ot A ARE,

the drama of his times are missing.

DAVID CARRADINE AS WOODY GUTHRIE... the real Woody and

Woody’s story not told
in Harold Ashby’s film

This segment of Woody Guthrie’s
life takes us from the Texas
Panhandle dustbow] of the great
Depression of the ’30s to the San
Joaquin valley .of California. The
film is a poor attempt at showing
Woody’s rise from a man just
looking for something, to a political
balladeer. It fails to convey the
plight, the hunger, the starvation
and the desperate needs of the
unemployed dustbowlers. For
some reason the director, Hal Ash-
by, treated the subject matter with
a patronizing hand.

The film shies away from the
“dirty matters.’’ Men prostituting
themselves for jobs, selling out
their neighbors to feed their
families, andinthe middle of it all,
the strong political movement
working to pull the migrant
workers together.

Woody Guthrie was part of that
political movement in body and
song. He lived with the struggte to
preserve human dignity among
those who had lost hope: This
background was the catalytic
agent for his songs.

Ashby didn’t even lean on the
songs to tell Guthrie’s story.

“This land is your land, this land
is my land” was never conveyed to
the audience. Woody was _ por-
trayed as a man who walked out on
everything: his wife, his kids, his
job. The final insult in the film
shows him running away to New
York leaving the problems of
California behind.

Why did he do what he did? What
motivated him? Getchell’s script
never addressed this problem. He
barely hinted at the social — let
alone the dramatic — causes that
would motivate a man like Woody
Guthrie.

Bound for Glory may have some
meaning for those who lived
through or are students of the
period, but without a background
and preconceived desire to fill in
the gaping continuity holes, the
film is a dramatic failure. Even
more criminal is the loss of a
reacquaintance with a_ struggle
that continues today. I could say I
am happy that the subject matter
was dealt with at all, even in the
noncommittal bastardized form
produced by Robert F. Blumoff

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 25, 1977—

BOUND FOR GLORY, Based on the
‘autobiography of Woody Guthrie.
Starring David Carradine, Directed by
Harold Ashby. Photography by Haskell
Wexler. At the Capitol 6, Vancouver.

and Harold Leventhal. But this is
no Grapes of Wrath — which was
produced with dignity and com-
passion. °

Guthrie is portrayed by David
Carradine with adequate
proficiency. His singing is also
acceptable. But when he sings to
workers in a fruit-packing plant
you expect some response from the
workers. Instead,
barely look up as company goons
smash Woody’s guitar and turn
their fists on him. The scene leaves
you with the impression that the
workers were completely passive.
Other scenes compound this. at-
titude.

It is only fair to mention that Ron
Cox delivers a fine performance as
Ozark Bule and his appearance on
screen. midway through the film
gives a lift to the draggy story.

Wexler’s photography is superb
through most of the film, but even
it doesn’t help unmotivated fight
sequences that looked as if they
were coming out of a TV screen
from some B western, instead of a
$12 million production. The era and
the men and women of those times
deserve better representation.
With few exceptions, the sup-
porting actors and actresses
delivered fine performances.
Unfortunately, the fragmented
framework did not enhance their
talents.

There are many who will praise
the film solely because of the
subject matter. I will not. The
problems of the era were never
dealt with honestly. The film-
makers were conscious of Woody
Guthrie’s background and his
convictions, yet they skirted the
issues: the political and dramatic
meaning of the man’s life and
songs. It is asif they were ashamed
or afraid to present the natural
drama of reality and the inner
tensions of a man. Ashby should
stay with the reality he seems to
know best — the reality of af-
fluence and decadence he created
so successfully in “Shampoo.”

J.S. Smith
People’s World

Page 10

+2

the workers:

Food additives: weighing
the price of convenience

The average Canadian, con-
suming the typical supermarket
diet will eat 5,500 different
chemicals a day; 2,500 of these
chemicals are deliberately added
during processing and the rest are
caused by contamination.

Canadian laws demand that food
packaged for human consumption
list the contained ingredients. in
order of the percentage used in the
product. However it doesn’t
require that manufacturers list the
actual percentage.

When Fritzsche-D & O Company
of Toronto lists the ingredients in
its synthetic tomato paste, it is
obliged to list sugar as the first
item in the list of contents. The
glucose syrup and/or invert syrup,
and/or glucose syrup solids and/or
dextrose follows. What the com-
pany has neglected to state in plain
language is that its product is 50
percent sugar. Along with the
sugar are various chemicals, in-
cluding artificial tomato flavor and
three tar dyes. This particular
“tomato paste” also finds its way
into the brand name tomato juices,
soups, sauces and purees which
you buy each week with con-
fidence.

Most foods in order to be
palatable must be processed.,
Home cooking is a form of
processing. Many Canadians feel
that industrial processing is the
price that must be paid for con-
venience. Prior to World War II the
food industry employed similar
methods to those used at home,
except on a grander scale. After
1945 however, a radical change
occurred. Business found that the
same method used to produce
synthetic silk, rubber, clothing,
could be applied to food. The result
is a whole generation of people who
have been raised on a diet overly
rich in fat, salt and refined car-

.,bohydrates. The long-term effects -

are not yet known.

Already the dependence on
highly-refined convenience foods
and the reduced intake of fresh
fruits, vegetables and whole
grains, have been linked to in-
creases in the incidence of cancer
of the colon and the possibility that
various additives may also be
cancer-causing looms larger all
the time.

Sacco-Vanzetti
material sought

In an historic action, the city
council of Cambridge,
Massachusetts has invoked both
state and federal information laws
in a bid to force Harvard
University to release sealed papers
on the case of Nicola Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

The papers, which councillors
hope will contain material which
may shed new light on the in-
famous case, belonged at one time
to A. Lawrence Lowell, a former
president of Harvard University
and a member of a_ special
governor’s commission which
reviewed the 1927 conviction of the
two Italian-born workers.

Charged with having staged a
hold-up in which a grocer was
killed in South Braintree, Massa-

chusetts, Sacco and Vanzetti were .

tried during a wave of reactionary
hysteria. Thousands in the US.

* and around the world held the case

to be a frameup, a charge later
upheld by Felix Frankfurter, later
to become a U.S. Supreme Court
justice, who reviewed the evidence
and concluded that the two had
been framed. .

Dr. Ross Hall, a health scientist,
writes in an article in the October,
1976 Canadian Consumer:
“Technicians who devise such
magnificent food products forget
that although they can convert food

_ which used to be natural into

synthetic forms, the consumer

remains as organic as ever. Food -

is only part of human nourishment.
To be nourishment, the food has to

be digested and processed in
organic ways by the body. I’m not

- aware of any genetic change in

people over the last 30 years that
makes their digestive system
adaptable to synthetic food.”

The public hasn’t remained
unaware of this process and has
been expressing quite audible
concerns. Ever mindful of its
public image the food industry is
responding with ‘100 percent

natural’ cereals and breads and—

the introduction of ‘‘added’’
vitamins and minerals. However
vitamins are not food; they are
necessary to help your body digest
and assimilate the nutrition
provided by the food, but if there is
little nutritional value in the
product to begin with then they are
of little use.

The government makes little
demand on the food industry to
provide nutrition as well as bulk, to
the consumers. The medical
profession places little pressure on
its members to ensure that they
are knowledgeable of the
nutritional needs of their patients,
and even the scientific community
finds itself in a moral dilemma
falling back on
scientific criteria on which they
can base their statement that,
“such and such a food has no
known adverse effect’’.

For example, after being in use
for over 75 years a coal tar dye
called amaranth (Red Dye No. 2)
was banned from use in the United
States, because it was suspected

Cx a) E
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Assorted art publications

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Fri, Mar. 25 to Sat., April 2)

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353 WEST PENDER, VANCOUVER — 685-5836

Fae pe Cee

po kee i ee MPA ee eel on

“There’s a lot more foo ‘
mixed with the additives in th!
ne.” 5 F

that long term use may cal |
cancer. In Canada, scientit |
couldn’t agree conclusively ™ ,
this finding, so instead of com! ,
down on the side of caution th
have been subjecting the Cana@! ,
public toa food additive whichP! ,
a nice red tinge to over 35 perce ]
of all fabricated food products: t
Such findings as this are W |
received by the biggest and rich®
international corporations wh0)
the daily struggle to maxi
profits find it cheaper to create:
“edible” product from chemi
Should Canadians be worl!
about the quality of manufactul T
food? Yes, and not only from. ¢
nutritional standpoint. > r
Canadian . Federation L
Agriculture estimates thal/c
family of four pays $3,000 yey
for food. Of that amoung 0
goes to packaging, labelling, ee

vertising, additives, markel!’ }
costs and transportation. q p
farmer receives $1,000 and of w t
it cost him $680 to produce the fod r
If present trends continue it’ t
obvious the consumer will recé!! 2
even less food for his dollar. _

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_ daily except Sut

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