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By LEE GARLING
nraE FILM INDUSTRY was named defendant
this week in a civil antitrust suit
filed in the Court for the Southern District
of New York as an outgrowth of the congressional
inquiry into Communist infiltration
in Hollywood and the suspensions of ten
writers and directors which resulted.
President Sheridan Gibney of the Screen
Writers' Guild and 19 members brought the
action jointly with ten members of the council
of the Authors League of America, Inc.
Attorneys are Thurman Arnold of Arnold,
Fortas & Porter, Washington, and James T.
Bredin of Monahan, Goldberg & Bredin, New
York.
The congressional inquiry last autumn,
which led to contempt of Congress proceedings
against ten Hollywood writers and
directors on charges they refused to say if
they are members of the Commimist party,
also prompted a discharge resolution Nov.
25, 1947, from the Motion Picture Ass'n of
America and major producers, which declared
the ten would be suspended unless
they declared under oath they were not
Communists.
The resolution also set out:
"We will not knowingly employ a Communist
or a member of any party or group
which advocates the overthi-ow of the government
of the U.S. by force or by any illegal
or unconstitutional methods."
The resolution is the target of attack in
the suit. The writers term it the result of
an illegal combination or conspiracy, which
violates the Sherman antitrust act, the Clayton
antitrust act or the civil rights act, or
all of them.
It is not legal to fire persons because of
their personal opinions, the brief insisted.
The suit asks no damages, but an injunction
? gainst the "combination and conspiracy of
the defendants."
THE FULL LIST OF DEFENDANTS: The
Motion Picture Ass'n of America, its president,
Eric Johnston, the Ass'n of Motion
Picture Producers, the Society of Independent
Motion Picture Producers, and seven
film companies, as follows; Paramount,
Loew's, RKO. Warner Bros., 20th Century-
Fox, Columbia and Universal.
The names of the plaintiff-writers are
listed in nine pages, along with the major
creative productions of each. The names include
the following members of the board
of directors of the SWG, in addition to Gibney:
Robert Ardrey, Art Arthur, Claude Binyon,
Charles Brackett, Frank Cavett, 'Valentine
Davies, Richard English, Everett Freeman,
Paul Gangelin, Albert Hackett, F. Hugh
Herbert, Milton Krims, Arthur Kober, Ernest
Pascal, George Seaton, Arthur Sheekman,
Leonard Spigelgass, Dwight Taylor and Harry
Tugend.
Council members among those bringing the
action are: Oscar Hammerstein II, John Hersey,
Russel Grouse, Moss Hart, Christopher
La Farge, Howard Lindsay. Richard Rodgers,
Rex Stout, John 'Vandercrook and Glenway
Wescott.
To narrow the issues, the brief sets out
that "all of the plaintiffs in this action publicly
allege that they are not now and never
have been members of the Communist party.
They do not, in this proceeding, seek to raise
constitutional questions as to the right of
Congress to inquire as to their political affiliations."
ACCORDING TO THE COMPLAINT, the
November resolution goes further than the
MPAA office. That is bad enough, it contends,
for "through this combination of producers,"
the result has been "to impose
strangling limitations upon the treatment
of serious subjects which are today freely
presented in our best novels and our best
stage plays."
However, the MPAA office censors only the
product, the document continues, while the
November action goes to "the opinions and
associations of the writers themselves."
As for the November meeting, the complaint
states:
"The meeting was directly inspired and
occasioned by the desire of the defendants
to appease state and federal legislative committees
which at the time were giving wide
publicity to what they labeled un-American
activities and Communist infiltration into
the motion picture industry . . . Defendants
feared loss of profits unless they could avoid
unfavorable publicity from any source, however
The aim
intolerant or hysterical . . . and purpose of the conspiracy was and continues
to be to form a combination of all
the producers in the industry to the end that
by joint action the entire industry can immediately
respond to and appease any wave
of hysteria directed at the screen, by offering
to blacklist screen writers and other employes
who happen to be temporary victims
of that hysteria."
* * *
A MEASURE OF NEW construction
came
this week from the Department of Commerce
in its first report since theatre building
was freed of government controls. It estimated
$12,000,000 worth of new recreational
construction activity under way in March of
this year, and $13,000,000 in April. This is
roughly twice the volume of such construction
under way a year ago.
The figures apply to bowling alleys and
the like as well as theatres, but cinemas make
up about half the total in dollar volume.
Commerce officials explain.
The figures for the first four months of
this year for recreational projects come to
$47,000,000, nearly twice the figm-e for the
corresponding period in 1947 of $25,000,000.
As Congress prepared to remove controls
over theatre building at the end of March, it
was told that a total of $50,000,000 would be
spent at once for the construction of new
theatres, and additional sums for remodeling.
Apparently, the full impact of the building
program is yet to be felt.
* * *
IN ANOTHER REPORT the Department of
Commerce said that by the end of 1947 the
number of companies operating theatres has
climbed to 14.300, a net increase of 900 over
the total for 1946. 'While the number of firms
rose each year since 1944 when it was 12,300
at the end of the year, there was a casualty
rate as well. The officials said this was 300
for 1945, 400 for 1946 and 400 last year.