Canadian Film Weekly (May 1, 1957)

Typographs I WISH THAT the Canada Council would use some of those 100 million dollars to underwrite a few Canadian pocketbooks of a non-fiction character. I’d like to have one made up of the Packsack briefies of Gregory Clark, so that I won’t have to keep clipping them from the Montreal Star. Greg’s wise and human observations would pleasure anyone. If I was spending the CC money I'd put out a pocketbook made up of those Saturday lead editorials in the Montreal Gazette. They’re such interesting and enjoyable reading. I'd like to see one titled Lincoln and Canada, which would offer articles on Canada’s relationship to the American Civil War. Fred Landon and others have written on this subject. Dozens of USA books are added each year to the thousands that have grown out of the Civil War and there is a waiting market for them. The War Between the States (the only correct way to describe it, they still insist in the South) affected Canadians and Canada as a nation and inspired much literature reflecting that. Another book Id like to read is one made up of essays on the Drama by Canadian critics. Every phase of USA life and thought can be examined through the enjoyable process of reading — and the reading is not expensive. Pocketbooks are a vast business today but most of those read in Canada originate elsewhere. If public money has to be used to guarantee Canadian radio, television and films, as witness the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board, why shouldn’t it be used for popular priced literature of a kind otherwise unobtainable? The principle is the same. : DURING THE WAR one of those very old London clubs ran into financial difficulties, since many of its members were required to be elsewhere through one form or another of government service. It was thought that the members’ wives could provide income through use of the dining room and the rule against admitting women within the club’s confines. was suspended. Into the club, after years in India, came an old Colonel. He stared in astonishment and his moustache bristled. He summoned the steward and demanded an explanation. He was told that ladies were now allowed under certain conditions. “You mean,” the Colonel barked, ‘“‘that I could bring my mistress here?” “Certainly, sir,” replied the steward, “if she was the wife of a member.” SO GO KNOW. Irving Hoffman, who used to be the columnists’ columnist, thought my recent “the one who isn’t” column was goshawful junk and wrote me to say so—the same day that Walter O’Hearn longdistanced for permission to reprint it in the Drama section of the weekend Montreal Star. Incidentally, did you see Goodyear’s TV play about the life of Gene Austin — the one who isn’t Nick Lucas? . . Perspective, the NFB series, deserves a better time slot than 5.30 p.m. on Sundays over CBC. The recent one written by Gordon Burwash and directed by Don Haldane and Len Forrest, The Whole World Over, was very good. None of the three distinctly separate episodes had dramatic impact but each was loaded with heart and got inside you. . . The huzzbuzz has it that The Silent Partner, produced by Leo Orenstein and starring Sammy Sales, will be one of the best things of the local TV season. This Sunday night at 10... Bloor Businessmen’s Easter Sunday parade, featuring CBC TV stars of both sexes adorning autos, was good—but us eggheads wish to protest the absence of Nat Cohen atop an open convertible and holding a copy of the University of Toronto Quarterly... Do you think that Stanley Holloway, he of the Albert and the Lion discs, will ever become Americanized enough to record Casey at the Bat? He’s in that long runner, My Fair Lady... Jim Lysyshyn, with the NFB in Saskatoon for ten years, has joined Tom Johnston’s Information staff in Montreal. CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY May 1, 1957 Observanda MAYBE IT’S the Mayor Briscoe influence. An Irish boy and a Jewish boy, pals, were talking about religion. “Our priest is smarter than your rabbi,” said the Irish boy. ‘““Why shouldn’t he be?” asked his Jewish friend. “You tell him everything” ... Paul Gardner, Ottawa Variety mugg, one of whose songs is being sung exclusively by Hildegarde, has 43 others and would like to hear from performers who need musical material. He’s at 5 Hawthorne Avenue .. . Faded fancies: tiepins . . . Visited Jim Blevins’ Popcorn Village in Nashville, along with Jack Fitzgibbons, while driving to New Orleans recently. You get some realization of what a big, highly organized business popcorn is when you see a place like this. Jim, just back from Damascus, would be heading for Tokyo in a few days to preach the virtues and values of popcorn. He has a marked Southern drawl and in Damascus, when he tried to use the phone in his hotel, the switchboard girl said: “I’m sorry but you'll have to speak either French or English.” Jim and his aide, Ed Chrysman, took us to Rayman Auditorium, a one-time church, to see the fantastic kind of Show Business known.as Grand Ole Opry, which originates in Nashville. The Billies come out of the hills with their wimminfolk and young’uns on Saturday to be among the 10,000 paying patrons from every state and Canada who come to see and hear their favorites during 15-minute radio segments. It has been going for 31 years and is operated by Station WSM. I chatted backstage with one of the top stars, Hank Snow, a Maritime lad, who has been recording Newfoundland folk songs lately. I found him keeping the Casino crowded when I got back to Toronto. OKAY FOR an agreement worked out with the Canadian Council of Authors and Artists by its negotiators will be asked of the Association of Motion Picture Producers and Laboratories of Canada at its quarterly meeting this weekend in Toronto ... You can just about bet that the Chrysler Festival will be back next season . . . Ted Strong has Charlie Watson’s old job as O’Keefe’s public relations topper .. . It’s a boy, at the Ralph Ellis’ to make it a complete set... I was trying to flag a taxi when I got a hail from Jimmy Cowan to get into his. With him was Michael Powell, the UK producer, who told me he was working on a film to be made in Canada but indicated by his manner that he would rather say no more at this time. Twenty minutes later, at home, I opened the Telegram. There was the story, datelined London, Ontario. Tentative title is The Cauldron and its big point will have to do with the cobalt bomb for cancer, in use in London, from which place Powell had just come . . . Canada, with a population of 16,000,000, took 18,000 Hungarian refugees and the USA, with 170,000,000 people, took 30,000. To be proportionate with our total the USA should have accepted 191,000 ... You know the difference between “unlawful” and “‘llegal”? “Unlawful” is against the law and “illegal” is a sick bird. That’s a joke I heard from Doug Miller at the YMCA BMC... Congratulations to Leslie McFarlane, veteran writer and director, and Mrs. Beatrice Kenny, who were married in St. Luke’s Anglican Church, Hamilton, recently. Clyde Gilmour was best man. THE FOLLOWING, from A Pictorial History of the American Indian (Crown Publishers, NY), amused me: “The Natchez were divided into two halves, the aristocracy and the common people. The aristocracy was subdivided into three classes, Suns, or royalty, Nobles, and Honorable. The common people were lumped together in a single group called Stinkers. “The catch to this was that the common people could marry as they pleased, but the aristocrats were forbidden to marry within their own half. Therefore, all of them had to marry Stinkers. When a male aristocrat married a common woman, his children were rated one level lower than himself, so that the children of a male Honorable became ordinary Stinkers. When an aristocrat woman married a Stinker man, her children inherited her rank. Thus even the Sun himself was half Stinker on his father’s side.”