the gang.

ON THE SCREEN

First British
smear picture

BRITAIN has produced its
first smear film, High Treason—
previously named Secret Plan
X23, and then Sabotage. The
story never rises above the level
of a blood-and-thunder thriller
of “spies” and “sabotage.”’ This
has been- done often enough in
the past, but High Treason is
new in that it uses this tawdry
theme for a political witch-hunt
against strikers. progressives
and peace-lovers,

M.I.5 (British Intelligence)
figures prominently in the story
—as well it might for M.I.5 vet-

ted it and offered its advice dur-
' ing the making of the film—and
an M.I.5 major “expects strikes
as a matter off course” following
“military pressure in Europe.”
So the film smears every striker.

It infers that if you go on
strike you are an agent for an
enemy power—or a pawn.

It takes no account of the fact
that the right to strike has been
won over a long number of
years.

The saboteurs include people
who “want a world without
war.”’ So the film smears every
peace-lover.

i

The man who makes the fuses
for the time-bombs tells his
mother that she has had to sac-
rifice to buy boots for himself
and his brother and that he
wanted something better for her.
So the film smears everyone who
wants a better life.
An MP is one of the leaders of
He is given progres-
Sive lines to speak. So the film
Smears all progressives.

Co-author of the script and
director of the film is Roy Boult-
ing, who used to be a progres-
‘sive himself. He went to the
Spanish War with an ambulance
unit on the side of the Republic.
Now he makes a film which
would delight Genreal Franco.

It will delight the Un-Ameri-
ean Activities Committee, too.

Two of the 36 fine woodcuts in Laurence Hyde’s book Southern Crosss.

GUIDE TO GOOD READING

Southern Cross fine anti-war art novel

A SMALL BOY is awakened
by a strange sound in the cool
night sky as he lies beside his
parents in their hut on a South
Sea Island. On the _ horizon,
where the night clouds are lift-
ing. silhouetted against the
bright streak of the dawn, is a
battleship. .. The Captain trains
his binoculars on the island.
swept by the fish-filled sea. This
is the chosen island, chosen for
an experiment in death.

These are three images from
an outstanding book by a Can-
adian master of wood engraving,
Laurence Hyde, in his book
Southern Cross (available in
Vancouver at the People’s Co-
operative Bookstore, 337 West
Pender, priced at $2 for the
naper-covered edition and $4 for
the cloth edition).

‘Hyde’s book is composed of
over 100 pictures, each one fol-
lowing the other in narrative se-
quence, which suggests the selec-
tive imagery of film-making. It
is a story without words, for
here, words are redundant, The
story covers the life before, dur-
ing and after evacuation, of a
community living on a small
South Sea Island. In 36 pic-
tures we are introduced to the

islanders, their life, to the is-
land on which they live, to their
peaceful labor, of riding the
waves in search of the abundant
fish life.

The happiness: and peace of
their living pervades the pic-

tures. The family group, mother,
father. child, is shown—in their

love for each other, in the fath-
er’s explanation of the storm
phenomenon to the boy, whose
face is filled with fearful won-
derment. © The days are taken
with work and the gathering of
food for life, the night with

song and dancing around the .

fires, and peaceful sleep when
the canoe is drawn up dry on
a moon-lit beach. Every creat-
ure, fish, plant and vagary Of the
weather is important to their
life. The only violence is the
violence. of nature, which they
do not as yet know how to over-
come,
* * *

But with the strange sound
in the sky, which is an airplane,
looking for all the’ world like a
bird of prey circling amongst
the tree tops, life changes and
eventually stops on the island.
The men of war have come,
though as friends, weaving a

retaliation

WORLD MARKS 500th ANNIVERSARY

LEONARDO DA _ VINCI,

this month, was among the
greatest of very great paint-
ers, s
He was superlative in a
score of other fields — as
draughtsman, designer, archi-
tect, sculptor, inventor, musi-
cian, poet and strong man.

To cap all, as his notebooks
prove, he was a speculative
natural scientist whose guess-
es were far in advance of his
time.

He anticipated the air-
plane, the tank (he called it
a “covered chariot’’), the sub-
marine, and—there are good
grounds for believing — the
steam engine,

was Virtually unijue. Yet he
was thoroughly typical of his
time.

In his vivid many-sided-
ness, Leonardo expressed
more completely than did any
of his contemporaries the es-
sence of that stupendous
“qualitative leap’’ which his-

torians know as the Renais-
sance and Reformation.

These are usually treated
separately: yet they sprang

who was born 500 years ago-

As a versatile genius he

Da Vinci many-sided genius

from the same causes,

IT WAS a time of the ruth-
less smashing of old idols,
hoary conventions, and time-
sanctified taboos—of the en-
thusiastic search for new ad-
ventures and wider horizons.

In one respect it seems a
period of going back—to the
humanism of the Greek
artists and philosophers, to
the primary faith of the.
earliest Christians.

Yet it is easy to see that in
each field the return was
made on a higher and more
developed plane.

Art and culture generally
emerged from the crisis as
radically new things; ahd
though it is true that few in-
dividual artists have since
arisen who could successfully
challenge comparison with
the giants of the age of Leo-
nardo. there has been a con-
tinuous process of assimilat-
ing more fully the gains of
that stupendous forward leap.

On the plane of the mech-
anical arts and the experi-
mental investigation of the
laws and relations of nature,
the impetus then given has

_ craftsmen is that they—he in

brought results which have
transformed these fields be-
yond all recognition.

Culturally the essence of
the crisis lay in its challenge
to all arbitrary authority, Its
implied slogan was: There is
and can be no such thing as
“authority” in matters of
judgment.

Imperfectly and one-sided-
ly though this idea, was ex-
pressed in the Reformation
and a succession of later
bourgeois revolutions, it still
operates as a ferment to re-
mind us that the work begun
by Leonardo and his contemp-
oraries has still to ne com-_
pleted. —

What we may fairly rejoice
at in Leonardo and his fellow-

particular —— grasped more
fully than ever the Greek
ideal of man, fully developed
on every side, rejoicing in a
new-found, ‘creative abund-
ance of life. ‘
In doing this they pointed
forward to the day when this
ideal would be realised uni-
versally and in everyday prac-
tice.—-T. A. JACKSON,

—=——0ne— emo OKI

wondrous tale of the bomb which
has the peace dove inscribed
upon it and which is heralded
by the angels. .

The islanders agree to evacu-
ate and they thread amongst
the trees, where the birds fly up,
with their bundles, and the child
with the flowers, in her hair
looks back, crying. The island
which spelt welcome to its in-
habitants riding home on the
waves after a day’s work, now
sports signs and placards. in-
congruous amongst the foliage

. “Danger — Keep Away.”’

Our family does not go. They
had not wanted to, and now an
incident of attempted rape anl
resulting in death
for an American sailor keeps
them there, hunted on their own
island, by men with guns.

The experiment goes on. The
sands in the hour glass run out
and the finger presses down the
trigger. The immediate effect is
shown in. an eye with cracked
eyeball, No eye can witness
mass destruction and remain
whole.. The island dies, the fish,
the birds, the family. “The small
boy who lifted himself up from.
his bed to listen to the sound,
now lifts himself in agony above
the bodies of his parents. He
alone remains,

The beauty and skilfull crafts-
manship of the engravings in
this book is noteworthy. The
pictures represent many pains-
taking hours of this Canadian
artist’s work, and is an under-
taking of great proportions.
Hyde, in his introduction, ex-
plains that it is by no means
an easy task to compile a story
entirely of pictures, involving
as it does careful selection of
themes, and tireless persever-

: Mee He ee eee et ee

USSR commemorative
stamp honors Da Vinci

THE USSR is observing the
500th anniversary of the birth
of Leonardo da Vinci with
jubilee meetings and art exhib
tions throughout the country 42
feature articles in newspapers:

The Soviet Post Office issued
a new stamp with a portrait 0
Da Vinci and art publishers pro
duced several postcards and pla-
cards reproducing the ‘‘Moné
Lisa,” .

Izvestia said: ‘“Progressiv®
mankind, honouring the memory
of Da Vinci, expresses. respec
for the people from whom this _
great man of culture sprang, the
Italian people. In the struggle
for peace the Italian people d&
fend also the heritage of Ler
ardo da Vinci.”

PHC CT eee «

ance and recutting of blocks. His
achievement marks a milestone
in the development of graphic”
arts in Canada.—J. O.

TUG

EAST END

TAXI

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