Hearings regarding the communist infiltration of the motion picture industry. Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, first session. Public law 601 (section 121, subsection Q (1947)

COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY 21 Mr. Nixon. Then so far as you are concerned, with your vital interest in the free press and the free screen, and in maintaining that in America, you believe it would be essential that we not have in the United States a form of government, totalitarian form of government, be it Nazi, Fascist, or Communist, which would when it came into power immediately deny a free press, free speech, and a free screen ? Mr. Warner, I definitely am adverse to it with all my strength and will oppose it with all my strength because it is my recollection that the first thing Hitler did was to remove the press. As a matter of fact, credit is given to Goering for taking over the important Berlin newspapers. Hitler had always had one ; Goebbels had his in Munich or one of the German cities. The next thing they did was to remove the motion pictures. No one could make pictures except the Nazis or under their direction. Mr. Nixon. That is one of the reasons Warner Bros, before the war, and even during the early years of the war, made so many effective pictures describing what was happening in Fascist Germany and to a less extent in totalitarian Italy? Mr. Warner. Yes, sir ; exactly. Mr. Nixon. Because you were interested in maintaining a free system here and you did not want to see that thing come over here? Mr. Warner. Definitely, and in addition to that, we produced a film called Confessions of a Nazi Spy where we endeavored on a free screen by freemen to awaken the democracies of America and England and others to this terrible menace that faced them. I may go to Europe once or twice a year and I hear things in general that I heard way back in 1936 and 1937. That was my last trip to Germany — in 1937. That is the reason for making the film. Mr. Nixon. You made those films because you wanted to protect free speech and the free press in America ? Mr. Warner. Definitely — not only in America, but in other civilized portions of the world where men can be freemen. Mr. Nixon. Consequently, then, you would feel it was a patriotic duty which you as a motion-picture producer have, to oppose as well as you possibly can at any time the infiltration into your industry of writers or others who in some way or other would attempt to put into those pictures certain lines of propaganda which have as their aim and their purpose the setting up in the United States of a totalitarian system of government, be it Fascist, or Communist; which would destroy the rights that you have now to make any kind of a picture you want to nu.ike? Mr. Warner. I am for everything that you have said. Mr. Nixon. You agree with that statement? Mr. Warner. I agree wholeheartedly. Mv. Nixox. The statement was a little long. Mr. Warner. It was a very good statement; it was the statement of a real American, and I am proud of it. Mr. Nixon. Now, I note that you made 24 pictures a year, including 60 or CO short subjects. I also notice, as probably most of us did who go to the movies — and I saw Confessions of a Nazi Spy which, incidentally was a very fine job — that you have made a considerable number of pictures in which you have pointed out the methods of totalitarian dictatorships — the way they deny free speech and free press,