TWOI T11 MICHIGAN DAILY TWO THE MICHTGAN nATTY r Z ..WAZ .5. 1LI £4. 3frp jan rBai# Sixty-Fifth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN _ UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH. * Phone NO 2-3241 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily are written by members of The Daily staff and represent the views of the writers only. This must be noted in all reprints. GUN-MOLL MACBETH: Films, Need Their Own Writers THE PLIGHT of the serious fiction writer at- Paleface speak with forked tongue. Medicine tempting to invade the film field was made man say paleface must die ... very evident in a motion picture playing in MONSTER FILMS: Think me a supersti- town over the past week. The movie, "Land of tious 'old fool if you wish, but certain events the Pharoahs," bore the name of Nobel-Prize- have occurred which lead me to believe we are Winner William Faulkner as one of the screen dealing with someone-or something-not of writers connected with the spectacle, this world . . . That's strange, except for these Filmed in Egypt at a cost known only to two tiny puncture marks on the throat, the producer Howard Hawks, and employing the body bears not a single sign of violence . . services of Mohammedan pilgrams on their SOUTH SEA FILMS: How innocent and way to Mecca, "Pharoahs" was a work con- carefree they are, dancing in the semi-nude, ceived in circus-tent terms, where the more unhampered by the raiments and inhibitions the viewer has to see, the better the box office of civilization ... Little Taloo is fast approach- intake and the more satisfied the customers. ing womanhood. Watch how she does the Dance Granted that Faulkner only writes screen- of Awakening .. . UNDERDOG FILMS: People like to push you plays because he finds the job financially lu- around. You gotta push back. That's Johnny crative (Edgar Wallace once boasted, "I write ar's mott-push back a scenario in a couple of days and get paid a LOVE FILMS: Don't tell me this gorgeous fortune for it"), his attempt at writing a serious creature standing before me nowis the Sally story of ancient Egypt pointed out rather clear- Bixby T used to know years ago? Don't tell me ly that some triers have no business whatso- BxyIue oko er gDnttl e ever In Hollywood: they lack the necessary tal- this is the pug-nosed little tomboy with braces eve int olyr wrod:theygacdtheinecesary tai-aon her teeth whose pigtails I dipped in inkwells t for screen writing and their literary posi- in old Miss Pennymire's class in the fourth tion is enhanced very littleigrade? .. . Obviously, almost no one will ever know how SCIENCE-FICTION FILMS: Sometimes I ask much of "Pharoahs' Faulkner wrote and how myself-are we doing right? Should we go on much his co-workers revamped. But Faulkner with this experiment or should we destroy it is no dramatist, and his "Requiem for a Num," here and now? partially conceived in the dramatic idiom, BAD GIRLS (With Hearts of Gold) FILMS: clearly displayed his ignorance of what makes They call me Rose-shanghai Rose. Parents good theater were missionaries-killed by bandits when I Hollywoodi has always been in need of ma- was eleven months old: Been on my own ever terial to fill its exhaustive production schedule. since ... Men-you're all alkie. Park Avenue In the past it has turned more often to novels or Skid Row, you all got one track minds- and established Broadway musicals and dramas and brother! How often I've traveled that for story matter. But its transcriptions of these track ... works have.been, for the most part, disappoint- PHILOSOPHY FILMS: Sometimes it makes ing and ridiculous. Who can ever forget "Hem- you stop and wonder what it-. all about ... ingway's "The Snow of Kilamanjaro," turned AS PURVIS has pointed out, in rather ex- into a travelogue for Ava Gardner and Greg- treme form, what Hollywood needs now is ory Peck; and the unreleased production of not wide screens, new color processes, more "MacBeth," something in which MacBeth is stars, or a few thousand more extras-but in- a gangster and Lady MacBeth his gun-moll. telligent screenwriters who turn out mature As for original screen writing, there is very work. litle of any sort, although the screen offers an Hollywood does not need plays which are unlimited world of possibility. Perhaps what prudishly censored, photographed nearly intact screen writers really need is an expanded hori- with a few extra exterior shots. It does not zon in which to move, the cessation of censor- need Broadway musicals with additional songs ship problems that border on the absurd, and and a 15-minute ballet thrown in for good the realization that the caption "cast of thou- measure. It does not need to be an outlet for the sands" is not the qnly way to sell a picture. July Book-of-the-Month selection. All of these HARRY PULVIS, writing in the June-July things have, it is true, been done well at one issue of "Films in Review," has clearly fo- time or another, but film making is a definite cused upon this problem in an article entitled, artistic medium, it is not a channel for works "Sure Fire Dialogue." Writer Pulvis provides conceived for the printed page or the stage. It some cliched phrases that have haunted cine- has possibilities and limitations that are its ma patrons since the days of the early talkies. very own. And it is about time that it begin to A small part of his categorization is provided produce more works that are conceived solely below: for its own proportions: it needs better writers, PIONEER FILMS: Rake, you're the only man and it offers to .the talented opportunities for in the valley who knows this territory well both professional and financial satisfaction. enough to get the wagon-train through . . . --Ernest Theodossin CURRENT MOVIES The Other Summit LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Eggheads .. . To the Editor: I SHOULD LIKE to make a few comments about the intolerant articles and letters that have re- cently appeared in the Michigan Daily. All seem to be in favor of intellectual freedom, and then give their definition of it. From this it is apparent that there is little if any difference between the Communists, the Fascists, Zi- onists, ADAer, the CIO, Socialists, Pacifists, New Dealers; and a great many professors in the Lit- erary College who should know better. They all wish to impose their prejudice upon society, and then call it democracy. These groups are all totalitarian; that is why they cannot get along with each other. If any of them ever gained the upper hand they would impose a brand of slavery as cold as the ice of Siberia itself upon the rest of us. The eggheads in the Lit School tell us that intellectual freedom means a man has the right to be a Communist. This is sheer non- sense, for no one has the right to enslave his fellow man. However, if one does take the stand that a person has a right to be a "red" because of intellectual freedom then -in order to be conssV m ;e must grant certain other righ Ls such as: the right to be a Fascist, Nazi, McCa'thyite, re ctionary ( l'atever that is) etc. This is something the liberals, and left 'ingers, etc., (although they m., occasionally pay hypocritical lip service to it) would never grant Those who cry the loudest for civ- il liberties, and intellectU il f-ce- dom de(Nne neither. ro they would deny octh to others if they had the power. It is not surprising that so many liberals are in favor of co-exist- ence with the Communists, but not with the Republicans. They have more in common +with the former, and of course dislike them less. --Mike Ullanov 9 . 4.* To the Editor: THE FOLLOWING bit arose from an inner feeling of ten- sion that comes with finals. I hope that you will consider it for pub- lication. IF (With apologies to Kipling) If you can keep cool when all about you Are cracking up and 'screaming' all on you. Or take in stride each examina- tion While Schnooks around you get frustration. IF you can muster up each nerve and sinew Without a capsule of dexadrine or two, And still be heavy when comes the hour To mark it false instead of true. IF you can walk with 3.5's Perceiving things from glassy eyes, And still worry not too much As each second and minute swiftly flies. IF you can fill each fleeting bluebook, With bull your Prof. has issued by the ton, Yours is the course and the three hours credit in it And, what is more, you'll get an '?, my son. -Maurice Martinez ti :. I l BOOK REVIEWT U.S. Defense of Europe On a Flimsy Foundation How Not to Write a Play by Walter Kerr, Simon & Schuster, 244pp, $3.50. THIS IS a book with a thesis. It runs something like this: the theater is dying, it no longer attracts large audiences; people are staying away now because in recent years when they went to the theater what they saw didn't en- tertain them; they weren't enter- tained because the playwrights didn't want to write about the things that would entertain their audiences; and finally, the play- wrights have chosen not to write about popular themes because they are obstinately seeking their in- spiration in the outdated theater of Ibsen and Chekov. So, in the final analysis, it is the playwright himself who is to blame for the present state of the theater. That, in a nutshell, is Mr. Kerr's answer to the perplexing problem of the languishing legitimate stage. From his vantage point as drama critic for the New York Herald Tribune he ought to be qualified to comment with some authority on the subject. Certainly the truth of his basic assumption can be easily demon- strated. The theater is dying a slow but recognizable death. In our immediate area, substantiating comment was recently made by Russell McLauchlin, for many years drama critic for the Detroit News. In summing up his observa- tions on this phenomenon, Mc- Lauchlin writes: "Back at the beginning of the Great Depression, there were four - and briefly five - large and comfortable theaters in Detroit, housing tour- Ing attractions all season long, There were two stock houses .. . And there was a Keith Circuit vaudeville theater . . . Those ran profitably for 50 weeks out of the 52. This was a drama editor's beat, a quarter century ago. And what is it now? The downtown theaters have shrunk to two: the Cass and the Schubert. Their season's record, as these lines are being written in April, is: The Schubert has been lighted for a total of 24 weeks, since Labor Day of 1954, and it has housed 14 shows of all kinds. The Cass, over the same period, has had the lights on for 23 weeks and its show total is 12." Granted, then, the validity of the book's premise, what of Mr. Kerr's placement of the guilt? In the past, the public, the producers, the critics, and now the playwrights have all taken turns at being singled out as the cause for the decline of the thea- ter. Not too long ago, Dr. Carl Grabo placed the stigma on the mass audience which demanded (he argued) constant repition of formula drama, with only a few minor plot alterations here and there. In his scheme, a "creative critic" would set things right. Mr. Kerr, however, seems to have faced up to the problem with more force and directness, and he ends up opposing Dr. Grabo's views. Mr. Kerr's argument sounds convincing - what's wrong with the legitimate stage is what is shown on it. Once we are in agreement with this, we have joined Mr. Kerr in a movement to revolutionize the theater, to return it to the source from which, as he points out, it first emerged and 4ained stature -the mass audience. In effect, Mr. Kerr would like to shut the door op an era, on a type of play which he claims has outlived its popularity but re- mains in vogue among the creators of drama. Action, emotion, vio- lence he would like to see returned to the stage, in spectacular amounts, these being the basic things to which an audience faith- fully responds. Mr. Kerr concludes that their return would signal the beginning of a ne wera of dramatic experience. How Not to Write a Play is an important book whose intent is to accelerate the slackening heart- beat of the American theater. It stands as a sizeable contribution toward the achievement of this invigorating effect. -Donald A. Yates Poliomyelitis has been discussed in medical iterature since ancient times. The name stems from the Greek words polio ("gray") and myelos ("marrow"), to indicate an inflamation of the gray matter of the spine. Since it has s6metimes involves paralysis and the out- breaks were largely confined to young children it was commonly called "infantile paralysis." But paralysis is the accident of polio-the uncommon manifesta- tion of a common disease. Indeed, four out of five of us have had polio without knowing ,it and de- veloped natural immunity. When one considers that polio virus en- ters through the nose or mouth and leaves by way of the stools, it is easy to understand how the disease can be widely transmitted. Usually the symptoms are no worse than those of a mild cold. In very rare cases, the virus at- tacks nerve cells, destroying them and short-circuiting the muscles dependent upon them, causing them ti wither in paralysis. If the virus travels upward toward the brain, it produces bulbar polio, paralyzing the respiratory and at- tendent muscles; if it remains in the spinal cord, the limbs become paralyzed. No one knows why the virus occasionally turns crippler, but we do know that this happens most often in countries where san- itary standards are high. .-The Reporter Architecture Auditorium DIAL M FOR MURDER, with Grace Kelly and Ray Milland. THE JOYS of seeing an Alfred Hitchcock movie twice in a short period are decidedly limited: one can pick up the small tricks of the director's particular technique, and pay closer attention to the problem of seeing which scene Hitchcock will grace with his own portly presence.. But the story, once known, ceases to be very interesting, and the acting style de- manded by Hitchcock is all of a piece. Dial M for Murder was quite a success on the stage, and probably an even greater box-office contender when it appeared as a movie last year. Like so many of Hitchcock's films, it rests pretty heavily upon gimmicks and camera angles. The story is about an aging tennis star (Ray Milland) who plots the murder of his wealthy but wandering wife (Grace Kelly), and about how he fails to pull off the job. There are minor plots about Miss Kelly's affaire with an American detective-story writer (Bob Cummings) and about the history of the hired assassin, but these do not delay the sus- pense more than is necessary. The ingenuity given to the police inspector (John Williams) is perhaps the most charming part of the film, though it too smacks of the heavy-handed methods so often employed by the director. AS TO THE actors themselves, one continually wonders about the fame of Miss Kelly. She has a kind of individuality rare on the screen, and makes the best of it in all her pictures. But whether it may be classified as acting talent is another matter altogether. Miss Kelly gen- The Daily Staff Managing Editors ........ ...... Cal Samra Jim Dygert NIGHT EDITORS Mary Lee Dingier, Marge Piercy, Ernest Theodossin Dave Rorabacher.................... .....Sports Editor erally wears less make-up, or uses make-up intended to look like less make-up, and this constitutes her "naturalness." Ray Milland and Bob Cummings seem to be dangerously miscast. Milland is too suspicious from the start, obviously because he wants ii) be; his is the sort of mistake that Hitchcock should have been able to catch right off, ex- cept that suspicious characters are Hitchcock's bread and butter. Cummings plays Cummings, and no director on earth has been able to stop him from that. But then, if you haven't seen it yet, Dial M is a good one-time show. -Tom Arp At the State .. . How To Be Very, Very Popular, with Betty Grable, Sheree North and Bob Cummings. DESPITE THE appearance of two under- clothed, peroxided females, "How To Be Very, Very Popular" never gets its comic foot out of a cement vat. The story of two burlesque cuties (Betty Grable and Sheree North) who run away from the scene of Stripper' Cherry Blossom Wang's murder and hide out in college, "Popular" attempts to poke fun at the internal workings of college life, but the material it works with and the presentation it gives of higher educational institutions are both too stereotyped to be very much fun. Structurally "Popular" relies on old-time- burlesque routines to spark interest, but it has been some time since hitting people on the head with heavy instruments could sustain laughter and enjoyment. What "Popular" needs most badly is a few song-and-dance numbers. It has been advertised with strong emphasis on its title song, but the only thing musical about the picture is its heavily-orchestrated stereo- phonic-sound background, and it remains a low- budget CinemaScope effort that should arouse, very little enthusiasm. Both Miss Grable and Miss North seem ill By DREW PEARSON PARIS-The time is approach- ing when Congress will want to take a penetrating look at the flimsy foundation on which is built our so-called defense of Eu- rope. If a Congressional commit- tee sholud probe a little deeper than shopping tours along the Rue De Rivoli, lunch at the Ritz and an evening at the Casino De Paris it would find a condition of neu- tralism and fair-Veather friend- ships that would persuade some Congressmen we should pull out of Europe altogether. This alarming statement is not Written by one who believes in iso- lation, but rather by one who be- lieves the cultural, economic and friendship ties.with Europe should never be severed. Defense, howev- er, is something else again. And there is no use guarding your bank or business with a rusty re- volver in the hands of a night watchman who sleeps most of the time and who couldn't bear to pull the trigger if he did find someone robbing the place. This sounds like a. pessimistic picture. However, here is a fac- tual report on what the USA faces in regard to the defense of Eur- ope: NATO, the North Atlantic Trea- ty Organization is a praiseworthy but none too successful attempt to make nations work together, whose main military spark is Gen. Al Gruenther - brilliant, indefati- gable commander of NATO's mili- tary organization. Gruenther has labored valiantly to whip together in fact an organization which two years ago existed only on paper. He has increased NATO bases from almost zero to 140. He has built miles of pipeline to bring oil and gas to these bases and he has materially improved the good will and cooperation know-how of the 14 NATO nations. Eisenhower himself would be the first to say General Gruenther has done a better job than did he, Ike. BENEATH SURFACE H OWEVER, when you probe be- neath the surface of NATO's defenses here is what you find: 1. Most of the 140 bases are Am- erican, paid for by the USA and manned by American troops. 2. The French, who were sup- posed tQ supply the backbone of NATO's manpower, have fizzled. Two French divisions which had been equipped by the USA were suddenly pulled out of NATO with- out a word to Gruenther and sent to North Africa-American equip- ment and all. Two additional divi- sions supposed to be mobilized by the French still aren't. That's four divisions minus.- 3. The Norwegians are building NATO bases to protect them from Russian attack-and they need protection, for one Russian base, Lubbeck, is only 26 minutes away. Bu1t under Nrweg-ian law Ameri- the "modern" equipment to be or- dered would be out of date. The French military budget has not even been voted for 1955-56. 5. Marshal Tito, with one of the toughest armies in Europe, has gone neutral. He did this. after visiting Premier Nehru of India, not after the Kremlin leaders came to Belgrade. It was after they heard he had gone neutral that they were encouraged to come. The Turks rushed to Bel- grade to urge Tito to go ahead with the three-power Balkan De- fense Pact-Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia-but he said no. 6. As a result of Tito's neutral- ism, the Greeks are beginning to talk about it. WAVE OF NEUTRAL[SM 7. Neutralism is strong in Ger- many, the country we are de- ,pending on to. bolster European defenses. A recent civil-defense test of German defenses showing that, as in the United States, Ger- many was wide open to hydrogen warfare, brought forth a panic of neutralist press lament. German editors wrung their hands over re- arming Germany, claimed that the American weapons to be used by the new German Army were ob- solete. The neutralist compaign reach- ed such a fervor that American authorities had to drop hints to the Germans that the "obsolete" weapons were the same as those used by American troops in. Ger- many and if Germany thought American troops should pull out, we would be glad to consider it. After that the hand-wringing stopped. But the fact remains that two world wars plus the dread spectre of the hydrogen bomb have madek Europe overwhelmingly neutral- neutral and pacifist. Sweden is of- ficially and completely neutral. The left wing of the British Labor Party and the German Social De- mocrats are neutral. In brief, the Defense of Europe in case of war would boil down to the United States, Canada and England-with the Turks doing what they could in the Mediter- ranean. DIFFICULT ALTERNATIVES THOSE ARE the facts which any Congressional committee dig. ging beneath the surface would find in Europe. As to the alternatives and re- medies, frankly there are no sure- fire remedies and the alternatives are not happy ones. Here are some of them: A. We could pull out of Europe altogether, which would turn Eu- rope very sour and eventually per- haps Communist. B. We can try to strengthen our patchwork quilt of alliances - a difficult job at best-with only the British being really depend- able. C. We could rely on Eisenhow- er's new and none too certain pro- t.- no _ .. i lrt tinnn-- -- 4+1~ Di- t r" ' _, t r . ",Y DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN The Daily Official Bulletin is an official publication of the University of Michigan for which the Michigan Daily assumes no editorial responsi- bility. Publication in it is construc- tive notice to all members of the Uni- versity. Notices should be sent in TYPEWRITTEN form to Room 3553 Administration Building before 2 p.m. the day preceding publication (be- fore 10 a.m. on Saturday). Notice of lectures, concerts and organization meetings cannot be published oftener than twice. FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1955 VOL. LXVI, NO. 27 Notices Regents' Meeting: Friday, Sept. 30. Communications for consideration at that meeting must be in the President's hands by Thurs., Sept. 22. Veterans who expect to receive edu- cation and training allowance under Public Law 550 (Korea G. I. Bill) whose courses end on July 30 must fill in monhlynat.fnnfn-XTmVnm 7_10,as needs Chemists, Chem. Engrs., Phar- macists, and Physicists. Parke Davis & Co., Detroit, Mich., has an opening for an Export Service Man who is a language graduate with English and Spanish, and some training in export or foreign trade and interest in utilizing the two fields. Nat'1 Gypsum Co., Detroit, Mich., of- fers a position to Salemen to work in the Muskegon district. Wright Air Development Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is looking for Research Historians. For further information contact the Bureau of Appointments, 3528 Admin. Bldg., Ext. 371. Lectures Department of Astronomy. visitors' Night, Fri., July 29, 8:30 p.m. Mr. Robert C. Bless will speak on "Radio Astronomy." Following the illustrated lecture in 2003 Angell Hall, the Stu- dent's Observatory on the fifth floor will be open for telescopic observation of Saturn and the Moon, if the sky is clear, and for inspection of the Pressures on Nucleate Boiling," Sat., July 30, 3201 East Engineering Bldg., at 10:00 a.m. Chairman, J. T. Banchero. Doctoral Examination for Hans Paul Guth, English Language and Literature; thesis: "Threat as the Basis of Beauty: Pragmatist Elements in the Aesthetics of Richards, Dewey, and Burke," Sat., July 30, East Council Room, Rackham Bldg., at 9:30 a.m. Chairman, A. J. Carr. Concerts Student Recital. Wayne B. Gard, graduate student in the School of Music,a program of compositions for percussion instruments at 8:30 p.m. Sun., July 31, in Aud. A, Angell Hall. He will be assisted by Benjamin Gray, piano, Frank Baird, Jack Snavely, clari- net, and Burton Jackson, Alfred Marco and James Salmon, percussion. Gard studies percussion with Mr. Salmon, and presents the recital in partial ful- fillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music (Music Edu- cation Instrumental). Open to the public.