The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

SWG Charges Blacklist Conspiracy "These individual plaintiffs are, all of them, according to employment contracts drawn by defendants, persons possessed of a special, unique, unusual, extraordinary and intellectual character. The restrictions upon freedom of expression in the writing of motion pictures complained of herein is a direct threat to the free exercise of the liberties of their calling and to their capacities to earn livelihoods in the profession of their choice. To the end of safeguarding the screen plays already produced or in the future to be produced by them against restraints which will prevent and inhibit creative work and of keeping open the market for literary material of quality and integrity, the individual plaintiffs join in this action on behalf of themselves and all other authors and screen writers similarly situated. The individual persons named as plaintiffs sue as individuals and as representatives of a class to protect rights which they enjoy in common against dangers which are common to them all. "The individual plaintiffs seek equitable relief against the combination and conspiracy herein described which has asserted the power to adjudge, and actually is engaged in adjudging, the propriety of the political views, the economic beliefs and the social connections of these plain {Continued from Page 2) tiffs, and to blacklist any of them whose associations, beliefs and conduct might not conform to standards which are impossible to define in advance. To protect their civil liberties from invasion by an organization which controls the entire industry, these plaintiffs bring this action." ' | " HE defendants are described as -* having "the power to control, through their connections and affiliations, the entire American market of screen plays." With a brief outline of their functions, they are identified as follows : The Association' of Motion Picture Producers The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers Paramount Pictures, Inc. Loew's Incorporated Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation Columbia Pictures Corporation Universal Pictures Co., Inc. Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association and the Association of Motion Picture Producers. "Acting in concert (the complaint states), these defendants are able to exercise a domination over every writer employed in the production of motion pictures as well as over every writer who desires to enter this field. '' * to dictate what the American people shall see and what they shall not see in almost all the motion picture theatres throughout the nation. "Under threat of depriving any writer of an outlet for his literary work, they may dictate the organizations to which he may belong, the persons with whom he may associate and the opinions which he may express. They may compel any writer to abandon or suppress his views and to follow whatever political, economic or social opinions the combination chooses to adopt. "Acting in concert these defendants have effective power to make the industry they control an instrument for any line of propaganda which at any time seems to them desirable, and to change that propaganda at any time this private group considers the economic, political or international situation to demand. They have made themselves an agency for enforcing the proposals of a minority group in William Morris Agency, Inc. NEW YORK * BEVERLY HILLS * CHICAGO * LONDON EST. )QQQ( 1898 The Screen Writer, June-July, 194 25