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APPLE-POLISHING, BACK-STABBING AND OTHER SPORTS 101
inch screen than to a huge stage. This contrast between the American drama of material plenty — the little white house with all the latest gadgets — and the psychic havoc caused by bowing low be fore that materialism is perhaps as vital a theme as any you'll find in American ife today, and I applaud NBC for having :he courage to put it on — biting the ad' vertisers' hand that feeds it in the process.
"Trouble In Tahiti" is much too witty and provocative to be allowed to lapse ifter only one performance. I hope they'll jo it again.
Victory at Sea
CCX HCTORY At Sea," a monumentally V ambitious enterprise of NBC television, is an attempt to tell in motion pic tures the history of sea warfare from the outbreak of the war in 1939 to the day before yesterday. At the command of the producers was some 50,000,000 feet of film, $200,000, lots of time, the services of Richard Rodgers who composed an original score, and — at least, as originally planned — the writing talents of C. S. Forester, conceivably the greatest living writer of the sea.
Somewhere along the line, Mr. Forester and "Victory At Sea" parted company but the fruits of the rest of the labor are now on view. Sea warfare, for my money, is the most absorbing, the most photc jgenic, the most intricate of mankind's destructive preoccupations and this series can hardly fail to capture your most earnest attention.
Still, considering the time, money and intellectual resources that went into this effort, it is a little disappointing, conceivably because I expected too much. I have seen only two of the twentysix episodes — one on the convoy battle of the Atlantic, one of the battle of Midway. Now, the battle of Midway is one of the most important sea battles of all recorded history. It was here that Admiral Spruance led what was left of the American battle fleet against a larger Japanese fleet, here that America won her first decisive victory after a series of unbroken and humiliating defeats.
The actual battle is magnificently portrayed, not only on our own film but on
captured Japanese film which shows the Japanese planes taking off from their carriers. The grim early part of the battle, in which our bombers failed to score a single hit, our torpedo squadrons were wiped out without causing any damage to the Japanese, is shown in heartbreaking detail. Then came the incredible two minutes when the whole tide of battle changed, three Japanese carriers went to the bottom, and the Japanese fleet scampered for home, leaving Midway still in our hands.
Richard Rodgers has deleted all the ordi' nary battle noises from the film and sub' stituted music. So skillfully is this done that you never miss the gunfire at all. The music suggests it instead. The Rodgers score is a beautifully descriptive job of writing, but here again, I think, it does not — in the episodes I saw — quite rise to the sweeping grandeur of the sea and of sea warfare. A sea battle is a majestic thing and the music, captivating as it is, is not quite up to it.
"Care to take the wheel awhile, Herb?"