Gremlins crept into the printshop last week and caused a
picture of the People’s Co-op Bookstore to be printed upside
down. The picture above is to remind you that the book-
store’s annual spring sale ends this Saturday, May 23, so
you’d better hurry if you want to purchase books or records

at big discounts.

OPEN FORUM

Question Box?

M. R. BURRETT, North
Vancouver, B.C.: Why can’t
we have a Questions and
Answers column in the
paper? When research is
needed it could be done by
readers and supporters.

The type of questions I refer

to concern economics, politics, _

history and so on. .

For example, Litvinov was
supposed to have advocated
complete disarmament in the
League of Nations just before
the last war. Does anyone
have the direct quotation?

Who were the eight Com-
Munist Party of Canada lead-
fs imprisoned during the
thirties?

Tuvim’s wisdom
‘READER, Vancouver, B.C.:
The recently - published third
volume of the collected works
of Jukian Tuvim, the famous
Polish writer, has a section
devoted to Tuvim’s working
notes, ideas and aphorisms.
re are a few of them,
nslated by | Archie John-
stone:

Live so that your friends
will find life duller when you
die.

Rich man to his son: Al-
ways remember the poor—it
costs you nothing.

To a young poet: The
poems you sent me to be read
should be sent somewhere to
be written.

To a woman: Pity I didn’t
met you 20 kilograms ago.

A camel can work for a
week without drinking: A
man can. drink for a week
without working.

Don’t eat forbidden fruit
when you have false teeth.

Tell a man there are 97,-
830,124,656,998 stars in a gal-
axy and he’ll believe you:
show him a “Wet Paint” sign

and he'll test it with his fin-

ger.

Egoist: One who cares more
for himself than for me.

' Clergyman: One who, by
providing for your life in the
next world? provides for his
own in this.

Radio: A device which,
with one twist ofthe knob,
gives you silence.

THE NEGRO entertainer,
male or female, has always
been the forgotten man (or
woman) of the entertainment
business, as well as of the
entire U.S. society.

In Hollywood, as well as on
stage, radio and TV, the pro-
verbial status of the Negro
(despite superficial changes
in the last few years) re-
mains the same: ‘The last to
be hired; the first to be
fired.”

The superficial changes re-
ferred to began during the
Second World War, when the
motion picture industry was
also called upon to do every-
thing it could“to forward the
war effort against the Axis.

This period marked the
first time on the screen (as
well as in major industry)
that the Negro American be-
gan to be regarded as a hu-
man being and not a Stepin
Fechit rubber stamp or a
minstrelshow clown.

It was during the war that
such films as Sahara written
by John Howard Lawson,
first portrayed a Negro with
dignity and self-respect, as
well as courage.

And this fact was merely
a reflection of a fact of life—
that white American soldiers
as well as workers were
fighting and working side by
side with Negroes and dis-
covered (not with any great
surprise) that there was no
essential differences between
men (or women) beyond the
superficial color of their skin.

Immediately after the war
we got the first so-called
Negro “cycles” of films, for
producers discovered that
they were not only accepted,
but were welcome—and they
made money.

Perhaps the most important

Sarno

EARTHA KITT

film of this first cycle was
Home of the Brave, adapted
from the Arthur Laurents
play and produced,  signifi-
cantly, by Stanley Kramer
(who is the producer of the
current The Defiant Ones).

Lost Boundaries was an-
other film of this cycle; then
a later cycle included such
films as Lydia Bailey, Jamai-
ca Run, Pinky, and others.

None of these films (not
even later ones like Island in
the Sun) ever dealt with the
problems and aspirations of
the Negro people—as such—
nor in any depth.

And two tendencies made
themselves apparent that still

(more or less) ,obtain. Such
great performers as Lena
Horne, Dorothy Dandridge

and others, were either jim-

‘crowed in musical films (per-

forming an isolated “spot,”
separated from the main ac-
tion and having no relation-
ship with the rest of. the
cast), or they were confined
to jimcrow (all Negro) films.

The present Anna Lucasta
and the forthcoming Porgy
and Bess are, again, “all Ne-
gro” films. And they present

LENA HORNE

Hollywood still treats the Negro
as a second-class citizen of US.

v7

typical distortions of the Ne-
gro in American life.

Anna Lucasta (originally
written about a Polish fam-
ily), has a central character
who is a prostitute: Porgy
and Bess, which has become
an American “classic” and
has been used by the USS.
State Department as a “good-
will ambassador,” even to the
USSR, presents every cliche
character and situation famil-
iar to generations of white
Americans.

The Defiant Ones, there-
fore, represents a new de-
parture on film even though
its central characters are
“criminals” (black and
white) and its action ‘centres
around a chase-melodrama.

For this film, which has
won several awards, does
delve more deeply into spe-
cific Negro problems and Ne-
gro-white relationships, than
any film we have ever seen.

Yet the role of the Negro
in the film industry can be
accurately measured by some
figures recently produced by
William Walker, an actor and
member of the Board of the
Screen Actors Guild.

Walker revealed that in
1945, there were more than
500 Negro performers in the
SAG and the Screen Extras
Guild. Today there are 25 in
SAG and 125 in SEG!

There is not a single Negro
on the rolls of the Screen
Directors’ Guild (1,100 mem-
bers), Producers’ Guild (182).-
Film _ Editors (1,414), or
Script Supervisors (130).

A single Negro belongs to
the Hollywood local of the
Radio and Television Direc-
tors’ Guild (300 members).

And these figures are an
index of the fact that the
Negro is still a second-class
citizen in the U.S. film in-
dustry.

DAVID ORDWAY

Victoria Day

(Cannon are let off at the
Parliament Buildings at noon)

Big guns making boom-boom
Outside the parliament
To celebrate Old Viccy
And all the things she meant.

All the things she meant
Big guns indeed obtained.

How fitting they should cele-
brate

The bloody days she reigned.
THE WESTERNER

May 22, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5