The screen writer (June 1947-Mar 1948)

Witch-Hunting in Hollywood GARRETT GRAHAM GARRETT GRAHAM, a screen writer with a long record of achievement in Hollywood, is also known for his 30 years of stalwart Republicanism and his impressive list of published volumes, the latest of which is BANZAI NOEL. TT IS this writer's view, submitted without humility *■ and for what little it might be worth, that it's time the Screen Writers' Guild and the Motion Picture Industry as a whole turned on their traducers. For quite a spell Hollywood has more or less ignored sporadic Red-baiting as of no more real importance than the rantings of America Firsters who were disseminating Nazi propaganda right up to the hour of Pearl Harbor. After all, their constituencies have retired to oblivion Ham Fish, Gerald P. Nye and Burton K. Wheeler ; and whoever was pulling the puppet strings on Lindbergh left him completely inarticulate by not writing any more speeches for him — a Mortimer Snerd without a Bergen. But for nearly a year now — specifically, ever since the introduction of the initial AAA suggestion — Hollywood, and particularly the screen writers, have been the targets for an unparalleled campaign of cumulative calumny. The individuals of the Guild have been attacked either as sinister tools of Moscow, or dupes unwittingly succumbing to Communist propaganda. The latter group has not been restricted to writers. It includes such august personages as Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, Samuel Goldwyn, and Darryl Zanuck, who are said to have let some of the nasty stuff get by them onto the screen. Incidentally, the evil genius who has really mastered the trick of putting something over on any or all of these smart gentlemen could make a fortune discreetly peddling his secret. The avalanche of falsehood and misrepresentation that followed the launching of AAA was adequately dealt with in the recently published supplement of THE SCREEN WRITER. No one who really wants the facts about it need look further. But a few of the highlights in this barrage of villification might be profitably reviewed. First, of course. there was the banner line in the Hollywood Reporter, and a following story that a vote for AAA was a vote for Joe Stalin. This was to be expected, and naturally it caused little insomnia. Then later came Dorothy Thompson's outburst in her syndicated column. She labelled the proposal "An Assault On Freedom" and confused this reader a little byr not only injecting the Communist issue into it but also saying the scheme was a leaf right out of Dr. Goebbels' book. It is my hazy recollection that Stalin and Goebbels were not playing for the same Alma Mater. But she alarmed a lot of people because of her many readers. Miss Thompson is too good a reporter not to know she was screaming pure nonsense. Came a rainy Sunday in December when the Columbia Broadcasting System gave time on the air to a debate about the Hollywood film strike, which had then been going on for several months. Roy Brewer spoke for the IATSE and Herbert Sorrell and John Martin for the Conference of Studio Unions. It is beside the point that it was not a debate at all, but a bumbling reading of three prepared speeches, badly written, badly delivered, and not dealing with the same subject. There was no time given for rebuttal or surrebuttal. What the CSU leaders said is not important because it has been said often and better by others. The burden of Mr. Brewer's address was that the sole issue of the strike was keeping Communism out of the film industry. He did not explain just how a carpenter could express his political opinions by the way he sawed a board or drove a nail ; nor how a scene painter could endanger national freedom by the way he slapped his brush around. Instead he pictured himself and his boss, Richard Walsh, President of the IATSE, as brave urchins holding their tired little fingers in the dike to keep 17