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BARD TO BE HONORED. Scotland’s ploughman poet, Robert
Burns, was born January 25, 1759. This year his. memory will be
honored at a Burns concert and supper at the Capitol Hill Commun
ity Hall, Howard and Hastings Sts., North Burnaby. The concert,
which starts at 8 p.m., will feature a talk by Tom McEwen, the Mile
stones and other excellent talent. Tickets are $1.50. Reserve by phon-

wide variety of plays

The Metropolitan Co-operative
Theatre Society, which has been
Making a name for itself in Van-
Couver, announced last week its
Program for the second half of
the 1964-65 season at Metro
Theatre Centre, 1370 S.W.
Marine Drive,

“Babes in the Wood” which
winds up Saturday, Jan, 16th,
will be succeeded by the follow-
ing productions:

Jan, 22-30; “Blithe Spirit,” by
Noel Coward, will be presented

by the Richm ond Community
Theatre,

Feb, 5-13; “Arms andthe Man,”
by George Bernard Shaw, This

Comedy will be presented by the
Emerald Players,

New Party

H.D,, ARROW PARK, B.C.,
Writes: Robert Thompson’s pro-
Posed formation of a new“centre
Tight” political party for Canada
Points up the complete disrespect
for truth by many of Canada’s
elected politicians,

Coming as it does when the
Liberal ang Tory parties have
aS representatives of the “right-
wing element of our society,
together with the national Social
Credit party, failed to win any
Tespect, as such, it must be
estimated that this Thompson

Centre right” proposal seeks to
Unite all the discredited elements
of these parties into some new

Feb, 19-27: “The Crucible,”
Arthur Miller’s powerful play
against witch-hunts, It will be
presented by the Vancouver
Theatre Guild,

March 5-13:“Bernadine,” which
will be presented by the Vagabond
Players,

March 19-27: “The Mikado,”
popular Gilbert and Sullivan pro-
duction which will be put on by
the Greater Vancouver Operatic

Society,

In April, three productions will
be offered, “Twilight Walk,” a
murder-mystery; “Send Me No
Flowers,” bythe Vancouver Little
Theatre; and “The White Horse
Inn,” a musical comedy by the
North Shore Light OperaSociety.

shining camouflage, a la Barry
Goldwater?

Mr, Thompson’s attachment
of a “centre -to-centre right”
party is only to make more palat-

able the unholy hoped-for unity |

of the exploiters of Canadian
effort and intellect, Even our
own Premier Bennett repudiates
the word “right” and the proposed
“centre-right” party. No doubt
this is due to the inherent re-
pugnance of an ever-increasing
number of Canadians to a Gold-
water caricature in our political
life,

In a society where modern in-
dustry forces more and more
people together, and we become
more interdependent on one an-
other, and where nations them-
selves become interdependent,
Socialism provides the only an-
swer, not more parties of the
“centre-right” variety,

Let us hope the expressed
desires of the Thompsons, Dief-
enbakers, Pearsons, Goldwaters
et al will soon be classified as
they should—on the garbage can
of history!

Gripping, terrifying film
with a frightening impact

he most depressing aspect

| of the kind of cinema that
comes from Hollywood and its
counterparts is. that no matter
how serious its content, no film
must ever fail to build in box-
office come-ons,

Even aserious political picture
is required to intersperse enough
stereotyped purple fiction to * en-
tertain,” So says Mr. Moneybags,
imposing his greedy lack oftaste
on the rest of us, Still, we cannot
place the entire blame on him;
he too is restricted by the ado-
lescent mental age of the U,S,
public, an arrested development
he helps to perpetuate,

That is why uncompromising
films — real “art films” that

_ tackle the truth—almost never

happen in that country but have
to be imported from more mature
countries,

These thoughts are called forth
by Fail Safe, inits political argu-
ment a stern polemic against the
inherent tragedy of the arms
race; the cas ea - dominated
monster of “preparedness,”

Yet before the first five min-
utes are up, we’ve had an un-
necessary and contrived scene
with a tart getting her face
slapped and a “prophetic dream”
which . . . well, you know how
they go.

Director Daniel Mann makes
as short shrift of them as he
can, and what happens in most
of the rest of the film is dyna-

mite, It may not be as brilliant
as Dr, Strangelové (except the
final montage culminating in the ‘
H-bombing of New York) but

with straight treatment rather
than satire, it carries a fright-
ening impact,

A nuclear -strike against the
Soviet Union is triggered by me-
chanical malfunction, When the
error proves irreversible, nego-
tiations are initiated by the U,S,
president (Henry Fonda) with the
Soviet premier, who listens to
reason and holds back massive
retaliation, In the end, however,
Moscow is bombed and New York
must meet the same fate to avoid
nuclear war and universal de-
struction,

The point is made and under-
scored that the more complex
machines become, the more
prone to subtle malfunctions; the
more efficient they become, the
more they react too fast for
human reasoning to counter-bal-
ance the consequences,

If they comprise a system for
making war it is only a matter
of time until the machines win,

Fail Safe is a gripping film
and terrifying, It is a direct plea
for sanity in a world on the brink
of destroying itself, It says firm-
ly to the audience: the arms
race, hates and suspicions must
be replaced by peace!

—N.E. Story

Soviet U

nion and

W.W. 2

THE SECOND WORLD WAR:
by G. Deborin; Progress Publishers,
Moscou, $2.25.

OPERATION BARBAROSSA,
The Battle for Moscow 1941’ by
Ronald Seth; Copp Clarke Lid.,
$5.50.

itler’s idiocy, “General

Winter” and Zhukov’s de-
fense tactics were responsible
for the saving of Moscow, ac-
cording to Ronald Seth, describ-
ed in the publisher’s blurb as
“an expert in military intelli-
gence,”

An understanding of war re-
quires more than a knowledge
of military strategy and tactics;
a grasp of politics and econom-
ics are at least of equal impor-

tance. Herein lies Seth’s weak-
ness — in contrast to Soviet
author G, Deborin,

“No appreciation of the Sec-
ond World War, its course and
outcome, its results andlessons,
will be correct if it overlooks

Headquarters — left for Kuibish-
ev, 500 miles to the east. On
Oct, 19 the Defense Commit-
tee announced a state of siege
in Moscow and the adjacent areas.

“It took supreme courage,
combat skill and immense will-

the role played in it by the Power to withstand the ferocious

people,” says Deborin in his
book, a politico- military survey.
“This is why the story of the
greatest war in history is not
a story of military operations
alone,

In the middle of October 1941,
the Soviet government — with
the exception of Stalin and other
members of the Defense Com-
mittee and Supreme Command

This monument to the great Battle of Stalingrad is being built on the
legendary Mamai mound in the city of Voluograd. It personifies the heroic
struggle of the Soviet people against German fuscism.

German onslaught,” writes De-
borin. “The Soviet troops stood
their ground, Moscow’s popula-
tion pitched in might and main,
More than 50,000 citizens came
out to build fortifications in and
around Moscow.

The first nazi offensive against
Moscow foundered; in despera-
tion the Germans decided to
mount a second, Again they were
badly mauled, and the Soviet
Command began preparing a
counter-offensive, When they
launched devasting counter-
blows which threw Hitler’s for-
ces back some 200 miles, the
legend of nazi “invincibility” was
smashed for all time,

Seth’s book is valuable to mil-
itary buffs because it includes
several detailed maps showing
how the major battles around
Moscow were fought,

Deborin, probing deeper into
the political aspects of the con-
flict, points out that the outcome
of the Moscow battle added to
the contradictions within the
fascist coalition; it also ushered
in a new stage in the liberation
movement of the European
peoples,

In The Second World War,
author Deborin attempts, in 547
pages, to cover the political and
military scene from Munich to
Japan’s surrender,

—Bert Whyte

January 15, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9