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Like many other people in the film industry, the career of screenwriter Ben Barzman was derailed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Prior to becoming a scenarist in the early 1940s, he worked as a journalist, and had even written a few musical revues. Following his blacklisting, he exiled himself to Europe where he continued writing screenplays in collaboration with other blackballed writers such as Joseph Losey and Edward Dmytryk. He also assisted on scripts anonymously and submitted new scripts under various assumed names. In the early 1960s, he eventually returned to Hollywood and began using his own name again. He published his first novel, Echo X in 1960.