The Key West Citizen Newspaper, March 31, 1953, Page 8

Page 8 THE KEY WEST CITIZEN Tuesday, March 31, 1953 WHO ARE YOU KIDDING, PUNCH? ‘THERE ISN'T A LABORATORY ON EARTH THAT COULD MAKE SUCH STUFF WITHOUT BEING SPOTTED BY THE WORLD LAUGH AT ME, HUH? You WHERE'S YOUR JUST TRY AND GET WARRANT, CAPTAIN! BRING HIM IN! HA-HA-HA! OUTLAWED CENTURY! OF A\ CORNY BLUFFS! Ky Books by A. de T. Gingras ‘THE VOICE OF LOVE William Neubaver LISTEN, MAYOR! T HAVE A SECRET WEAPON... A POISON THAT CAN WIPE FOOL! GET AWAY FROM THERE! \ I HEAR TELL SOME FELLER INSPECTION COMMISSION! THAT WAS CLOSE! IF THAT FOOD \ HAD GONE INTO THE EATING HALL WITHOUT THE POWDER IN IT--?_ 27) |NOW YOU CAN TELLME ALL | WANT TO KNOW? ‘TAKE NO MORE CHANCES. AF 1S, YOU COOKS WATCH THE BARRE! E THAT POWDER ENTERS THE VAT VERY MEAL! °T ONE OF THE *D THINK YOU OID YOURE TOO STUPID our! { JUST DRIVING INTO TOWN | TO SIGN UP FOR THE BIG ONE WITH BEN BOLT. WANT TO TAG ALONG; SOMEBODY To PLAY | CHECKERS | Wie I NEED ME | NOdUOD HSW13 WOLNVHd 3HL 5 a 2 mi ~ Q 8 is NVIDIOVW FHL IAVYGNVN L104 Naa Dig (THE MAN FROM MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis, es- says and other writings edited by Harry E. Maule and Melville H. Cane, and assisted by Philip Al- lan Friedman, published by Ran- dom House, New York City, 371 Pages.) When an important author dies and takes off to the special book shaped cloud reserved for writ- ers, there are always editorial fellows waiting behind the trees to scoop up the literary crumbs. This time the scoopers-up are Mr. Lewis’ editor at Random House and his attorney. Also on the bandwagon of reflected glory is a certain Philip Allan Fried- man. The literary crumbs gentlemen’s combined selection are of varying merit. A good part of them are worthy of the author of Main Street and Arrow- smith. The others might as well have been left unpublished. One of the best is the first es- say called “The American Fear of Literature.” It was read by Lewis as an address when he re- ceived the Nobel prize in litera- ture on December 12, 1930. While the situation described has changed somewhat, there is still considerable truth in what Mr. Lewis has to say: “|. .in America most of us - not readers alone but even writ- ers - are still afraid of any liter- ature which is not a glorification of everything American, a glori- fication of our faults as well as our virtues. To be not only a best -seller in America but to be really beloved, a novelist must assert that all American men are tall, handsome, rich, honest and powerful at golf; that all coun- try towns are filled with neigh- bors who do nothing from day save go about being kind to one another; “. , that although American girls may be wild, they change always into perfect wives and mothers; and that geographical- ly, America is composed of New York, which is inhabited entire- ly by millionaires; of the West, which keeps unchanged all the boisterous heroism of 1870; and the South, where every. one lives on a plantation perpetually glos- sy with moonlight and scented with magnolias. . .” On the other hand, for. example, Lewis’ essay on H. G. Wells sounds partly like something from a puff sheet and partly like a sentimental obit. This review- er has a vast admiration for the English author, and is a most ap- in these any legitimate bouquets thrown to him. But this piece is maud- lin and adds only gush to the reader’s knowledge of Mr. Wells or Mr. Lewis as men or writers. A discussion of literary back- stage technicalities are also in- cluded. There are introductions or essays on Babbitt, Kingsblood Royal, Main Street and Arrow- preciative audience of one, for! — AP Newstectures Chapter Five Awe filled the girl's brown eyes, (THE trees sighed in a put of | ™ ocean wind. Bees droned, twit- disc! tering birds darted blackly across the sky, twilight became a shade thicker. Soon it would be time to go inside and help Maggi Cola- | been here han serve the dinner; soon it would be time to call up gayety like an army for the further pleasure of the hotel’s guests. But in the meantime there were her thoughts to examine and separate and deal with once and for all. To be fair about it, Bob’s patience had been sorely tried for more months than it should have pero should are oe ac- cept is ring or stop} jating him, It shouldn’t have been nec- essary for him to write the note he’d written, that strangely child- ish note of a man ir pain. Sh- scowled, ing over her shoulder as the big it door opened. She met her mother’s blue eyes and smiled selfconsciously. She wondered if her mother was psychic. She always seemed to sense when something had gone wrong. Now the sky was all rose, and under that sky the ocean took on the appearance of a tranquill, rose-colored lake. Clear Lake, she thought, looks that way in the sunset, and she wondered i! she shouldn’t spend the summer up there. Perhaps she needed to get away. Perhaps she needed weeks and weeks of beauty and solitude, the opportunity to relax, the chance really to think, “Remember Clear Lake, Mom? Remember the fun we had up there a couple of summers ago?” Ellen Carlisle smiled reminis- cently. “Such fun,” she drawled #0. in her pleasant contralto. “We were lucky to return alive!” “At least one could think there, Mom. Ané all the people you met were pleasant. They weren't al- ways giving a girl problems?” “Is.Bob the problem?” “How can you tell? There, will you just answer that?” The click of wooden balls came distantly from the croquet lawn. The voice of Mr. a, boom’, moment silencing tting, jutting him on perma- nently. Ent that exciting? All Mr. Hufford ever really needed was someone to take an interest in him. He'll be all right now.” “You haven’t answered juestion! That's called evasion, lom, My students use the same trick.” “What answer can I give you? You just know. You look at the man and he’s more important to you than anyone eise in the world —parents included. You want to be with him. You want to be with him whether he’s rich or poor, ill or well. The thought of moog oe 4 a lif time with him fills you wit @ sor’ of ecstasy. You live for the day of marriage. In short, he’s right for you, and all your nerves, mind, your heart, tell you never heard a I 5 voice, dear. rf just looked at your silly father and knew.” “He is not silly!” “If you don’t know, then you Hy? i i i : te ¥ i ey { ath it eetieo FinBe H sof! found that i ™my | come down from his roo: them at table for There he sat, a little dumpy man with a pallid face and a luxurious ang golden hair. He rose and loo! around awkwardly, though not sure what he was ex- pected to do. That made him fair =~ for Nancy. Back straight, ad blue eyes dancing, she marched straight over te him and offered her arm. “You're supposed to escort me to she table, Mr. Cur- tis. Some — may not think Tma , but I am. Ruth liked him holding a chair out fo; bh» (Te be continued) ally. Pension For Powell But No End To Cutees | By BOB THOMAS jears in pioneering again. He is|great windfall," he said. “It sup- HOLLYWOOD (?—William Pow- 4ppearing in “How To Marry a/| plied a 13-year string of pictures ell goes on a pension at MGM. Millionaire,” one of the first two of fairly consistent quality.” next month, but he shows no de- films to be shot in the new, wide- | sire to end his long and distin- | guished film career. The suave actor, who looks much younger than his 60 years, is the first performer to qualify under the famous MGM pension plan. His 19-year association with the studio ends April 28. “I am grateful to the studio and Particularly to its president, Nich- olas Schenck, for the foresight in Powell, “It's not often that an ac- tor can look forward to any form of security.” But Bill indicated no intention of merely sitting at his Paim Springs home and collecting his hefty pen- sion checks. After 40 years as an actor, he shows no eagerness to joss in the towel. In fact, his | are dreaming up a TV series with devising the pensioh plan,” said/ screen Cinemascope process. “So I'm blazing trails again,” he commented. ‘Just 25 years ago, i appeared in the first all-talking picture made on the Paramount lot — ‘Interference,’ with Clive Brook and Evelyn Brent. But I'll) be darned if I'll wait another 25} years to pioneer smellies, or what- the next new dimension will be. He recalled that the move in-! |dustry was in a turmoil then —/ | “everything went wrong on the} set.” Although the business is more | | stable today, theré are still some bugs in the new processes. For | instance, the side of the film som ‘times’ shreds in the camera, leav- ing a hair-like piece in the lens | jand ruining the take. A lengthy} camera inspection is required after | each scene is completed. | I watched Bill get dressed for a ‘film scene. As usual, he was |decked out in faultless attire; he | was the picture of the impeccable boulevardier. I asked him how he acquired his knack as a dresser. “Very naturally,” he replied. “After all, clothes are more or jless the tools of an actor’s pro- |fession. And the roles I have played on the screen haye often called for a certain elegance. 1 never throw away a suit, I sup- pose I must have a couple of hun- dred of them packed away in my basement. “They come in handy. When 1 did ‘Dancing in the Dark,’ I was supposed to play a flamboyant sort of ex-movie star. The opening scene showed the old boy gazing at his footprints in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese. I needed Since the studio contract phase # Suit that had seen better days, of his film career is ending, 1|but had been first —_ at gue asked Bill to wax nostalgic about | “ime. hives pve Pog tice a his life and times in Hollywood. | ‘bing that ae nd pe want Ever the gentleman, he obliged. jed among my suits # found one |their evening meal, and on Sat- He recalled that he had been tied |! hadn't worn since 1928. It was GREAT SINGING \ -- = PROR AL I, 7 4 jhis long-ti sidekick, Myrna Loy smith, a6 well as first draft and The “Thin Man” may ride again gate ogee Ais "on the TV channels. ioe Fivcorsasi sroencts. all wot Right now. Powell is up to his pathetic with the general belief 2 WA! A PAT WALLET AND 4 6000 on Ton! —— WASHED UP.’ — WHAT ABOUT MY RING F RELAX." ITS INTHE MAL! YOU'RE A HUMAN VEWELRY STORE, LADY D iT CaReFuLLy. — AND WROTE WITH CARE!-~ tosr 7 — WH SOMETHING AN TH FUST LESSON OUGHTA WHY DONT YOU ! ) SO-CALLED MEN } 80 SOMETHNG ABOUT THs BEAST WAHLV4A dN ONIONINS IML WaVvzZO that any man or woman who has failed at plumbing, farming or} housewifery can write after a few lessons. He says, “. . .there is! only one fixed rule for writing, and that is hard and unpopular; | the story that you have not set down in words will never win glory, no matter how many even- ings you have spent in delight- ing yourself and annoying your relatives by relating its plot.| Which is an elaborate way of! saying: Work!. . .” | The rules, Mr. Lewis. says, are | nonsense because writing of any} distinction is a mental process, | {not an air-conditioned shop under ;union rules. Style is the manner in which a person expresses what he feels. It is dependent on two things: his ability to feel, and his possession, through read- ing or conversation, of a vocabu- lary adequate to express his feel- ing. On the use of obscene language jin fiction he has this to say: i. . .@ book goes into the living |room of strangers and the author; jwith it, generously welcomed at! first. Until he is certain that his hosts like to bave their sociolo- gical revelations worded in the | language of a vomiting coal heav- | er, he would do well to be at least as diplomatic as a police- man JUNIOR SELECTION (THE LITTLE BALLET DANC- ER by Monica Sterling, child's book, illustrated by Helen Stone, published by Lothrep, Lee and Shephard, New York City, 61; pages.) j Behind the big gray opera | house in Paris there is a school} for little girls who are studying} to be ballet dancers, and they) are called rats. Miss Sterling imtreduces ber readers to Jeanne, ane of the be- | 2 at Rome beloze sae is study ballet. Her fa- Monsieur Dupont, is a por- at coe of the biggest reiway tions ip Paris. Her mother knits clothes for bobier to be he shops. Their home éescribed, and what they do after urday afternoons. Gracefully interpclated with il- lustrations in pink, green and brown, the text then takes the {reader into the daily routines of a “‘little rat” as she learns to he- come a ballet dancer. The book is more documentary than fictional. Excitement and suspense are diluted. The out- come of tests in the five ballet to studios for 27 years—five at Paramount, three at Warners and 19 at MGM. I think that’s a record of some kind. His best pictures? Bill named “My Man Godfrey,” “One Way Passage,” “The Great Ziegfeld,” “Life With Father.” For the latter two, he won Academy nominations. | | How about “The Thin Man"? He didn’t mention the famed whodun- perfect.” Chinese View, Boxer Cannon WEST POINT, N. Y. #}—The in- terest of five Chinese Nationalist generals touring the U. S. Military Academy was caught by an old Positions and of examinations in it as one of his best, but he ad-| cannon which played a part in the arithmetic, are the major drama jtic situations. mitted a sentimental liking for it, | “The ‘Thin Man’ series was a - has been tested successfully oft Pe hildren and adults. Use of o was discloned by Dr. Jones Boxer Rebellion of 1900. One of the visitors was Maj. Gen. Chiang Wei-kuo, son of Generalis- simo Chiang Kai-shek. The cannon, an old bronze weap- on, is described as a “Manchu can- on.” It was on the wall of Peking when that city was under siege. GRAIN EXEC SAYS IKE IS “MISINFORMED” WASHING-TON— A grain co operative executive says President Eisenhower is “very much misin- formed” on the problem of grain William Thatcher of St. Paul, president of the Farmers Grain Terminal Co-operative, made the