"The scene is nothing," Munshin said.
I suddenly knew how to make it something. "Jules, the answer is very simple."
"What?"
"There is no salad. You're going to do it in pantomime."
It turned out to be one of the funniest scenes in the picture.
Easter Parade won the Box Office Blue Ribbon Award and the WGA Screen Award for Best Written American Musical of 1948, an award I shared with Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett.
Easter Parade also turned out to be one of the most successful musicals MGM ever made. It has played on television every Easter for the last fifty-seven years.
Chapter 18
In September of 1947, there began one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. A thunderbolt was about to strike Hollywood with a vengeance.
America's alliance with Russia had ended and a Red Scare swept the U.S. An ambitious senator named Joseph McCarthy sensed an opportunity to make himself important. One day, he announced that there were communists in the Army.
"How many?" he was asked.
"Hundreds."
McCarthy's answer created a furor and he was on the covers of magazines and on the front pages of newspapers everywhere.
His next announcement was that he had discovered communists in the Navy and defense industries, and each time he gave an interview to the press, the numbers kept changing - always growing.
An investigative committee was formed by J. Parnell Thomas and a small group of congressmen. It was called HUAC - the House Un-American Activities Committee. The committee first targeted a group of Hollywood screenwriters, accusing them of being members of the Communist Party and inserting communist propaganda into their screenplays. Witnesses were subpoenaed to appear for hearings before the committee, in Washington.
As McCarthy's fame increased, he became more reckless. Innocent people who were being accused of being communists lost their jobs, with no chance to defend themselves. Defense industries and other businesses were investigated by the committee, but Hollywood had the highest profile, and the committee took advantage of it.
The writers, producers, and directors called to testify had three choices: They could admit they were communists and name names; they could deny they were communists; or they could refuse to testify and face imprisonment. The committee was ruthless. They insisted that if any of the people brought before them admitted they were communists, they must then name fellow communists.
Ten accused writers who refused to answer the committee's questions were sent to jail. In addition, 324 people were blacklisted in the industry, and hundreds of innocent lives were destroyed.
In Hollywood, the studio heads held a secret meeting to decide how to put the best face on what was happening. They made an announcement that they would not employ anyone who was in the Communist Party. This was the beginning of a ten-year blacklist.
Dore Schary, who was running RKO studios, boldly declared that he would quit before firing a writer accused of being a communist. Shortly after that, when the committee named a writer working at RKO, Schary fired him. The members of the Screenwriters Guild were outraged. Schary asked for a chance to explain his position to the writers. The guild auditorium was packed.
"I want to remind all of you," Schary said, "that I'm a writer, too. That's how I got started. I know a lot of you expected me to resign as head of RKO when they forced me to fire one of my writers. The reason I didn't was that I felt that staying on as head of the studio, I can do more to protect you."
And that was when he lost his audience. His self-serving speech brought boos and hisses, and the meeting abruptly ended.
One morning in the midst of all of this, Marvin Schenck, a studio executive who was a relative of Nicholas Schenck, called me into his office. No one was sure exactly what Marvin Schenck's job was, but there was a rumor that he was getting paid three thousand dollars a week to look out his window and raise the alarm if he saw a glacier moving toward the studio.
Marvin was in his late forties, a small balding man, with the charisma of an undertaker.
"Sit down, Sidney."
I sat.
He looked at me and said, accusingly, "Did you vote for Albert Maltz at the Writers Guild meeting last night?"
We had had a meeting the night before to elect a new board of directors. It was a closed meeting, but I was so startled by the question that I didn't think to ask him how he knew how I had voted.
"Yes, I did," I said.
"Why did you vote for Maltz?"
"I just read a novel of his, The Journey of Simon McKeever. It's a beautifully written book and we need good writers like him on the guild's board."
"Who told you to vote for him?"
I was getting angry. "No one told me to vote for him. I told you why I voted for him."
"Someone must have told you to vote for him."
My voice was raised. "Marvin - I just told you I voted for him because he's a damned good writer."
He studied a sheet of paper in front of him and then looked up. "Have you been going around the studio the last few weeks, raising money for the children of the Hollywood Ten?"
That was when I lost it. What he was saying was true. I had started with my own contribution and then had gone around the studio raising more money to take care of the children whose fathers had been jailed.
I don't lose my temper often, but when I do, it erupts.
"I'm guilty, Marvin. I shouldn't have done that. Let the damned kids starve. If their fathers are in prison, the kids don't deserve to eat. Let them all die!" I was screaming.
"Calm down," he said. "Calm down. I want you to go home and try to remember who told you to vote for Albert Maltz. I'll see you in the morning."