that the industry is under pressure not to show the cause of peace presented in a favorable light?

Enclosed are two clippings and also a leaflet which gives a brief account of the picture and which was printed at the expense of the Southern California Council of Church Women who supported the picture enthusiastically at the time it was made.

May God bless you in the work you are carrying on to keep America out of this terrible conflict.

Yours very sincerely,

JAMES K. FRIEDRICH.

Rev. JAMES K. FRIEDRICH, President.

I am not going to burden the committee with the enclosures to which Mr. Friedrich referred, except to cite this newspaper clipping of November 10, I expect, of 1940. It emanates from Hollywood. It is a United Press dispatch and it says:

The Reverend James K. Friedrich, of Red Wing, Minn., who organized his own company to make a religious picture, today sold the film, The Great Commandment, to Twentieth Century-Fox Studio.

The picture was said to have brought a price of $200,000-an estimated $70,000 above cost of production.

Although made on a small budget in comparison with the least sums spent by major studios for pictures, The Great Commandment won widespread praise from movie critics. It has not yet been released to the public.

Several studios were reported to have bid on the picture, but Twentieth CenturyFox obtained the film and announced it would remake it on a larger scale, retaining the same theme and many members of the original cast.

Friedrich was retained by the studio to act as technical adviser on the new version. The film is based on an incident in the life of Christ when He brought about peace during the Jewish revolt against the Romans.

Harley Fryer, manager of the Fox Theaters in Joplin, Mo., is responsible for this word concerning this picture entitled "The Great Commandment." I quote him:

I wish I could have a face-to-face talk with every man, woman, and child in this district. But that is, of course, impossible. So I am taking this opportunity to tell you about The Great Commandment starting tomorrow at the Paramount Theater for 1 week.

Several days ago I held a private screening of this picture. I believe the finest compliment I can pay The Great Commandment is that when the picture ended I felt that I could not possibly have been in the theater over 30 minutes. Actually the picture runs 1 hour and 24 minutes.

As the picture unfolded, I found myself watching with increasing interest. Suddenly I realized that here was the most unusual motion picture I had ever witnessed * * * presenting a very simple love story with gripping drama and, above all else, told with such sincerity and simplicity that the characters no longer were actors, but real people who were living their experience before my eyes.

Very seldom do I take the privilege of urging you to see a certain picture. But I am taking this opportunity to urge you to see The Great Commandment, feeling that your enjoyment will be just as great as mine was.

HARLEY FRYER,
Fox Joplin Theaters.

I have read that, Mr. Chairman, because here is one who certainly is qualified to pass upon the merits of pictures. I read it, too, because I feel that this name "Friedrich" may not mean a great deal to members of the committee. All those in responsible positions in Hollywood speak highly of Mr. Friedrich, quoting him a most deserving kind of witness. I do not know that the committee will want any more information than is here from Mr. Friedrich, but I am content to believe that if the committee wanted to hear him it might find him with much more information than has been disclosed here.

For the moment I can only reiterate the request of this responsible person, James K. Friedrich, president of Cathedral Pictures, Inc., that your committee summon those who can reveal some of these questions that are raised, and to find perchance how many such pictures as The Great Commandment are denied a chance for showing in the great majority of theaters of this country.

Were any of you to sit in my office of recent weeks and receive the evidence that I have received, you would be quite ready to agree that there is a tremendous public sentiment against these allegedly propaganda pictures. There is a public wish for freedom from that when they go to be entertained. There are unending prayers that something be done to destroy this most vicious effort to make the people pay for the propaganda which is to drive them away from their own resolve to avoid involvement for their country and their sons in this war.

The

Before me is a newspaper account revealing the result of a poll recently taken on the kind of pictures the people want to see. This poll was conducted by the Committee for National Morale. result of this poll is reported in the Motion Picture Herald of August 19, page 26. I read now the newspaper account of this poll, revealing a 4 to 1 count against so-called war films.)

The heading over this newspaper report is "Poll shows 4 to 1 against war films."

I shall not bother to read it, Mr. Chairman. I offer it for the record, if I may, at this point.

Senator CLARK of Idaho. It may be put into the record.

(The article referred to and submitted by the witness is as follows:) Do motion-picture audiences want to see feature films dealing with the lives of people in wartime? No, says the Committee for National Morale, in announcing results of a survey based on this query. Eighty percent of the public wants feature films dealing with the lives of people in peacetime, with only 20 percent preferring war subjects in features. These figures were released Monday of last week by Dr. Floyd Ruch, research consultant for the committee who, recently announced the first half of a Nation-wide survey on the subject of public taste for war and defense propaganda in news reels and subjects, as reported in the Motion Picture Herald, August 9, page 26.

Dr. Ruch believes that the survey demonstrates that audiences prefer enter-. tainment in their feature pictures and look to the news reels and shorts when they want to be informed. Substantiating his theory, he said, were results of another query included in the questionnaire polled. To the question, "What kind of feature picture would you like to see the next time you go to the movies?" replies were as follows:

"A picture that makes you laugh (comedy)," 48 percent.

"A picture with action and adventure that excites you (adventure)," 29 percent.

"A picture that keeps you in suspense (mystery)," 13 percent.

"A picture that makes you feel like crying (tragedy)," 9 percent.

The question dealing with war versus peace plots was worded as follows: "In general, would you rather see: A feature picture dealing with the lives of people at war?" (20 percent).

"A feature picture dealing with the lives of people in peacetime?" (80 percent). Dr. Ruch pointed out, however, that "it would not be fair to assume from the 80-20 percent ratio that a good picture dealing with a war subject, for example, Sergeant York, with a popular star, good cast, good direction, and good exploitation, would suffer at the box office.

Indeed, public attitude toward these war pictures is pretty well demonstrated. I think no one is better acquainted with this displeasure than the picture producers themselves who know better than

or

tur

anyone else the box-office result from the attendant showing of these pictures.

But what of the attitude of independent theater owners toward these war pictures? I shall not, I repeat, compromise the owner of a small chain of theaters in the West who writes me on this score, under date of August 16. The proprietor has not asked me for confidence on this complaint of his, but I can too well see what might be his fortune, or misfortune, were he to be revealed as complaining as he does. I shall gladly submit his letter to me to the committee in its original form, knowing that the committee will assure that the writer will not be compromised without his consent. This writer states in his letter to me, in part, this:

It is pleasing to note that some Members of the United States Senate realize the fact that those who control the film business are, and for a year or more have been, propagandizing for war. You may not know just how displeasing this is to the man who owns the theater, except that many theaters and especially in the large cities, are owned or controlled by the same interests that control film making.

We operate 15 theaters, and our business has gone down to the point where we are in serious danger. We attribute some of our trouble to war films and films that are nothing but propaganda for war. We are powerless to reject these films, as you know, because we must have them or close our theaters. It is not one company that is putting out such propaganda films but all of them, because the same interests control all producing companies. We have protested against putting such stuff into pictures but no attention is paid to our protests, and we know of others who have done the same.

Senator TOBEY. You read a quotation something like this: "We must have them or close our theaters," the implication being that "we must take them"?

Senator NYE. Let us read, Senator, his exact language:

We are powerless to reject these films, as you know, because we must have them or close our theaters.

I presume, Senator, that his meaning is that without these films they would not have pictures to show; that their dependence on the distributor at once makes it a requirement upon them to show the pictures that are available and that are enjoying national publicity at the moment.

Senator TOBEY. His language would not indicate that thought. It says, "We must have them." If it was "We must take them," it would be another thing. To me there is an ambiguity there.

Senator NYE. I had not finished reading from his letter:

but after all, there should be some way of preventing independent theater owners being made innocent parties to such an insidious movement.

I do not here undertake to lay before your committee all of the allegations which I might offer or which would result from complaints or allegations which have been reported to me, verbally or in writing, All of it, however, I shall surrender to the committee when it is ready to undertake the investigation requested or when the committee shall ask me for it. For now I confine myself to only a few remaining suggestions and expressions of hope.

I should like very much for the committee to determine whether or not there are British agents operating in any capacity in the American moving-picture industry.) To this end I would suggest that the committee summon one Victor Saville, who was born in Birmingham, Eng

land. He entered the motion-picture business by renting and exhibiting but later turned to the production side. He joined the GaumontBritish Co. in 1920 and directed several British pictures before he came to the United States and made a film entitled "Woman to Woman," after which he returned to England and directed the British production of the W (?) Plan, in 1930. In 1936 he joined Alexander Korda, London Film Products, as an associate producer. In 1938 he became producer for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios, Ltd. Frank Borsage, an American director, was directing a war propaganda film titled "The Mortal Storm." Borsage was not satisfactory, or sufficiently brutal in directing the production, it seems, and Saville took over the task. There is a rumor, and it is persistent in the colony, that Saville is a British agent operating here on motion-picture lots. Certainly he should be questioned as to what orders if any he received when he last left Great Britain for the United States, and especially about the type of visa he possesses. Persistent is the report within the industry that the British Ministry of Information arranged his visa to the end that he might work in Hollywood and represent the interest of this British Ministry. From within the industry comes word that Saville entertains lavishly, and that each of his guests is served a full course of British propaganda.

Very seriously do I urge upon the committee the importance of ascertaining the facts in connection with Mr. Saville's presence and activity. I should also suggest that the committee at least give consideration to the calling of certain producers to the end that they might have a chance to tell how decisions were reached which led to the production of certain of these alleged propaganda pictures.

If the committee undertakes seriously an investigation into these charges of the existence of motion-picture propaganda, I urge in particular that the producers and all studio heads be asked to reveal how many of these alleged propaganda films were the work in full or in part of refugee or alien authors, how many refugee or alien actors were cast in these pictures, how many alien writers have been financed by Hollywood and imported to Hollywood by the motion-picture industry, how many immigration visas have been arranged for motion-picture executives and by them. And in this connection I have such evidence in my possession as leads me to most earnestly want to know whether Mr. M. C. Levee is employed by the industry and is devoting all of his time to this activity of arranging immigration visas.

Now, just one thing more. I have said nothing about the propaganda which is of a German, Russian, or Italian origin or sympathy. I have not seen fit to speak of it earlier because this sort of propaganda seems to be pretty well under control and is rather desperately wanting, first of all, for any chance to be shown in American communities. But I would not have my silence on this form of propaganda mean for a moment that I did not wish for this committee to as thoroughly investigate Nazi and Communist and Fascist propaganda in pictures, as I ask them to investigate other war or class propaganda. On this score I have some information which I shall leave with the committee for its consideration.

Senator CLARK of Idaho. If I may interrupt you there, Senator Nye: On August 22, 1911, as chairman of the subcommittee, I received a letter from the Nonsectarian Anti-Nazi League, dated at

New York and signed by James H. Sheldon, who, I understand, is a man of high standing and, I think a professor in one of the universities of New York, in which he advised me that he had in his posession Nazi films which were being shown, he says, specifically in South America, but also in the United States, and he asked for a hearing in that connection before the committee. I wrote him and told him under date of August 29, 1941, that the committee would not only be glad but would welcome anything that he might have tending to show propaganda pictures being shown in America to American audiences which might be in favor of the Nazi position as regards the war. This morning I received this letter from Mr. Sheldon, dated September 6, 1941:

DEAR SENATOR CLARK: Thank you very much for your letter of August 29, in which you were good enough to say that you will arrange for an appearance before your committee of someone representing the Nonsectarian AntiNazi League.

After consultation with our executive committee, I am instructed to inform you that I shall personally represent the League at your hearing, at whatever date you designate.

With regard to the specific propaganda pictures about which the Anti-Nazi League is concerned, I would like to say that our files on this matter are exceedingly voluminous, running back over a period of seven years, and I doubt whether any precis of this data would be useful to you, but I shall exert every care to have with me, when I appear before your committee, adequate exhibits to satisfy any specific questions which you may wish to put. Please accept my renewed assurance of our deep concern in the subject matter of this investigation.

With best regards, I am

Very sincerely yours,

JAMES H. SHELDON,
Chairman, Board of Directors,
Non sectarian Anti-Nazi League.

May I say on behalf of myself and, I assume, on behalf of the other members of the committee, that we will be more than happy to set a date in the near future when Dr. Sheldon may present any propaganda pictures that have been circulated, including Nazi or German propaganda pictures.)

Not only that, but we have information that a great many Communist propaganda pictures have been or are about to be circulated in the United States, and the committee intends, if it can keep on functioning, to inquire into those as well as into all other kinds.

May I say, further, that the committee and, I assume, the Senator from North Dakota, is not advocating that the movies counteract such propaganda or any other kind. What we are apprehensive of is whether or not this instrument of amusement and entertainment should be a party to any kind of propaganda in connection with the foreign situation. That, of course, does not include national-defense pictures, as that term is generally used.

Let me assure Senator Nye that propaganda pictures favoring the Nazis will receive just as thorough a hearing before this committee through Dr. Sheldon as any other kind.

Senator NYE. I thank the chairman.

Our undertaking of this investigation in some circles is called a shameful action. In the light of what can be the result of hate propaganda in hours like these, surely if there is shameful action involved we can now well know where responsibility for it rests.