Screen Guilds Magazine (February 1936)

The SCREEN GUILDS’ Magazine MAGAZINE ADVISORY COMMITTEES of The Screen Writers' Guild Robert Presnell Robert N. Lee Mary C. McCall, Jr. Wells Root of The Screen Actors' Guild Jean Muir Murray Kinnell Ivan Simpson Editorial Staff HONORARY EDITORS Ernest Pascal Robert Montgomery CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Ralph Block Lucile Gleason Rupert Hughes Ann Harding Dudley Nichols Fredric March Frank Woods Warren William Norman Rivkin .Editor Kenneth Thomson.Managing Editor Donald W. Lee.Associate Editor Barbara Pascal.Art Editor Seymour L. Simons.Advertising Manager Published jointly by The Screen Writers' Guild of the Authors' League of America and the Screen Actors' Guild. Volume 2 February, 1936 Number 12 The Government... An Unfair Competitor of Labor U NDER American standards, com¬ petition unfair to labor should not exist. Yet, right here at home in the motion picture industry, we not only have unfair competition in the acting ranks, but it is encouraged and ap¬ plauded by our own government. I am referring to the practice of the use by motion picture studios of Army, Navy and Marine forces in the production of certain types of pictures, while trained civilians who should be doing the work of these government bodies remain un¬ employed and badly in need. Two most recent illustrations of this point con¬ cern the production of “U. S. Smith” by Columbia and “Sons O’ Guns” by Warner Bros. secured leaves of absence to accept work on the picture. For this picture, I have been told, the men prepared their routines during their regular drill per¬ iods before they went on salary at the studio. T HIS is not a new condition. In fact, its appearance here as an ar¬ ticle might be repetition. But I feel it is worth repeating that we, the Guild, have been fighting to correct these abuses for the past two years with no tangible results. The Screen Actors’ “U. S. Smith” is being shot at the Marine base in San Diego, and members of this branch of the serv¬ ice appear on the screen in formation, in back¬ ground and action shots. The reason for their use, apparently, is to give the picture 1 ‘ production val- ===== use ’ ’, without costing the studio a penny in salaries. The same story was pro¬ duced at Universal by Producer Saxe as a silent film about 1928, and in the original production, motion picture workers were used exclusively. At Warners, a more obvious violation of fair competition is apparent in ‘ £ Sons O’ Guns.” There, about 200 members of the 160th regiment of the California National Guard are acting, costumed as German soldiers, displacing an equal number of needy motion picture work¬ ers. And a large number of these Na¬ tional Guardsmen have regular employ¬ ment elsewhere, from which they have WELCOME, SCREEN DIRECTORS’ QUILD The Screen Actors’ Guild and The Screen Writers’ Guild in joint meeting, January 20, 1936, unani¬ mously adopted the following resolution: RESOLVED: That the Boards welcome the forma¬ tion of The Screen Directors’ Guild and extend to its officers and directors every good wish for its success. The Boards wish to offer every cooperation and to assure the Screen Directors’ Guild of their willing¬ ness to act jointly upon all common problems. By Aubrey Blair . . . Secretary of the Junior Screen Ac¬ tors’ Guild who explains a deplorable condition of unfair competition and what the Guild is doing about it. “The general public has to pay at the box office for the picture that it contributed to produce. These pictures are produced under the ruse of educa¬ tion, and I must concede that they are educational from the standpoint of chiseling. They deprive the worker of his oppor¬ tunity to earn an honest living. v Guild demanded the correction of this practice under the N. R. A. On October 6, 1934, I analyzed the situation as fol¬ lows in a letter to Mr. Harry Crites: “The Government forces are unfair competition to civilian labor because their services are free and their equip¬ ment costs the studio nothing .... In this case the government feeds the mili¬ tary forces, pays their wages and furn¬ ishes the equipment to the studios with¬ out cost. We taxpayers are losing two ways: we are denied the right to work because the studios are able to obtain free labor, and we have to pay the salaries of our competitors . . . ‘ ‘ The studios use the alibi that they are ex¬ ploiting the Government Forces, that they are after the real thing . . . (while) . . . the only real thing they are after is to have Mr. John Public foot the labor bill so that the same studios in turn can sell it back for millions of dollars and profit. “Let’s look at the past military pro¬ ductions made with 100% Hollywood actors: The hit of all time, “The Big Parade”, the original “What Price Glory,” . . . . “A Farewell to Arms”, the English army in “Cavalcade”, the German army in “All Quiet on the Western Front”, the Russian army in “The Volga Boatman”, the Mexican army in “Viva Villa”, the Roman army in “Cleopatra” (all fall in this classi¬ fication). In fact, every army on earth (Continued on Page 22) Copyright, 1936, by the Screen Actors’ Guild and the Screen Writers’ Guild of the Authors’ League of America. Published Monthly at 1655 North Cherokee Avenue, Hollywood, California. Entered as third class matter at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Sold by subscrip¬ tion only—$2.00 a year in the U. S. A. February, 1936