Modern Screen (Dec 1948 - Oct 1949)

sweet and hot by leonard feather ** Highly Recommended * Recommended No Stars: Average FROM THE MOVIES A SONG IS BORN — "Giants of Jazz" album** (Capitol) . This colossal collection includes the Benny Goodman bop version of "Stealing Apples" which we two-starred here a couple of months back. The other sides are "Muskrat Ramble" by Mel Powell and an all-star Dixieland group; "Redskin Rhumba" by Charlie Barnet's band; "DaddyO" by the Paige Cavanaugh Trio with Jeri Sullivan, singing it just the way she voicedoubled for Virginia Mayo on the sound track of the picture; and finally, a doublesided all star jam session on "A Song Was Born," similar to the scene in the film, with the Golden Gate Quartet, Jeri Sullivan, the Brazilians, Messrs. Goodman, Barnet, Powell, T. Dorsey and Louis Armstrong. It's the best musical album ever issued in connection with a movie — and as if that weren't enough reason to buy it, oil royalties go to the Damon Runyon Fund. Don't miss it! KISSING BANDIT — "Senorita" by Frank Sinatra* (Columbia), Jack Smith (Capitol), Dennis Day (Victor). "If I Steal a Kiss" by Andy Russell* (Capitol), Frank Sinatra (Columbia), Vaughn Monroe (Victor). "What's Wrong With Me" by Vaughn Monroe (Victor), Patti Page* (Mercury). "Siesta" by the Sportsmen (Capitol). LUXURY LINER — "Con Maracas" by Jose Moi"and* (Victor). ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON — "Girls Were Made to Take Care of Boys" by Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae* (Capitol). PALEFACE — Still more "Buttons and Bows," by Bob Hope* (Capitol), Evelyn Knight* (Decca), the Dinning Sisters (Capitol). REACHING FOR THE STARS — "The Morning Glory Road" by Ray McKinley* (Victor), John Laurenz (Mercury). SO DEAR TO MY HEART — "Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly)" by Vera Lynn (London), Sammy Kaye (Victor). "It's Whatcha Do With Whatcha Got" by Johnnie Johnston* (MGM). JAZZ (HOT AND COOL!) LOUIS ARMSTRONG — "Please Stop Playing Those Blues"** (Victor). DIZZY GILLESPIE — "Algo Bueno" (Victor), "I Can't Get Started"* (reissue on Columbia ) . BENNY GOODMAN — "Varsity Drag"* (Capitol). STAN HASSELGARD — "I'll Never Be The Same"* (Capitol) WOODY HERMAN — "Basie's Basement"* (Coral). CHUBBY JACKSON — "Lemon Drop"** (Rainbow) . GENE KRUPA — "How High The Moon" (Columbia ) . DODO MARMAROSA — "Trade Winds" [alias "You Go To My Head")** (Dial). CHARLIE PARKER — "Embraceable You"* (Dial), "Barbados"* (Savoy). ED SAFRANSKI — "Turmoil"* (Atlantic). CHARLIE VENTURA— "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"* (National). It's a field-month for jazz! Almost all the above are worth a spin, with Dodo's superb piano work a high spot. Nice "bop-vocal-with-horns" ideas on the Jackson and Ventura sides. Ben Webster plays tenor sax with Woody Herman. The Safranski item features seven men out of 78 the Stan Kenton band. her first defense scheme all by herself, but Mother got daily bulletins. This boy had taken her to a school dance and at our door said he wanted to kiss her good-night. Esther stalled. "Why?" she asked. "For heaven's sake!" exclaimed her escort, "what do you mean — 'why?' " "I don't know why you want to, that's all." "I don't either. . . . Gosh — I just do." "Wouldn't it be awfully silly," reasoned Esther, "to do something you don't know why you want to do?" The boy was pretty baffled at that, but he made another date anyway and, of course, tried again. This time Esther's delaying tactics expanded the idea that had worked before. She told him, "Think it over for a week — and if you can tell me one good reason why I should let you kiss me, why, I will." He was back again with a reason that boiled down to, "I'd like to." "Not good enough," Esther decided. Esther finally gave in — she knew it was inevitable — the week after that. But by then I'm not sure the ardent suitor thought a good-night peck was worth all the longdistance debate. Still, I knew a problem had come up in Esther's life, one of the most important ones, in fact, that an adolescent girl faces: To pet or not to pet? If I do, will the boys like me better, or worse? If I don't, will they call me a "lemon," will they stop asking me out, will I be unpopular? At teen-age time, both girls and boys are pressed with a hundred haunting fears. At that trying time of a youngster's life, the herd instinct is very strong. There's a desperate desire to do as the rest of the age group is doing. There's a great longing to be accepted by your contemporaries. If you know you're with the crowd, you're confident and happy. But the age-group's verdict is what counts. I decided to get it on the petting problem. One afternoon, Esther, her brother David, and four or five schoolmates flocked into our house for an after-school snack. It was always open house at our house, and where there's an easy welcome, there will always be young people. They came out in the kitchen and I found a chance in the conversation to ask, "Tell me, does a girl have to pet to get dates? I'm curious, and you boys know. Give me the lowdown." "No," they scoffed, "not if she has what it takes." "What's that?" I wanted to know. "You've got to look attractive and you've got to be fun," answered a boy. The others nodded. "Sure, those are the girls we like best." I said, "Do they have to be the prettiest girls?" The boys answered, "No, but they have to look right — their hair has to be neat and their clothes clean and in style, but not too fancy." There was Esther's — and her girl friends' — answer, straight from the horse's mouth, where it convinced. After that, Esther and the girls at her school studied the petting problem, talked it over among themselves, knowing where they stood. They even started making rules, rather than risk getting themselves involved in what they recognized as a serious problem. Five minutes parked in a car was the limit when they came home from a date. It was Esther's idea too, to start the boys thinking and talking on interesting subjects. "Tell me about clouds," she'd ask her date on the way home, "what do you know about them?" If the boy didn't have wise masculine information handy, he'd study up so he could next time — and he loved it. Esther knew and so did her girl friends soon that being an audience is supremely flattering to the other sex — and it kept their minds on safe grounds for; the girls. I've always believed in thinking with your children instead of against them, if! you wish to help. A parent who is a die! tator is a very poor parent. It's a parent's ! role to say: "I'm a friend. I've lived longer than you. Now, here is everything I've learned. Please use it." But never, "Do I it because I say so," or "because it's best for you." That's a sure way to force them to do just the opposite. Forbidden fruits have been the sweetest since Adam and Eve and always will be. We always followed rules of frank dis | cussion and reason in our house. We I never had a taboo. Taboos are "thou shalt I nots," and that's negative, and nothing I good comes of that. Because of this, alcohol was never a I problem in our home. Dad kept a bottle I of whiskey in the kitchen cupboard and | every Williams child knew where it was. | If they wanted to taste it, they could. li they did, they didn't like it and that was that. But there was no mystery. The first time Esther was offered a flask by a wild youngster at a dance I'm afraid he was terribly let down by her reaction. "Daddy has some at home if I want it," she told him. All our children look back on our simple little home as the greatest home in the world. They were all practically grown before they considered that there existed finer, wealthier, more comfortable homes. And when they did, they didn't like them half so well as their own. simple rules . . . Why? Because their home was their business, their project, their responsibility. They were "in on the act" as Jimmy Durante says, and every minute. They weren't just kids eating and sleeping there, being bossed around and dying to get away. Our place was always a welcomematted clubhouse for the Williams kids and their friends. The big front room was always available for parties, fun, games, events. The only rules about it were (1) See if somebody else has plans to use it first and (2) Clean it up when the fun's over. (I was never the type to be a slave for my children — I don't approve of it!) The kitchen was where our family gathered. It had a long table which was the family dining spot and council table, too. I think every home should have a table like that — especially when I think of the family problems that were taken up, analyzed, and solved enthusiastically around it, with every member tossing in his two cents' worth. Democracy, like so many things, begins at home. Everyone in our house was an active member of the ways and means and the rules committee, too. I saw I Remember Mama with Esther recently. Halfway through that humorously touching picture she squeezed my arm excitedly. "Why, Mommie," she said, "that's us — that was our family!" And it was. And Esther remembers it as warmly and humanly as the author who wrote that play. All of us do. • There was the time, for instance, when June wanted a class sweater. It cost four dollars. To some families that was the same as forty cents; to us it was more like 40 dollars. But all the other girls had them. We discussed it at the table, all of us. We decided that June would feel out of things if she didn't have one too. She should buy one — but how? The idea spread from Esther, and was vigorously seconded by the other children: we'll each give up something we want and that will pay for the sweater. They thought: We can sacrifice; our time will come later. Right now it's very important to June. Another time David joined the Boy Scouts when things were going hard fi