In that testimony Adolphe Menjou said that the movie capital was “one of the main centers of Communist activity in America” and that the “masters of Moscow” were seeking to use American films subversively in an effort to overthrow the United States Government.
New York Times – October 22, 1947
Adolphe Menjou and two other eyewitnesses depicted today the Hollywood motion-picture community as being deeply tainted and split by communism but increasingly alert to the dangers.
The veteran screen actor was the first witness of the second day of hearings by the House Un-American Activities Committee on Communist infiltration of the motion-picture industry.
John Charles Moffitt, motion-picture critic of Esquire magazine and former screen writer, while devoting most of his testimony to Communist activities in Hollywood, declared that “Broadway is practically dominated by Communists.”
Mr. Moffitt said that Hollywood had made a fine record in fighting communism, that it sometimes slipped, “but it has a better record than Broadway.”
Criticizes Broadway Plays
He asserted that fourty-four plays out of 100 produced on Broadway between 1936 and 1946 furthered the Communist party line and that thirty-two others favored that line.
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