Audience

‘THE MOST outstanding thing
about the.Pauline Johnson Mem-
orial concert sponsored by New

Frontiers in Ukrainian Hall here

last Sunday was the wealth of
talent it disclosed and the new

-eoncept it offered of a theatre

in which this talent will have an
opportunity to grow and flourish.

- As Jack Scott who, with Mrs.

Kay Rankin, produced the con-
cert, pointed out, “this, in a

sense, is a revival: of the days
‘when Pauline Johnson and other

wellknown Canadian poets took
their works directly to their audi-
énces up and down the country,
and only by following in their
tradition can we help to restore

‘the heritage they have left us.”

Ray Gardner writes
H-bomb pamphlet

ANEW pamphlet by Ray Gard-

ner, chairman of B.C. Peace Coun-

cil, The Truth about the Hydro-
_.gen Bomb, is both timely and
forceful.

First edition of the pamphlet,

which came off the press the day _
_ before news of the Bikini blast
. Was made public, sold out in five
., days. ;
., A. revised edition will be off
. the press this week. This 16-page
booklet is, in fact, the layman’s
- complete handbook on the hydro-
“gen bomb from how it is made

to how it can be banned.

Tt sells for 10 cents and can be
obtained from B.C. Peace Coun-
cil, Room 41, 144 West Hastings,
Vancouver. i

ONE OF THE best films to
come to Vancouver in recent
months is the Soviet color film
Sadko, set to the music of Rimsky-
Korsakov, which opens at the
Hastings-Odeon this coming Mon-
day, April 5. ;

A folk tale, Sadko has some de-
lightful passages, one of which
shows the hero escaping from
the palace of the Tsar of the
Seas.

The Tsar, a large, bearded man,

given to tears, follows in a chari-
ot drawn by sea beasts, waving
a whip of seaweed in helpless
rage. ; \
The Tsar is afflicted with an
argumentative, strong - willed
Tsarina, plump and smiling, but
always determined to have the
last word. :

In these. circumstances the Tsar
of All the Seas—better known to
us as Neptune—is often driven to
his dog-fish for comfort. |

The film is based on a Russian
legend about a minstrel who sets
out in search of the White Bird
that will bring happiness to the
world. :

Sadko is the hero of a folk
tale, and therefore to him noth-
ing is impossible. He defeats
the rich merchants of Novgorod

who feast themselves and bully

the poor. He charms the beauti-
ful daughter of the Sea King with
his ‘songs. :

For possession of a phoenix,

the mythical bird risen from its

own ashes, he plays chess with a

acclaims

new Polson overture

The most eagerly awaited. item
on the program was the Pauline
Johnson overture specially writ-
ten by Arthur Polson. The young
and gifted Vancouver musician
more than measured up to his
audience’s expectations with a
composition in which the Native
Indian melodies that provided the
inspiration were skilfully inter-
woven with the pattern of sev-
_eral of Pauline Johnson’s poems.
The overture suffered from a lack
of adequate volume—it required
at least four violins and two
flutes—but the small orchestral
group nevertheless acquitted it-
self creditably in performing a
technically difficult composition.

This concert also presented the
first work of another Vancouver
musician, Searle Friedman, who
composed the music for Pauline
Johnson’s Toast to Vancouver,
sung by the choir with Helen
Osipoy in the solo-role.

Opening with Canadian Born
and linked by a narration, the
presentation ranged through the
best of Pauline Johnson’s works
—Give Us Barabbas, Once to
Every Man and Nation, Wolver-
ine, Beyond the Blue, Song My
Paddle Sings, Half Mast, Ballad
of Yada, Cry from an Indian Wife
(ably done. by Doreen Thomas)
and, The Cattle Thief.

Two modern composition, Louis
Riel and J. S. Wallace’s O Lovely
Land rounded out the two-hour
program.

The New Frontiers committee
announced this week that it plan-
nes to repeat the concert in
mid-May with a benefit perform-
ance for New Frontiers. — HAL
GRIFFIN. :

cunning oriental despot. He wins,
even though the tyrant. tries to
distract him by bringing troupes
of beautiful girls to dance round
the board.

‘ Finally he leaps from his ship
in a storm to visit the Sea Tsar
—and to appear in some remark-
ably well-photographed under-
water scenes.

The tale, like most folk tales,
has a moral. This is that people
can find happiness not by search-
ing the world but by making

things better at home.

The color is magnificent and
the acting good. The continuity
is sometimes a little jerky—per-
haps a result of cuts. :

We are given much of the com-

poser’s music for his opera based |

on the same legend. A few of

the best arias are included. But

the film is a fairy tale set to his

music and not the opera uself.
* * *

ONLY A worried and unhappy

nation could have produced From

Here to Eternity, a surprisingly —

interesting film made from a best-
selling novel of life in the U.S.
Army in Hawaii in the months be-
fore Pearl Harbor.

Montgomery Clift is a soldier
who loves the army but finds it
doesn’t love him when he re-
fuses to join the unit boxing
team. He is bullied, victimized,
given all kinds of extra duty.

His obstinacy is courageous, but
it is that of a man who refuses to

’

Spirit of the pioneer West

In this picture, “Ships that Pass on an Ocean of Grass,” Ted Hagell has captured the pioneering

spirit of the old West.

It is one of the fine pictures with which Hagell, who was the featured arti

ai the opening of Vancouver Art Gallery in 1932, illustrates his book, When the Grass Was Free, just.
published by Ryerson Press. Born and raised in Alberta, Hagell now lives in Toronto.

BOOKS

a .

Gallacher documents betrayal —
of right-wing Labor leaders

IT WOULD do a lot of people
good to read William Gallacher’s
new book, The Tyrants’ Might is
Passing, obtainable in Vancouver

at the People’s Cooperative Book-.

store, 337 West Pender, price
60 cents.

If only they could be made to
read it the work would serve as
a reminder to the right-wing lead-
ers of the British Labor party,
and of the CCF in this country,

Russian legend provides theme
for delightful new Soviet film

believe, in fact of all the facts,
that the thing he loves is corrupt.

His friend Maggio, played with
great appeal and strength by
Frank Sinatra, falls foul of a de-
tention camp sergeant and is
beaten to death.

The company commander is an
ambi ious incompetent whose wife
despises him. The first sergeant
is a professional soldier whose
competence in service matters
hides a fundamental lack of con-
fidence -in himself.-

The young soldier falls in love

‘with a cheap club hostess, who is

determined to marry middle-class
respectability to spite a former

_lover.

Nearly every character is vic-
ious, confused, frustrated or in-
adequate in some way for the de-
mands life makes.

‘From Here to Eternity is now
being ballyhooed around Vancou-

ver as an academy award “best .

Picture of the year.” As an un-
pleasant picture of life in a cor-
rupt and brutalized army unit,
and still more as a picture of Am-
erican society, it has the solid
ring of truth. But what gives the
film its feeling of suffocation is
that nobody joins with his fel-
lows to fight what he knows to be

‘wrong. There is no feeling that —

victims of injustice can do any-

thing about it except suffer. Or
at best- make individual demon-

strations of defiance. é

Ray Was ts Ring ae So tS Pst Geren. SATS ary sehen

of how the ideals of socialism
have been betrayed. «

Gallacher, for many years a
Communist member of the Brit-
ish House of Commons, chairman
of the British Communist party
and veteran working-class lead-
er, pulls no punches. He writes
from the heart with the passion-
ate conviction of the great pion-
eers of-the British labor move-
ment. i

And every word shows his faith
to be linked with a clear under-
standing of Marxism, the class
nature of society and the way for-
ward to socialism.

He shows that it is just this
lack of understanding that has
made the right wingers deny what
they once advocated:

“Someone may protest. These
men, the Labor leaders, in their
early years were enthusiastic ad-
vocates of socialism; they can’t
have turned right round and be-
come enemies of socialism.

“Yet that is exactly the effect
of what has happened. The so-
cialism they advocated was never
thought out. They had no theory
to guide them. They believed
that by a process of reforms
their*goal would be achieved
with ease.
thought. Now the reforms are
stopped, they’re stopped.

“They can‘t go forward, they
must go back and they must take
the movement back with them.
They can’t do a MacDonald and
Snowden. A second instalment
of that and the Communists and
the Lefts would take over. That’s
their ever-present dread. Can
they turn right round-about?”

In The Circus Arena

RUSSIAN DIALOGUE * ENGLISH TITLES

Starts MONDAY HASTINGS 5

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 2, 1954

That is what they_

*ALL THE MAGIC OF “STONE FLOWER”
ALL THE POWER OF “ALEXANDER NEVSKY”
“ALL THE ARTISTRY OF “GRAND CONCERT’

THE FABULOUS

wusic ey RIMSKY-KORSAKOFF

Starting with his defeat in the
British general election of 1959
Gallacher ranges over many SU!
jects. But whatever he is writin8
about he never loses the humal
touch.

Ordinary folk who have met
him may be surprised to find the!
names in print page by page Ww!
the “great.” ;

A chapter is devoted to™th®
lurid tales of Communist sabotag®
that appear in the’ press.

He shows how—with the aid o
the state legal system—these lie*
are spread by the enemies of 5%
cialism in an attempt to put 0
the day when the whole of.
working class will be unite
against them. a

Communists, he says, base thei!’
faith not on individuals carry}®
out spectacular acts of sabotas®
and political assassination, but 0?
the working class,

“There, and there alone,” }®
writes, “is the power that can ¢&
feat and overthrow the ruling &*
ploiting class of this or any othe
country.” ,

His last chapter is headed, “Z!°
Road to Life.” It sets forth the
British Communist party’s policy
for united action as it is state
“A Policy for Labor” and uré®&
all in the labor movement
study and discuss it.

The right-wing Labor leaders
have brought the movement 1? :
dead end. Such a policy as PY
forward by the Communists ©?
turn it back on the true road ee :
towards the future day when th

tyrants’ might will have passe?

' —LLEW GARDN

A NEW

MAGICOLOR §

MASTERPIECE

MAGICOLOR
‘ ; rey

es *