The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 1, 1934, Page 7

| | j i } DAILY WORKER. CHANGE —THE— WORLD! By MICHAEL GOLD you climb up to the gallery and look for a seat. It’s about eight o'clock. Just after supper, just after work. In the darkness thousands of pale faces slanting, watching the show with the eyes of sleepwalkers or hypnotics. Thou- sands of faces. Old men who fall asleep, their heads nod- ding into their chests. Housewives running away from the dishes and the kitchen and the children and worries about rent and food, trying to forget for a few hours in the movies, High up in the dark topmost seats the girls leaning their heads on the shoulders, touching each other secretly in the darkness, but watching the film. Kids chewing gum as fast as the reels unfold. All workers here, with their own lives, the lives of the shops and the offices and the factories and the streets and the tenements. Silent in the darkness. Watching the immense eight-foot heads, the trained movie-voices of the stars, spectators of a glamorous and unreal world. Here are magnificent boudoirs, swift, expensive roadsters, gowns like silver skins on the sleek powdered bodies of beautiful women selected as carefully as you select diamonds in Tiffany’s, . * . Dream Factory re a dream world, where everything comes out all right in the end. It's a world that makes myths, that creates heroes, that manufac- tures heart-rending tragedies and rip-roaring comedies. It’s a huge factory where the human emotions are manufactured. Tears, sighs, longings, desires, successes, are turned out as you assemble a Ford in the Detroit plants. Like a huge belt, Hollywood has divided its work- ers like the workers on a conveyor. This one screws on the nut of tragedy; this one monkey-wrenches on the dialogue of people; this one tacks down the upholstery of love; this one fixes the steering wheel of the plot; this one screws on the horn of laughter. And when the parts and bearings are assembled, you have the complete machine of a Picture, ready to be shipped out to the most remote villages of America to make people laugh, weep, sigh, on consignment. You sit there in the darkness. All around you are workers, people with tired faces trying to forget. What are they trying to forget? Reality. Their own lives. For a few hours they want to live the lives of others, simpler, magical lives, to be illusioned, to feel that in spite of all their sufferings life will come out all right for them in the end. They want to wed the heiress in the last scene, feel they are kissed by the hero in the final closeup, be shot at, imprisoned, persecuted and come out of it without harm and with the garlands of victory. * * . The Plot of Whose Life? HAT picture are you seeing? She is beautiful and young and wants to become a star in Hollywood. Thousands of girls want the same. The director of the show is handsome and talks a mile a minute. He's up-to-date. Slang rolls from his mouth like gvnfire. He has all the new gags of the gagmen at his fingertips. He rvs all the new dance steps of the dancing teachers in his toes. He wears the best suits in town. The girls are dippy about him. He’s dippy about the young beautiful girl who wants to become an actress in Hollywood. But he doesn’t let on. Neither does she. They fight. And ten thousand girls and fel- lows of America smile; it’s just like what happens with themselves. And then the frame-up. Somebody is out to stop the production of the picture. Somebody is out to throw the monkey-wrench in the works. Somebody always has to be the villain. Will he conquer? Will he triumph? Will he defeat the enemy, overthrow the gangsters, beat the frame-up? Ten thousand, no, a million, people are asking them- selves that, They also have enemies, they also are the victims of frame-ups. And sure encugh, he conquers in the end. He defeats the gang- sters, and completes the film and clasps the lovely, beautiful young girl, who has been selected as carefully as a diamond from Tiffany’s, in his five-foot long arms and bends his eight-foot head in a kiss three feet wide for ten minutes. And everybody feels satisfied, for truth has won once more, hon- esty has brought its own reward, the good has conquered, evil has been defeated. * We Are’No Stars UT what of our own lives? What of us, the ten millions who day in and day out pay our admission fees into the house of dreams? Have we won our struggle? Have we defeated the enemy yet? Who is the villain in the plot of our lives? We envy the millionaire. But Hollywood makes us pity him. Look, he too suffers. Look, he has children who have left him in his old age. Our children have also left us. They have run away from home, ‘They had no jobs. They did not want to hang around the house use- lessly any longer. They are riding freight trains out into the unknown places of America. We are at home, weeping, worrying about them. Hollywood wants us to pity the millionaire who, for all his millions, also worries as we do. Look, the kept lady, the mistress of the stockbroket, is suffering from a broken heart. She eats breakfast in bed. She has cocktails for lunch. She spends her evenings in the swellest nightclub in t6Wn. But he betrayed her, the scoundrel of a stock broker, and her heart is broken—in the script. We also have been betrayed. And though we get out of bed when the kept little lady is still drinking cocktails, and have put in half a day’s work pounding the typewriter or sorting or stitching while she is still having pleasant dreams, we pity her because her heart is broken like our’s. Hollywood warits us to do that. * A Movie of Truth p** in and day out, Hollywood's dream-factory assembles its plots and tears and joys for profit. Day after day, the illusions and lies and fantasies are manufactured by the skillful exploiters of human emotions. We are all human, is the message of Hollywood. We are human, and patriots, and Americans, and capital and labor should be friends, not enemies. For someday you and I, if we struggle hard, will also be a boss. And day in and day out, we sit and watch these lies. Outside, in the street, is our real world—where men go hungry, where children are permitted to starve, where millions of workers gather to strike. Someday, there will be other producers, other movies. They will not show the false, empty lies of the existence of the rich and the beautiful, but the whole suffering lives the workers lead. They will destroy Hollywood’s dream-factory; and in its place, will come @ great movie-art of the true lives of the people of America. * * SAD DAY FOR AN AUTHOR: Books and manuscripts notwithstanding, Gold did not succeed in catching a single bid today. His old rival, Burck, on the other hand, collects $19. Total to Date . Quota $1.000. To the highest contributor each day, Mike Gold will present an autographed ft his novel, ‘Jews Without Money,” or an original autographed manuscript of ange the World” column: TUNING IN 8:30-WOR—Salter Orchestra WJZ—Oisen Orchestra 8:45-WABC—Mary Courtland, Songs; Arm- bruster Orchestra; Male Quartet ‘00-WEAF—Rose Bampton, Contralto; Scrappy Lambert and Billy Hillpot, Songs; Shilkret Orchestra WOR—Hillbilly Music WJZ—Radio City Party, With John B. Kennedy; Black Orchestra + $678.65 1:00-WEAF—Religion in the News—walter Van Kirk of Federal Council of Churches WOR—Sports Resume—Ford Frick ‘WJZ—Football Scores WABC—A Couple of Rips—Sketch, ‘With Arthur Allen & Parker Fennelly -WJZ—John Herrick, Baritone 1:15-WEAF—Variety Musicale WOR—Maverick Jim—Sketch WJZ—Dorsey Orchestra WABO—Nino Martini, Tenor -WEAF—Jack Smith, Songs Kostelanetz Orchestra -WEAF—Floyd Gibbons, Commentator | 9:30-WEAF—The Gibson Family—Musical WOR—Jack Arthur, Baritone ‘WJZ—Pickens Sisters, Songs WABC—Shall We Abandon Ship; The Constitution and Present Govern- mental Trends—James M. Beck, Fotmer U. 8. Solicitor General 8:00-WEAF-—Concert Orchestra, Sigmund Bomberg, Conductor-Composer; Byron ‘Wagner, Tenor; Helen Marshall, Sopreno; Williem Lyon Phelps, Nar- rator ‘WOR—Organ Recital ‘WJZ—The Impressionists—Reporters in Independence—Cecil Seecrest and Julian Noa WABC—Roxy Revue; Concert Orches- tra; Mixed Chorus; Soloists 8:15-WOR—Veezey Orchestra $:20-WJZ—Grace Hayes, Songs Comedy, With Conrad Thibault, Baritone; Lois Bennett, Soprano WOR—Variety Musicale WdZ—National Barn Dance WABC—Himber Orchestra 10:00-WOR—Richardson Orchestra WABC—Ooncert Band, Edward @’Anna, Conductor 10:30-WEAF—Cugat, Goodmen and Murray Orchestras (Until 1:30 a. m.) WOR—Wintz Orchestra WJZ—Kemp Orchestra WABC—Variety Musicale 11:00-WOR—News Bulletins WdZ—King Orchestra WABC—Michaux Congregation 11:15-WOR—Dance Orchestra 11;30—WJZ—Dance Music (Also WOR, WABC, WMCA) i 1° 1 |two years,” writes the wife of an- |Families of Thousands of Jailed Workers Need Help By SHASHA SMALL Editor of Labor Defender HERE are twenty-three children in different parts of the United States today whose fathers are in jail for life. Some of them were miners, others were mill workers, whom the kids hardly saw because |they were asleep when they went |to work and often before they got serving life sentences for fighting for decent homes, wages and bread for their kids. kids who will be grown up men and women before they see their fathers again. These fathers are political prisoners serving from 10 to 15 year sentences in different American jails and penitentiaries. Some of them are farmers, share croppers, others are miners and marine work~ ers. And then there are thousands of women and children who are striving to make ends meet while the bread winner of the family is in jail from anywhere from 6 months to 10 years. How do they get along? How do they live? Part of the answer is to be found in one of the elast known yet most important activities of the International Labor Defense — its prisoners’ relief work. Head-lines have proclaimed I. L. D. victories, freedom for hundreds of workers, in far flung corners of the country. |Hunderds of thousands of people know that the I. L. D. is the organi- zation that fights like hell to keep workers who are framed or per- secuted for their working class ac- tivity or for their political opinions out of jail. But few people know that the I. L. D. struggles daily to raise enough money to send regular monthly sums to the prisoners and their families—after they are put in: jail. “[43CEIVED your money and words can’t tell how much I appreciated it and need it,” writes the wife of one of the Kentucky miners serving a life sentence, “My dear husband was such a good provider and worker it sure is hard to try and make a living without him.” “I have lived by myself for over | other Kentucky miner. “I live on a very poor farm, a renter. Also I am not in shape to farm no way. My children are too small to work and the small ones are not big enough to keep from getting burnt up around the fire. If it had not been for your relief I would have had to send the children to the or- phans’ home.” But this prisoner’s relief sent monthly by the I. L. D. is more than material help. more than money to kéep the whole family from starving. It is a pledge of solidatity and a sign that the politi- cal prisoners and their families and the sacrifices they have made are | not forgotten. The wife of one of the Alabama sharecroppers, serving a sentence of from 12 to 15 years for helping a neighbor fight off a sheriff’s posse in Reeltown in December 1932, | writes to us; “They have moved | Ned to another jail and my heart | is running over with sorrie because it will take three times as much to go and see him. . . I tried to get help from the government relief, | but I didn’t get anything but hard words. . . It seems like some time Tl give down over my trouble, but when I think back over all the I. L. D. workers has done for us I feel happy as can be.” (There are eight small children in this family.) Sree Wier IN addition to sending relief to the prisoners and their families, I. L. D. branches which have adopted them write to them and send them encouraging greetings. What these messages from the world outside mean to the prisoners is best ex- pressed in letters like the follow- ing: “I would love to set forth in black and white my deep apprecia- tion to your branch and all the branches of the I. L. D. what I feel and think—but I would be branded a red—the highest honor I assure you—and my letter would not leave this place and reach you.” J. B. Mc Namara. To the prisoners inside the jails, deprived of all contact with the world, working long hours for TITTLE LEFTY UP FRONT Little Lefty is ahead of five features and is second only to Burck today. Quota $500. Principles of Communism Class No. 12, N. ¥. Workers School $9.05 Previously received .. 237.24 Total ... $246.29 Del will present a beautiful colored portrait of his cartoon characters every day to the highest contributor. Little Lefty ° MIS9-Gooonaer \$ BEING GRILLED BY HE BIS SHOT IN “HE BOARD OF EDUCRTION il HER "CRIME" “CONSISTS OF HAVING. FED HUNGRY CHILDREN WITHOUT FOOD ICKETS back, Nineteen political prisoners | Then there are 27 | dy Dependents NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1934 ILD Relief Fund Launches Annual | XAmas Drive to Aid Class Struggle Prisoners and Nee a BLN 1G gave hardly any pay, or left to stare at gray stone walls in idleness, the contact with the working class movement whose battles they |fought, battles in which they were taken prisoner, means real material and moral aid. “I would have wrote sooner but idid not have an envelope and as jone of the other boys had one I borrowed it to write you all a few words. I have been locked up now 38 months and it has been 15 months since I have seen my family as they are so far from here and don’t have funds to come and see them Y the pedow ow. Suppo and we are all as one. When one gets anything it belongs to all of us,” writes Jim Reynolds, a lifer. Every year around Christmas time the Prisoners Relief Depart- jment of the I. L. D. conducts a special drive to raise enough money |to send a substantial sum to the |prisoners and their families for the winter. Funds for warm clothes, coal, rent. Funds for smokes, sta- tionary, for food that offers some relief from prison fare, With these few letters out of our files as an ex- jample, readers will readily see the deep meaning and the necessity me. Sometimes it seems like every- |expressed by our slogan for this body has forgot where I am at now. |year’s drive, “They Gave Their We are in need of postage and soaps | Freedom, Give Them Your Sup- and razor blades and dental cream | port.” Of the United. States By ALAN CALMER Milwaukee J.R.C. Artists , Win State Prizes by Wittenber. The first Wisconsin Salon of Art| Santos Zingale, who was arrested held under the auspices of the Uni-|@"4 framed because of his ex- versity of Wisconsin (Madison, Wis- | Pressed sympathies with a local consin) has awarded two of the ‘trike, also spoke at the meeting. three first prizes to Milwaukee John | * * * Reed artists. There were 265 en-| yj, tries, of which 80 were exhibited, | Vi He we Massie All the best artists in the state| The fifth issue of Partisan Re- were represented, Santos Zingale | View, which has just appeared, an- won first prize in water-color and | ounces that the next number will Al Sessler won first prize in graphic | be enlarged to ninety-six pages. “In arts. “We had no entries in oil,” | making this step,” the announce- writes Paul Romaine, leading mem- | ™ent reads, “we will be enabled to ber of the club and of the national | Publish much longer stories and executive board, “simply because | Poems, and more of them, and to our car couldn't hold oil paintings | enlarge our critical and book review otherwise we might have copped | departments.” Much greater variety 100 per cent.” | of writing will be presented, giving Zingale’s picture was entitled | room for experimentation in form, “Memorial Day Parade,” and de- | and to analytical and directive Picted the parade with American | Marxian criticism of a wider scope flags, generals, bands, etc., placed | than heretofore.” in opposition to the prominent fig-| Leftward is the title of an attrac- ure of a world-war veteran selling| tively printed magazine published pamphlet on the case, issued by the Illinois LL.D., contains illustrations TOU FAILED TO SuPPLN ENOUGH TICKETS So | FED THEM WITHOUT TICKETS / cally at the whole war display. Sessler's black and white was called “N.R.A.” and showed various types of unemployed walking past a fac- tory that had a N.R.A. sign hang- ing on one side of the door and on the other side the sign “No Help Wanted.” eae & Anti-War Exhibit in Milwaukee The Milwaukee members have been extremely active since the na- tional conference of the J.R.C.'s, They are going to issue a J.R.C. News Letter beginning December, They report considerable progress in carrying out the “craft task” Proposed at the national conference for all J.R.C. groups. They are preparing a public anti-fascist anti- war exhibit. It is being sponsored by the local League Against War and Fascism and will include paint- ings, drawings, posters, cartoons, charts, leaflets, books, pamphlets, Poetry, photographs, etc. “© * JRC, Artists Fight Anti-Labor Laws A mass meeting was recently held by the same club on the Hilisboro case and the fight to smash the criminal syndicalist laws. Jan Wit- tenber, prominent Chicago artist and one of the defendants in the case, addressed the meeting, A 4 STILL DON'T FEEL LIKE & CRIMINAL / r= y ice cream bars and looking cyni- | AHEM! | DON'T WANT “TOBE HARSH, MISS GOOOHRRY BUT YOU MUSY OBEY ORDERS by the Boston John Reed Club. It contains a feature article by Eugene Gordon. The club has also started an art school. It includes classes in life drawing, sculpture, arts and | crafts, children’s class and painting. | Among the instructors are Otis A. | Hood, David Geer, Arthur Esner, George M. Aarons, etc. | Left-Front has recently reorgan- | ized its editorial staff, which in- | cludes William Pillin, Nelson Al- gren, Richard Wright, M. Merlin, j and Sam Ross. | eae) * | Research Service for Writers | Members of the J.R.C.’s who are j doing research on Soviet literature and Marxist literary criticism, are offered the assistance of the “Con- sultation Service” of the Interna- tional Union of Revolutionary Writ- ers. Questions on these problems | should be directed to the ILU.R.W. in Moscow. es Sea | New Novels by J.R.C. Members The Executioner Waits, by Jose- phine Herbst (Harcourt Brace). You Can’t Sleep Here, by Edward Newhouse (Macaulay). Somebody in Boots, by Nelson Al- gren (Vanguard). Between the Hammer and the Anvil, by Edwin Seaver. Just Wasting Away! doES iv “HY MEAN THAT STARVING CHILDREN \WORLD of the | THEATRE Shock Troupe in Fine New Play THE WORKERS’ LABORATORY THEATRE representing the first plays of its fifth year; at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. Reviewed by LEON ALEXANDER © THOSE “revolutionists” of the theatre who, like Elmer Rice, |have become depressed by their |nightmarish memories of “stuffed- shirt” first-night audiences and | who have expressed a growing dis- gust with Broadway, we recommend a visit to the performances of the Workers’ Laboratory Theatre, as a tonic experience. | Here is no “new” sense of the esthetes; cupation with new forms for the sake of novelty is a stupidity of |which the robust Workers Labora- jtory Theatre is not guilty. Like the revolutionary Moliere, hammering jat a crumbling, reactionary feuda- lism, the Workers Laboratory Theatre can say: “We take ours | where we find it.” But it has breathed into the old forms a jnew, vital revolutionary spirit; it {has created a new theatre audi- ence; and where the need arose, as in “Newsboy,” it has even given birth to new forms. Last Wednesday's performance offered two new plays and four old ones. The new plays both repre- sent a new departure for the Work- jers Laboratory Theatre, a first at- tempt with careful realistic forms. Both were not equally successful. “Jews at the Crossroads,” by Os- car Saul and Louis Lantz, was superficial, obvious; the two au- thors have not rid themselves of the cliches of that other form which they were trying to leave be- hind, the agit-prop play. But pro- | duced in an uncertain, realistic manner, their play was decidedly unmoving and stale. The dialogue is banal and stands in sharp need of a ruthless blue pencil. For a realistic play, a more tightly knit, more significant dialogue is neces- sary. Each word must be there | because it is the absolutely neces- sary word; each word must move the action forward. And the basis of the play must be a dramatic, central situation, not a thesis to be proved. This is not to say that the type of plays represened by “Jews at the Crossroads” cannot be used by our Workers’ Theatre, but they need a different kind of production, more akin to that of the agit-prop play; they cannot stand the glaring light of a realistic production. . UT excellent as “Daughter” is, it dramatized from a story by Er- skine Caldwell, is a short master- piece. In no play on. Broadway have I heard such beautiful, musical dialogue—and I am not excluding the much vaunted poetry of “Within the Gates.” This story of the hunger-driven tenant farmer who kills his daughter so that he may not see her slowly starve grips you from the first words. Horror changes to sympathy, then to revo- lutionary understanding as we real- ize the forces that drove him to his crime; as we see that behind the bars is the victim and not the crim- inal. The acting of individuals in this play is excellent; but in the group scenes—a much too skimpy mass incidentally—there was a great deal of uncertainty and hesitation so) that the emotional tension dropped | considerably in those scenes. The tempo of the whole was also too} unvaried. The simple, single set-| ting unit was highly ingenious and} effective. DUT excellent as “Daughter” is, it suffers from the same weakness of an inconclusive ending, as does “Jews at the Crossroads.” This in- conclusiveness attaches itself also to the direction of the curtain scenes. In such a short and concentrated realistic play, the ending must not come as a neat “solution,” but as an emotional sweep that must leave the audience with those feelings which the play intended them to carry away: hatred of their op- pressors, determination to carry on Another point of criticism that I would like the Workers Lab, Theatre to note is that they should pay more attention to the technical niceties of production. They should allow no carelessness of execution to mar the dramatic illusion. This means that simple technical details should never be neglected. Of “Brain Trust” and “Hot Pas- trami,” I had the feeling that they would have been much more effec- tive in a smaller hall or on the streets than in an auditorium of the size of the Fifth Avenue Thea- tre. The singing, especially that of “Flying Squadron,” which I heard for the first time, was stirring. The Shock Troupe gave one of its best performances of “Newsboy,” which still remains the most significant artistic accomplishment of the Workers Laboratory Theatre. MUST Go. 4) HUNGRY 2 theatre in the | the preoc- | Page 7 LABORATORY | and SHOP By David Ramsey HEALTH HAZARDS INCREASE Margaret T. Mettert, of Women’s Bureau of tt of Labor, recently mai the prevalence of occupa eases among women workers. found that capitalism ex' heavy tN! from women who are | more susceptible than men to man types of occupational disease Irritation of the skin, or de titis, was the most prevalent fo: | occupational disease among workers in a wide range of ind | tries. Three states reported ca }of lead poisoning among wor work: This disease is pa arly serious for them In her study, Miss Mettert found | that women in certain indust were especially susceptible to t | culosis. jin these industries was higher | for men of the same age | The survey reveals the ominous fact that occupational hazards and | diseases are increasing at a serious | rate. | processes, to an increasing extent | are employing poisonous substance: Secondly, there has been no | these processes upon workers. And | finally, during the crisis there has been a complete breakdown of the few safety standards that had been | established. | The increase in industrial dis- eases will continue according to in- The death rate for women | In the first place, industria? } re-| in search into the harmful effects of | dustrial hygiene experts, They point | Scientific Periodicals, A. Smith of 6,186 in German; 1,833 in Ru 5,013 in ssian and 1,667 not the number of peri- S a prc n that can only Ily on a na- e in other cou of translating jthe major work | under central cor » but the job d abstracting all field is There is no individual specialists of research countries the Soviet scientists. This work is part of the | national planning of scientific re- | Search. duplication of effort by ons Trained e the resi insti to | THE ECONOMY PROGRAM AND DISEASE | A significant result of the ade | ministration’s economy program as it affects scient: research and out that medical research depart-| human lives has been revealed by ments are the first to be curtailed| the U. 8. Public Health Service. It or abolished when expenses are to protect profits. The workers are subjected to hazards that maim and destroy them so that the manage- ment can save a few dollars, Occupational diseases are all the more serious for women workers who are more exploited than men, since their more serious effects do not ap- pear until a considerable time after exposure. The potential dangers that confront women workers are largely unrecognized in the United Stat No matter how severe the disease may be, compensation (inadequate as that is) is furnished in only 12 of the 48 states. Capitalism, from its earliest days, has subjected women workers to dangers and brutalities that have been com- pletely eliminated in the Soviet Union. A TUBELESS RADIO A popular radio magazine reports that the Strotz Tubeless Radio Cor- poration has perfected a tubeless radio that can be manufactured for six dollars. It is said to operate on less than half the power now re- quired. The technical details are being kept secret by the company. One wonders what will happen to the invention? The radio trust does an annual business of $69,000,000 in radio tubes alone. It is hardly con- ceivable that they will let this vested interest be disturbed. In all probability, if the invention is genuine, it will be bought up by R. C. A. and kept off the market, since it threatens not only the tube market but also the present high priced radio set. SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS The growth of scientific discovery has been paralleled by the growth of scientific literature and periodi- cals. This literature has become so vast that one of the problems con- fronting science is the coordina- tion of the tremendous output. The magnitude of the problem is illustrated by figures given by the second edition of the World List of WORLD of maintains a laboratory at Hamil- ton, Montana, for research into | Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Dr. | R. R. Parker, who is in charge of the laboratory, has just reported jthat the number of requests for serum to combat the disease was | nearly 50 per cent greater this year than last Only 212 quarts of the vaccine were made during the 1934 season. Of this amount about 80 per cent was available for use. The de- mand, however far exceeded the supply and it was necessary to re- fuse many urgent requests, while jmany others could only be filled incompletely. The vaccine is needed to protect ranchers and herders and others whose work exposes them to the highly fatal disease. But the work at the laboratory has been greatly. hampered by lack of funds. Studies of the relation of spotted fever to similar diseases; studies of the tick that carries the disease; field sur- veys of the prevalence and habits of the ticks and animals in the Rocky Mountain areas; spotted fever treatment studies; and a long term investigation under way for several years past to determine the causes of the variations in the virulence of the fever virus, have all had to be greatly curtailed or stopped altogether. Only the dangerous work of making the vaccine went on, but this was also cut down by lack of funds. The administration, it should be noted, has spent billions for war preparations, but it continally economizes on research that is of great importance in saving lives. | A CLOSE SHAVE Unit 17-B, in New York saved Lab. and Shop from displaying Quota a “Closed Today” sign. $250. Unit 17-B, N.Y.C. Previously received $3.50 144.41 Total S147 91 the MOVIES the strugges, etc. | of of the Negro were in no wise con- . nected with the white. As result Race Relations the whole emphasis is on racial ee rather than social differences of 5 ij 1 |Negro and white, a change which grid Waerygieg Pniversal | ould immediately have lifted the Stahl, featuring Claudette Col- | lm out of its cramped, narrow bert, Louise Beavers, Rochelle |S¢tting, into the open. ie ae of 7 ™ wrong emphasis and other basia ein Fes tachi dupes shad the | sauits, the treatment of the Negro ecoietroasta jis accomplished with a great deal |more insight and honesty, than is veered ceed | usually the custom in films. DAVID PLATT | The fantastic rise of the widowed HERE are really two stories in |™Mother and daughter (also Delilah this unusually interesting and at eee taprggte) ae Bae a times surprisingly intelligent film of | ches as shige IN ‘and white relations. One is ™aeic pancake flour is told as only Reta canoes story of a widowed |Fannie Hurst can tell it, although tnother and daughter who achieve |the fine performances of Claudette fame and fortune through nelaeie lereaa Recent rari a Px tation of a pancake formula o inspired by their Negro maid Deli-|¥P the ladder, Jah, splendidly played by Towise | prow the very beginning there is . evident an undercurrent of The other, the more significant | tragedy in the relations between the tale, deals with the problem of Negro mother, and the daughter Superficial Treatment Negro and white relationship | who has been made indelibly con- through the desperation of the |-cious of the ingrained prejudice young light-skinned daughter of that exists against her race. AS | Delilah, who is compelled through circumstances of environment, to deny her race, people and mother. The unfortunate part is that the two stories which are factually one, itouch each other only lightly, levasively, as though the problem |time goes on, her determination to pass as white becomes crystallized as she begins to see for herself what impenetrable barriers have been set up against her color. Here there was a special oppor- tunity for the producers to shed some light on a powerful theme, Instead they evaded the issue al- together, passed the responsibility on to God and proceeded to find a | husband for Miss Colbert- | Not long afterwards the Negra girl disappears. When disccvers# | passing as a white cashier in a | restaurant, she refuses to recognize her mother, who becomes ill and dies of the long strain and sudden: shock. The film closes with a fashionable Negro funeral, her last |wish, and the re-appearance of the daughter, broken and penitent. Although Imitation of Life does |mot begin to scratch the surface jor the problem lightly touched in |the film, it nevertheless has much |to commend it. For the producers to have probed deeper than race, would have meant bringing to light the nature of the whole basic struc- ture of class society, by which alone we can satisfactorily explain and end race tragedy, by del / WE'VE ALL BEEN CUT 10-THe BONE