Se Sek

CBC program wins praise

A remarkable CBC program called Birds of Canada held a repeat °

performance Wednesday this week by popular request. The program
features the songs of Canadian birds as recorded with a special
“parabolic reflector” at the Delta Waterfowl Research Station in Mani-
toba, A Canada goose is seen flying past the reflector in the above

picture.

GUIDE TO GOOD READING

‘Daybreak in

China’ gives

picture of a new people

TO VISIT China is not merely
to see a new economy and visit

vast irrigation schemes. It is to
strengthen one’s faith in man-

kind.

This was the discovery of Basil
Davidson, who went to China last
year, In Daybreak in China (availi
able here at the People’s Cooper:
ative Bookstore, 337 West Pender,
at $2.10) he has told of what he
and others of his party saw and
learned.

It is a fascinating book, for
Davidson has a discerning eye,
and a vivid pen. He has also
~ @ somewhat sceptical mind and a
very proper desire to see the
spoken word supported by visual
evidence.

He goes into prisons, into vil-
lages, factories and back streets,
questions peasants and workers.
and schoolteachers, looks into
their houses, walks into produc-
_ tion committees and checks up to
see if workers say the same things
about their conditions as do the
managers of the factories where
they work. ©

x * * =

In a few lines he captures the
vastness of Siberia, which he
passed through on his way to
Peking, its new towns and vigor-
ous life. And in a few lines also
he captures the sense of the
teeming life of China, with its
confident hundreds of millions of
people.

It is their spirit rather than
their numbers which captured

_Davidson’s imagination and which
_ holds his reader’s attention. He
writes:

“This confidence is not so
easily understood, for this is a
commodity, this confidence, in the
future, that is somewhat lack-
ing in the West.
 “Self-confidence has orden

from a sense of liberation: liber-
ation has grown from concrete
acts of policy.”

_- He does not balk at the fact
that the gains were won by the
vast majority of the Chinese peo-

ple in bitter struggles against an
oppressive and oftimes cruel min-
ority whose attempts at sabotage
since 1949, and especially in the
first stage of the Korean war,
have had to be dealt with stern-
ly. ‘
* * 7

Yet part of the miracle of
China is that

“by far the greatest number
of those who fought the Révolu-
tion, even within three years of
its consummation, are settled
peacefully in towns apd villages,
learning to live by the sweat of
their brow.”

He talks to a peasant in a vil-
lage near Canton, and writes:

“Already, according to Liang,
the village was producing an
average of a third more to each
crop than in 1949

“They had done this by work-
ing harder; and they wanted to
work harder because now it was
worth working harder — they
could sell their surplus on the
market instead of having to hand
it over to their former land-
lords.”

; * * -

Time and again He comes back
to this new spirit of the people
and for it he credits not only the
facet of revolution and the new
security of life, but the building
up of individuals in all walks of
life by criticism and _ self-critic-
ism. He writes:

“The change in China-is not a
small change. lt reaches very
far into this people and across
this limitless country. It is much
more than a technical change.

“Often intangible and hard to

grasp, often difficult even to be-.

lieve, this unity of enthusiasm in
the building of a new kind of
China is the quality which gives
‘power and inner force to millions
of people who only yesterday
were weak, divided and in de-
spair.”

For understanding CHina, Dav-
idson’s book is invaluable. —
ARTHUR CLEGG.

?

U.S. MONOPOLY MUST BE BROKEN

Hollywood tries to block drive
for a Canadian film industry —

HOLLYWOOD, aided and abet-
ted by its agents in Canada, is
going to new and. unprecented
lengths to smash the growing de-
mand and movement in _ this
country for a Canadian film in-
dustry.

With practically @évery one of
the 2,000 film outlets in 1,196
cities and towns in Canada own-
ed or controlled by Hollywood,
Canadian film-goers provide $100,-
000,000 ‘gross annually for the
U.S, motion picture industry —
the second largest foreign mar-
ket.

Faced with economic crisis in
its home market along with loss
of many foreign outlets, the Hol-
lywood barons first moved to take
over the main centres of British
and French production and are
now. entrenching themselves in
Canada by producing ‘‘Canadian”
films. _ This, clearly, is being
done to satisfy the public demand
for Canadian films, to head off
any serious attempt by Canadians
to establish their own industry,
to beat back the economic crisis
in the industry which is now
spilling over into our country.

It should be added that 3D,
panoramic screens, new super-
sound equipment and all the
other colossal gadgets dreamed
up by Hollywood are symptoms
of the diseases. The fact is, peo-
ple are staying away from the
movies by the million in the U.S.
and Canada, and while the big-
gest chains are able to maintain
their profits, the thousands of
little operators are being hit.

Hollywood gets cold shivers
when it recognizes the fact that
a $100,000,000 annual gross in
Canada would support a Canadian
film industry; and they know that
Canada has the technicians, the
talent and the laboratories neces-
sary to do the job if the U.S,
monopoly can be broken.

So Hollywood is producing
“Canadian” films—at Quebec, at
Niagara Falls (complete with
super-ballyhoo and Marilyn Mon-
roe) and have again imported
Miss Monroe along with Robert
Mitchum, James Stewart and
others, for some rootin’, hootin’,
shootin’ film pieces set in the
Canadian Rockies. (Red-coated
Mounted are so nice in techni-
color!)

Hollywood is out to give its
gutter-culture a ‘‘Canadian” label
— and consolidate its Canadian
profits. In recent weeks some
producers have been picking -up
stock shots of Canadian scenes to
use as backgrounds to create an
illusion of authenticity. In the
Picture Scandal at Scourie, how-
ever, they didn’t even bother with
that. Supposedly set in Ontario,
it was filmed in California.

+ * *

The extent of the present U.S.
film domination of Canada may
be seen in the figures of the On-
tario Board of Censors which, in
the fiscal year 1951-52 reviewed a
total of 557 films of which 461
originated in the USA. The USS.
film giants long ago realized the
potentialities of Canada and
through one of their top corpora-
tion, Paramount International

Films, obtained control of Fam- .

ous Players Canadian Corpora-
tion Ltd. This corporation, head-
ed by brass imported from the
U.S., today controls about 25 per-
cent of the major Canadian
theatres, but accounts for over
50 percent of the total revenue.

The billboarding of lush pic-
tures of Marilyn Monroe and the
coterie of Hollywood stars as a
symbol of Canadiana; the concen-
trated drive to ensure its profits;
and its need to sell its nightmar-

4

‘ish dream of war, violence and
hate to the Canadian public, has
impelled Hollywood and its agents
in Canada, .Famous Players, to

step up the activity of a special ‘«

committee composed of US. film
representatives, so-called “Cana-
dian” film interests, and official
Canadian government representa-
tives. This committee was form-
ed to assist in the filming of
great “epics” falsely attempting
to depict Canada and its people
by filming them in Canada.

A few weeks ago a number of
Toronto newspapers reported
that John J. Fitzgibbons, an Am-

erican, president of Famous Play-
ers, warned the Canadian film
operators that the crisis in the
U.S. film business — which has
closed down thousands of theatres
in the US.—has moved across
into Canada. According to Fitz-
gibbons, Canadian theatres which
up until three months ago had
been riding alnog at a nice profit,
are suddenly finding themselves
in the red.

He warned operators that un-
less drastic changes were made,
they might as well sell ‘their brick
and mortar and look for another
business. (Form, of course, takes
precedence over content in Hol-
lywood’s ideology.) Somehow, he
added, the industry must put up
more strenuous efforts to lure

‘ more customers back to bolster
the attendance figures — and it
was not TV that worried him: it
was a bread and butter question,
the high cost of living.

This concern of Fitzgibbon for
the fate of the “‘Canadian’”’ indus-
try is in the crocodile tears class.
‘His main concern is that the US.
interests he represents will begin
to take less from the Canadian
public. Profits so far are holding
up for the top crust — but the
small independent operator and
the workers in the industry are,
as usual, the first to get the axe.

Now with super-screens and
fancy sound equipment, the small

theatre owner will be forced 1

dig down for more capital or 89

under. Wee
* * *

It’s the old story — the drivé
for maximum profits and in i.
case of Canada, it holds down aly —
move to establish an independent
industry. : : ie

There is in this country all the
potentials) needed for the
mediate development of a Cal® —
dian film industry. ;

A group of French Canadian
among them Gratien Gelinas © —
Ti Coq fame, have made sevel =
feature-length movies over ie
past few years. These Fret
language films have been show?
not only in Quebec, but in BUF
ope. English - speaking Canal t
-could certainly make films ie

could win the approval of tt fe
movie-going public at home an
abroad — providing the U.S. 4”
mination ¢s broken. As in every’
thing -else, it’s a case of pu!
Canada first, :

The base for Canadian pote
tion is present. We have the *
tional Film Board which has yh a
prizes throughout the, world iss
its sort films. We have stu!
and laboratories almost aS We
as anything: in Hollywood. a
have a growing theatre ™°
ment with an_ ever-incre
number of actors, writers WV ;
directors. We have buddins
industry and an extending —
of excellent technicians «
talent,

The .Canadian public cat wit
this battle for Canadian films af
stepping up the demand ei
independent industry that \)
put Canada first — above itt
blood-curdling-atom - bom) = mit
der and sex hysteria of Hom

wood. i RANT:
Labor Day Greetings
from ie
MR. & MRS. GABRIEL
ZAGYVA :
Vancouver, B.C,

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