Though “detailed studies of long-term trends of strike activity are surprisingly rare,” it is evident that in the United States “the rate of strike activity has always been high compared with that in other countries”: “strikes [here] have at times involved massive, bitter, and violent struggles between workers and employers.” U.S. strikes often have involved struggles for control of the workplace, while in “other countries the struggle has been politicized or brought under institutional control”—e.g., powerful political parties that avowed to represent the interests of unions and the working class. In Europe during the 1930s “Social Democratic governments in several countries began to take over many functions which had previously been left to market forces. Many key battles were thus moved from the economic to the political arena, and the nature of strike activity changed as a result.” Paradoxically, despite the high rate and bitterness of strikes, the labor movement in the United States has been “among the least radical in political terms.”

The CSU strike was a prototype of this pattern. A “Social Democratic” government in Sacramento or, especially, Washington could have sought to resolve the jurisdictional issue that drove CSU to the picket lines, rather than to collaborate with moguls to drive CSU from the industry. Sorrell alluded to this point when he was asked by a congressman why he seemed to rely more on strikes than law. He responded simply, “[Y]ou can’t do that … [P]eople who tried to go to the law for relief … are eliminated. It is impossible. I can give you one example after another.”2

image An estimated 10,500 CSU workers went on strike in March 1945—and the conflict lasted until October.34 The painter Hans Burkhardt—who once studied with Arshile Gorky and created a painting, Protest, depicting the conflict—recalled it as a “bloody fight, it was terrible.”35 Cecil B. DeMille spoke sadly of “men who had worked for me 25 or more years, walked off the studio lot when the strike was called—tears streaming down their faces. These men were friends of mine since they worked … [on] the production of The Ten Commandments and The King of Kings. One day I walked in the picket line with these men, carrying a banner—not that I was in sympathy with the strike but I was in sympathy with the men.”

This episode left DeMille with a lingering anger. Preparing later to testify before Congress, he noted in reference to CSU leaders—whom he contemptuously referred to as “labor czars”—that a “decision made by 8 or 10 more men could do more damage to this country than 8 or 10 atomic bombs dropped at the same moment.” Vowing to curb this power by dint of legislation, he grumbled that labor “may want the right to strike. That I don’t know. But I do know they want the right to work.” DeMille then pledged to push for a bill that would restrain the power of unions—a bill that came to be known as the Taft-Hartley legislation.37

Seeking to slow the flow of revenue to the studios, CSU also picketed theaters, which the studios had acknowledged more than once as their ne plus ultra. These pickets at theaters became a favored CSU tactic—they were described as the “‘atom bomb’ of the present struggle”; this strategy allowed CSU to harm the box office, while involving whole communities across the nation in its crusade.44 One group picketing the thriller Lady on a Train told potential customers: “Save your money. We’ll tell you all about it. Don’t be fooled by Dan Duryea—Ralph Bellamy did it. He’s the killer. And David Bruce gets the girl!”45 Soon two L.A. theaters agreed to drop any movies made at “unfair” studios until the strike was settled. When “pioneer movie producer D. W. Griffith refused to pass the Paramount theater picket line,” CSU knew that it had devised a sound tactic that could potentially drain the all-important box office receipts.46 CSU began to develop its own blacklist of stars who crossed its picket lines, a growing roster that came to include Rosalind Russell, Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, Leo Carrillo, Humphrey Bogart, Susan Hayward—and many more.47

Selznick’s company also complained about IATSE and collected literature about the alliance’s gangster connections and its attempts to cover them up.58 Yet Selznick had other problems similar to those of the majors. He worried about the “odd chance that one of the girls in [the] stenographic has an Uncle or an Aunt on the picket line.” Fearful, the executives started typing their own documents, which—given their lack of practice—slowed the work process considerably.

Selznick had good reason to be suspicious. CSU joked about its intelligence-gathering capabilities within studio suites: “Take the case of Producer ‘A’: He raves and rants and hatches a move against us and dictates it to his sec, Miss ‘B’… ‘A’ leaves, convinced we’re cooked … ‘B’ grabs the phone and dials us and … well, it works as smooth as that! Sister of Exec ‘F’ is a strong union minded gal… but he doesn’t know! Exec ‘J’ wines his Sec at Mocambo, dines her at LaRue’s and reveals all in his ap’t! … Sort of a very direct wire service.”59

By mid-March 1945 the studios had a weekly payroll of $2.5 million and 130 films on the shelves—a nine-month supply. This was not necessarily the most fortuitous moment for a studio strike.

Still, shortly after the strike was launched, “business offices were in a snarl” and “without electricians to operate generators, no current was available to shoot scenes on prepared sets.” Disney, Monogram, and some independents were unaffected by the strike because they had bargained with Local 1421.72 Columbia, RKO, Universal, Warner Bros., and Fox were affected most severely, with MGM and Paramount right behind.

The Communists were no less displeased with the strike. Sorrell and CSU had “fallen into a trap” they contended. Hutcheson, the “reactionary Republican labor boss of the Carpenters Union and close ally of John L. Lewis,” was a culprit, along with the moguls, they argued; Sorrell’s actions were deemed “highly individualistic and irresponsible.” The Communists claimed that “production” was “virtually unimpaired” by the strike.73 The strike was antidemocratic, they claimed, since CSU as a whole never voted. It simply had backed the “unilateral action” of six hundred Local 1421 members who walked out: “that is the total number of workers in the movie industry who have officially voted to strike.”74