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)

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44 COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY Mr. Stripling. They are very subtle. Mr. Warnkr. Exceedingly so. Rosson — I gave him a creflit for Tliey Won't Forget, and Dust Be My Destiny. Erwiii Shaw, The Hard Way.. Dalton Truniho worked in our place in l!)^") and IJW*. He had credit for The Kid From Kokomo, and so has Ring Lardner, Jr. It gives you an idea; they work in pairs. All he is credited with is The Road Gang. I can't remember that. That was 12 years ago. John Wexley had a picture called City for Conquest in 1040. Some of these pictures I have called off were produced during the war. Naturally, Ihey were pictures aimed at aiding the war effort. They were realistic. Take Action in the North Atlantic, which was produced for the merchant marine because at the tinx' tliey could not get proper enlistments and all that. I made this tilm. We did not pull any punches. It was a good, hard film of the real life of the merchant marine. I don't know whether you saw it or not. Mr. Stripling. Yes. Mr. Warner. Naturally, John Howard Lawson tried to swing a lot of thing.s in there, but to my knowledge there wasn't anything. Mr. STKIPLI^G. John Howard Lawson did try to put stuff in? Mr. Warneu. Y^es ; I would say he did in one form or another. Mr. Sir pling. All right ; are you through with the listV Mr. Warnbk. No. The Epstein brothers did very good work at one time, but they fell off. Mr. Thomas. Did they do any part of Mission to Moscow? Mr. WARNHi. Their name is not on here as credit for that. Mr. Stripping. Who did Mission to Moscow? Mr. Warner. Howard Koch, lfl43. Mr. Thomas. Did they do any part of Edge of Darkness? Mr. WarneKi. No. Just a moment, please. Robert Rosson did that in 1042. That was a war subject, too. Mr. Thomas. You did not do North Star, did you? Mr. Warner. No : we did not. Mr. Thomas. You did not do Song of Russia? Mr. Waunkr \o ; we did not. The Epstein brothers worked on a picture called Animal King(h>m. As I recall, that was aimed at the capitalistic system — not exactly, but the rich man is always the villain. Of course those fellows getting two or three thousand dollars a week aren't rich men. I don't know what you would call theni>. Roth of those fellows work together. They are never separated. Tl.e rest of them are a lot of comedies: Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Arsenic and Old Lace, Strawberry lilonde, Four Mothers — a;l of those pictures are comedies and there is no taint of conuniniism in them. Mr. Thomas. Off the record. Mr. Warner. I would like to put in the record a few more names. Mr. Thomas. Yes. Mr. Warner. Clifford Odets in Humoresque. You .see, tiiis was way ba<'k in in.37— Mr. Stripling. What about Humoresque; isn't that a i-ecent release? Mr. Warner. Yes. That was written by Clit'ford Odets. It was a story which we modernized from llie old Fannie Hurst novel. In that picture there was no con nnuiistic jjropaganda. I have even written tlie words down here. It is the old story. There is one line where the boy was mad. John Gariield played the part of the boy and he was ma<l at John Crawford for romantic reasons and said, "Your father is a banker" He was alluding to the fact fact she was rich and had all of the money. H^ said, "My father lives over a grcK-ery store" That is very, very subtle, but if you see the tilm with those lines in it you will see the reason for it. F.ut it is not in the hhn. I eliminated it fi-oni the hcript. Sometimes you eliminate these things and they leave them in because it plays good and every))ody is trying to be a Voltaire. All these writers and actors want to "Voltaire" about freedom of press and lree<lom of speech. I can go on if you want me to. Mr. Thomas. Go ahead. Mr. Warner. I didn't get into the record as to their method of getting certain types of propaganda into the motion i)ictures. AVhen I heard the word connunnism or fascism I was under the impression it was to overthrow the Government by violence and force, but as I see it being used in motion pictures they do not advocate violence or force at all. That is my experience. But they do advocate