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.
94 COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY
Mr. Menjou. Yes. The better the entertainment the more dangerous the propaganda becomes, once it is injected into the picture.
Mr. Striplin(}. Do you know of any anti-Communist pictures that are being prcxUiced in Hollywood at the present time?
Mr. Menjou. No, sir; I do not. And I would like to see one. I think the pi-oducers of anti-Fascist pictures should turn around and make an anti-Communist i)icture. I believe it would be an enormous success, if it were made.
Mr. Stripling. Mr. JNIenjou, if a picture is produced, as for example Mission to Moscow, which gives a false portrayal or which has propaganda in it, who do you hold responsible in your own mind as a veteran actor in the motion-picture industry^
Mr. Menjou. Well, I believe that the manufacturer of any product is responsible in the end for the quality of his product.
Mr. Stripling. In other words, the producers would be held responsible?
Mr. Menjou. They should be.
Mr. Stripling. Wliat do you think could be done to correct that '.
Mr. Menjou. I think a great deal already has been done. The eternal vigilance of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, by its vigilance, has prevented an enormous amount of sly, subtle, un-American class-struggle propaganda from going into pictures.
Mr. Stripling. Do you consider that the alliance is doing a good job ; that is, has been doing a good job i
Mr. Menjou. I think they have done a magnificent job, and I am very proud to be a member of the board of directors.
Mr. Stripling. Are you a member of the Screen Actors Guild '.
Mr. Menjou. Yes, sir ; I am.
Mr. Stripling. Have you ever noticed any effort on the part of Communist individuals to gain influence in the Screen Actors Guild i
]Mr. ^Ienjou. I don't know any members of the Screen Actors Guild who are members of the Commimist Party. I have never seen their cards. I am a firm believer that the Communist Party in the United States is a direct branch of the Comintern — which, in my opinion, has never been dissolved — direct from Moscow. It is an oriental tyranny, a Kremlin-dominated conspiracy, and it is against the interests of the people to admit that they are Communists. Very few admit it.
Mr. Stripling. Do you have your very definite suspicions about some members of the Screen Actors Guild f
Mr. Menjou. I know a great many people who act an awful lot like Communists.
Mr. Stripling. As an actor, Mr. Menjou, could you tell the committee whether or not an actor in a picture could portray a scene which would in effect serve as propaganda for communism or any other un-American purpose ?
Mr. Menjou. Oh, yes. I believe that under certain circumstances a communistic director, a communistic writer, or a communistic actor, even if he were under orders from the head of the studio not to inject communism or un-Amercanism or subversion into pictures, could easily subvert that order, under the proper circumstances, by a look, by an inflection, by a change in the voice. I think it could be easily done. I have never seen it done, but I think it could be done.