Communist infiltration of Hollywood motion-picture industry : hearing before the Committee on Un-American activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-second Congress, first session (1951)

COMMUNISM IN HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 3481 ample that if I were moved by certain situations of poverty that this would be because my mother worked in a stocking factory in Phila- delphia at the age of 11 and died a broken woman and an old woman at the age of 48, and when I wrote, sir, it was out of central, personal things. I did not learn my hatred of poverty, sir, out of communism. Mr. Tavexner. Did you ever write a play which was based on your experience in the Communist Party ? Mr. Odets. No, I never did. I have never written a Communist play because I want to write plays and always to write plays for the largest American audiences that I can reach. I want to write Ameri- can plays. I want to talk to average Americans. I don't want to talk to a special minority group. I believe that the Communists have a very special and narrow view of American life. That is not my view. There is another reason that. I broke with them. Mr. Tavexxer. You spoke a moment ago of the Communist Party taking one view of your works on one occasion and then a different view later. I am referring particularly in that respect to your play Paradise Lost, You find in the Daily Worker of December 13, 1935, that Michael Blankfort praised Paradise Lost as being a better play than Awake and Sing in many respects. And Robert Forsythe, in New Masses, issue of December 24, 1935, praised Paradise Lost as much better than both Awake and Sing and Waiting for Lefty. Then we find the Daily Worker of February 7, 1936, just several months later, the reviewer, Jay Gerlando, took the contrary position and criticized your play. And I think it is important to bring out to your attention here and ask for your comment regarding the type of criticism at this time. He took the position, this reviewer took the position, that the characters in Paradise Lost grow out of the theater more than out of real life, and he says, "And the Marxists have an advantage in making real characters because they understand the forces that shape human beings." Have you any comment to make on that change in attitude, and the reference to the Marxists ? Mr. Odets. I believe it is what I said before. One reviewer would go to see a play. He might write a favorable review and then someone else in the Communist Party would say, "That isn't true, that play is not so good. This play demonstrates dangerous tendencies and we must send somebody to review the play and point out the dangerous tendencies to our readers." Or it might go the other way around. The first review was bad and they said, "Wait a minute. Don't drive this young playwright away. Let us send a second reviewer." You mentioned Paradise Lost, you read a favorable review or two, and then before you read a favorable review of Burnshaw correcting some other reviewer of Awake and Sing. I happen to have here a New Masses review of Burnshaw of Paradise Lost which is quite bad. Mr. Tavexxer. We will come to that in a moment, if you will let me complete my talk here. Now, in addition to that criticism on February 7. we find that 4 days later in New Masses that the reviewer Stanley Burnshaw, which is probably the thing that you are referring to, in commenting on Paradise Lost said: 21546—52—pt. 8 3