The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-04-07

before OWT was organized, civilian war agencies had movie unit for newsreel sequences and initial prop aganda shorts, But the creation of a full-time bureau to do the pro- duction job for all government agencies was something else again,
 What Hollywood feared particu- larly was censorship. Secondary fears were to have the government become too experienced in motion picture production, making 1t a competitor, Third was an apparent- ly sincere belief that the industry could do the job the government wanted done, better than the gov- ernment could do the job, and for less money,
 THREAT OF COMPETITION
 With the Army setting up big movie unit and the Navy going in for movies in a less extensive way, producing companies that special ized in short subjects faced threat of real competition and newsreels in particular looked aSkance on the likelihood that they would be frozen out of making pictures which the public would most want to sec. If in addition the government Bureau of Movie Pictures should save for its own comeramen the choice newsreel shots, issuing them like handouts to all companies, there was a threat of serious government competition.
 The censorship scare got hot when Lowell Mellett, head of the Bureau of Motion Pictures, suggested to the industry that on feature pictures. in no way connected with news, the studios should submit to the Bureau first the script, then the shooting script, and finally the picture itself, for review and suggestion,
 What Mellett was after on this proposal was not censorship, he in- sists, but merely the right to call to the producers attention film stories or incidents that might prove embarrassing to the United States and its allies. Mellett today stoutly maintains that he has no powers of film censorship and doesn't want any, but Q few case histories will show you how he has used the influence of his office to tie in the movie industryS entertainment pro- duct with the war effort
 UNDTPLOMATIC
 Iceland" starring Sonia Henie was made before Mellett took over the new bureau, but it is typical of how a Hollywood version of some- thing or other can go sour. In this case IcelanderS protested the slam der done their country and a mere piece of entertainment thus became diplomatic incident. Movie mo- guls finally gave in, renamed the picture, took out references to Ice- land and reissued.
 Recently, major studio an- nounced its intention to make a picture based on Rudyard Kipling's Kim" Now Kim is a good story, but it is last century British Im- perialism all over the place and the Burmese and Indians hate it. To produce that picture now, even though its showing were confined to the United States, might infiame natives and stir up the independ- ence issue right at the time when U. s. troops are in India. The pro- ducer was persuaded to Shelve his plans till after the war.
 The same principle even applies to purely domestic pictures. "Ten- nessee Johnson" now showing is a case in point. The communist Daily Worker tried to make an issue of this picture and have its produc- tion stopped and the film suppressed. It did not succeed, but Mellett's office had the picture reviewed, saw that the original script was a dis torted, Hollywoodized version of his- tory with a phony love story. It was such a cockeyed version of one of the most controversial periods in American history that the producer was persuaded to change his script. reShoot some scenes and present a picture closer to the truth. But note the picture was not suppressed.
 The same goes for Ernest Hem- ingway'S For Whom the Bell Tolls" the story of the Spanish revolution. The government has stayed out of this film ruckus because 1t has no powers of censorship. But the Mel lett office is there to consult and ad- wise if any of the movie producers wish to use it, and all save one have accepted this method of operation