24 Facts About Frank Pease

Major Frank Pease was president of the Hollywood Technical Directors Institute, an anti-communist activist organization during the 1920s and 1930s.

Frank Pease's was best known for his opposition to Sergei Eisenstein's presence in the United States while the filmmaker was on contract with Paramount Studios.

Frank Chester Pease was born in 1879, although some sources say 1881 or 1883, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Frank Pease served as a private in 1902 and was attached to the Hospital Corps.

Frank Pease received a medical discharge in 1905 at the Presidio in San Francisco after serving at Cotabato, Philippines, where his right leg was amputated.

Frank Pease announced to the San Jose Mercury News in 1907 that he planned a world tour of foreign armies to learn their procedures and to help implement reforms in the US Army, but his project never materialized.

In Oakland during the first decade of the 20th century Frank Pease became acquainted with author Jack London, an ardent socialist.

Frank Pease embraced for a short period the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical union, agitated against marital laws, supported prison reform and women's suffrage and welcomed unorthodox religions and cults.

Frank Pease arrived in Hollywood on August 11,1927, and began attending Actors' Equity meetings.

Frank Pease garnered a reputation among some actors for making wild accusations at Actors' Equity meetings that actors harbored communist sympathies.

Frank Pease variously presented himself as a film director or agent, but there remains no evidence that he held any of these positions.

An early indication of the path Frank Pease would take in film industry was an article he wrote for the January 4,1929, edition of "The Film Mercury" in which he discussed the moral boundaries of dialogue in films as movies with sound became more common in cinemas.

Frank Pease argued that dialogue is a form of art and that audiences, and not film producers, should set limits on what constitutes moral and ethical dialogue.

Frank Pease essentially outlined an argument that it is appropriate for external forces to censor films.

Frank Pease identified technical directors as experts in their field, such as military personnel, who monitored the accuracy of specific professions depicted in movies and provided technical advice to film directors.

Frank Pease characterized the film as "filthy" because it undermined the beliefs in the army and its chief source of inspiration originated from the Soviet Union.

Frank Pease began a letter-writing campaign to Jesse Lasky, vice-president of Paramount, and to Bud Schullberg, general manager of West Coast Productions at Paramount.

Frank Pease continued his attacks in letters, public statements and his self-published literature.

Whether Frank Pease had any influence in getting Eisenstein fired from Paramount is debatable.

Frank Pease had no organized following and was often dismissed as a crank, but he knew how to rattle studio bosses who were more concerned with accusations of being un-American than his anti-Semitic attacks.

In December 1931, Frank Pease was in Paris, France, where he reported to police that he was drugged in a cafe and robbed of $1,000.

Frank Pease misidentified himself to police as an American diplomat.

Frank Pease served as the National Commander of the American Defenders, originally called the National Film Committee of American Defenders, an anti-Jewish fascist organization founded in 1929 by Pease.

Frank Pease died in Dade County, FL, in 1959 and buried at Arlington National Cemetery.