Trouble at RKO

Howard Hughes went after the Red varmint with both guns blazing.

Ever since the "Unfriendly Nine" won an out-of-court settlement against four film companies last January, moviemakers have hesitated to fire suspected Communists. But keeping suspects on the payroll means boycotts and box-office trouble: e.g., Industry Spokesman Eric Johnston this week is trying to placate the American Legion, which is objecting to pictures ranging from Detective Story to Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, because Communist suspects worked on them. But RKO Boss Hughes didn't seem to mind trouble.

A year ago Hughes fired a writer named Paul Jarrico, suspected of being a Communist, junked his work on The Las Vegas Story and got a new scenario. Jarrico demanded part screen credit or $5,000, and the Screen Writers' Guild backed him. But Hughes filed suit against Jarrico, claiming that he had violated the morals clause of his contract by refusing to tell a congressional committee whether he was a Red. Jarrico countered with a $350,000 damage suit. Hughes's "personal acts and conduct," he said, "are in constant violation of generally accepted public 'conventions' . . ."

Hughes issued an icy reply: "Mr. Jarrico, these are times of national emergency ... I do not think the public should be forced to guess or conjecture as to whether a man is a Communist. I think the public is entitled to know ..." When Jarrico remained adamant, Hughes publicly dared the guild to call a strike at RKO. The guild turned down the dare.

In the last three months Hughes has torn up eleven new scripts and canceled four pictures ready for production because some of the people who worked on them were "too tall" (RKO studio code for Communist suspects). Last week he declared it was impossible to produce pictures under such conditions, sent 100 employees on "leave of absence," all but shut down the studio. There were mutters in Hollywood that Communism was not the only reason Hughes had acted. RKO production under Hughes has always been slow and costly; no pictures have been started in three months. The company now has a backlog of 24 unreleased films costing $39.5 million. Was Hughes seizing on the Red issue to cover up RKO's ills?

Hughes flatly denied it, promised that RKO would get back to normal as soon as he sets up a system to weed out Reds. Says he: "I know I have made myself the No. 1 s.o.b. in the minds of a lot of people in Hollywood, but we will never get rid of Communist sympathizers in this business unless somebody admits their existence and faces the problem squarely."

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