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TIME's story on the Hollywood Free World Association v. the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals indicates no editorial preference for either organization but reveals in comic style an anti-Hollywood bias. We film-makers realize our community is a gorgeous subject for satire. We grant, or anyway most of us do, that we are the world's funniest people. You can write more jokes about us than you can about plumbers, undertakers or Fuller brush salesmen. Hollywood is guilty of deliberate withdrawal from the living world. It seeks to entertain, and we suspect that the success of the withdrawal is what makes Hollywood funny. But let TIME Magazine view with alarm or point with pride, but not laugh off Hollywood's growing recognition of the fact that every movie expresses, or at least reflects, political opinion. Moviegoers live all over the world, come from all classes, and add up to the biggest section of human beings ever addressed by any medium of communication. The politics of moviemakers therefore is just exactly what isn't funny about Hollywood. TIME mentions "room-temperature burgundy and chopped chicken liver" as though these luxuries invalidate political opinion. TIME, whose editors eat chopped chicken liver and whose publishers drink room-temperature burgundy, knows better. ORSON WELLES Hollywood, Calif.
Well-fed TIME feels that the public should be kept informed about Hollywood politics, from soup to nuts. --Ed.
AUG. 20, 1945
Re letter from Army Sergeant's Name Withheld in TIME in which Sgt. Withheld intimates that the Catholic Church is responsible for the disunity between the Americans and the Russians:
Catholics have been brought up to fear and dislike Communism because of its avowed ungodliness. As Catholics we are indeed convinced that Christianity and Communism are irreconcilable in the same way that as Americans we believe that totalitarianism and democracy are incompatible.
Nevertheless, insofar as such an action does not interfere with our own way of life, we heartily ratify the action of our Government in joining hands with a state, no matter what color its banner, if such a union will further our aim of beating Japan. Few Quixotes still proclaim that this war is being fought for ideals, and I believe there is no American--Protestant, Catholic, etc.--who is unwilling to welcome any type government into an alliance which will cooperate in preventing future wars. WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. Lieutenant, U.S.A. Camp Gordon, Ga.
DEC. 17, 1945
I would like to send a word of thanks to the reviewer of my book Prater Violet. I think he did a marvelous job, and he certainly helped to start the book off in the biggest way.
I have only one mild word of protest. I am not, as you have twice stated in your columns, the original, or part-original, of Larry in Maugham's The Razor's Edge. I can stand a good deal of kidding from my friends, but this rumor has poisoned my life for the past six months, and I wish it would die as quickly as possible. CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD Santa Monica, Calif.
JAN. 7, 1946