WASHINGTON (UP) -- An actor whose Hollywood career dates back to the days of silent films says the movie capital is crawling with communists.
Debonair Adolphe Menjou, self-styled expert on communism -- told the House Un-American Activities Committee that Hollywood communists rigidly follow the Moscow party line.
Menjou was the star witness on the second day of public hearings in Washington on communism in Hollywood. Like the three top producers who appeared in the marble and crystal House caucus room yesterday, the suave, stylishly-dressed actor called for legislation to outlaw the communist party. Menjou called the party a "conspiracy to overthrow the Government."
Actor Names Names
Then the Pittsburgh-born actor, who has made Hollywood his home for the past 30 years, named names. But the only person that Menjou said he thought was a communist was president Herbert Sorrell of the striking AFL Conference of Studio Unions.
The witness testified that Sorrell was responsible for what he called "incredible brutality and beatings" in the bloody juried jurisdictional strike in the studio.
Then he said that Edward G. Robinson, Paul Henreid, and Alexander Knox, the actor who portrayed Woodrow Wilson in a picture, were among those who supported Sorrell. Menjou also mentioned singer Paul Robeson and director John Cromwell.
Asked if he had any tests for spotting communists, Menjou replied, "Well any one who attended any meetings to hear Paul Robeson and applauded him. I wouldn't be seen at one of those meetings."
"Mission To Moscow"
Menjou also said that the pictures "Mission to Moscow" and "North Star," condemned by Committee members as pro-Russian, should not have been made. If Hollywood is to make propaganda films he said they should be labeled as such. And if it produces an anti-fascist movie, he continued, it should follow up with an anticommunist picture.
At one point a Committee member told the actor that about 100 communists recently crossed the Canadian border to attend a meeting in this country. Said Menjou, "I hope they go to Texas. The Texans will kill them."
When he completed his testimony, without producing a single wrinkle in his brown, chalk-striped suit. Spectators in the jammed hearing room applauded loudly. It was the first demonstration at the hearing so far.
Film writer John Charles Moffitt took the stand next and added to Menjou's testimony about communist organizations in Hollywood. At one meeting he attended, said the former Kansas City movie reviewer, the audience was addressed as "we communists."
