Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

Jonuory, 1946 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 33 tirely rather than present one side alone. Radio must not be a vehicle of propaganda. During wartime, winning the war is not debatable ; but winning the peace, when the hostilities have ceased, is controversial. Broadcasting is primarily for entertainment. News will be presented; informative talks and forums at odd hours must be carried; but beyond this, radio should not go. So will run the argument. But meanwhile, scientists in laboratories all over the world will perfect new weapons, will improve atomic bombs and death rays, and will ready the instruments of destruction for man to turn upon himself because he would not understand. Truly, the most deadly sin is ignorance. With radio at hand as a vehicle for enlightenment, will it be prostituted in the name of impartiality? Democracy must not mean inaction. Acceptance of the responsibility for education im plies completeness and fairness, but not abstention. In the fourth place, radio may be used for competitive nationalistic purposes so as to prevent real understanding among peoples and nations. Radio may become an agency of international policy, a weapon of power politics, to be turned upon friend and foe for ulterior purposes. Both before and during the war, both sides used radio extensively in furthering their conflicting aims. Potential allies were wooed ; fifth columns and resistance movements were encouraged ; dissatisfactions and grievances were stirred up; seeds of suspicion and distrust were planted. Now radio is to be turned to peaceful purposes and its powers harnessed for international understanding. Can this transition be made overnight by people steeped in the objectives and techniques of radio warfare? In countries in which radio is controlled by government, the problem is whether radio can be operated to serve broad, longtime objectives of peace and understanding in separation from day-to-day policies of changing party politics. In the United States, the problem is whether radio shall be used largely to further international markets for great American corporations, or be used altruistically to further broad policies of international collaboration. Internally, the networks will extend their efforts in bringing to American listeners news and color from foreign countries. But until international broadcasting shall truly become a twoway exchange among nations, we shall have only begun. To the task of developing international understanding, educational broadcasters must bring their skill, their imagination, and their devotion. In the years ahead, radio education will face its greatest challenge. RECOMMENDED PHOTOPLAYS Reviewed by Dr. Frederick Houk Law, Editor^ Educational Departmenty The Reader* s Digest LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN. Character study. 20th-Fox. John M. Stahl, Director. Strongly recommended For all. For exquisite beauty of Technicolor pictures. Leave Her to Heaven is notable. For its clearness of character presentation and for its interest in plot it is likewise notable. In the course of the picture story. Gene Tierney, Jeanne Crain, and Cornel Wilde play their roles with striking effectiveness. Those persons who have read Ben Ames Williams’s novel on which the film story is based know the fascinating nature of its study of an unbalanced nature, its analysis of a too-possessive ego. A young writer (Cornel Wilde) marries a beautiful girl (Gene Tierney) whose love is so demanding that she can tolerate no sharing of affection with anyone, whether man, woman, or child, relative or otherwise. She had wished even her own father “all for herself.” In the course of the story we see the steady increase of this possessiveness and watch it develop toward tragic results. For this the makers of the narrative provide a series of incentives that awaken a degree of sympathy for the erring young woman. In his management of the psychology of the story Director Stahl has achieved high success. By contrasting character, by