: Revolutionary Trade

FILM EESTIVAL
Many. counties
vie for honors

“FOR PEACE, for a new man
and for a better world” is the
theme of the sixth annual In-
ternational Film Festival in Kar-
lovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, from
July 14 to 29. Entries have been
invited -from 39 nations, 18 of
which have already sent exhibits,
They include 32 full-length fea-
ture films, four long documen-
taries, 10 medium-length docu-
mentaries, and dozens of shorts,
including scientific, educational,
puppet, cartoon and _  miscel-
laneous films.

Principal exhibitors will be the
People’s Democracies, the Soviet
Union, the People’s Republic of
China, the Korean People’s Re-
public, German Democratic Re-
public, France, Italy, Britain,
Belgium, Denmark, India, Mexi«
co, and Venezuela.

The United Nations Informa-
tion Centre is also sending an
exhibit.

In addition -to four colored
featured films from the Soviet
Union, there will be five medium-
sized documentary films from
the Kazakh, Armenian, Kirghiz,
Turkmen and Tajik Soviet So-
cialist Republics. ;

China will exhibit colored docu-
mentaries of its epic struggle for
freedom and reconstruction.

The international jury of the
festival will award three major
prizes—the crystal globe, symbol
of the best film, a peace prize,
and a work prize. In addition
there will be special prizes for
the best direction,
photography, music, acting, docu-
mentaries and shorts.

Feature of the festival will be
the program at nearby Marianske
Lazne international recreation
centre run by the Czechoslovak
Union
Movement (ROH). Trade unions
in France, Britain and. other
Western countries as well as the
People’s Democracies will send
Sroups of workers to see the
films. ;
Immediately after the festival,
Workers’ Film Festivals will be
held in open-air theatres at 18
centres throughout ‘Czechoslo-
vakia.

Festival prize won
by Arthur Benjamin

DR. RALPH Vaughan Williams
most famous of British com-
posers, has accepted an invita-
tion to become patron of the

. Workers’ Music Association, At

the age of 77, Dr. Vaughan Wil-
liams is not only the “Grand Old
Man” of British music, but still
one of the most active musicians
in the country. In 1937 he dir-
ected that the Shakespeare Prize

. money awarded him by the Han-

seatic University of Hamburg be
spent in aiding the victims of

‘Nazi persecution.

Two other famous musicians,
Sir Hugh Roberton and Arthur
Benjamin, have joined the ranks

of the association’s vice-presi-
dents,
Sir Hugh, conductor of the

Glasgow Orpheus Choir is. al-

“ready chairman of the associa-

tion’s Scottish branch.
Arthur Benjamin, composer of

-the evergreen Jamaica Rumba,

was awarded one of the four
Festival of Britain prizes for his
opera, Tale of Two Cities. Ben-
jamin, who resided in Vancouver
during the war years, is well-

‘known in British Columbia music

circles. ,

‘Another of these prizes, inci-
dentally, was awarded to the as-
sociation’s ‘president, Alan Bush,
for his opera, Wat Tyler.

scenario, —

A ‘bird’s-eye view of buildings erected in London’s Battersea
Park to house Festival of Britain exhibits. Y

* FESTIVAL: OF BRITAIN

Village discovers whot- )
united effort can do

THE FESTIVAL of Britain
goes on all over the country. In
some places it takes the form of
providing a new bench or two
on the village green, in others
the repainting of the village
lampposts.

Some provincial centres have
elaborate Festivals of Art which
draw visitors from all over the
world.

‘Out of 1,600 small ‘towns and
villages Which are cooperating in
the Festival in some way, the
Festival Office recommends the
visitor to Trowell, Nottingham-
shire,

This dormitory village a few |

miles out of Nottingham was
chosen partly because it is some-
where near the centre of Eng-
land, partly because it has a
pleasant-sounding name and part-
ly because it seemed to have a

lively and ambitious program for

a village of only 2,000 people.

The choice gave rise to a great
howl of derision and complaint
when it was announced. More
attractive villages bristling with
half-timbered cottages and pic-
turesque market-places rose in
their wrath, for Trowell is little
“more than a straggle of unbeau-
tiful, detached and semi-detached
examples of the _ speculative
builders’ art.

There is a constant thunder of
main-road traffic through the vil-
lage. And on the far side of the
Erewash River the enormous
Stanton Iron Works, largest in
Europe, forms a powerful back-
cloth of thoroughgoing Victorian
ugliness to most of Trowell’s
vistas.

* * Kel

ON EVERY Wednesday and
Saturday until the middle of Sep-
tember it is giving itself over to
folk dancing, comic cricket
matches, pageants, gymkhanas,
concert parties, dramatic and
‘music recitals.

Church and local government—.
the rector and the clerk to the
‘Parish council—are the leading
influences responsible for the ap-

é pearance in parish hall, rectory
garden or Councillor Smith’s
fields of notable out-of-town at-
tractions.

Among them are the choir and
Orchestra of ikeston’s  co-
edycational school, players of the
Nottingham Shakespeare Society,
the Nottingham St. Cecilia Choir,
the ‘Stapleford and District
Motor Cycle Club (for a motor-
cycle Symkhana), Fred Taylor’s
Ladies Choir and the Ilkeston

.

\

Studio Players.

Such events as have already
been held, the, opening church
service, the cricket ‘match be-
tween the parish council and the
church council, and The Frolics,
Trowell’s own concert. party, have
been enormous successes,

There was opposition. There
were those who felt that living
in Trowell’s black spot, The
Forge, two gloomy blocks of
buildings with no proper sanita-

tion, no indoor water supply and ~

connected to the rest of Trowell

across tffe railway lines only by

a pot-holed dirt track, was no
cause for festivity, ‘

Even without the inhabitants
of The Forge, there was enough
Opposition to Trowell’s festival to
vote down the levying of a special
rate to finance it.

For Trowell had no particular
community spirit. Most. of its
inhabitants work outside the
village, in the iron works, in the
Ilkeston hosiery factories and in
Nottingham’s light industries.
And most of them prefer for their
evening amusements something
better than ‘the imperfect dance
floor and amateur dance band
talent to be found in Trowell
Parish Hall.

Now, thanks to the hard Work
which national fame has impos-
ed, Trowell is developing the
community spirit its Festival or-
ganizers. claimed for it. The
villagers are thoroughly enjoy-
ing ‘their own festival and they
plan to make many of this year’s
festival items into annual events.
A folk-dancing group is being
formed and The Frolics will un-
doubtedly perform for years to
come until the’ villagers know the
company’s repertoire by heart.

* * *

Trowell folk want to keep this
new-found sense of community.
They can only do that if there
is peace,

Trowell people have discovered
what they didn’t know before—
that by geting together and mak-
ing an effort they can produce a
creditable concert party. They
are excited by the discovery.

To enjoy it they make the fur-
ther discovery that if they get
together and make an effort, and
if the 1,600 other Festival towns
and villages in Britain do the
Same, they can keep their coun-
try out of war. |

If they apply that lesson
Trowell and its Frolics may yet
save Britain, ;

—PATRICK GOLDING.

GUIDE TO GOOD READING

Two authors betray
their earlier promise

IRWIN SHAW: and Norman
Mailer were, in years gone by,
identified with progressive
thought and action. Shaw’s fa-
mous play Bury the Dead (which
he withdrew recently) and _ his
popular novel on the _ second
world war, The Young Lions, will
be remembered as outstanding
writing, as will Mailer’s powerful
The Naked and the Dead, also
a book that dealt with the last
war.

But both Shaw and Mailer suc-

cumbed to the war hysteria; they.

weakened before the onslaughts
of the unAmerican witchhunt.
Having done so, they felt it ne-
cessary to “purge” themselved
completely with two of the most
vicious anti-labor, pro-war novels
of the year.

Shaw produced Vhe Troubled
Air, which even the commercial
press cannot accept. Of . it,
Robert Friedman writes in the
New ‘York Daily Worker: “The
Troubled Air is not just a novel,
it’s. a_ belly-crawl, ia carefully-
contrived piece of insurance
against the day when a fascist
court may ask a well-fed writer

named Irwin Shaw to prove that.

he is not now nor has ever been
a believer in democracy.”

The story concerns a radio di-
rector who finds that five people
on his program must be fired be-
cause they are being listed as
“Communists.” Comments Fried-
man: “Shaw has to. invent ‘Com-
munists’ who are but unpleasant
parodies of human beings. “And

this wretched writer who sat
silent while they murdered Willie
McGee, dares to write that the
Communists concern themselves
with oppression of the Negro
people only to ‘kick up trouble’

(He) does not shrink~ on
page after page, from almost
verbatim plagiarism of anti-So-
viet slanders which infest the
Hearst press and other journals.”

Mailer’s new novel Barbary
Shore, is on a similar anti-Com-
munist theme, the story of a
young ex-GI: writing a book on
socialism, an ex-Communist who
had been an FBI spy, and several

. other assorted characters bearing:

little relation to reality.

The comment of Cedric Bel-
frage, writing in the National
Guardian, is “Baffled by the un-
reality of every characted in the
book, one finally comes up with
the simple explanation: an orig-
inally honest writer turning his
back on one aspect of truth, ne-
cessarily turns his back on all
truth. Reverting to sheer infan-
tilism politically, he reverts to it
also in his portrayal of ordinary
life. . . . The first shock of find-
ing Mailer in the fetid cave of

Arthur’ Koestler is a great as if a.

brilliant and promising nephew

had been caught with his hand

in the till at the corner store.

Progressives will continue to hope

that the smell of the cave drives

Mailer back to the real. world,”
*k * *

IN A MUCH different vein is
Hopalong-Freud by Ira Wallach,

_ @ collection of parodies on Am-

erican literary fads, obtainable
here at the People’s Cooperative
Bookstore, 337 West Pender
Street. The title piece “Hlopalong-
Freud,” is a delightful take-off
of T, S. Eliot’s Cocktail Party

“ed to show informers and stool

and its Anglo-Catholic psycho-
therapy. Hemingway’s Over the
River And Into The Trees takes
the ribbing it deserves in “Out
of the Frying Pan And Into The
Soup.”

Wallach similarly strips the
pretenses from half a dozen other -
highly publicized authors with
his cutting wit, even though he
too rarely penetrates below the
surface of style and mannerisms:

The exception is his piece on
industrial psychiatry. In this
his purpose is not just to mock
the style of an author. He brings
the superficial ideas of psycho-
analysis up against the realities
of’ the ‘factory. Workers will be
amused to learn how the pseudo-
science of industrial psychiatry
views them, as reflected in Wal-
lach’s satirical version of an in-
dustrial psychiatrist’s report:

‘

“Subject (a drill-press oper-
ator) expressed usual revolt
syndrome against parental
authority by participating im
strike action against the cor-
poration or Father Image. In-
cident to the strike, patient and
others claim that the Father
Image had cut wages five per-
cent. This claim camouflaged
the mass revolt against pare?
tal authority, or the Father
Image, which was the genuine
motivation for the strike ac-
tion.”

For ‘lighter summer reading
iHopalong-Freud is a_ delightful
choice. 4

CAPSULE REVIEWS

A documentary

worth seeing

NANOOK OF THE NORTH pet

A 48-minute documentary of : .
the Canadian Arctic and the Esk
mo people. Filmed by Robert J:
Flaherty about 20 years ago, it
ranks among the finest document”
taries yet produced.

TOMAHAWK :
Stars Van Heflin in one of th
better historical westerns, show
ing something of the rapacious
treatment of, the Indians by 2”
expanding American ‘capitalism

SYMPHONIE PASTORALE

‘A moving story of a priest who
falls in love with the blind git!
he has adopted and reared and
the ensuing conflicts betwee?
them and his wife and son. Skil
full direction and superb photo
graphy won three awards for this
film at the Cannes Film Festival:

I-WAS A COMMUNIST
FOR THE FBI 3
Once, film producers attemP

pigeons for what they are—39
in The Informer and, more T&
cently, the British picture, Han8- —
man’s House. Now Hollywood
takes the boastings of an FB
stool, Matt Cvetic, and fails dis
mally in its attempts to cast te
in an heroic mold. For most

people. Jack London’s classic
definition of a tool is g00?
enough. { ee

————n

STANTON, MUNRO & DEAN
Barristers - Solicitors

FORD BUILDING
(Corner Main & Hastings Sts.)
MARINE 5746

SUITE 515

- Notaries. :
198 FE. HASTINGS

anaes

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY. 13, 1951 — PAGE 1