NewsMine — propoganda — hollywood — Viewing Item

Hollywood fixes an election 1934 { November 4 1934 } NEW YORK TIMES November 4, 1934, Page X5 FILMS AND POLITICS Hollywood Masses the Full Power of Her Resources to Fight Sinclair From a staff Correspondent, HOLLYWOOD. The full force of the motion picture industry, overwhelming in this fabulous city; has been thrown into the crusade to keep Upton Sinclair out of the Governor's chair at Sacramento. Under a plan of campaign accredited generally to Louis B. Mayer Studios, the tirty-odd thousand people employed directly or indirectly in making pictures, as well as the talents and skill of the final multi-partisan assault upon the smiling Socialist who captured the Democratic nomination in the August primaries. The higher salaried employees of each of the seven major studios have either been assessed or "requested" a day's salary for the campaign fund of Governor Frank F. Merriam, whose Republican candidacy has now become the standard for the "stop Sinclair" forces. All Movie workers, high and low, have been called or circularized and either told or "advised" how to vote in the interest of maintenance of their jobs. Merriam literature, buttons and emblems have been distributed through all the lots. The city of Los Angeles has turned into a huge movie set where many newsreel pictures are made every day, depicting the feelings of the people against Mr. Sinclair. Equipment from one of the major studios, as well as some of it's second rate players, may be seen at various street intersections or out in the residential neighborhood, "shooting" the melodrama and unconscious comedy of the campaign. Their product area can be seen in leading motion-picture houses in practically every city or town of the state. In one of the "melodrama" recently filmed and shown here in Los Angeles an interviewer approaches a demure old lady, sitting on her front porch and rocking away in her rocking chair. "For who are you voting, Mother?" asked the interviewer. "I am voting for Governor Merriam," the old lady answers in a faltering voice. "Why Mother?" "Because I want to save my little home. It is all I have left in this world." In another recent newsreel there is shown a shaggy man with bristling Russian whiskers and a menacing look in his eye. "For whom are you voting?" asks the interviewer. "Vy, I am foting for Seenclair," "Why are you voting for Mr. Sinclair?" "Vell his system worked vell in Russia, vy can’t it vork here?" All these "releases" are presented as newsreels Another "newsreel" has been made of Oscar Rankin, a colored prizefighter and preacher who is quite a favorite with his race in Los Angeles county. Asked why he was voting for Governor Merriam, he answered that he likes to preach and play piano and he wants to keep a church to preach in and a piano to play. Merriam supporter always are depicted as the more worthwhile element of the community, as popular favorites or as substantial businessmen. Sinclair supporters are invariably pictured as the riff-raff. Low paid "bit" players are said to take the leading roles in most of these "newsreels," particularly were dialogue is required. People conversant with movie personnel claim to have recognized in them certain aspirants to stardom. But even cleverness has faltered at times in the ruthlessness of the anti-Sinclair campaign. A leading newspaper in Los Angeles is reported to have called upon one of the studios for a "still" picture of bums entering the State in response to Sinclair’s invitation to the unemployed of the whole country. The picture was quickly furnished and published. The publicity department of another studio immediately recognized the photograph as a scene from a recent cinema. The recognition was made simple because the leading juvenile star on the feature was sitting atop of the boxcar. The studio managers have stopped at nothing to insure a full vote of their employees for Merriam. They have told them not to put too much stock in the writing genius of the man. "Out of forty-seven books he has written, not one has ever been filmed," an official is said to have told some of his employees the other day. At another studio an official called in his scenario writers to give them a bit of "advice" on how to vote. "After all," he is reputed to have told his writers, "What does Sinclair know about anything? He’s just a writer." Stories of this kind can be picked up at every studio provided the teller, who invariably is a "Merriam" man, can be assured he not be quoted and provided, too, that he can relate it out of any possible hearing of his associates. A fun-making film news writer for an Eastern newspaper strolled into the commissary on the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer lot a few days ago and began distributing Sinclair literature, which he had purchased downtown just to see what would happen. When the high-powered Metro men publicity men, to whom he handed the leaflets, saw what they were, they crumpled them up and dopped them as if they were hot. They did not know whether to cram them into their pockets or what to do with them. They pleaded in all seriousness for the news writer not to play such a prank, which might be disaterous to their jobs. These stories sound fantastic, but they are no more than the very nature of the class war, which is called the Sinclair campaign .It is humorless, grim affair, made comical by its very lack of humor.

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