MASSES AND MAINSTREAM New monthly upholds tradition MASSES & MAINSTREAM, the new Marxist cultural monthly, has set itself a high standard for achievement in the introductory editoriai of its first issue, now available at the People’s Cooperative Bookstore here. “Here, proudly, in purpose even if mot in identical form, is a mag- azine that combines and carries forward the thirty-seven-year-oid tradition of New Masses and the more recent literary achievement of Mainstream,” declares the edi- torial.\ “We have regrouped’ our energies, not to retire from the battle but to wage it with fresh resolution and confidence.” The merger of the progressive ‘movement's oldest Marxist publi- cation, one whose passing was deeply felt in many parts of the world, with its youngest, one which had attracted a wide sec- tion of intellectuals of all classes, has met, understandably enough, _ with apprehension by many read- - ers of both. Will Masses & Mainstream re- tain the topical appeal that at- tracted non-intellectuals of the middle class; workers; which moved many non-Marxist leaders closer to the progressive move- ment? Will it strike t with honest appraisal of the efforts of leading progressive artists? Will it meet the needs of the new post-war generation of writers and artists—so beset with the problems of living and creating, of relationship to the fast-chang- ing world scene? Will it provide a clean-driving weapon against the perverters and wreckers of cultural traditions, a quality . of guidance and commentary, and artistic performance that will root a new fighting culture in the movement of the people? x * * THESE ARE QUESTIONS Masses & Mainstream’s first read- ers will be asking. The answers cannot be given on the basis of one issue’s performance, but the way will be indicated. The March issue brings us a number of things that might have appeared in a Spring quarterly of Mainstream, and others that might have been in New Masses. Picasso at Work, an article by the French critic, Louis Parrot, gives a close-up of Picasso's meth- ods of work, his views on art and creative effort, his participation in French political life. Another, We Were Nice People, by Barbara Giles, is an account of her childhood in the South, an estimation of the sources from which sprang her novel, The Gentle Bush. There are two short stories, a poem by Thomas Mc- Grath, and a number of special features, such as Right Face, 2 page which sets out.to ridicule some of the more blatant right- wing stupidities. Herbert Aptheker’s The Face of the Lesser Evil, is of a more tepi- ean nature. It is, as he puts it, U.S. WINS CAMPAIGN Britain lifts film barrier __ THE 75 PERCENT TAX on earnings of Hollywood. films shown in Britain, imposed last summer to conserve "scarce dollars for essential commodities, is being repealed, President J. Harold Wilson of the Board of Trade has an- nounced. The tax was imposed on grounds that Britain needed American food and other mecessary goods far more than it needed movies. ’ _ The agreement, negotiated be-_ _ tween representatives of the Am- evican film industry and British _ ‘government leaders, climaxed ‘a heavy pressure campaign staged _ “by Hollywood against the tax. - The campaign started last Aug-— ust, when American producers - clamped a boycott on "the British : “market in retaliation for the tax, _* The new agreement requires _ ‘that American producers - take: ‘out no more than $17’ million in” "Always at the Home of —. |}. ) UNION MADE Clothirg | -~- 9nd Friendiy Service, “profits plus an amount equal to” the earnings of all British films exhibited in the U.S., its posses- sions and the Philippines, British film's earned $4 million in the U.S. alone last year but are expected to earn substantially more under the new agreement because Hollywood will encourage rather than discourage their wide exhi- bition. The balance of profits, which must remain in Britain for the time being and are estimated at about 70 percent of the total, will * “be used for production of pictures in Britain by U.S. companies, for investment in British radio, tele- ‘vision and recording enterprises, and for other unspecified activi- <, Hes,” :~ While the Hollywood boycott - prevailed; American producers continued to earn substantial ‘profits from the British market by re-issuing old pictures, Holly- -wood activity in Britain has for ‘|P:syears drawn’ protests from Brit- ,ish- prodycers and. performers, “who say American film magnates _are Stifling the development of a native British film industry, “Hollywood films in normal years "took up 80 percent of the screen. time in British movie houses. “for the information and edifica- tion of the Max Lerners,” and it shows the cumbersome heights to which American monopoly-capital is towering with the bipartisan Truman «administration as_ its bulwark. A piece on the Execu- tive Book Club by Joseph Gib- bons is again in the lighter vein. * * * A Letter from Prague, on cul- tural growth in Czechoslovakia, could hardly come at a more ap- propriate time. The magazine will regularly feature such news-let- ters from foreign countries, Latin-America and Asia as well as Europe. There are also car- toons and a number of drawings, including a full-page Gropper. Reviews and critcism of dance, movies, theatres, books and cur- rent artistic trenps takes up 26 of the magazine’s 96 pages. Lead- ing book review is bn evaluation of Christopher Cauldwell’s Mllu- sion and Reality, by Alick West, a British critic. John Howard Lawson will “be handling film criticism in forthcoming issues. * , THE EDITORS, during a talk with us a few days before Masses & Mainstream went spoke with particular concern about the magazine’s responsibili- ties and objectives Samuel Sillen, editor-in-chief, put it this way: “We want to reach workers as well as professionals. We want to do battle on the cultural front against the people who are trying to throttle ideas. We want to play a part in helping to build a working class and people’s cul- ture.” 3 They are a young group of men, Lloyd Brown, former labor or- ganizer and more recently man- aging editor of New Masses; Charles. Humboldt, critre ana writer; Herbert Aptheker, histor- iographer of the Negro people, : and Sillen, former editor of Main- stream, university instructor, and until a few months ago un the editorial board of the Daily Worker in New York. Sillen 1s ‘the oldest—87. : : Another paragraph from the editorial will indicate the scope of the task they have under- taken: | “Faced with this war of Wall Street against the American peo- ple and the peaceful people of other lands, our magazine unde:~- stands its responsibility. We mean to resist. We mean to fight back. Together with the milhors who are rallying to the tnira party movement headea ty Henry A. Wallace, we mean w play our part in winning peace and freedom for our country. . We must sing our own songs and tell our own stories. An art root~- ed in American réality mast up- pose the ‘banalities and false images of cash-register culture. ° You will know Masses & Main- Stream by its bright rusty bind- ing, setting off a Picasso etcmny. The editors want to hear from their readers, to enlist their sup- port in the battle. “Cash-register culture” is the declared enemy. Nineteen forty-eight seems a good year for a telling assault. _.> + OLIVE! SUTTON. . }* JOHNSON’ 63 WestCordovastreet - - - - “HIGH QUALITY LOGGERS AND WORK BOOTS POSER HAND-MADE ©- B OOTS Phone MArine 712 i - = = to press, - Which side are you on? Bm Aé Sa ee Which side are you = = ———— SS + + Which side are you People’s songs This is one of the 100 songs available in the People’s Book. Union songs, political people. Published by Boni and Baer, Song songs, have beer collected to pro- vide inspiration for all who sing. All have one thing in common: they grew out of the everyday experiences and problems of the cloth-bound edition sells for $2.50, the paper-bound editior for $1. FILMS AND PEOPLE Hollywood dying---Chaplin CHARLIE. CHAPLIN, victim of the un-American Activities Committee, exposer of the frauds and swindles of American big business, has had enough. He says: “I have made up my mind to declare war, once and for all, on Hollywood and its inhabitants. . . say: I, Charlie Chaplin, declare that Hollywood is dying. Tt is no longer concerned with film-mak- ing—which is supposed to be an art—but solely with turning out miles of celluloid. “I may add that it is impossible for anyone to make a success in the_art of the cinema if he re- fuses to conform with the rest, if he shows himself to be an ad- venturer who dares to defy the warnings of cinematographic big- DusINGSS.G ape ses : “Before long I shall perhaps leave the United States, although it has given me so.many moral and material satisfactions. And in the. land where I go to end my days, I shall try to remember that I am a man like other men, and . that consequently I have a right tc the same respect as other men.” e * * * : IN LONDON, Ian Mackay, News-Chronicle columnist, criti- cising the Hollywood anti-red witch-hunt, said recently: “It’s a poor week when I don't see at least three films, and in my time i..must have seen every Holly- wood movie that matters. So. far .I have not seen one that could be called communist. “I have been bored by big busi- ness films, shocked by sentimental sagas of Wall Street scrooges, horrified by the glorification of gangsters and nauseated by the pseudo piety and sham saintli- ness of Brother Bing and Father Fitzgerald in the religious epics of Tin Pan Alley “But I have never yet seen a film which, so far from being communistic or socialistic, could be called even radical or liberal THE PENDER BOWLING ALLEYS FIVE AND 10 PINS eae Open Noon Till Midnight — Monday to Saturday Open and League Play Invited - 339 West Pender Street Pa DR. W. J.:\CURRY 49 W. Hastings (NVITES, ALL HIS FRIENDS rO DROP IN AND SSE HIM > This is what I in the progressive sense in which we use these terms.... “What makes the thing serious is that they are out to stifle all criticism and as J. B. Priestley said to me the other day, to deny the principles of their own revo- lution. “But perhaps the most inde- cent feature of it all was to hear Menjou, the Basque-Irish-Hungar- ian, denounce Paul -Robeson as ‘un-American’.” * * * GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT follows Crossfire in Hollywood's cycle of films against anti-Semit- ism and it is a picture of which Hollywood’s Darryl Zanuck and the U.S. can well be proud. Star- ring Gregory Peck, Dorothy. Mc- Guire and John Garfield, the screen adaptation of Laura Z. Hobson’s novel follows the book faithfully—too faithfully perhaps. If there is a fault to be found with Gentlemen's Agreement, it is that it is too slavishly like the novel. What Mrs. Hobson's slick writing coverd up in the printed version, the film emphasizes to its detriment. ‘The printed utter- ances of an anti-Semitic nature were less jarring than the same words spoken from a screen, Despite that, however, it is a fine, courageous piece of work. Castle Jewelers . Watchmaker, Jewellers _ Next to Castle Hotel 152 Granville MA, 8711 A. Smith, Mgr, HIGHEST PRICES PAID for DIAMONDS, OLD GOLD _ Other Valachle Jewellery — STAR LOAN CO. Ltd. BST. 1905 7319 Robson St. — MAr. 2622 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 19, 1948—PAGE 10