CANADIAN ATTITUDE: "WE WON’T PAY‘

U.S. television networks swing

financial big stick at CBC TV

U.S. TELEVISION. networks
are swinging the big stick over
the head of Canada’s infant TV,
which made its debut on Sep-

tember 8 over CBLT. The Na-
tional Broadcasting Company
and Columbia Television system
have demanded of the CBC that

CLA

NO CONFLICT WITH MOVIES

Soviet Union expands TV

TELEVISION which has become a part of everyday life
in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and one or two other cities in the
USSR, is going to spread much farther afield during the next

year,

The ministry of manufacturing the means of communica-
tions is building standard TV stations which will operate on
three alternative bands from all large cities, while smaller sta
tions will be available for provincial centres, These will enable
the inhabitants of a very extensive part of the USSR to watch
local theatres, movies and sporting events in their homes with-

in a year or two.

In the absence of any conflict between TV and cinema
interests in the Soviet Union, the Soviet public has the alterna-.
tive of watching the newest movies at home or in the cinema.
Leading theatre-shows and sporting events are also televised
without objection from vested interests.

nit ee iy

Edits anthology

Heart of Spain, an anthology
of Spanish War anti-fascist writ-
ing edited by Alvah Bessie
(above), well known American
writer, is reported to be selling
well in B.C., from which prov-

ince sOme 300 volunteers went
to Spain to serve with the Mac-
kenzie-Papineau Battalion.

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Capsule
| Reviews

OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS
British film based on Joseph

Conrad’s novel of the South

Seas. Only ‘‘merit’’ is expose of

Conrad’s white supremacist be-

liefs.

OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT
Only a bare outline of the or

iginal Bret Harte story remains

after Hollywood gets done add-

ing gun fights, eye-gouging and

other refinements. A cut above

average Western.

THE NARROW MARGIN

Obviously made on modest
Hollywood B. budget, this film

stands on a train thriller level

with The Lady Vanishes. Sus-
pense filled, it holds interest
from start to finish.

RASHOMON :
Defeatist Japanese film pos-
question, ‘‘What is
truth?’”’ Only apparent answer
is all men are liars, Nihilist
theme cancels merits of beauti-

ful photography, competent act-
ing.
HIGH NOON

Gary Cooper Western with
brilliant suspense technique but,
unfortunately, perpetuates Hol-
lywood’s ‘“‘people are no damn
good” theory.

PAT AND MIKE

Slick Hollywood job about
women athlete (Katharine Hep
burn‘ piloted to fame and fort-
une by a Broadway sports pro-
moter (Spencer Tiracy).

IVANHOE

As told by Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer-British, Ivanhoe is a
highly colored but rather flavor-
less hodge-podge, which small
boys will find ‘‘not so funny as
Robin Hood.” Ivanhooey.

UNTAMED FRONTIER

It’s a shame to see two such
urban types as Joseph Cotten
and Shelley Winters sweating it
out in a Western, but it’s all in
the interests of democracy,
which is brought in this instance
to the Texas cattle ranges.

ing the

the Canadian chain ‘pay them 70
percent of all time revenue for
programs which originate in the
U.S. The CBC is charging spon-
sors at the rate of $1,600 per
hour. \ ‘

The CBC stand, according to
Toronto Stay reporter Gordon
Sinclair, is, ‘“We won’t pay. The
price is outrageous and we will
neither pay this price nor allow
it to be paid by others.” The
established rate for imported
radio shows has been 15 percent
to the U.S. stations with 85 per-
cent remaining in ‘Canada.

’ John J. Fitzgibbons, president
of U.S. Paramount-owned Fam-
ous Players, has already seized
exclusive rights to manufacture
and operation of Telemeter—a
sort of canned TV shows, includ-
ing movies, sports events, etc.

Mavor Moore, chief producer
for CBC television, believes that
Canadians must° make TV the
servant and not the master of
our times. ‘We feel that tele-
vision is capable of enriching
rather than impoverishing our
lives,’’ says Moore.

The CBC has resolved that
the mistakes made on radio will
not be made on TV. It decided,
therefore, to ‘handle and control
all TV production.

This step was protested by ad-
vertising agencies who expected
to import directors and other
personnel from U.S. centres to
handle their production over
Canadian stations. But the
CBC stood firm and advertisers
accepted CBC’s terms. The CBC
stand opened up a broad avenue
for Canadian directors and tech-
nicians to employment and cre-
ative work.

The apparent impasse be-
tween U.S. companies and the
CBC is welcomed by many Can-
adians. If hegotiations break
down completely, this will pre-
sent a major opportunity for
Canadian talent to. flourish.
Should the fight carry over into
the field or radio, it may well
be that Canadian stations will
no longer air U.S. programs.
This could be the beginning of
the fight to overcome the
stranglehold that the U.S. has
over all Canadian channels of
communication,

The arrogance which Ameri-
can TV executives display to-
wards Canada is seen’ in the
statement of CBS sales chief to
‘a reporter: ‘‘We’d like nothing
better than to all CBLT ..., is
that the name of the thing?.. ,
to our network as an affiliate.
... But they talk in Red Riding
‘Hood terms about money.” The
Columbia executive then referr-

ed to the Canadian who had call- .

ed him on the matter of U.S.
programs as “some wildly enthu-
siastic Toronto man, a sort of
college boy type (who) started
pestering our program depart-
Mente eters ee

Seven of the biggest adver-

tisers to sign on the dotted line
with the CBC were Westing-
house,
tric, Imperial Oil, Johnson’s
Wax, Campbell’s Soup, Goodyear
Tire, and Ford Motor Co. Three
are sponsoring, Canadian shows,
GE with the Leslie Bell Singers,
Imperial Oil with Foster Hewitt
and Maple Leaf Hockey Games,
and Ford with a 90-minute

drama produced in Toronto by’

Al Savage. The other four had
previously planned on imported
U.S. shows. What action they
will take now remains to be seen,

New China.

Canadian General Elec-—

Young square dancers a hit

These young square dancers, members of the Do-Sit-Httes of
Calgary, attracted considerable attention at the recent Canadian N@*
tional Exhibition in Toronto. No member of the group of
youngsters is more than 13' years old.

GUIDE TO GOOD READING .

New book reflects great
spirit of China's people

The splendid spirit of .Chi-
na’s ordinary people breathes
through China’s Feet. Unbound,
by W. G. Burchett, an Australian
newspaperman who is now a
war correspondent in Korea for
the Paris Ce Soir,

Here one meet Lo Young-chin,
the miner; Wang Ping-hsieh, the
peasant Village chairman; Chien
Chen-ying, the young woman en-

gineer in.charge of the great.
Huai River control project, and:

a host of others.

Wilfred Burchett knew Chiang
Kai-shek’s China, so his com-
parisons of present with past
stand out. He modestly apolo-
gizes that this book was written
after only six months in People’s
China, but those were six months
in which he felt deeply the new
enthusiasm,

He takes his readers rapidly
on what can be called a tour of
The contrast be-
tween its start on his arrival at
Honk Kong and Macao, last back-
ward-looking outposts of im-
perialism. in the south, and the
tremendous forward-looking pro-
jects on the Huai, with which he
concludes, is most powerful.

In between, one visits coal
mines and villages, textile fac-
tories and theatres, and meets
some of the volunteers going to
aid Korea and save China.

In a lively and readable way,
Burchett introduces us to the
people on the job, typical of
those whose feet and hands and
brains have now been unbound,

He gives us just enough sta-
tistics to show both the terrible
conditions which New China in-
herited and the great progress
already made.

He also discusses the great
emancipating legislation of Peo-
ple’s China—the land reform
which ended landlordism, the
trade union law which struck
off the shackles of the workers,
and the marriage law which
gave equality to women.

The new culture, the struggle

against illiteracy, writers of old

China plunging happily into the

m rac

me ne
pave : — 4

construction of the new, and thé
People’s Army, all in turn come
undér his spotlight. :

And in it all he captures thé
spirit of the people—the pee
ant working on hte new irris® —
tion works, the engineer of the
old regime who at last has 9
chance to do something useful,
the girl. guerilla fighter whos?
moving experiences break out ne:
to great writing.

Here and there are sentenc®
of the speeches of Mao (like ad
“serve the people’ address ug
writers) and of the new 1aw®
which light up and deepen th®
meaning of the scenes Burcheé
portrays. é

In the past three years much
shallow and twisted writing nas
been done about China in both
America and Britain — phoneY
history, slick and twisted repoT™
ing, crude. distortion. A

In contrast, China’s Feet U?"
bound deals with the comm?
people — their strugeles, thelf
hopes, their achievements. It
fine as they are fine,

China’s Feet Unbound is 0°”
tainable here at the People’s ©%
operative Bookstore, 337 Wee
Pender, price $1.25. It is 2/8?)
on the Pacific Tribune’s premiu”
list in the current subscriptio?
drive, obtainable for 50 cenl®
with a one-year subscription.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 12, 1952 — PAGE %