REVIEWS

Remake of “42 farce
Survives time change

TO BE OR NOT TO BE Starring Anne
Bancroft, Mel Brooks, Tim Matheson and -
Jose Ferrer. Directed by Alan Johnson.
At local theatres.

Imagine, if you can, fun, hilarity and
clowning in the maddest fashion, causing
howls and screams of laughter — in 1941
when Hilter’s Nazis first bombed and then
took over Warsaw.

There is a fair measure of success in this
attempt, even for those of us who so
painfully — even from a safe distance —
heard daily of the atrocities.

It isa satirical farce, a sharp lampoon of
the pomposity, the larger than life formali-
ties of Nazi authoritarianism. Most impor-
tant of all are the marvelous performances
by Anne Bancroft, followed closely by her
husband and co-star Mel Brooks, Jose
Ferrer and Tim Matheson, and some great
satirical clowning by the various per-
formers who, as bumbling, outrageous
Nazis, stumble over each other.

What we do not see, however, is when
they didn’t stumble, but mercilessly killed
thousands upon thousands of helpless
men, women and children.

Yet, in this quite mad farce, this is not
forgotten, and when they are able, the
characters involved help the Nazi’s would-

be victims to escape at the end, when they
themselves fly to England.

This mad and uproarious film was first
written in 1942 by Edwin Justus Mayer,
from a story by Melchior Lengyel,
directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Old timers
might remember Jack Benny and Carol
Lombard in the roles now played by
Brooks and Bancroft. How close the cur-
rent production follows the original I can’t
recall, but it couldn’t have been more
wildly farcical and complicated.

Briefly this is today’s fun: the Bronski

Films

Theatre in Warsaw, in 1941, was famous,
owned and run by Frederick and Anna
Bronski (Brooks and Bancroft), its stars.
When Brooks is doing his “‘Variations on
Hamlet” and comes to that part of the
soliloquy “to be or not be” he is outraged
when a handsome young man (Tim
Matheson) in the third row gets up and
begins to leave. Little does he know the
young man has just received a note from
his wife (Bancroft), in reply to his nightly
gifts of flowers, to visit her in her dressing
room.

from To Be or Not to Be.

That starts the triangle. The quadran-
gles, septangles and innumerable far more
hilarious tangles develop rapidly when the
Nazis bomb, occupy and attempt to use a
Polish defector-double agent to reveal the
Polish underground.

Polish defector Professor Ziletski (Jose
Ferrer) is disclosed by Bancroft’s ardent
pursuer, the Polish aviator (Matheson)
and from here on it’s too complicated to
recount. But hokum, thrills, the saving of
Jewish children and a Polish homosexual

Anne Bancroft and Mei Brooks as Anna and Frederick Bronski try to burn a Paper in a scene 4

at
all due for death become our heroic pair’s —
mission. Needless to say they succeed.
It’s a fun movie. Brook’s broadly satiri- —
cal imitation of Nazis including Hitler |
almost equal Bancroft’s truly slick —
performance — all in all for younger ~
people and those who can forget what —
really went on, it’s better than most of its —
genre.
—Lester Cole —
Lester Cole is the film critic for the —
People’s World and one of the Hollywood —

Ten.
—

a(t? Books

Disarmament
Stats updated

The controversy surrounding the present Cold War and arms
race is certainly the most critical debate in human history. It tends
to be fought somewhat one-sidedly, however, in the Canadian mass
media and political arena. What passes for objective analysis in the
daily press is often found to be, upon examination, mindless
sensationalism.

A series of gross distortions concerning the intentions of the
supposed “adversary”, the USSR, have taken hold, buttressed by
wild-eyed assessments of Soviet military strength. The Soviet peo-
ple, and the Soviet armed forces in particular, have been invested
with a mythologized aura of “evil” — a convenient fiction which
has served to rationalize the polices of arms build-up and confron-
tation emanating from “our” side.

A couple of years ago the Soviet government, alarmed by the
depths of Western rhetoric, undertook to set the record straight on
a number of points. The so-called Beast itself — the Soviet
Army — was tured loose to state its own case in a booklet entitled
Whence the Threat the Peace. Drawing largely on Western sources,
it frankly discussed issues of strategic doctrine, the military balance
and arms control. It addressed itself directly to questions and
arguments that had been raised by the Western side.

Now the Soviet military has issued a thoroughly revised and
updated booklet entitled Disarmament: Who’s Against? Like its
predecessor, it is much less of a polemic than it is an analytical,
nuts-and-bolts discussion of the current state of international rela-
tions, the arms race, and Soviet proposals for detente and
disarmament.

Disarmament: Who’s Against? is more extensive than the earlier
booklet. It contains a chapter on the history of arms control —

including the disappointments of the past two years in the INF and
START negotiations. There is also a detailed examination of the
Eurostrategic balance, and the consequences flowing from
deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles. Further chapters
cover the conventional balance, the arms race in space, chemical

and bacteriological weapons and the political question of collective

security.

Although it represents a distinctly Soviet viewpoint, its frank and
detailed treatment of the issues make it quite useful as a general
introduction to the whole complex and difficult debate surrounding
the arms race. It is definitely indispensable reading for anyone who
is Striving to maintain a balanced, objective view in today’s cold,
cold climate.

— Fred Weir

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 25, 1984

Workers paid the cost |
as M-B built its empire

EMPIRE: IN WOOD. By Donald MacKay. Paper $9.95.

For an understanding of how MacMillan-Bloedel
became the biggest and most powerful lumber, ply-
wood, pulp and paper company in B.C. this book is
essential reading. While reading it I learned a great

' deal about the inner workings of the world of “free

enterprise” as it is practiced among the power brokers
who control this industry, the key economic power in
our province.

I started work in the old Great Central sawmill of
Bloedel, Stewart and Welch, M-B’s predecessor, on
Valentines Day in 1941. I left Dec. 1, 1983. Altogether
I worked for the company for 42 years.

It was always a question to me how all these

_ Mergers and takeovers happened, how it was that

Bloedels, Powell River and so many others had hap-
pened to come under the influence and power of the
H-R. MacMillan empire and become in fact absorbed
by them with all their assets, their timber holdings,
their management and staff personnel and particu-
larly their directors and key figures.

This book explains all this very well. In fact M-B
turned out to be an expanded H.R. MacMillan com-
pany encompassing all of the others. The management
and directors’ positions, practically speaking, became
MacMillan positions with all of the others resigning,
retiring, or being squeezed out in the many shuffles
which went on over the years.

The author, Donald MacKay, goes on to explain
how M-B became victim itself of corporate takeovers,
from the CP Investments bid which was stopped by
Bill Bennett, through the takeover by Noranda —
itself taken over by Brascade — and finally the
takeover of Noranda, Brascade and M-B by Edper
Investments, a holding company controlled by the
Bronfmans, owners of the Seagram’s empire. Thus
M-B, a giant in its own right, became part of a
monopoly which probably controls more wealth than
most governments in the world.

The most interesting part to me was the section
dealing with the last 25 years during which time an
aging H.R. MacMillan was forced to give up his
former direction of the company. All of the longer
term employees will remember the succession of men
who became board chairmen and chief executive

cS
a
3

officers of the company during the sixties and seve”
ties, including such men as J.E. Richardson, J.¥:
Clyne, Robert Bonner, D.W. Timmis and later
Calvert Knudsen. :
The book chronicles the bad decisions and mis
management by the various men who occupied tht
chief executive positions — bad decisions which ha¢
a profound effect on the province as well as the co
pany and its employees. :
Those decisions included expanding on an intern@
tional scale, buying up companies in Europe, Lat!
America and Malaysia. In one instance, $22 milliot
had to be written off on a German company in whic!
M-B had invested after it began to lose money. __
While money which came from the B.C. mills wa
being squandered by dabbling in shipping and oth!
projects, the mills and facilities in B.C. were wearin
out and the money needed to replace them was pal
out to cover losses in other businesses and to acquift
companies in other countries bringing no return to tht
company or the province, and in particular to tht

—

= if

employees. Now we see the real tragedy of it all
Chemainus is closed down permanently, Vanply !
down and at best its future is uncertain, Somass an(
White Pine mills are both out of date and there i

_apparently no money to replace them.

This books does more than any other I have read t¢
reveal the sickness which affected M-B in the last 2:
years. Some of our politicans and wise men in industr
would have us believe that big companies, bi
monopolies are all models of wisdom and efficiency
To any thinking reader, this book puts all that to rest

Those who have seen their jobs evaporate when thi
mills in which they have worked are permanent}
closed down will see that those who hold that becaus
a big company controls our timber, our jobs and ou
future will be secure, will think again and perhap'
realize that after all it is workers who suffer the miser,
which is dealt out when a company whose main objec
tive is the pursuit of profit finds itself in difficulty. /

’ little reading between the lines in Empire in Wood wil

show all this very clearly. |
— George McKnigh