’ .stars of the Bolshoi,

*

Artists. to visit Canada

East - West cultural
exchanges planned

a the new plans of the Soviet
government work out this

year as expected, the world will
see an exchange of East-West

~ cultural expression on a grand

scale and one in which

Canada will share.

Minister of Culture Nikolai
Mikhailov recently told the
press corps in London he hopes
Soviet audiences will soon hear
such orchestras as the Philadel-
phia and London Philharmonic;
leading artists of the New York

: Metropolitan Opera; such out-
. Standing artists as tenor Jan

Peerce, violinist Isaac. Stern,
pianist Arthur Rubenstein and

‘others from the U.S., Britain

and France.

He also wants an exchange of
Russian and Hollywood motion
pictures and proposed that each
country have a film festival.

(it was announced in New
York that Spyros P. Skouras,
,president of 20th Century-Fox

/ was conferring with the Soviet

embassy in order to arrange a
tour of the Soviet Union this
summer. He wants to introduce
Hoilywood’s CinemaScope pro-
cess—wWhith would make an in-

‘teresting comparison with the

Soviet wide-screen film intro-
duced in Moscow last year. Al-
ready in Moscow is the noted
New York impresario Sol Hurok -
who is engaging*leading Soviet
talent for U.S. performances.)

Mikhailov suggested that in
return he would like to send to
the U.S. the famed Moiseyev
folk dance ensemble which so
thrilled London last fall. He also
wants to send the Russian circus
to France and the Russian ballet
to Britain. He would add opera
musicians
and composers.

He said negotiations for many

. of these exchanges were already

progressing, and his ministry
would “do everything in its
power” to bring them to a suc-
cessful conclusion.

_ Mikhail Hrisko,

In 1955, Mikhailov reported,
over 2,500 Soviet cultural work-
ers went abroad. Soviet musici-
ans and artists, actors and com-
posers, film producers etc. visit-
ed 42 countries. About 2,200
foreign ‘cultural representatives

from 30 countries visited the_

Soviet Union during the same
period.

Looking ahead, . Mikhailov
gave some details of mutual
visits that are envisaged or are
in process of negotiation.

He said there would be an ex-
hibition of British painting in
Moscow in the near future, a
British film festival, a series of
concerts by British musicians.

Within 48 hours of Mikhai-
lov’s press ‘conference, represen-
tatives of British ballet arrived
in Moscow ‘to negotiate ex-
change visits between the Cov-
ent Garden and Bolshoi Theatre
ballet companies.

Moscow is inviting the class- ,

ical Peking opera, a theatre
company from Belgrade, large
groups of artists from India, the

Philadelphia Orchestra with its
conductor Ormandy, a group of

Egyptian film actors, the famous >

French actor-singer Yves Mon-
tand among other foreign cele-
brities.
x x *

Canada’s share in the great
cultural exchange will include
—in October—such world re-
nowned artists as pianist Emil
Gilels, violinist Igor Bezrodny,

tone of the Kiev Opera and Vera
Firsova, soprano of the Bolshoi.

In return, a number of leading
Canadian performers and dra-
matic groups have expressed
their interest in performing in

the USSR.

The exchanges are being
handled as commercial proposi-
tions.

Gibbons marks founding

Exhibition celebrates
philatelic centennial

A HUNDRED years of stamp
collecting was celebrated last
week when an exhibition was
opened in London by the fam-
ous firm of Stanley Gibbons,
first and largest stamp dealers
in the world, to mark their cen-
tenary.

-The exhibition was focused

on stamps on the British Em-
pire, giving seme fascinating

RECTOR CIGAR
‘Only Union Made Cigar in
Vancouver
Hand Rolled Finest in Dutch
& Havana Tobacco
SOLD AT HOTELS
or
214 Unior: St., Vancouver

wR ENE a ana Th i We ting

glimpses of when and how dif- ~

ferent parts of the world be-
came “red on the map” in the
19th century.

Here were the original stamps
for Trinidad, issued on the sail-
ing ship Lady McLeod, with
Lady McLeod’s picture and in-
itials in place of a flattering
profile of Queen Victoria.

Here were the stamps print-

ed in Mafeking during the seige, |

one with the head of Baden-
Powell on it, and alongside, a
note in Baden-Powell’s hand ex-

plaining that he did not order

this himself.
Here were those famous Cape
of Good Hope triangulars, upon
which the fortunes of the firm
of Stanley Gibbons were built.
Young Stanley, who had a little
counter for selling foreign
stamps in his father’s ‘drug
store in Plymouth, bought a
sackful of them from two sail-
ors for $25. F

He made $2,500 on the deal,
selling them at prices from 20
cents ‘a dozen to $1 stay

Z

leading bari«

*

Wallace of Winnipeg. The program is Canadian Scene.

©

The story of northern bush-flying which produced some of Canada’s finest pilots will be
told over the CBC’s Trans-Canada network this SATURN YS: March 25, at 2:30 p.m. by Lorne

Laurence Olivier’s eee TT
great performance, great tilm

: A CROWN is raised high—and
lowered onto the head of

Edward IV of England. “Long

live King Edward!” resounds
as private, wary reactions are
recorded. It is a triumphant
day, but all is evidently not
triumph.

Thus opens Sir Laurence Oli-
vier’s latest film, Richard Mil,
now playing at’
Theatre in Vancouver. It is
without doubt the finest Shake-
spearean movie yet made — ex-
-cepting only the non-dialogue
Soviet ballet-film, Romeo and
Juliet. Olivier’s .characteriza-
tion of Richard has no equal:

Advance publicity has made
much of the participation of no
less than five knights in the
film: Olivier, Ralph Richard-
son, John Gielgud, Cedric Hard-
wicke, and William Walton for
the music score.. They are in-
deed some of England’s most
talented, and invested to great,
good purpose-in a monumental
color epic.

Richard Ii is somewhat ramb-
ling, less tightly knit than
Shakespeare’s best, but it is
“still a great play. It contains
perhaps his most lucid exposure
of feudal ideology, exploding
the myth, of royalty’s infalli-
bility and Christian charity.

Thrown into the teeth of
Elizabethan censorship, Shake-
speare’s plays helped to free
“men’s minds from the trammels
of feudalism. and to prepare
their imagination for building
anew society. _

Opening with the coronation
of Edward, actually the last
scene of part three of Henry VI,
was a brilliant stroke. With
prompt dramatic vividness it
sets the stage, symbolically un-

. derscores the tragedy of Rich-

ard’s misguided triumph’ in his
later coronation, and makes an
effective prologue for Richard’s
soliloquy which would other-
wise be the opening scene.

This soliloquy, in common
- with those later, has many in-
teresting aspects. It is shot in
a single take with an imagina-
tive dexterity that permits no
wavering of the unified spell
Olivier is weaving. Richard
restlessly moves about the
throne room, and the camera
likewise with a vitality of its
own. :

the Studio —

Richard’s physical and psycho-
logical deformities, and his
plans, are sketched in with ex-
quisite clarity. We perceive his
suavity and cruelty, the note of
hysteria which edges his rasp-
ing tones.

The RiaLatic soliloquy is en-
_riched too, over its partially éon-

cealed form in Olivier’s earlier
Hamlet. Here he speaks naked-
ly and shamelessly, even inso-
lently, straight into the camera.
With this remarkable intimacy,
we find ourselves on terms of
understanding with this most
» complex of personalities with-
in the first quarter of on hour!

Although it is inescapable that
Richard’s basic gnawing evil is

his physical deformity in a
milieu which mocks such,
Shakespeare. underscores this

more carefully than the film.
Yet the scene where one of the
child princes prattles’ on his. de-
formity bares the ‘deepest well-
spring of Richard’s being.

‘ Olivier’s expression (height-
. ened by brilliant use of camera,

lighting and music) shocks with

a chilling image of unspeakable
and unforgettable malevolence
tempered with the mute tragedy
jof a wounded beast.

ee ee

Claire Bloom gives a gifted
portrayal of the tragic Lady
2 Anne, whose sudden change of

heart is .surely the most start-

ling — and most impossible to
portray — in dramatic litera-
ture. Were she less sweet and

more calculating or, perhaps,
more ingenuous, her submission
to Richard’s evil persuasions
might have had slightly greater
credibility.

John Gielgud delicately per-
sonalizes the good and pious
Clarence, despite the disability
of having many lines cut. Ralph
Richardson is a°glib and foxy
Buckingham, Richard’s chief co-
conspirator.

This is a full Richard Wi, only
slightly pruned and rearranged
for cinematic and dramatic ef-
fectiveness.

Cinematically, the action is
conceived on more conventiona
theatrical lines than we might
have wished, or expected in the
light of the film’s other profi-
ciencies. Even the concluding —
Battle of Bosworth Field (which
ended the Wars of the Roses 1?
1485), made to order for cine-
matic effect, remains a_ series
of episodes rather than a pan- —
orama. The final gequences
however, of Richard’s death
(“My kingdom for a horse”) at
the hands of foot soldiers has 4
shattering impact.

This is probably the greatest
artistic contribution yet of the
English screen,

N. E. STORY

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Reg. Price $7.00 ‘ ;
: Please add sales tax plus 15 cents postage on mail orders

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rrr.

_ MARCH 16, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PA
’

v