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 43 and freedom of the press." I got the usual run-down of a publisher. That is what they told my man. I tried to have the story stopped for this particular pajMjr, but ho is writing it. In fact, we were chastised for interfering with their business, so I got off ot that. Guy Kndore, Howard Koch, King Lardner, Jr., Emmett Lavory, John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Robert Kosson, Krwin Shaw, Dalton Trumbo, Jolm Wexley. You know these names. Mr. Thomas. That is a very familiar list. Mr. Waknkb. Julius and Philip Epstein, twins. Mr. Thomas. WTiat are they doingV Mr. Wakner. They are at MGM. I will give you my theory of what happened to these fellows when I finish. Mr. Thomas. All right. Mr. Wakner. Sheridan Gibney. Clifford Odets. That, is all of my list. Mr. SriiirLiNG. Were all of tlmse writers that you named employed in your studio at one time or another? Mr. Wakneu. Yes; they were. Mr. Stkii'lino. Could you give us the names of some of the pictures in which they injected their lines or jiropaganda? INIr. Warner. I would rather correct that, if you don't mind. ]Mr. Stripling. All right. Mr. Warner. They endeavor to inject it. Whatever I could do about it — I took it out. Mr. Stripling. Tell us some of the pictures in which they endeavor to do that. Mr. Warner. Do you want tlie names? Mr. Stripling. Identify the fihns. air. Warner. Alvah Bessie, The Very Thought of You. Gordon Kahn, Her Kind of Man. I might inject there for a moment, the majority of these writers, some of them wrote for as high as 6, 8, or 10 months and never delivered anything. What they were doing was taking your money and supposedly writing your scripts and trying to get these doctrines into the films, working for the party, or whatever the term is. The strange thing is very few of these fellows deliver. Mr. Stripling. Is that right? Mr. Warner. Not only in our studios, but in any of the studios. I can speak authoritatively on that. These are the credits that these people have. They are always in every one of them. Howard Koch, In Our Time. I might explain how some of these stories come out. Sometimes four or five of these writers contribute. These fellows contribute and three other good writers are doing the most of it, but they contribute some things and get the screen credit. I should have had more information as to who collaborated witJi them. They didn't do anything in the western pictures. As far as Koch is concerned, he was on 20 scripts, but he never got anywhere because he always started out with big messages and I used to take them out. This fellow was on contract and I couldn't let him go. He is now working for Samuel Goldwyn. I can't remember the name of the picture he is working on. Ring Lardner, Jr., was on several pictures. He didn't put any me.ssage in The Kokonio Kid. Or Emmett Lavery — he has no credits. We throw his stuff in all the way and pile it up. John Howard Lawson, Action in the North Atlantic. Albert Maltz in Pride of the Marines. i\lr. Thomas. Did he get much into Pride of the Marines? Mr. Warner. No. In my opinion he didn't get in anything because everything they endeavor to write in, if they photographed it, I cut it out. I ran those films myself. There is one little thing where the fellow on the train says, "My name isn't Jones, so I can't get d job." It was this kid named Diamond, a Jewish boy, in the Marines, a hero at Guadalcanal. In fact, I had a couple of boys run tlie pictures 3 or 4 days ago and I read it. Dr. John Leach said something about it, but tiiere is nothing to it. If there is I don't know where it is. I have had experiences from 1!)16 or 1!)17. I made My Four Years in Germany and 1 produced that in New \'ork right during the First World War. I can look in a mirror and .'^ee three faces. You can see anything you want to see and you can write anything you want to, but there is nothing in my pictures that I caimot qualify being there, with the exception that it might have gotten by me because you can't be superliuniaiL Some of these lines have inuendos and double meanings and things like that, and you have to take 8 or 10 Harvard law courses to find out what they mean.