The screen writer (June 1946-May 1947)

COMMUNICATI ONS When and if I should be lucky enough to step into a producer’s office to haggle over this new piece of merchandise I have created, it will be with the cold¬ blooded understanding that each of us will try to take the other’s eye out and eat it for a grape. But the odds are just as heavily against me as if I were fighting Joe Louis. In either case I’d like to have with me a platoon of the Marines with whom I served in the Solomon Islands in the recent war; or the American Authors’ Authority backing me up. At the risk of making all my Republi¬ can ancestors whirl in their graves, I’ll state that if this be Communistic I said it, and I’m glad. The frenetic outburst of Mr. Wilkerson in The Hollywood Reporter that a vote for Mr. Cain’s proposed plan would be a vote for Joe Stalin should be weighed for exactly what it’s worth. The producers are not our enemies. They’re as much entitled to have a house organ as the Screen Writers’ Guild. As for Mr. Wilkerson himself, some close friend should tell him that a too eager beaver can sometimes embarrass those with whom he tries to curry favor. There is an Elizabethan term with which those hardy oldsters derisively tagged a henchman who followed too closely be¬ hind his liege lord. Assuming the readers of this magazine are civilized and intelli¬ gent adults, not easily shocked, I shall risk an accusation of vulgarity by repeat¬ ing that term here. Such a henchman was known as a “catch-fart.” Somebody should tell Mr. Wilkerson. Maybe some¬ one should tell Mr. Niblo, too. ARE WE OR ARE WE NOT . . . ? Adele Buffington ARE we or are we NOT COMMUNISTS and/or fellow travelers???? That is a MIGHTY question these days, particu• larly if you are a screen writer and can READ as well as write! But HOW MANY ADELE BUFFINGTON is a former member of the Executive Board of the SWG and of the Editorial Committee of The Screen Writer. SCREEN WRITERS’ GUILD MEMBERS are having any opinions or concern at all about it as of this date, August 20th, 1 946???? I, for one, have some DEFINITE opin¬ ions about it and I AM concerned to a point of fear and anger and just plain nausea at the manner in which published attacks are beginning to make ALL OF US seem like Moscow disciples and stooges, if not in fact. And I think I’m ENTITLED to express those opinions as thoroughly and frankly as I know how after serving more than a five months’ sentence at hard labor for some 1 300 fellow screen writers, on the Executive Board and the Negotiating Committee of SWG and the Editorial Committee of the Screen Writer. I don’t mean that “sentence at hard labor” just literally, either, because one of the reasons I resigned from all three nearly four months ago, on May 2nd, was on account of the utter futility of func¬ tioning intelligently and honestly and tirelessly WITHOUT MEMBERSHIP IN¬ TEREST and SUPPORT!!! That brings me promptly back to that mighty question. I do not KNOW who IS a Communist or fellow traveler in the SWG. 1 may have my personal hunches and suspicions or whatever-you-chooseto-call-it, but I don’t go around accusing people on anything so fickle and fragile as hunches and suspicion. I am very sure that insofar as the Executive Board is concerned we are represented by some very honorable, well-meaning, non-radical, 100% Amer¬ ican individuals. I am also quite certain we have a number of intellectual snobs in SWG who might have the idea they were “chosen” to lead the masses which doesn’t necessarily mean they are actually lugging “Party” numbers around in their pockets or consciously “voting for Stalin.” It could be that they are just plain stag¬ gered by the light of their own brilliance. Now this is what I DO know and I know it from an INFORMED position: I KNOW that the MAJORITY OF AC¬ TIVE SWG MEMBERS (and I have a similar feeling about our Associate Mem¬ bers) are NOT Communists or fellow 33