We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
COMMUNISM IN HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 2315 Mr. Tavenner. Did you publish your book? Mr. Levy. No. The'book was a fiasco. Harcourt didn't want to publish it, and I didn't want to publish it, either. The book was just a hodgepodge. Then I went to Browder and said that this was why I did not want to have anything, any organizational contacts, and asked to be re- leased, and returned my card he had given me, I believe, and was released at that time. Mr. Tavenner. How long did you remain in the Communist Party at that period ? Mr. Levy. Well, it must have been right around a year, shading one way or the other, right around a year. Mr. Tavenner. What is the year^ I do not know that you have fixed the exact year. 'Mr. Levy. Well, it was through most of the year 1933. One of the reasons I felt most strongly about this in terms of my experience was that I was them embarking on a series of what were going to be five novels on the Pacific coast from which I come, and I was going to treat the Pacific coast in terms of industry and industrialists. Mr. Jackson. Could you speak a little louder, please ? Mr. Levy. Yes, I can. I say I was going to write; I had the project of writing what was going to be a series of five novels on the Pacific coast, which is my home, in terms of industries, and the protagonists in each case were to be industrialists. And 1 felt that this was a field in which there could be all kinds of interference, the kind I didn't want. I took two of these. The first of these was the The Last Pioneers, which was a novel. The second was Gold Eagle Guy, which was done as a play. And I don't know if this is apropos, or not, but both of these were reviewed adversely in the left-wing press, generally on the basis that I had romanticized industrialists, although, I may say, that in at least one case, one who thought he was the protagonist, or his family, was just as adverse. Mr. Tavenner. Did I understand you to say that you did not want to feel any restraints at the time that you prepared these, or wrote these two novels? Mr. Levy. I didn't want to feel any restraint about writing at all, but particularly because I knew I was going to deal with industry and industrialists. Mr. Tavenner. What reason did you have to believe that you would have any restraint placed upon you ? Mr. Levy. I had just been through it with the Mooneys. Mr. Tavenner. Did that have anything to do with your leaving the party at that particular time ? Mr. Levy. It had everything to do with it; yes, sir. That is it. Mr. Tavenner. So it was because of the restraint that you felt would be imposed by the Communist Party that you withdrew? Mr. Levy. Yes, sir. I didn't want restraint from anybody. I didn't want restraint from anybody. Mr. Tavenner. And you were of the opinion that that would inter- fere with your own creative work in the writing of the novels The Last Pioneer and so on? Mr. Levy. Yes, sir.