GUIDE TO GOOD READING Starobin tells story of visit to People’s Republic of Viet Nam IT IS A rare privilege for any European or American journal- ist to be able to visit the Demo- _ eratic Republic of Viet Nam. One of the few correspondents who has been there since the French repudiated their promise of in- dependence and launched their war of reconquest is the U.S. writer, Joseph Starobin. CURRENT FILMS NG ~—}—4 ~i— Starobin was able to visit the headquarters of the People’s Army, to. talk to the people in their villages and visit the little Here are those perishing Hollywood passengers again AT FIRST SIGHT the Titanic disaster of 1912 seems ready made for film treatment. All the elements of drama are there for the makers of Titanic without need to distort the facts. The great four-funnelled Titan- ic, pride of the White Star Line, was more than a floating hotel. She was a great floating piece of Edwardian society. In the huge, ornate saloons and ballroom, all glitter and plush, the wealthy idlers of a world where wealth was secure and practically untaxed could over- eat, dance, gamble and snub their inferiors without a care in the world. Nobody on the first-class decks even had to know that there were dark, satanic boiler-rooms deep below the waterline where sweat- ing men with shovels kept the whole thing going by back- breaking labor in stifling heat. When the Titanic took the water, .the sea, lapping remotely outside the huge steel hull and ° inaudible to the dancers and card players in the saloons, seemed finally to have been conquered by a triumphant capitalism. *% * od JOVIAL over-confidence born of the age and the occasion led to carelessness by the captain. Small things that went wrong— the unexplained shortage of bin- oculars in the world’s most lav- ishly equipped vessel, the wire- less message warning of icebergs that was delayed two days and then misinterpreted — bothered nobody except junior officers _ Halfway across the Atlantic on her maiden voyage with a full lead of passengers the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank. Of the 2,200 souls aboard only 712 sur- vived. The tragedy abounded in mor- als for those who wished to point them. Pride had been followed by a fall, the mighty had been put down and the lavishly equip- ped queen of the British mer- chant fleet, loaded with every luxury the age could offer, was found to be inexcusably lacking in a vital particular—lifeboats. So far as Charles Brackett and his two fellow script writers re- cite the facts, their story is ex- citing and moving, as it can hard- ly fail to be. They have based the disaster itself firmly on the United Labor PICNIC SUNDAY, AUGUST 9 CONFEDERATION: PARK 4600. EAST HASTINGS -. NORTH BURNABY’ oe | facts revealed at subsequent of- ficial investigations and the film’s reconstruction of the events bear- ing directly on the disaster rings true. : ~ * * WHERE THE FILM falls down is in the collection of witless stuffed dummies who are trotted out in front of this fine factual background to provide that “hu- man interest” without which we presumably could not be expect- ed to sit without yawning through the story of the most dramatic shipwreck fhat ever happened. Here in the first-class dining room are assembled all the stale, wearisome travellers - on - fatal - journeys we have met a dozen times before. We've seen them conscientiously being rude to each other on-planes which are going to crash, getting involved in domestic problems which only an earthquake can solve and un- erringly selecting the doom- bound bus just as true love bur- geons. On the 20th .Century-Fox Tit- anic, Clifton: Webb is the snob- bish idler who redeems a life de- voted to the playing of bridge and- behaving like a cad to his wife by keeping cool and setting an example when the iceberg is struck. ; Barbara Stanwyck is the wife who has just revealed her awful secret . Audry Dalton is the young girl. who triumphs over a snobbish upbringing to fall in love with a democratic American college boy. Richard Basehart; even more harassed than usual, is the failed priest going home to face dis- grace as a drunk. You’ve guess- ed it—the good in him comes out when disaster strikes. The teenage hero, the wise- cracking old millionairess with the Brooklyn accent and heart of gold, the coward — we are spared none of them. There’s drama in this film wreck — though not nearly as much as the facts contain. Next time Hollywood goes on a fatal journey it should pick a new . passenger list. —THOMAS SPEN- CER. factories, hidden in the moun- tains and jungles, which make clothes and arms for that em- battled people. Of course it was hard work. Starobin had to travel hundreds of miles by truck, to tramp across mountain passes and along jungle tracks and to be equally adept both at riding a bicycle and mounting a horse. But the results were more than worth it. In Viet Nam Fights for Freedom (Lawrence and Wish- art) he introduces us to a new land of heroism, hope and poetry. This is the first book in Eng- lish about the People’s Republic and its president, Ho Chi Minh —‘John, the Patriot,” as Staro- bin translates the name. While he writes mostly about Viet Nam, he also introduces his readers to those even more re- mote countries, Laos and Cam- bodia, hidden behind their jungle covered mountains, scantily pop- ulated, yet aspiring to indepen- dence and thus forcing them- selves on to the attention of the world. The People’s Army of Viet Nam and the Liberation Armies of Loas and Cambodia are now facing and steadily defeating a French army of 500,000. Their first units; which were little more than propaganda bands, had between them the grand total of 34 persons, and their only weapons were flint- lock rifles, Starobin records. Starobin introduces us to many of the people who are thus mak- ing their own history—peasants in the People’s Army, technicians in the jungle factories, scientists, artists, and old-time officials in the cadres school which is edu- cating the new leaders of the people. In the jungle Starobin saw how U.S. machines and the engines of captured U.S. lorries were providing electric power and light for the factories and arsen- als. al As an American he writes with pride that the Declarations of Independence of both Viet Nam and Cambodia are in part but paraphrases of the American De- claration of Independence, and comments sadly that the present rulers of the United States have forgotten the purposes of the Founding Fathers. _ Viet Nam Fights for Freedom is obtainable in Vancouver at the People’s Cooperative Book- store, 337 West Pender, priced ie 52c a copy (including sales TENE PACIFIC ROOFING Company Limited CE 2733 2509 West Broadway N. Bitz - B. 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The country we live in is vast and it’s great, The workers and farmers its riches create. We won’t stand for traitors betraying our right, Put Canada First is the heart of. our fight. We're proud of our Party, both fearless and bold, Not bound nor for sale to cheap Yankee gold, Make Canada great, you will surely agree, The way you can do it, is vote LPP. CLASSIFIED | A charge of 50 cents for each insertion of five lines or less with 10 cents for each additional line is made for notices appearing in this column. No notices will be accepted later than Tuesday noon of the week of publication. NOTICES POSTAGE STAMPS wanted. Don- ate your used postage stamps, any country, including Canada, particularly values above 5c and perforated OHMS. Stamps should not be torn or mutilated and are best left on paper, with perfor- ations not cut into in trimming. Resale proceeds go to Pacific Tribune sustaining fund. 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