywood’s few direct wartime statements against antisemitism, earning the production a special Academy Award, credited to producers Frank Ross and Mervyn LeRoy.
Background
The House I Live In is a ten-minute short made during World War II and starring Frank Sinatra, who was directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The screenplay was written by Albert Maltz, who was later one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters jailed for contempt of Congress in 1950 after refusing to say whether they had been Communist Party members. The short was produced for the government’s War Activities Committee and stands among the few direct wartime statements from Hollywood against antisemitism. The film received a special Academy Award, credited to its producers, Frank Ross and Mervyn LeRoy, rather than to Sinatra personally. It is in the public domain as a US government-sponsored production.
What to watch for
Watch the opening, in which Sinatra steps out from a recording session and comes upon a gang of boys tormenting a Jewish kid. His intervention is simple and direct: he sings to the boys and then speaks plainly against prejudice, arguing that the country belongs to people of every background. The film is short and talky, and its force comes from the earnestness of the performance rather than from production polish. Its plain message against bigotry, delivered in wartime, was unusual for the period, and it still reads as a sincere, if simple, appeal for tolerance.
