1,700 of 19,000 film strikers decide to go back to work
Technicians say ‘wildcat’ walkout has nothing to do with ‘any union case’
HOLLYWOOD (UP) – A 19,000-man movie strike went into its fourth day with the makers of celluloid drama hoping it wouldn’t spoil tonight’s star-studded Academy Award presentations.
Whether the Conference of Studio Unions would carry its AFL, jurisdictional feud to the annual blowout was almost as big a headache as was moviemaking without set crews. Nobody knew whether the Gaudy Chinese Theater would be picketed.
Most studios were struggling along with workers from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, rivals of the Painters’ Union in their bitter feud over representation of 78 set dressers.
The working force increased last night when 1,700 Alliance technicians, who had respected the picket lines for three days, decided to go back to work.
The technicians, who develop the film, called the Painters’ Union walkout a “wildcat strike” that had “nothing to do with wages, hours, or any logical union cause.”
Eight thousand stars and bit players will vote tomorrow on whether they will respect the picket lines. The results will be announced late next week.
Meanwhile, rival union leaders fumed and threatened.
IATSE President Richard Walsh dumped his battle with the Conference of Studio Unions, to which the painters belong, in the producers’ laps yesterday.
If, he threatened, the studios recognized the painters as bargaining agents for the set dressers, the IATSE would go on a bigger strike than the Conference of Studio Unions ever dreamed of.
“And what’s more,” he said, “we’ll take every movie theater in the country with us.”
Walsh said his men were stepping in to fill holes left by the strikers because they “wanted to see pictures produced.”
Producers warned
“But,” he warned, “if the producers recognize our rivals, we’ll go on strike all over. And when our projectionists go with us that means every movie house showing West Coast films will close down.”
President Herbert Sorrell of the Conference of Studio Unions dared him to try it.
“He’d smash his IATSE into kingdom come,” he declared. “It would be a typical Willie Bioff-George Browne tactic.”
Bioff and Browne, former IATSE leaders, served penitentiary sentences for extortion.
Walsh said if everybody else was going on strike, the IATSE also would have to do it for “self-protection.” He said he was getting tired of the “gangster” methods of the painters’ local.
May appeal for help
Meanwhile, the unhappy producers who were caught between the disputants considered calling for help from Washington as their studios got emptier and emptier. Only the IATSE workers, executives, actors, directors, writers, technicians and cameramen were left.
Out on strike with the set crews were secretaries, stenographers, guides, cooks, waitresses and dishwashers. Million-dollar executives were answering their own telephones and stars brought their lunches in paper bags.
Strike holds key to Oscar party
HOLLYWOOD (UP) – Three words – Going My Way – were the keynote today as the Motion Picture Academy prepared to hand out awards tonight, strike conditions permitting, for the top movie work of 1944.
Paramount’s famous movie, starring Bing Crosby, had four nominations and was certain to be on the receiving end of at least one of the Oscars.
Two of the Going My Wayers – Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald – have been nominated for Oscars for the year’s best performance by an actor. Fitzgerald was also in the running as the best supporting actor, while the picture’s director, Leo McCarey, was also in the lineup.
Bob Hope will be master of ceremonies. Previous winners will hand the guilded Oscars to the new selectees.
Also nominated for top picture honors were Paramount’s Double Indemnity, MGM’s Gaslight, Selznick International’s Since You Went Away and 20th Century-Fox’s Wilson.
Crosby and Fitzgerald were opposed by Charles Boyer of Gaslight, Cary Grant of None but the Lonely Heart and Alexander Knox of Wilson for the actor’s award.
Actresses nominated as best in their field were Ingrid Bergman of Gaslight, Claudette Colbert of Since You Went Away, Bette Davis of Mr. Skeffington, Greer Garson of Mrs. Parkington and Barbara Stanwyck of Double Indemnity.