‘Peg school board
‘U.S. agent

INNIPEG’S school board
has illegally acted as an
agent of the United States

government in dropping a Com-
munist from a committee that
will study team teaching in two
U.S. cities, according to lawyer
Roland Penner. Penner has been
hired by Trustee Mary Kardash
who last week was removed
from the trip by a special meet-
ing of the school board.

Penner added that the board’s
action contravenes the Canadian
Bill of Rights. He also said that
the board had acted as an agent
of enforcement for a foreign}
country, by supposing to act on
laws which were passed by that
country.

Trustee Kardash had been
elected to this fact-finding com-
‘mittee without any dissent at a
regular board meeting on April
4. However, the board’s chair-
man, William Norrie, called the
_ Special meeting on the grounds
that as a Communist she would
not be able to enter the United
States unless she had approval
from U.S. immigration authori-
ties. :

During the debate at the spe-
cial meeting Mrs. Kardash was
supported by the four New De-
mocratic Party trustees but the

final vote saw her-removed from —

the portion of the committee’s
trip which involved U.S. cities.

An attempt bv one _ board
member to have Mrs. Kardash
completely excluded from the
trip was ruled out of order. Mrs.
Trott in making this proposal
said: “I believe as a matter of
principle that it is not the wish
of the people that a Communist
should be sent anywhere to re-
present the city or the school

board.”

Mrs. Kardash in the discussion
said the attempt to stop her
making the trip to the U.S. was
a denial of her rights as an elect-
ed member of the school board
and smacked of political discri-
mination. She argued that nei-
ther the board’s chairman nor
any other trustee knew whether
she would be turned back at
the U.S. border.

“I would be going as an elect-
ed official,’ she said, “and not
as a private citizen. Nothing
that I have heard here today
proves that I won’t be admitted
to the United States.” She also
said that if refused she would
expect the school board to stand
up for her.

The Winnipeg Labor Election

Committee, which backs Trustee--

Kardash for office, issued a state-

ment calling the board’s action

“gross political discrimination.”

“This dangerous precedent,”
it said, “must not be allowed
to pass by unchallenged. Unde-
mocratic United States laws can-

not be allowed to determine
which elected representative of
the Canadian people will be
chosen to perform official duties
in the U.S. The school board
decision, if allowed to go un-
challenged, means that all school
trustees in the future, all teach-
ers employed by the board, all
administrative staff will have
their political affiliations inves-
tigated before they can be select-
ed to perform official duties in
the United States.”

The LEC asks on whose
orders the special board meeting
was called, then comments: “If
it was an unsolicited act of petty
political vindictiveness and dis-
crimination it marks a new low
for Greater Winnipeg Election
Committee members and deser-
ves sharp condemnation. If it is
in response to pressure- from
American authorities to exclude
Trustee Kardash then the people
of Winnipeg have the right to
know, and the right to expect,
that the school board will resist
and reject such pressures.”

Countess of Hong Kong

COUNTESS From Hong

Kong is Charles Chaplin’s

first film in a decade and
only the second in which he has
not starred. (The other was A
Woman Of Paris, made 44 years
ago as a tribute to his favorite
leading Jady; Edna Purviance.)
Aside from new European inter-
ests and advancing years (Chap-
lin was 78 on April 16), prolong-
ed intellectual and emotional
preparation were no doubt ne-
cessary to make this transition.
It is not unlike the period from
City Lights (1931) to The Great
Dictator (1940), with Modern
Times in the middle, when
Chaplin reluctantly left behind
the little tramp and made the
transition to films with dialogue.
It is also worth remembering in
the present context that The
Great Dictator met outraged
protests, as much for disappear-
ance of Chaplin’s little fellow
as for the political content.

A Countess From Hong Kong
is a splendid film: funny, charm-
ing, wise, polished, characteris-
tic. If it is not Chaplin’s great-
est film, so what? Some have to
be better, some lesser. Countess
comes between the two—which
is tO say it is superior to the
overwhelming majority of films
from every other source.

The defensiveness of this re-
mark stems from the astonish-
ing reaction of film reviewers in
England where the film was
‘made and premiered, who have
panned it—panned it, I would
judge, largely because Chaplin
‘did not do what they thought he

should have done; panned it for
what he did not do while ignor-
ing his achievement. U.S. film
reviews were mixed, as was to
be expected. On the other hand,
critical reaction in France and
other countries, the reactions of
audiences and the more thought-
ful (in Britain too), has been en-
thusiastic, even wildly , enthu-
siastic; with the judicious res-
pect due one of the Twentieth
Century’s greatest creative art-
ists.

“The reviews of my pictures
have always been mixed,” Chap-
lin said in a London interview.
“But what shocked me about
the English reviews of the
‘Countess’ was the fact that
they were unanimous. And they
seemed so personal, an attack
on me.”

It’s not hard to explain the
British hostility: “avant garde”
bourgeois criticism which, being
rudderless, may be bang on
course but more often than not
is aimless in the extreme. More-
over, it takes special care not
to anchor in the “wrong” harbor.

The cult of simple “entertain-
ment” being much the worse
for wear these days, the cult of

* the slick and brittle is “in.” Old

fashioned human emotions and
honest relations are suspect in
this glittering new world—un-
less made “profound” by murky
shots from inside a bottle or
through the G-string of a Gold-
finger beauty.

As Chaplin observed, “It’s a
peculiar sort of desperation, a
somnambulism, a negation of

art, of any sort of simplicity.
When the swinging thing is
over, what will they have left?
I don’t believe there is such a
thing as fashion. Who the hell
creates the fashion anyway?”
A Countess From Hong Kong,
like all films of Chaplin’s ma-
turity, has strong - satirical

‘thrust, humanity and wisdom;

carried along by hilarious situ-
ations. Countess is also ad-
vanced, not in its thoroughly
polished but straightforward pro-
duction values, but in content
where it really counts. This is
not a reference to the progres-
sive ideas of a progressive think-
er, but to the thematic content
of Countess: “realistic treatment
of an incredible situation.”

The character and situation of
Hudson, the valet (Patrick Car-
gill), is as purely FUNNY as
anything Chaplin has done; but
on consideration you find pro-
found observation of the uni-
queness of human personality.
One may be treated like a
THING — a valet, a worker, a
what-have-you — but the hu-
man content is richer and more
significant than the “masters”
or the selfish can possibly con-
ceive. .

Countess is a must. And now
that Chaplin has bridged the
gap from director-star to stay-
ing behind the camera (as con-
cession to age), his 82nd film
should be along sooner than 10
years. As always one awaits it
impatiently, warmed by the
memory of what he has already
given the world.—N.E. Story.

N OUR Western world the best
thing to be is big. And the
biggest is the most successful

and safest. And smaliness.is akin
to subversion.

This criterion dominates all of
our society. The entertainment
industry is typical. Take Hello,
Dolly!

It’s the big musical, playing in
the big O’Keefe Centre in great
big Toronto. David Merrick, its
New York producer, is the big-
gest. So is Oliver Smith, the pro-
duction designer, and Jean Ro-
senthal, the lighting designer,
and Gower Champion, the direc-
tor-choreographer — all big. Big
too is Thorton Wilder, whose

“play, The Matchmaker, inspired

Hello, Dolly!, and big is Carol
Channing, the show’s star.

Everything is big, except the
show’s content.

Dolly is a poor widow weary
of living by her wits. She sets
Out to snare a rich merchant, a
penny-pinching sweatshop type.
She employs trickery, deceit and
sex appeal, but we see her only
as a quaint, naive, virtuous and
loveable creature, slightly
money-hungry, but really only
a woman getting ahead the only
way she knows how. It is the
old “Diamonds are a girl’s best
friend” morality (an ethic Miss
Channing illuminated in the key-
note song of an earlier musical,
Gentlemen Préfer Blondes).

Money-greed is the motivating
force, indeed a commendable
force, as Mr. Wilder pictures it
in his comedy about the mer-
chant of Yonkers in early 20th
Century New York.

When The Matchmaker was
produced here at the Crest The-
atre in 1959, the director, Murray
Davis, spiced it with a satirical

May 5, 1967—PACIFIC

accent which ga¥é sont
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And yet, ‘itive *

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Miss Channine
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