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Historical film first Albanian
production to be shown in city

OCAL film news is good
again this week — you have
a choice!

Skanderbeg, showing at the
Hastings Theatre, is the first
Albanian film to be shown in
Vancouver. Winner of the
Cannes Film Festival’s Grand
Prize in 1954, it is a joint: Mos-
film-New Albania Production
under Sergei Yutkevich and di-
rected by M. Anjaparidze,

Skanderbeg (A. Khorava)
Was a great 15th century lead-
er in the Albanian national
Struggle against the invading
Turks. Donika is played by
Albanian actress, Besa Imami.

This 98-minute color produc-
tion promises a sweeping his-
torical canvas in the epic So-
viet tradition, combined with
a vivid introduction to a rela-

CNR DISPLAY

tively unknown but colorful
and courageous people.
xt 5 50

Second choice this week, is
return of another historical
film of epic stature: Lawrence
Olivier’s Richard II, probably
the greatest artistic contribu-
tion yet of the English screen.

Richard WI is rather less
tightly knit than Shakespeare’s
best but it is still a great play.
In it we find perhaps his most
lucid exposure of feudal ideol-
ogy, exploding the myth of
royalty’s infallibility and
Christian charity.

Olivier sketches in Richard’s
physical and psychological de-
formities, his crafty scheming,
with exquisite clarity. We
perceive his suavity and cruel-
ty, the note of hysteria which

Museum Train will -
make centennial tour

HE Canadian National Rail-
Ways Museum Train, only
one of its kind in the world,
will tour the province during
centennial celebrations next
year, the B.C. Centennial Com-
mittee announced this week.
_ The Museum Train, which
includes three locomotives and
SIX cars, will be one of the
main attractions of the many
centennial features scheduled

~ HUB HUMOR

yale,

“Don't you think you've had
enough lemonade?"

STETSON, G.W.G., STAN-
FIELDS, ARROW. Just a few
of the nationally reliable lines
Sold by THE HUB LTD. Also
Suits, Jackets, Slacks and
on FREE

x urnishings all
CREDIT TERMS.

AX

LTO
45 EAST HASTINGS

for 1958. The three motive
power units in the Museum
Train are old 247, a “saddle
tank switcher’; No. 40, a coal
burner made in 1872 and con-
verted to wood in 1903; and
one of the last “Mogul-type”’
engines built.

Three of the six cars, the
diner, coach and sleeper, have
been perfectly restored to their
gas-lit glory of the days when
hoop skirts were the height
of fashion. The other three
contain displays of more than
100 colorful years of railway
progress,

Exhibits include a piece of
wooden rail — called a snake
rail because it would come
loose and bend up. to pierce
the bottom of railway car-
riages — used for the first
railway in British North Am-
erica, in Quebec in 1836. There
are displays of old menus,
maps and waybills.

There is also the “daddy of
the diesel,” a four cylinder
engine that powered the diesel-
electric car that-pioneered the
diesel age in railroading. De-
signed by the CNR, these units
were the forerunners of the
diesel giants now speeding over
rails in all parts of the world.

FLAMING HISTORY!

edges his rasping tones.
Most striking is Olivier’s
technique of shooting Richard’s
soliloquies in single takes, the
camera assuming a vitality of
its own as Richard restlessly
weaves an hypnotic spell. Sur-
prisingly enough, however, the
final battle sequence is episodic
rather than panoramic.

tt x x
A final word of advice. The
Hastings is now functioning

mainly as what the trade calls
an “art theatre.” Not only has
it been providing films which
otherwise would not be shown
locally, but its competition (it
would seem) has even forced
the Studio to better things.

Unfortunately, it is not al-
ways possible to know in ad-
vance whether films are worth-
while; most of the German
films were not.

For instance, a modest. little
Italian production called The
Bandit was shown last week.
Advance information indicated,
aside from the .presence of
Anna Magnani, nothing but a
“cops and robbers” tale. Ac-
tually, The Bandit was a real-
istic and human document of
post-war Italy.

My advice is, have confi-
dence in the Hastings Theatre’s
programs — at least until a
revised policy is indicated.

Also recommended: Friendly
Persuasion, Lust For Life.

Watch for the film Garment
Jungle when it comes this
way. It is a pro-labor picture,
one of the few made in Holly-
wood which mentions a labor
union in a friendly way.

The union is the Interna-
tional Ladies Garment Work-
ers Union, and the story is
of ‘the attempt of the union
to organize the tiny minority
of gangster-protected non-un-
ion shops.

Lee Cobb plays the role of
a union-hating boss who for
15 years has paid out money
to Murder Incorporated to
maintain his open shop.

The ILGWU, in its union
paper, says of Garment Jungle:

“Shop scenes are realistic,
dialogue rings with the truth
of a tape recorder .. .it is a
film which should be seen by

every worker, every citizen
who is anxious to derive a

better understanding of what
unions are about, what strikes
are about, what labor racket-
eering is about.”

N. E. STORY

BARBARIC SPECTACLE!

in the epic tradition of Alexander Nevsky & Peter Ist !

ABTRINO PRESENTS

EA GKANDERBEG

IN MAGICOLOUR

ne MIGHTY WARRIOR OF ANCIENT ALBANIA

fod
THURSDAY :
FRIDAY —-suawaayau9
SATURDAY

RUSSIAN DIALOGUE » ENGLISH TITLES

HASTINGS

20 WEST HASTINGS MU3-3726

* Top honors in the BC. Drama Festival have been won

by theYellow Point Drama Group with their produc-
tion of Sganarelle. Awards for best supporting roles went
to Marjorie Montzuma of the Dawson Creek group, seen
above receiving her trophy from Sir Robert Holland, and Al
Kozlik of the Burnaby Players.

RADIO-TV

Victoria writer to talk

on B.C. river steamers

“E IT’S difficult to think of
Revelstoke as having once
been a major port, it’s harder
still to think of other towns
and cities much further inland
as having been ports,” says
Edgar Smith, Victoria writer
and broadcaster, in his radio
talk Last of the Columbia
River Steamers, to be heard
over the CBC network this
coming Monday and Tuesday,
June 17 and 18, at 7.20 p.m.,

“The captains and crews of
the river steamers .were as
hard bitten and driving as
those on deepsea vessels
Crews were sometimes com-
pelled to work 48 to 70 hours
without sleep. On the Lytton,
for instance, no sleeping quar-
ters were provided for the
crew.

“Passengers were well aware
that card sharpers and pro-
fessional gamblers travelled
the steamboats regularly.

“Jeremy Grace was an Am-
erican gambler who disguised
himself as a parson with a
passion for poker who played
only that he might give his
winnings to charity.

“T can’t vouch for the accur-
acy of the yarn but the ‘story
was once

caught cheating and was mar-

+ ~ « Tare wv
goes that Jeremy
1

ooned on a sandbar after hav-
ing been given the cust
bottle of whisky and
loaves of bread.

“Jeremy was rescued by a
band of Indians decidedly hos-
tile in.-manner, so he stopped
acting his role and played it
for all he was worth. He
rolled his eyes, he threw out
his arms, he hammered the
air and captured his audience
to such good effect that with-
in a week he led the whole
tribe of 200 men, women and
children, to the nearest mis-
sionary church to be baptised
— and halfway through the
ceremony he vanished.”

The second of Smith’s two
talks tells of the Beaver, a
small paddle steamer (first
steamship to cross the Atlantic,
first to sail ar :
and the first to enter
cific Ocean) which wa
ed on the rocks of
Inlet outside Vancouver Har-
bor.

JUNE 14, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 13

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