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Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pa.,  Sept. 11, 1941.

A „B Picture“

      Willkie:

      VILLAIN UNHAND THAT MAIDEN FAIR

      Sen. Nye (strangulating The Movies Maiden):

      SHE IS A WARMONGER

     Clark:

      CURSES

(...) Caricature, Spokesman-Review, Spokane,

Wash., Sept. 22, 1942

„To do the same on Winston Churchill“

Editorial content. „Films Incite War

      Feeling, Senator Says

      Inquirer Washington Bureau

      WASHINGTON, Sept. 10. – Senator Bennett Champ Clark

(D., Mo.), declaring that the motion picture industry

helped President Roosevelt pass the lend-lease bill, charged

today that Hollywood propagandists are now turning

the country‘s 17,000 theatres into ,17,000 daily and nightly

mass meetings for war.‘

      Immediately countering the isolationist‘s blast, Wendell L.

Willkie, serving as counsel for the big film industry,

accused Clark and Senator Gerald P. Nye (R., N. D.) of

using the probe to fight the Administration‘s foreign

policy.“ (...)

      „Willkie, recalling Nye‘s assertion yesterday that

Administration officials had persuaded a ,No. 1‘

Hollywood producer to exhibit pro-war films, suggested that

the committee summon Lowell Mellett, head of the

Office of Government Reports, to prove or disprove the

Senator‘s statement.

      STATEMENT ,UNTRUE‘

      ,Of course, Senator Nye has no proof of this,‘

Willkie said, ,for the simple reason that the charge is completely

untrue.‘

      Willkie pointed out that Nye, in his testimony,

,could remember seeing only two motion pictures of which

he so bitterly complains.‘

      ,One of these pictures war The Great Dictator, starring

Charles Chaplin,‘ Willkie said. ,Senator Nye laments

that Charlie Chaplin was born in England, and that he ridiculed

Hitler on the public screen.‘

      The isolationist also complained, Willkie said, that

the film industry was not producing pictures on ,both sides‘

of the war issue.

      CARICATURE CHURCHILL

      ,This, I presume,‘ Willkie added, ,means that since

Chaplin made a laughable caricature of Hitler, the industry

should be forced to employ Charles Laughton to do

the same on Winston Churchill.‘“ (...)

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