FILMS

The White-

Haired Girl

Classic's first choice

TS British Columbia prem-
iere of the now internation-
ally acclaimed Chinese movie,
The White-Haired Girl, to be
given in Vancouver this Sun-
day, October 16, is an outstand-
ing event in local screen art.
Sponsored by the Classic Film
Society, it is the first feature-
length film from People’s China
(it runs 2 hours, 15 minutes)
to be shown in North America.

Its enormous dramatic im-
pact and artistic integration
places The White-Haired Girl
among the world’s great films,
a striking accomplishment for
a pioneer film industry. It was
released within two years of
The Bridge (1949), New China’s
first feature-length film.

The White-Haired Girl is
based on the first and most
popular modern Chinese opera,
which, in turn, was founded on
an actual event typifying the
transition from the old. society
to the new.

This folk opera, a collective
work of the Yu Han Art Acad-
emy. in Yenan, was written by
Ho Ching-chih and Ting née
First produced in 1945, it un-
derwent revisions through pre-
sentations to audiences until its
final draft in 1949. Three years
later it won a Stalin Prize.

. The film is a free adaption
of the opera, utilizing. the dy-
namic range of the camera. The
occasional lapses into staginess
‘and obvious. technical devices,
even with the film’s leisurely
rhythm, never hamper dram-
atic growth.

The music is traditional Chin-
ese fused with European har-
mony, refreshingly original and
immediately appealing. It sug-
gests the line of modern de-
velopment of -China’s_ great
musical heritage,
from the static confines of the
old society.

In the spirit of Chinese tra-
dition, The White-Haired Girl
is more spoken than = sung
drama. Tien Hua’s deeply sin-
cere characterization of Hsi

Erh, the white-haired girl, is
a triumph of dramatic art,
ranging from stark tragedy to
the tenderness of young love,

now freed

Tien Hua (right), start of The White-Haired Girl, is seen here

from pathos to proud struggle.
Other performances, especially
her peasant father (Chang
Shou-wei)), are fully worthy of
her.

The utter villainy of Landlord
Huang (Chen Chiang) and his
bailiff Mu (Li Jen-lin) is a
source of uneasiness, however.
The forcefully naive evil of
their makeup, speech, expres-
sion, actions, is entirely two-
dimensional. No doubt can ever
exist but that they will come
to a bad end. — ‘

As a powerful expression of
the spirit which has fashioned
New China, and for its -artis-
tic stature, The White-Haired
Girl jis the outstanding film
event of the season.

x os x

Sadko, the brilliant Soviet
screening of Rimsky Korsakov’s
1896 opera, is making a return
appearance in this province.

The opera itself is one of the
most popular in the Russian
repertoire, a sparkling treat-
ment of folkish themes in story
and music — with modern par-
allels.

The colorfully imaginative
movie deals quite freely with
the opera’s story. Neverthe-
less, the many outstanding
photographic realizations, crowd
scenes, individual roles, and the
singing — wonderful solo and
choral Russian singing — make
a memorable and highly enjoy-
able experience.

|
N. E. STORY

THIS WILL KILL YOU

Mexican art display

“No Mexican artist can ig-
nore the rich prehispanic heri-
tage that still lives in his best
creations,” says the Taller de
Grafica Popular of Mexico

whose work will be on display
at Pender Auditorium October
26-28. . The Mayan ruins at
Chichen Itza in Yucutan (above)
have inspired many artists,
notably Antonion Franco.

Now Hollywood's doing
Mocbeth gangster film

eS murder and this will kill
you too: Shakespeare’s Mac-
beth is being done as a gang-
ster film. :
Ruth Roman will portray
Lady- Macbeth as a “gun moll”
named Lily Macbeth. Paul
Douglas will be her husband,

gangster Joe Macbeth. A card-
reading fortune teller will be
the three witches rolled into
one. King Duncan is Big Dun-:
can.

“We're doing Macbeth on a
sex basis,” Miss Roman explain-

with M. F. Kovalyeva, Soviet film actress, at an international

film festival in Prague.

.

ed recently. “I’m playing a
slut. Our boy Joe is egged on
by Lily to get ahead asa gang-
ster and becomes king of the
gang. But when he is king, he
turns yellow and leaves all the
killing to Lily. Ill do all my
killing with a revolver. We
thought a knife would be too
bloody. ‘ ;

“We're going to shoot some
of the scenes in Scotland. We
could have done it in Holly-
wood, but we want that touch
of authenticity.”

pow ice: 5g

Bunk! Bunk! All Bunk! is
the word — and it recalls the
story of the producer who threw
a writer out of his office be-
cause he submitted a synopsis
about “a rich and powerful
man who falls in love with his
brother’s wife, murders his
brother and marries her. The
son of the murdered man broods
and goes nutty. He falls in
love with a girl who gets so
worried about everything that

she goes crazy. The girl’s bro-'

ther and her lover stab each
other. to death. The mother
takes poison and the son, just
before he dies, stabs and kills
his stepfather.”

“You call that a plot,” the
producer stormed. “It’s Bunk!
Bunk! All Bunk! That’s no
story. Nobody can make a show
out of that.”

“But it has made quite a lot
of money on the stage,” insist-
ed the author of the synopsis,
“under the name of Hamlet.”

DAVID PLATT

Greatest Englishman
of the 19th century —

T is nearly 60 years , since

William Morris, the English
poet and writer, died.

Books about him and_ his
work have been written at the
rate of about one a year ever
since the century began. E. P.
Thompson’s William. Morris —
Romantic to Revolutionary (ob-
tainable here at the People’s
Cooperative - Bookstore, © 337
West Pender Street, price $7.50
plus sales tax) is far and away
the best of all these.

It is also far and away the
biggest and fullest. It has to
be something like this size be-
cause it gives what every other
book in this century has skimp-
ed, the full account of Morris
as the leader of a revolutionary
party. -

Hence, for the first time, we
have here the full documented
story of the six-year Socialist
League from its beginnings in
December 1884.

Not only this, but all the So-
cialist bodies of the eighties
and early nineties, practically
all the well-known figures of
the time, together with the
biographies and activities of a
score of pioneers who had been
forgotten, come to life in these
pages. :

Most vividly, as in a chronicle
play, the men and women of
the socialist revival of 75 years
ago speak to us in their own
voices. :

The more the great company
of pioneers swells in these
pages (in contrast with the
child’s primer kind of sum-
mary usually served out to
readers), the more we -learn
from them the lessons that, in
a different epoch, can still be
applied to the political struggle
today. ;

Forty years after Morris’s

death, Bernard Shaw could
write of him:
“He towers greater and

‘greater above the horizon be-
neath which his best-adver-
tised contemporaries have dis-

- appeared.”

With E. P. Thompson we can
agree with the estimate that
singles out Morris, and under-
stand why at the British Com-
munist party’s cultural confer-
ence three years ago he was
hailed as “the greatest English-
man” of the late 19th century.

x bes m

The book is divided into four
parts. The first, dealing with
“William Morris and the Ro-
mantic Movement,” has the en-
ticing heading of its first chap-
ter, “Sir Launcelot and Mr.
Gradgrind.” Part two deals
with “The Years of Conflict.”

The third part, headed “Prac-
tical Socialism,” makes up near-
ly half the book and ends with
the death of Morris. The fourth
part contains a full argument
to enable the reader to assess
Morris at his worth.

.Painstaking work, years of
research, wide reading in the
subject, and above all an ac-
quaintance with the labor
movement and with the teach-
ings of Marxism have gone to
the making of this book.

All this was the more neces-
sary because. of the legends,
absurdities’ and flat “lies that
have been foisted upon the pub-
lic in so many previous books
and orations about Morris.

But in dealing faithfully with

some of these myth-mongers
Thompson at. the same time
presents a great amount of new
biographical material and puts
a new significance upon what
was already available.

5 8
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 14, 1955 — PAGE

‘

To read some of these splen-
did utterances, till now 10
buried in files or unpublis a
manuscripts and letters, & E
stimulus today in the strugel
against imperialism and wat

To ‘study the thoughts and
work of William Morris 1s 3
assent to E. P. Thompson's co?
clusion: '

“William Morris was the rs
creative artist of major st@
ure in the history of the wer
to take his stand, conscious!y
and without shadow of feats
promise, with the revolution”
ary working class; to pat :
pate in the day-to-day work 6)
building -the socialist _move
ment; to put his brain 4?
his genius at its disposal ™
the struggle. '

“In the socialist world Es
the future, Morris’s writings
and example will be remem
bered to England’s honor. 4

Some readers may not a¢
cept all of the author’s analys*
and conclusions, but even ia
should be grateful for what
has done. ; c

Certainly we may never he
get those pioneers who est
ed the teachings of Marx *
their fight against the curse
capitalism—and, greatest amon
them, the man who wrote:

Nay, cry aloud, and have
no fear, ;

We few against the world;

Arise, awake, the hope W®
bear

Against the curse is hurled.

R. PAGE ARNOT
—

BOOK FESTIVAL!

Friday, October 21

7.30 p.m.
PENDER AUDITORIUM

Entertainment, Refreshments

Book & Record Display

Saturday, Oct. 22

Opens 12.30 p.m.
Children’s Program - 2 P-™

Luncheon, Refreshments

10th Anniversary
BOOK SALE

2 DAYS ONLY
October 21 - 22

Lower Hall
Pender Auditorium

9 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Large Reductions
Plus 10% Off All Books

Progressive-Marxist —
Selections

PEOPLE'S
COOPERATIVE
BOOKSTORE

MA. 5836
a

337 W. Pender -