Variety (February 1955)

Wednesday, February 2, 1955 LITERATI 77 Literati Tender Is The Word For L.A. American Civil Liberties Union has entered the L.A. controversy over the removal “for study and review” of 15 books from city schools. School superintendent Claude L. Reeves, in ordering the action, did not identify the per- sons or groups complaining about the books. Southern California branch of ACLU, in protest, warned that “anonymous criticism, submission to pressure group censorship, and removal of books before investiga- tion, instead of after, could en- danger the entire school system.” The so - called controversial books are “American Argument” by Pearl Buck and E. M. Robeson, “Thirteen Against the Odds,” Ed- win R. Embree; “Emotional Prob- lems of Living,” O. S. English and G. H. J. Pearson; “We Call It Hu- man Nature.” Paul Grabbe; “My Wild Irish Rogues.” Vivian Hal- linan; “H is for Heroin/’ David Hulburd, and “Peoples of the So- viet Union,” Corliss Lamont. Also, “The Growing Human Family,” Minco Masani; “Brother* Under the Skin,” Carey McWil- liams; “Field of Broken Stones,” Lowell Naeve; “Walls Came Tum- bling Down.” Mary Ovington; “How Man Discovered His Body,” Sarah R. Riedman; “Russian Jour- ney,” John Steinbeck; “Intercul- tural Education in the American Schools," William E. Vickery, and “Russians; The Land, the People and Why They Fight,” Albert Rhys Williams. *This Is Not My Text’ Another instance of a publisher “slashing the text of an author’s book without his knowledge or per- mission is a matter of discussion currently in literary attorney and Authors Guild circles of Manhat- tan, A paperbag 35c work, “Dark Plunder,” by Victor Rosen, is in- volved. Lion Library, owned by Martin Goodman, is the publisher. Last Otcober. when he saw page (not galley) proofs in order to check details with Walter Winchell and various police officials knowl- edgable concerning the gangster, Vincent Coll, the subject of the book, the author first realized that his 110,000-word manuscript had been cut to 75,000 words. Lion Library’s original editor, Arnold Hano, had meanwhile departed and another editor, Walter Fultz, taken over. Rosen, on advice of his agent. Jay Gorney-Brooks Associates, and his attorney, Newman Levy (him- self a writer), filed official warning to Martin Goodman that the book he wrotgc-was not the book about to be published. As a compromise of- fer, Lion offered to put back 1,000 lines or “typescript.” This did not satisfy author Rosen and the issue was in abeyance until last week, when the paperback suddenly, without notice to the ‘author, ap- peared on the stands. Wylie’s Double-Header Max Wylie, script editor of the Ford Foundation Omnibus series, whose “Clear Channels” book was reviewed in Variety fortnight back actually was the author of two books appearing in the same week —always a feat for any scribe. His second literary chore was a ghosting job. Wylie composed the text for “Assignment: Church- ill” published by Farrar, Straus & Young ($3.75) which is the amus- ing memoir of a Scotland Yard man, Inspector Walter H. Thomp- son, who spent something like 19 years as bodyguard to Sir Winston, both in his Lord of the Admiralty days and later. The book is an amusing and arresting “worms-eye” view of a Ereat man and a not unuseful ad- dendum to Churchilliana. That the text sounds so much like an Eng- lishman and an English inspector is a considerable comment on Max Wylie’s “ear” and his versatility *s a ghost. Land. Toronto Star’s Alumni Fast and present staffers of To- ronto Star, Canada’s largest daily and one of the continent’s noted razzledazzlers, are holding the first comprehensive reunion April 30, ir^ilie Royal" York hotel, Toronto. Most famous Star alumnus is Ern- *' st Hemingway, who worked there two years in the 20’s and was its European correspondent for a while. Others are Pierre Van Paas- * (> n. its correspondent in Spain during the Franco revolt; Merrill Denison, the author; Robinson Mac- the mystery writer; Tom , h, teside, New Yorker profile ex- !!°u’ ^, en Clarke, later a feature 'liter for PM, now lost track of; John Clare and Scott Young, who sell fiction to U. S. slicks. Also Keith Munro, original chronicler and later manager of the Dionne Quintuplets, and their photographer Fred Davis. (Story goes that when the quints were born the then city editor of the Star replied to his correspondents’ query: "Send 75 words.”) Gordon Sinclair, travel author, left the Star but now does a radio-tv column for it. Roger Irwin, onetime financial editor, is a farmer in Tobago, B.W.I. Another alumnus is the head of a seminary, and another is a Toronto traffic cop at King and Yonge, a block from his Alma Mater. Frank Chamberlain, To- ronto publicist, is rounding up his fellow alumni. Important Severance Victory Four discharged employees of the Press Publishing Co. of Atlan- tic City are entitled to severance pay guaranteed by an American Newspaper Guild contract al- though they were discharged after the contract’s termination. County Judge Leon Leonard ruled Friday (28). However such serverance pay is due only between the dates of the Guild’s contracts, which ran from Oct. 23, 1944 to Aug. 22, 1952, the judged ruled. Under the ruling members of the Guild still em- ployed by the company likewise continue to receive severance pay protection should they be dis- charged. Enters As Novelist Angna Enters, the mime, who has more variegated talents than Noel Coward, doesn’t quite make the grade in her debut as a novel- ist. Her Coward-McCann book, “Among The Daughters,” is a curi- ously uneven manuscript. It’s hard to keep the mind engrossed, although individual segments and characters are arresting. It’s not too certain what the author is trying to say. Many of her people are "arty” in the worst sense of having little talent and vast pretense. They abuse the privilege of being neurotic and poseur and in the end the novel is more of a smudge than a suc- cess, although there is surely more than a little^writing talent in this talented woman. Land. CHATTER Helen Gould is the new western editor and columnist for TV Re- vue. Louis L’Amour sold “The Burn- ing Hills,” a serial, to the Sateve- post. Dale Evans’ “My Spiritual Diary” will be issued Feb. 14 by Fleming H. Revell Co. Delmore Schwartz has joined the New Republic as poetry editor. He’ll also review films. Len Boyd shifted from the city desk to drama editorship of the Valley Times on the Coast. Sara Welles, assistant article ed of Woman’s Home Companion, back after eight-week maternity leave. George R. Cruze, Jr., has been named as retail advertising 'man- ager of the Burlington Free Press in Burlington, Vt. Wade N. Nichols Jr., has been upped to veepee of McCall Corp., which publishes Redbook and Bluebook magazines. Scenarist-playwright-n o v e 1 i s t Robert Ardrey is due east next week en route to London and thence to South Africa to do a series of articles for the Reporter mag. Ted Howard, In conjunction with the Betty Impellitteri office, to handle the publicity on the Travel & Auto Sports Show at Madison Square Garden, N. Y., Feb. 20-27. Roland Gammon, writer of re- ligious books (“Truth Is One’’) and lecturer, is becoming PR director of the Council of Liberal Churches (Universalist-Unitarian) and open- ing a Park Ave., N. Y., office as headquarters. Gene Maslow has resigned as publicity director of Music Corp. of America to open his own public relations office. Maslow, who suc- ceeded John Newman as MCA publicity head when the latter left to join Official Films, has been succeeded by Paul Steiner at the talent agency post. A testimonial dinner to Charles F. Young, veteran sports editor of Gannett’s Albany Knickerbocker News, will be given March 6 in the Sheraton-Ten Eyck Hotel ball- room, with Dick Walsh, sports edi- tor of Hearst’s Times-Union, and Ben Danforth, of the Knicker-j bocker News sports staff, as co- chairmen. Bob Buchanan, Ottawa Citizen reporter (now negotiating a Guild contract with Canadian Broadcast- ing Corp. for its news employees), was re-elected president of Ameri- can Newspaper Guild’s Ottawa local. Claude Hammerston, also Citizen and a former Guild prexy, is new president of the Canadian capital’s press club. Charles E. Crane, once a well known newspaperman, has retired after serving as director of publici- ty for the National Life Insurance Co. in Montpelier, Vt., since 1932. He served on the Associated Press staffs in Boston, New York City, Pittsburgh and other cities and spent a year in London as a fea- ture writer for American newspa- pers. After 15 years with the AP, he returned to Vermont and pur- chased the Middlebury Register. Later he was an editor and column- ist on the Brattleboro (Vt.) Re- former and his column, “Pendrift,” was published in book form. ’Billions & Blunders’ SS Continued from page 2 to gather hiaterial. He person- ally shot some six pages of photos, included in the book, illus- trating the luxurious accommoda- tions of Government publicity forces overseas. Forced to Turn Author Castle turned author only after he became convinced, following many personal appeals to Con- gress, that his Republican friends were no different than the Demo- crats in supporting handouts, both financial and mimeographic. Al- though himself a Republican, Cas- tle does not spare Eisenhower or the party, but accuses both of double-talking the whole “econo- my” question. “We are the victims of our own overorganization,” writes Castle, “We have erected a much too cost- ly and complicated superstruc- ture.” He advocates total abolition of film propaganda (70,000 existing prints of 1,000 one and two-reel- ers) and the creation of a compact information staff of professional newspapermen to handle whatever needs the State Dept, may legiti- mately have. Many Washington personages get undelicate treatment in “Billions, Blunder and Baloney” but nobody perhaps so much as Ted Streibert, longtime head of WOR, New York, and now director of the U. S. In- formation Service. There are 278 pages of closed packed charge and fact, figures and interpretations, indignation and angec in this pri- vate citizen’s diatribe against his party and Government. Castle argues that “Communist leaders make themselves close to the common people in their mode of life,” but in contrast Americans live swank existences and talk high-falutin intellectuality. In Cairo, Castle states, no native would dare venture into the re- stricted (and militarily guarded) sector of the city where the U. S. A.’s “people library” is situ- ated. “American government work- ers are paid and live like kings. That makes for jealousy and bad will — the Communist agitators feed on it.” “Billions, Blunders and Baloney” will be exhaustively analyzed and rebutted for a simple reason: it is a body-blow to what its advocates insist is a necessary speaking up for America and what Castle con- tends is the worst kind of “ama- teurism” in the communications arts, all costing American taxpay- ers billions of dollars and doing more harm, he argues, than good. A fighting book, it has already been adopted as a political weapon and will undoubtedly have consid- erable impact upon the spending climate in Congress. That’s the way Castle played it. Pepsi-Cola — Continued from paxe 1 SSSSS ning continuously between the two bottles and beneath the crown; cas- cading 50,000 gallons a minute in New York’s newest Niagara. Win- ter? - Three thousand gallons of antifreeze added. And the water- fall can’t overflow since it’s held in place from the derriere by a vacuum process. Bulb count is 35,000. If a million visitors each took a Pepsi of the eight-ounce variety and poured it into the two towering bottles, the latter would be SRO. i SCULLY’S SCRAPBOOK ;; ;;♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ »♦♦♦+♦♦♦ By Frank Scully ♦+♦+♦♦♦»»♦♦+»»+" Palm Springs. While I yield the floor to none in my devotion to la belle France, I must warn any foreigner who tries to get married there that it’s no Gretna Green. Contrary to Congreve, in Paris you marry at leisure and repent in haste. French law has been gathering tape since Paris was called Lutetia, and that was long before Julius Caesar became a stand-in for Shakes- peare. Indeed, up to the entry of Mexico and Nevada in the field, France was the hardest place to get married and the easiest to get divorced In the so-called Christian world. You Start Here To Get Married Once, losing all restraint, I shouted loud enough to wake up the dead in the Neuilly bureau of births, marriages and deaths: “I can now understand why so many people live in sin on the Left Bank. They can’t afford to cut all this red tape, grease all these palms and wait this long, because they have only one live to live!” The chef assured me he was not making things difficult for us. It was, with a shrug of his shoulders, the law. And what is the law? Well, first, if you’re foreigners, you have to collect the signatures of all the concierges where you have lived for the six previous months. These you must take to the various chiefs of police, who will certify that the signatures of the glorified janitors are not forgeries. Armed with these, the applicant must get an attorney approved by his nation’s embassy to draw up a certificate of eligibility, meaning that these characters bent on holy wedlock are not already bigamists in their native land. This must be taken to the country’s ambassador, who must swear that the attorney was not disbarred in his native land and is indeed an honorable fellow with only ope weakness—a love of champagne cocktails. All this, of course, costs money. Papier timbre must be pasted on all these documents. Signatures have a varying price structure. American ambassadors are worth $1 a word, French ministers of the interior come as low as 15c. Special treatment, of course, can run into big money, but in the end not much time will be gained. Once you have these basic documents, you can then apply for a marriage license. But you cannot get married until the banns have been dispatched by mail to your home town, posted on the bulletin board of the city hall for 10 days and .then mailed back to Paris. This is figured to take six weeks. During that time, one of you may not move from one hotel to another without throwing the whole thing back to first base. ' You’re Still Not Married If you argue that banns are not posted in your homeland any longer, you might get this proviso waived, provided you can get a cabinet minister in office long enough to read it, waive the requirement and take his fee. You can judge along about now that anybody insisting on a legal or holy marriage (and in France you can’t have the second without first submitting to the state’s take) must really mean it. It is wiser to send the little woman in alone as this red tape gets more tangled. She has the only dissolvant. It’s tears. France may be more bogged down with bureaucrats than Washington, blit, they are still easily fetched by a woman’s tears. In our own hunt for happiness, I sent Little Alice in to get a “yes” from a cabinet minister while I sat outside in the sun and talked the whoje thing over with a taxidriver. He told me of a woman who had spent tw-o years trying to knock over these obstacles to wedlock. “She, too, was a foreigner,” he said. “She spent a fortune. She bribed everybody. Finally, her purse empty, she broke down in tears. They fixed the papers within minutes. Everybody kissed the expectant bride and sent her merrily on her way. Her chief difficulty was that she had seven marriage certificates but could dig up only five divorce decrees. She wept the other two into the record.” It was a beautiful sunny day in September. The taxidriver and I watched as Alice approached. She was dabbing her eyes. She was a beautiful sight. Why is it that the highest and holiest always seem crowned with melancholy? What’s French Without Tears? We asked her if she had got the waiver signed. She bowled her head “yes” and burst into tears." The taxidriver was so touched by this proof of how well my little skijumper understood the heart of France, that he too wept quietly at our side. He drove us back to the chef of births, marriages and deaths. He read the document. “Imbe- cile,” he cried, “he doesn’t answer my questions at all. All he does is write ‘yes’ for everything. Some of the answers should have been ‘no’ if he favored getting permission.” Then he saw some tears staining the document. He looked up and saw the expectant bride’s eyes were still moist. He rubbed the back of his neck, bit his thumb, shrugged, okayed the document and said “Voila!” This solved everything? Au contraire! It permitted us to marry in 10 days instead of having to wait around for six weeks. If a lady wants a little church wedding in a little French town, she may find canon law superimposed on the civil arm’s limitations. That happened to be our case and the full details of it were not solved for eight years. It seems that after the church ceremony in France, Mme. Scully remembered that her ring had not been blessed. It was a trinket, really, and cost only 75 francs ($3). The Hollywood Twist Years later, in Hollywood, a Jesuit told her if we would come down some morning about 8 he would bless her ring. When we arrived we found altar boys in white, white pillows for our well-worn knees and indeed all the details of a nuptial mass. We went through the entire marriage ceremony for one line. The line was: “With this ring I tbee re-wed.” # Two days later, at a cocktail party, an actor, who shall remain nameless, grabbed Alice and said, “You know, my mother must be cracking up. She swears she saw you and Frank getting married the other day. ‘But Mother/ I said, ‘they have three children!’ She still insisted it was a marriage ceremony and she saw it with her own eyes.” Alice said, '"That’s right. I'll tell ypu how it happened” . . . With that someone yanked her off to answer a telephone call and she never did get back to complete the explanation for six months. Meanwhile, this character went around telling what a cautious one I was, that I fathered three # kids before I accepted marriage in Its entirety. Not that this lowered me in the eyes of Hollywood, but it gives you some idea of what getting married in Paris can produce by way of repercussions. While I’m no authority on marriage, having been married only once or, more correctly, three times to the same person, I’d advise anybody who could afford it to stay out of France till married. Go to Gretna Green, Switzerland or even Las Vegas and then take off for Paris on your honeymoon.