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)

146 COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY ture. Certainly, I favor The Red Danube. I think that this can be a first-rate picture, in that the novel, itself, which is written by a Catholic, presents the problem in occupied Vienna, in the clash between the western democratic theory of existence and the totalitarian expressed by the Russians in that same area. Mr. Smith. Mr. McGuinness, you heard the chairman state a while ago that there was connnunism not only in the industry but in other places wl\Qre it is a grave danger. It is my recollection that during the war the various studios made a number of patriotic pictures and disseminated them through the schools and other places to assist in the patriotic -war effort. Why can't the studios do that as far as anti-Communist pictures are concerned and circulate them through the schools and churches to assist in fighting this problem ? Mr. McGuinness. The studios during the war, and as a very patriotic service, and of which I and everybody in the motion-picture industry is proud, furnished shorts for the Government — made them in the studios, processed them, sent prints to their various exchanges, and charged nothing except for the actual raw material of the film and the labor costs of the technicians employed. No overhead or no profit ever was charged on any one of the shorts made for the Government. They were sent to the theatres without charge for playing time. I think if the industry became convinced of this emergency and was approached again on the necessity of doing a patriotic and public duty, that some of these films might very well be made and apportioned among the various studios to make. Mr. Smith. You lieard a number of people mentioned as being communistically inclined in the various studios. As a practical matter, don't you feel that their opposition would be such that it would be extremely difficult for a studio to make such a picture? Mr. McGuinness. I think that a year, or perhaps 6 months, ago, that opposition which is tight and well organized and had not then been identified conceivably could have hampered the production of such pictures, persuaded people that they were not liberal if thej made an anti-Communist picture, or by various devices which they use, including in some cases intimidation, could certainly have hampered such an effort. I feel that today there is a greater conscious danger and that their efforts would by no means be so successful today as they might have been 6 months or a year ago. Mr. Smith. Can you give us any other examples as to how the Communists have misused Hollywood ? Mr. McGuinness. Yes ; I think that one of the greatest disservices that the Communists liave done to Hollywood has been in their verj clever use of the name "Hollywood" or motion pictures in the titles of various front organizations. Hollywood has a glamor value that attracts crowds, particularly when you get out of the Hollywood area where the glamor personalities are a day-by-day occurrence and so are permitted to live fairly normal lives. But the presence of a motion-picture name billing a Communist-front rally, or a front-organization rally, is highly successful in attracting crowds to such a nxUj who normally would not be attracted to the rally itself. I have never seen one of these rallies at w^liich a collection was not taken up and at which some substantial sum was not raised.