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142 COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY
Mr. McGuiNNESs. Well, if those 10 or 15 writers were more productive than usual, the same number of pictures.
Mr. Smith. In other words, do you think it would materially hurt the studio operation ?
Mr. McGuiNNESs. Not in my opinion.
Mr. Smith. Do you know of any reasons why the studios tended not to release these individuals?
Mr. McGuiNNEss. Yes. To tell you that I must try, as briefly as possible, to sketch the studio situation.
Each studio has as paid employees a staff of producers who have the ultimate responsibility for the production of individual pictures. It is a highly competitive business and each of these men, since he is held responsble for the ultimate success or failure of the picture, has great latitude in the selection of the writer who will prepare the script, and frequently the director who will direct the picture.
He usually has a very great say in the casting of the picture. That trust must be imposed on him by the head of the studio who cannot personally produce each picture.
These men charged with production are primarily showmen and not men deeply informed on the dialectics of communism. They are more concerned with getting the best possible script than with anything else.
If some writer who has had a number of successes is available at the time they start a script, they will exercise every effort to get him because a good script is the primary insurance of a successful picture.
I doubt that any of the heads of studios participate in the selection of the writers assigned to each script. I think it is humanly impossible with their other duties for the men running the studios to go that deeply into the detail of production.
Mr. Smith. Mv. McGuinness, how many members are there in the Screen Writers Guild, approximately?
Mr. JNIcGuiNNEss. At the present time there are approximately 1,000, perhaps a few less, active members, which means members who can vote at the guild meetings. There are approximately 300 associate members who are members not qualified to vote. The qualification for voting" membership in the Screen Writers Guild is very low. Mr. Smith. In other words, there would be about 1,000 that you think are permanently unemployed in the guild ?
Mr. McGuinness. I wanted to say that because of this low qualification for membership I believe any man who has worked 13 weeks in any 2 years is eligible to vote, whether or not he has written anything that ever reaches the screen. The industry normally furnishes employment, upward and downward, for 350 writers That means that Avithin the Screen Writers Guild there are approximately 1,000 members permanently unemployable.
This creates a very fertile field for agitation, resentment, propagandizing, and profiting by the discontent or the unsuccessful.
Mr. Smith. In other words, I gather from that that the people who are not employed as writers in the industry can control this guild of some 1,300 people?
Mr. McGuinness. I believe that at almost every Screen Writers Guild meeting more votes are cast by men and women unemployed than are cast by men and women who are employed.