Guild v. Playwrights

To ordinary workmen, Hollywood screenwriters compare in rarity and price as a window full of diamonds compares to a coal bin: only about 350 screenwriters function at any time; their wages are $150 to $5,000 a week. But they enjoy labor troubles in proportion to their pay. The National Labor Relations Board last week had to hold an election to find out which of two major screenwriting labor organizations, that for two years had bickered with each other, shall henceforth undertake the eternal bickering that goes on between screenwriters and producers.

The rival unions are the Screen Writers Guild Inc. (membership 502) and Screen Playwrights Inc. (membership 132). Armed like any workers with the tools of their trade, words, the screenwriters went to war before election. John Lee Mahin, president of Screen Playwrights Inc. advertised in Hollywood's Variety: "Any charge or implication that Screen Playwrights is a company union or in any way producer controlled is a lie. . . ." On another page in the same magazine, Screenwriter Gene Fowler, addressed to Dudley Nichols, President of the Guild, his apologies for ever having joined Screen Playwrights: "As . . . an erratic old gentleman who wishes to die in the odor of sanctity, permit me to hit the sawdust trail. Just to indicate how faulty is my scheme of reference in general, may I point out that some 15 years ago I resided in a charming hotel at the head of the Spanish Steps in Rome and did not know for two weeks that it was a brothel. A man such as that is capable of any mistake. . . ."

Next day, 342 eligible writers employed at Hollywood's 14 active studios solemnly cast their votes. Screen Writers Guild got 271 votes, a thumping majority at every studio. Result of the bickering: President Nichols promptly offered to "bury the hatchet," form a unified organization; President Mahin retorted that "the fight has just begun," promised to take it to the courts.

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