The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 25, 1934, Page 5

See, DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1934 | CHANGE WORLD! —-+.. By MICHAEL GOLD ————————- ERE’S an interesting letter on the Levy-Alexander con- troversy over “Gold Eagle Guy.” “I went to see Melvin Levy’s ‘Gold Eagle Guy’ the other night and I’d like to put my two cents into the dis- cussion which went on between Levy and Leon Alexander’s Feview of the play. “I have a friend-who has one solitary criticism to make of evety- thing he reads or sets. If it’s a book or a short story or a poem, anything, he reads it, and then he shakes his head and says doléfully, ‘A swell idea, but he muffed it.’ “My ffiend’s criticism arises out of the fact that he often reads into a work his own opinions and ideas about people and things and pays little attention to the problems the atithor has set himself to solve. “Nevertheléss, I feél that about Levy’s play ofe can say, as my friend always says, ‘A swell idéa but he muffed it.’ The reasons in Levy's case are not that he has less feeling, 1éss understandipg than Alexander, myseif or that friend of mine, or the social forces which made possible a modern pirate of the high seas like ‘Gold Bagle Guy Button’ but, it seems to me, a false emphasis upoh what Levy understands drama to mean in a play. Frisco in the Seventies a dt a brief summary of the story. ‘Gold Eagle Guy’ is thé story of the rise to imménse power and wealth of a poor sailor in San Francisco in the petiod following thé Civil War. Frisco was a pictur- esque town in those times. Brawling, rugged, feverish, its streets and bar-rooms were filled with a motley and colorful collection of char- acters from all the seas and the lands of the world. Men were filled with the madness of amassing wealth. California was waiting for exploita- tion. It was a period, as with all pioneering, gold-prospecting times, when class lines were not yet firmly and sharply formed. “It was a time when, so to speak, sdciety, capitalist society was in the making. It was a race between mien for the right to control the means of production. It was a face to accumulate private prop- erty. Now, in the majority of cases, it was not the poor sailor or the lonely prospector, or the family coming west by prairie schooner who became rich and powerful, but the agents of eastern wealth or foreign capital who came in with the backing necessary to buy up the land or build the railroads or purchase the ships trading with China and Japan, “However, there were some men who, poverty-stricken, owning nothing but the clothes on their backs and the holes in their pockets, did manage to rise to the heights of power. Such a man was Guy Button, who became the owfier of the vast Gold Eagie Lines, with ships in every port and carrying every cargo. . * . Gold Eagle Guy iT WAS Lévy’s problem to explain and show how a poor sailor who had just desertéd ship could become a shipownér of the world- wide Gold Eagle Lines. The play was to be a study of the origins of American capitalists, as I sé¢ ii, a sort of dramatization of primitive accumulation of capifal in America. Because men like Gold Bagle Guy Button were typical phenomena of the éarly days of thé develop- ment of American capitalism, Levy was summarizing a whole class. Levy then, after a colorful first act in the Mantic Bar-room in old Frisco, which lays the social welter bare for the reader, proceeds to explain what personal characteristics it was that Guy Button possessed | which enabled him to become the great maghdts of the shipping trade. “Button emerges as a man with a ruthless determination to make his way, a brutal destroyer of ‘fine things,’ an ethical monster almost, with a religious obsession that God is on his side. He, like Napoleon, is destined to rise. His star is calling him. His destiny is ordained by Jehovah. “We see how this sailor ruthlessly climbs over the backs of others whom he despis¢s as soft men. Men who are unwilling to ship coolies in the holds of rotten boats. Men who are unwilling to betray a trust. Men with a sense of ‘decéncy’ and ‘honor’ in business transac- tions. Button is the man with vision. Button is the man who understands the path history is travelling. He knows that America will become the greatest nation on earth; that the railfoads will destroy sectionalism, east and west; that machinery will change the technique of the profit system. The Climax E HAVE then a division between capitalists. Button’s bank does not fail because he sinks a ship carrying gold from Alaska, first stealing the gold from the hold. The ‘soft’ bankers fail because they do not resort to these methods. In the end, Button, after a career of corruption and blackmail, finds himself face to face with his own son. The son hates the father because he has killed the mother through neglect. The son has discovered that Button sank the ship and stole the gold. He threatens to betray the aging mag- nate. He will not betray him on one condition: that Gold Eagle Guy surrender the ownership of the lines to him. Like father like son. “And while both are fighting in the luxurious office of the Gold Eagle Lines, Frisco is rocked by an earthquake. The great symbol of the Line, a huge gold eagle piece, begins to sway. Screams, Terror. Button ‘cries, ‘God will save us’; then the crumbling walls bury him and the son and his business in a crash of debris. * . Earthquakes and Justice HAVE given only the skeleton of the play’s action. The loves and | trickeries of Button I leave to those who may seé the play. But from the synopsis I have outlined, two basic things seem open to criticism. First, that it is Button’s personal characteristics which engage most of Levy’s time. The play wavers between a social study anda piece of individual psychology. The two, of course, do not exclude each other. It is through Button, as through a glass, one should see and understand the social forces of the times. But Button emerges as a glamorous business Napoleon, not as an exploiter. It seems to me that Levy did not solve a dramatic dilemma: Button as @ man and Button as a capitalist. “This is, I think, most clearly evidenced in the climax of the play. The earthquake is Button’s punishment, a visitation from God, a Judgment passed upon his ruthlessness and brutality. This is the kind of thing bourgeois dramatists indulge in constantly. Because they do not know the social solution to the problem, they introduce an old anthropomorphic trick and bring God out of the wings with the help of skillful stagehands, “Perhaps Levy would argue that the earthquake is merely a symbol, a promise of the Judgment to come. I feel that the earthquake is a ringer, a professional dramatic forgery to resolve and settle the contradictions in Levy's own conception of the role of Guy Button. “Like my friend said, ‘A swell idea, but he muffed it.’ “G, RATNER.” Now Playing in Newar' Only New Jersey Showing At Special Low Prices for All Workers THE SOVIET PICTURE YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR ¢Q SONGS ABOUT LENIN” Exactly as shown on Broadway 1 to 5 P.M. 30c sr. us. 40 bs ctose EXCEPT SAT., SUN. & HOLIDAYS LITTL THEA.—362 Broad St. Newark, N. Je PHILADELPHIA, Pa. EUROPA THEA. “atte store 16th Street Amkino presents the film epic of the birth and progress of a great nation “3 Songs About Lenin” Hear Lenin's Voice for the First Time en the Screen Last 2 Days Directed by GZEGA VERTOV Music by SHAPORIN Karl Ernst, Dead Nazi Leader By the Daily Worker Corréspondent Paris, France. ‘AD méh afé stipposed to tell no tales, Now one dead man has spokén, The silence of the grave, meant to cover the ugly truth about the burning of the Reichstag, has been suddenly btoken. “How I Fired the Reich- stag” is the title of an astound- ing series of revelations published in the Paris newspaper, “Journal,” this morning. The author of the article, signed and counter-signed by two other Storm Guard leaders, is Karl Ernst, the perfumed dandy of the Berlin Storm Guards, who was the especial pet of Captain Rochm, and was murdered on June 30. The doctiment has been in ex- istence sinoe June 4, the date when Ernst first realized that he was being put on the spot by his fellow-gangsters of the Nazi re- gime. In it Ernst, himself one of those who set fire to the Reichstag, tells when a4 how the plot was laid. This full confession from the stave into which Ernst was hurtléd by “the men higher up” to stop him talking finally drives home the truth about the Reich- stag fité, as it was already revesled in the “Brown Book of the Nazi Terror” and the magnificent analysis of Georgi Dimitrov at the Leipaig triai. * ‘ In this amazing document Ernst tells from the inside of the Nazi Organization just how the fire was planned by Goering, Goebbels and Heines, and how Ernst and others carried it out. Ernst explains how the Nazi lead- ers hit on this plan in order to frame up a casé against the Com- munists, to rally middle-class sup- port to the Nazi Party, and to give the signal for the Outbreak of the Hitler terror. Fiedler and Mohrenschild were the two other Storm Troop leaders associated with Ernst in the actual carrying out of the crime. They all acted, says Ernst, in the convie- tion that they were striking a deadly blow on behalf of “The Leader” and against Communism. Ernst, the ex+page-boy, whom Roéhm picked up and turned into oné of the most luxurious ruffians of the Nazi regime, discussed the plan with Goering, Goebbels and Heines. Goéring and Goebbels first Letters Exchanged on United Front Between CP and SP in Pamphlet Tn its answer to the letter of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party (September meeting) postponing consideration of its united front proposals, the Communist Party declared: “The whole aim of the Com- munist Party is to achieve the greatest possible working class unity in the struggle against the capitalist attacks, against rising fascism and war preparations in this country. This is our funda- mental strategy, that is our larger plan of, action. We believe that every increase in working class unity favors the development of a class-conscious proletariat, able to defend itself and prevent fascism. We are confident of what will be the verdict of the workers on larger questions of program once they get into action in struggle for their immediate demands. Every proposal towards achieving united action of the workers can in this sense be called ‘maneuv- ers,’ but not in the false, narrow sense implying trickery, which you impute to us, but in the sense of @ serious, proletarian strategy directed against the common enemy, capitalism, worked out by agreement between the two par- ties. We make no manetivers to perpetuate divisions among the working class. Our goal is to over- come the existing split in the working class.” This letter of the Communist Party to the Socialist Party, to- gether with the letter of the 5. P. to which it is a reply, is printed in full in @ new pamphlet just pub- lished by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, “The Advance of the United Front.” The pam- phlet contains other correspondence between the two parties on the ques- tion of united action, as well as statements of the ©, P. and the Communist International on this question since March, 1933. The pamphlet includes a povularly writ- ten analytical introduction by Alex Bittelman reviewing the recent de- velopments in the struggle for the united front. This pamphlet should be distrib- uted in many thousands through- out all working class organizations, especially Socialist Party locals and branches and A. F. of L. unions. The price is 5 cents a copy. Order from Workers Library Publishers, hg Box 148, Sta. D, New York City. Little Lefty You'Re A RED-HOW COME You DION” NAME YouR 006 Full Confession by? ‘I Burned the Reichstag!’ KARL — ERNST, troep leader, shot duting Hitler's ‘blood purge, and one of those who set fite to the Reichstag. former storm thought a fake attempt on the life of Hitler would be the best thing. However, Heiries, the homosexual murderer whom Hitler had made fire plan. At the third meeting, in Goering’s house, the actual firing of the Reichstag was atranged, with Van der Lubbe as figurehead. Goering provided them with pet- rol, and other inflammable stuffs, which were taken into the Reich- stag through the famous passage from Goéring’s cellar to the Reich- stag cellars. The date was originally fixed for February 25, then put off until Feb- ruary 26, and finally arranged for February 27. Goebbels, professional publicity expert of the Nazi Party, fixed the actual date, by pointing out that February 26 was on Sun- day. Since most German news- papers are not published either on Sunday evening or Monday morning, Goebbels suggested that for publi- police chief at Breslau, preferred the ; | * Document SmuggledOut | WoRKERS scHooL | of Germany Before June 30 ‘Purge’ | | city purposes Saturday and Sunday | were bad days. | This throws light on a fact which | | very forcibly struck observers in | Berlin on the night of the fire. It | was that although the fire broke} | out at approximately nine o'clock on the evening of Monday, by 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning—five Jater—special editions of newspapers were already on the streets with two and three column articles by Goebbels on the “criminal act of the Communists.” Journalists who saw that were Keenly interested by this feat of Goebbels. this. document, signed by Kafl Ernst’s own hand, has now come It represents an éffort by Ernst | to protect himself against Goering and Goebbels. On June 3 he wrote this document and smuggled it out of the country. It is possible that he left other copies in other places, His idéa—common enough among gangsters—was that if threatened he would inform his enemies of thé | existence of this confession, which would automatically come to light in the event of “sométhing hap- | pening” to him. As it turned out, the protection was not heavy enough. On June 30 of this year, Karl | Ernst was seizéd by Goerfing’s men, taken to the barracks at Lichter- filde outside Berlin, and there shot | without trial. | Among those who were murdered by the Hitler-Goering-Goebbels com- bination on June 30, were: Fielder. | Mohrenschild. Heines. Helldorf. Now, too late for them, Ernst’s confession has come, to light. According to the “Jourfial” the document has come from Sweden. | It is possible, however, that this is one of the copies left by Ernst in ) Germany and now sent out by his friends as a result of the seething ferment at the moment going on among the Storm Guards and the | Storm Troopers, an unrest which | is generally believed the prelude to a new June 30, | This department appears as a daily feature on this page. All questions should be addressed to Questions and Answers Depart- ment, Daily Worker, 35 East 12th Street, New York, N. Y. QESTION: What-are the number of employable people in the United States? How many people were un- employed in 1928? What is the number of unemployed today? What was the distribution of in- come in 1929 and what is it today. ~A. M. W. Answer: The number of employ- able people in the United States to- day is over 50 million, and is in- creasing at an annual rate of about eight hundred thousand. There were between three and four million unemployed during 1928 according to conservative sources like the Labor Bureau, Inc. They constituted a permanent army of unemployed, At the present time there are over 15 million unsmployed according to estimates made on calculations made by the Labor Research Asso- ciation. In November, 1933, the L. R. A. made a careful study of un- émployment, and estimated the total as being close to 16,000,000. Today the A. F. of L. bureaucracy admits that the number of unem- ployed is greater than it was a year ago by more than half a million. 2:00 P. M-WEAF—King’s Guard Qi WOR—Sports Resume—Stan Lomax WJ2—Ames ‘n’ Andy—Sketch WABC—Myrt and Marge—Sketeh :15-WEAP—Kemp Orchestra WOR—Lum and Abnet—Skeich WJZ—Morton Downey, Tenor; Siatra Orchestra; Guy Bates Post, Nar- trator, WABC—Just Plain Bili—Sketch 7:30-WEAF—Progress in Election Reforms —Professor Joseph P. Harris, Uni- versity of Washington WOR—Harry Stockwell, Baritone; Basil Ruysdael, Narartor WJZ—Edgar Guest, Poet; Charles Sears, Tenor; Concert Orchestra WABC—Jerry Cooper, Baritone 7:43-WEAF—Vaughn de Leath, Songs WOR—Comedy and Music WABC—Boake Carter, Commentator $:00-WEAF—Reisman Orchestra; PAil Duey, Baritone WOR—Eddy Brown, Violin WJZ—A Cyclone Shot—Sketch WABC—Concett Orchestra; Frank Munn, Tenor; Hazel Glenn, Soprano 8:30-WEAF—Wayne King Orchestra WOR—Contert Orchestra WiZ—Lawrence Tibbett, Baritone; John B. Kennedy, Narrator; Con- cert Orchestra WABC—Lymann Orchestra; Vivienne Segal, Soprano; O. Smith, Tenor 9:00-WEAF—Ben Bernie Orchestra How O'YE Ger’ “THAT Way? 1 “THINK “To mucH OF LENIN ne | Detailed figures cannot be pre-| ;Sented here in answer to the last question, A few statistics will serve | to illustrate the mal-distribution of income, According to Dr. Mor- decai Ezekiel, of the Department of Agriculture, the lower 60 per cent of American families in 1929 re- ceived only 25 per cent of the na- tional income, while the top 1.2 per | cent received a fourth of the na- fional income. And the conserva- tive Brookings Institution in a study found that in 1929, seventy- five per cent of American families were living on incomes that were on or below a minimum standard of health and decency. Even in that year of so-called prosperity, the 0.1 per cent of the richest fam- ilies received as much income as the poorest 42 per cent of families at the bottom of the economic scale. During the crisis, wages fell 60 per cent and small salaries 40 per cent. But the income of the coupon clippers held to the highest levels of the twenties. In 1933, the first year of the New Deal, real wages fell, and small incomes also de- clined. But corporation profits and dividends rose to the highest point since 1931, and the number of mil- lion dollar incomes increased from twenty in 1932 to forty-six in 1933. The tempo of the concentration of wealth was accelerated by the mon- opolistic drive of the New Deal. WOR—Hillibilly Music WJZ—To Be Announced WABC—Bing Crosby, Songs; Stoll Orchestray Irene Taylor, Songs; Charlie Bourne, Piano 9:15-WJZ—Russia_ Symphonie Choir 9:30-WEAF—Ed Wynn, Comedian; Duchin Orchestra WOR—Dance Orchestra WdZ—Canadian Concert 1 WABC—Jones Orchestra; Rea, Soprano 9:45-WOR—Weems Orchestra 10:00-WEAF—Operesta, Babes in Toyland, With Gladys Swarthout, Soprano; John Barclay tid Orthers; Christ- 1 mas Carols by Mixed Choir of 70 Voices ‘WOR—Sid Gery, Baritone WJZ—Seven Seas—Cameron King i WABC—Gray Orchestra; Annette Hanshaw, Songs; er O'Keefe 10:15-WOR—Current Events—H. E. Read 10:30-WOR—Wallenstein Sinfonietta WdZ—Tim and Irene, Comedy WABC—Emery Deutsch, Violin ‘WABC—Voice of the Crusader WEAF—The Grummits—Sketch WOR—News WJZ—Lyman Orchestra WABO—Haymes Orchestra 11:15-WEAF—Robert Royce, Tenor Virginia | 10: Bb ET hours | Hardly less remarkable than the | Movement which will confession itself is the story of how | to light. | apa: | too. |alréeady been organized | Workers School, 116 University Pl. |secured at 901 Broad Street and at | Questions and Answers 'Workers’School |New Works Of Soviet | Composers Published News from East To West Coast NEW YORK Registration is still going on a | the New York Workers School, % | Bast 12th Street. Over 1,000 have | registered to date. Classes aré fili- ing up rapidly and being closed daily. Avoid the last minute rush | by registering now. There are many | classes still open; such as, Principles | | of Communism, Political Economy, | Marxism-Leninism, Colonial Prob- | lems, Agrarian Problems, Social and | | Political Forces in American His: | tory, History of Class Struge! | Social and Political Geography, His. | tory Role and Structure of the So- viets in China, Revolutionary Inter- | pretation of Modern Literature, and others. An unusually inte-esting course ig one called Current Strategical | Problems of the Revolutionary deal with pressing immediate questions con- fronting the revolutionary move- | ment. | The New York Workers School is| realizing its plan of ozganizing classes in the various trade unio: Classes in The History of the Ame | ican Labor Movement, Principles of Class Struggle and English have for the! | Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union. These classes begin tomor- tow. Plans for organizing similar | classes in the Steel, Metal, Cafeteria and Shoe Unions are nearing com- | pletion. Se . Granville Hicks, Author and Critic of the New Masses, will speak on | the “Revolutionary Trends in Amer- | ican Literature” this Sunday eve-| ning, December 30th at the New York Workers School, 35 East 12th/ Street, Second floor. | eet are The Friends of the New York are now conducting a campaign to raise money for the National Train: ing School. All members of the} F.W.S. who have not, as yet, secured | lists for this purpose are urged to| do so immediate! a Oe | REGISTRATION AT NEWARK WORKERS SCHOOL The Workers School of Newark will open its winter session the week of January 6, 1935, with classes in the Fundamentals of Communism. Party Organization, Trade Union- | ism, Problems of Negro Liberation, Political Economy and English. At- | tractive school rooms have been | $16 Clinton Avenue. Supporters of the Workers School are urged not only to attend the classes themselves, but also to make a serious effort to popularize the school everywhere. Spread work of the school among your fellow work- ers and friends in the shops, offices and stores. Registration for the classes to date numbers over 75. In addition to these individual registrations, sev- eral organizations are arranging classes for their entire membership. rei asm QUEENS WORKERS SCHOOL The Workers School of Queens announces the opening of its winter term on January 7, 1935. The term will continue until March 30, 1935. The school has just completed its first term. The records indicate that the average attendance was approx- imately 80 per cent of those who registered. A four-weeks course is being of- fered on the subject of War and Fascism. . The Sunday evening for- ums of the school each week grow in popularity and is becoming an established institution in Queens. The school also announces the for- | mation of a Queens Laboratory Theatre which meets regularly at the school. Those who want to register can do so every evening between the hours of 6:30 and 10:00 at 58-20 Roosevelt Avenue, Woodside, Long Island. wut cca | Registration is continuing at the Brownsville Workers School, 1855 Pitkin Avenue. New courses have been added to the curriculum. Students are urged to register early. The school is conducting a lec- ture on the “Revolutionary Theory | and the Class Struggle,” which will be held Thursday evening, December 27 at the Premier Palace, Sutter Avenue, corner Hinsdale Street. The speakers will be Max Bedacht, Alex- ander Trachtenberg and Abraham Markoff. NEW PAMPHLETS “The Advance of the United Front”—a Documentary Account, with an introduction by Alex Bittelman—5 cents. “An American Boy in the So- viet Union,” by Harry Eisman— 10 cents. “The U.S.S.R. and the Leaguc of Nations,” by M. Litvinofi—3 cents. “Fighting to Live,” Harry F. Ward—5 cents. “Who Wanis War?” by A. A. Hetler—3 cents. by Dr. WOR—Moonbeams Trio 11:30-WEAF—Dance Music (Also WABC, WOR, WJZ, WMCA, WEVD) The Very Idea! “Culture in Two Worlds,” by N. Bukharin—5 cents. |—to mention just a few. | NEW MUSIC, Volume 8 Distributed through t Music League. 78e a copy Reviewed by LEAH ADOMIAN EW MUSIC is a quarterly publ cation, not of litera works, but of musical compcsitions. It is the only thing of its kind in the werld. It was found owned and edited, by Hi as @ non-profit-making v afford “a means for the p of ultra-modern ei ositions its, if any, will be d the composers whose printed. New Music s the work of America lishes occasionally the cor of foreign musicians. requisites for |: porary idiom, or some détail of t Nique that has been treated oxp mentally. One often r the editor has only these con ations to guide him, for quite fre- quently, works of very slight morit —from whatever viewpoint—find i: clusion alongside of valuable contribution The most recent volume contains choral and instrumental musi t selected in America, but chos by the Soviet. Union Composer Group as being the most ref tative selection of diff composers and tendencie: Russian composers in New Music, contemporary American compo: | works are being produced through publications and concerts in Soviet Union.” This reviewer must declare from the outset that, in his opinion, this is not the most representative se- lection of Soviet corr looking over the works und one misses such names. a: no: ovich, Knipper, Shebalin, Miasko' Borisov, Sheinin, and Shenshin The com- posers represented in this volume are Davieenko, Khachaturian, Mos- solov, Polovinkin and Veprik. the HACHATURIAN’S “Danse for Piano does not open new hori- zons for Soviet music. One won- ders at the motives for the inclu- sion of this work in the book. It is unimportant—with a slight tinge of impressionism, but, for the most part about as representative of So- viet musical trends as those of any other country. We feel that some of Khachaturian’s other composi- tions ar¢ more worthy and typical | (his “Red Army Marches,” stance). The other piano composition in this volume is of a more advanced nature. “Humoresque Philosophique” by Polovkinin, reveals a composer with a keen sense for the theatrical. The mocking character of this piece combines subtlety with a clear-cut rhythmic and- melodic line, that line for in- that will easily make itself uncer- | stood by the casual listener. In the present state of revolu- tionary musical criticism it is dif- ficult to be too positive about stand- ards. The tradition of the bourgeois critic is an old one. He has a “thesaurus” of critical cliches that generally makes good copy. He does not seem to feel the need for con- sidering deeply the fundamental critical issues. The revolutionary critic, on the other hand, is bound not only by these standartis, but must contribute creatively to the building of a new | musical critique and a new musical style. This is esnecially true where WORLD of Inj} usic is concerned. ay with any degree such and such hythm, or ice, is bourgeois thing is cé Tumental sty etermined by with a fair de- that Daviden- i Perish- of only the middle Aenko falls ush harmonic’ pro- the whole, the vorkers’ au- ntaneously enian Lul- laby,” for unaccompanied chorus, is exceedingly well written. Unlike Davidenko’s chorus, it is simpler in texture and mor t in mood. on lyrical nature of piece, one feared the imminenc of another “Oriental” dish of too, | too swect “Baklava,” the composer vigorously off the traditional cliches. Bot: rkers’ choruses and diences find this piece itre- ble in its appeal. last work in this collection be treatéd frown a slightly dif- nt angle. Veprik, in his “Stal- »” for chorus and p: chose a theme of Socialist construction. His plan is monumental, and it is perhaps the grandeur of his theme | that caused work to’ fall short Of its intended purpose. It isn’t that the conception is not on a grand jenough scale, but that a more fi- |nished technical equipment was {needed for the task. Veprik no doubt sought new and more fitting Ways to express the great work of Socialist construction. He indicates that more daring and less academic methods must be employed by the many Soviet composers who still insist on writing suspiciously bour- geois music to texts that breathe the new vigor..of..the Workers’ Fatherland. «It is for this reason that Venrik’s work is to be regarded as a significant attempt to break new paths in choral writing. While the collection under review is more than welcome in the popu- larization of Soviet music, it is dis- appointingly inadequate. We feel that Soviet composers have contrib- uted a great deal of value—sufficient to have their works systematically presented by some organization es- pecially devoted to this purpose. What came of recent rumors that a Society of the Friends of Soviet Music has been formed in New York? the MOVIES Chaliapin as Don Quixote DON QUIXOTE, directed by G. W. Pabst. Featured player, Feodor Chaliapin. Adapted by Paul Morand. English dialogue. Now Playing at Cameo Theatre. Reviewed by DAVID PLATT THERE are some fine touches in the new Pabst film playing at the Cameo. It is not a great film nor a good conception of the book. It is built too much around the sonality of Chaliapin to offer n of the quality of the original. Nor does it have the sureness or deftness of approach of the direc- tor’s earlier “Kammeradschaft” or “Comrades of 1918.” And there is no attempt to present Quixote in terms of the present. Pabst has not allowed the unhinged idealistic child of the seventeenth century} to grow up to be at least an anti- Nazi. The outcome is at times a splendid film, but without the de- cisive social meaning it otherwise would ‘have had. In an attempt of the vroducers to build up a strong part for Cha- liapin they not only failed to ex- tract the principle of Cervantes’ great social document, but they went slightly backwards in the bargain. Chaliapin’s interpretation makes Quixote out to be too much of a madman and a fool, who blindly secs injustices in wind- mills and wineskins, as well as in jailers and rulers, by del | ATHINK To MUCH OF My DOG / pg Sma If the actor had really visualized th character in proper time per- | spective-and had not separated the | heroics of Quixote from the social milieu in which he lived, he would have made him a militant rather than a madman. Exactly as is done jin the Soviet Union where Shakes- peare and other literary masters are given completely modern revalua- | tions, at the expense of the text, | mever the spirit of the author. The producers in this instance were at fault in not being fully conscious of the social implications of either | the seventeenth or the twentieth | centuries. HERE are reasons, however, for the blindness of director and factor. “Don Quixote” was the last film made by Pabst before he came to America to work for Warner Bros. Before then he had produced |“Dreigoschen Opera” and “Kamer- |adschaft,” two important films. “Don Quixote” represents the period when Pabst was debating whether | to go to the Soviet Union or to America. He chose to come to America. The result was a miser- able pot-boiler called “A Modern |Hero,” starring Richard Barthel- mess. Similar undecisiveness and hesitations betray the history of Chaliapin. But as a performer, Chaliapin is about the best there is. With a lesser figure, the film would have been altogether meaningless. Chali apin easily and magnificently car- ries the whole weight of the pro- duction on his shoulders. Sancho Panza the “lowly materialist” is pre- sented as a typical British buffoon as distant from the original as Chaliapin is to the real Quixote. It is really unfortunate that the episodes of the windmill, the svear- ing of the sheep, the freeing of the prisoners, the burning of the books and the incidents at court are de- prived of all significance by the insufficient social sense of the pro- ducers. Many splendid opportunities were wasted that would have clearly revealed the vast class distinctions between the people of Quixote and the landlords. Instead of this we are given excellcnt melodrama plus a fine and moving performance by & great actor and singer (Chaliapin’s voice is heard several times during the picture), and a hope that Pabst will recover himself in time and go on where he left off in “Kamer- | adschaft” and “Dreigoschen Opera.” ) ¥ ord