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COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY 131
Who would the responsibility rest with for cleaning the Communists out of tlie motion-picture industry?
Mr. HuGiiKS. Well, I think the producers in general should do it because they are the people who liire and fire. I think they have been unjustifiably lax. They have paid from $2,000 to $5,000 a week to men whom they know to be brilliant. Many Communists are very, very brilliant. They permit them to as little poison in.
They say no Communist pictures have been put forth. Of course they haven't. Mission to Moscow was a Communist picture. That rather discouraged Communist propaganda, but where you see a little drop of cyanide in the picture, a small grain of arsenic, something that makes every Senator, ever^; businessman, every employer a crook and which destroys our beliefs in American free enterprise and free institutions, that is communistic. The producer should stop it.
We have many Communist directoi's who not only permit but encourage it. We have a flood of Communist writers. Some of them are openly Communists and some secretly.
Mr. Stripling. You mentioned Communist directors. Are there aijy directors you consider to be Communists?
Mr. Hughes. The directors I consider to be Communists, I have no information from personal interviews and personal talks with them, but they were mentioned here by Sam Wood, who knows them all. He had a terrific fight in the Directors' Guild. The Communists tried to take that over. They tried to take over the Actors' Guild and they have tried to take over everything in America.
Mr. Stripling. You have no personal knowledge yourself of any Communist directors ?
Mr. Hughes. Not from personal contact.
Mr. Stripling. Do you have any personal knowledge of any Communist writers ?
Mr. Hughes. I know a great many writers whom I consider very communistic, though I haven't seen their cards. There are dozens of them.
Mr. Stripling. Who would you say is the key figure in the Communist set-up in the motion-picture industry ?
Mr. Hughes. You mean as distinguished between writers, directors, and producers ?
Mr. Stripling. Yes; all of them. Who is the most important, to your mind?
Mr. Huqhes. I think they are all equally important because there has to be team play. Everything stems from the writer. The director works with the writer and of course the producer works with them both, then the head of the studio works with them all. I think everybody shares the responsibility.
The Chairman. May I interrupt there? As I understand the question, 3^ou meant who is the leader, what individual is the Communist leader out in Hollywood ?
Mr. Hughes. I couldn't say that any one man is.
The Chairman. Who has the most influence ?
Mr. Hughes. Some individual, you mean ?
The Chairman. Yes ; put it that way.
Mr. Hughes. I should hesitate to say any one man has more than anyone else. It is a group of them.