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University Dairy Kansan Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1954
There's Good Views Today-
Applause Greets Theatre Schedule
John Newfield, now beginning his second year as director of University Theatre, has without question been a controversial figure since arriving on the campus.
Last year the dynamic director was criticized for presenting a bill of fare that was too off-beat, too experimental. The self-appointed critics pointed out that included in the year's plays were: (1) a new play; (2) a play that folded after five Broadway performances; (3) a play that had last appeared in London in 1943, and (4) a play that was resurrected from historical archives (circa 1786).
Yesterday this year's University Theatre's schedule was announced—and we can but applaud.
Included are a modern American drama, Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie"; a British comedy, George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra"; a mystery for sheer entertainment, "Ten Little Indians"; a play along classical Greek lines, "Antigone"; and, finally, a return to Shakespeare, "As You Like It."
For a more varied and yet balanced slate, we doubt if anyone could top this. This writer never went along with those who contended that the university theater was no place for experimentation; however, with a top-heavy roster of rarities such as last year produced, we did think there was a very present danger that the University Theatre might lose its audience.
Now look again at this year's list. There are good, solid works—works that could be imaginatively, experimentally produced—and there is also something for everyone.
Looking at last year's attendance figures, it was obvious that the University audience must be enticed onto higher roads of good theater. Dr. Newfield seems to know the way.
Jerry Knudson.
First Letter of Year
Although it is not the custom of the Daily Kansan to print anonymous letters, the above is a reproduction of the first "letter" received by the editorial staff this year. It arrived in an envelope addressed to staffman Tom Stewart, postmarked Oskaloosa, and refers to Stewart's editorial in Friday's issue criticizing the televising of a Congress-
sional committee's investigation of the labor dispute in Kansas City this summer.
The letter is being "printed" to disclose the originality of the writer's method, although the originality of the thought expressed is somewhat lacking. However, the Kansas leaves the evaluation of the two pieces of writing up to the reader.
'From Here to Eternity Merits Managers' Aid
Shades of Samuel Goldwyn! St-r-r-ange things are happening on the movie front. Paramount theater in New York and the Orpheum in Kansas City are paying for advertising space in newspapers to direct their patrons to rival establishments to see "From Here to Eternity," Columbia Pictures' film adaptation of James Jones much-talked-about novel of peacetime Army life.
"Promotion scheme!" cracks the cynic. Or, and we hope this is the case, a few theater managers are sufficiently fed up with the weak slogan—"Movies Are Really Better Than Ever"—and even weaker films the industry has been grinding out to realize the good will they are creating by pointing out a genuinely good movie—even if it's being shown in the theater down the street.
In our book "From Here to Eternity," which opened early this month at the Capitol theater in New York, merits this unprecedented support. We were greatly surprised upon seeing the film to note it emerged as a thoroughly creditable job after Production Code trouble threatened to emasculate it.
The four-letter words were dropped by the wayside, of course, and to good advantage. Two main points of Jones' brain-child had to be revised to fit into the good-shell-triumph theme of the Code; a rank-bucking Captain, the lowest of the low, becomes a general's aide in the book; in the movie he's cashiered out of service. And the girl-friend of one of the three principal soldier-characters, Maggio, is not a prostitute in the movie.
However, under the creative directorial hand of Fred Zinneman, these acquiescences to the Code are glossed over and the finished product emerges a tightly knit, tensely acted, tough, often brutal movie.
Burt Lancaster adds to his reputation as an actor ("Come Back, Little Sheba") with his portrayal of cynical, amoral Sgt. Warden. Montgomery Clift plays Pvt. Prewitt, ex-fighter who cares to fight no more. Deborah Kerr is Karen Holmes, an army wife who hates it, and Donna Reed is Prewitt's lady friend, Alma.
All turn in obviously sincere performances. Miss Kerr exudes bitterness or passion with equal fervor. And Frank Sinatra as Maggio chalks up one of the best characterizations of the film.
"From Here to Eternity" is lacking in one respect, perhaps stemming from the difficulty of boiling down a lengthy book into a two-hour screenplay. We never really get into the characters' motivations. We are asked, for example, to accept Prewitt as the type whose affections for army life have all the earmarks of a love affair, even though he is treated by that army as a dog's dog.
Be that as it may, "From Here to Eternity" is provocative, adult fare. And we salute those theater managers who put quality above the everlasting dollar. Jerry Knudson.
Daily Hansan
1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1879.
University of Kansas Student Newspaper News Room KU 251 Ad Room KU 376 Member of the Kansas Press Assm., National Editorial Assm., Inland Daily Press Assm., Associated Collegiate Press Assm. Represented by the National Advertising Association. Mail Subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 year (add $1 a semester if in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan.; every afternoon during the University daytime hours. University holidays and examination periods Entered second class matter Sept. 17
NEWS STAFF
Executive Editor ... Clarke Keys
Managing Editors ... Ken Coy, Rozanne
Adviser ... Calder M. Pickett
     EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editorial Editor ... Mary Betz
Editorial Assistants...Jerry Knudson,
Tom Stewart
Urbana, Shirley Platt, Chuck Morelock
News Staff, Office of
Society Editor      Vernin Flaston
Sports Editor        Don Tice
Ast. Sports Editor    Ed Howard
Editor, National
Books: Lively Biography Depicts 'Empress of Journalism'
Old-timers who complain that they don't make characters like they used to, might well cite Mrs. Frank Leslie, nee Miriam Florence Follin, as a case in point. Let Purple Passage (U. of Oklahoma Press), a biography of the fabulous Mrs. Leslie, stand as exhibit A for the complainant.
Biographer Madeline B. Stern describes her subject as a woman who wore "a blue stocking on one leg while she sported a scarlet stocking on the other," and who "was born many times and achieved the impossible by remaining in her thirties for several decades."
After an early title of genteel poverty, the "Aspasia of the South" began her professional career as Mile, Minnie Montez, "sister" of the notorious Lola Montez in a traveling dramatic troupe. She ended it several decades later as Mrs. Frank Leslie, millionaire "empress of journalism."
Her private life was no less flamboyant. Her four husbands include Frank Leslie, founder of the publishing empire which was the source of her fortune, and William C. K. W. Wilde, dissolve brother of the notorious Oscar. The men she didn't marry embraced such a variety of types as California poet Joaquin Miller, a congressman from Tennessee, an anglo-French "marquis," a Russian prince and a grantee of Spain.
Oddly enough, in view of the obvious possibilities of the subject,
Purple Passage is the first published biography of Mrs. Leslie. It is a scrupulously-researched, smoothly-written record of a remarkable woman. . . .
Raja Hutheesing, an Indian journalist and politician and brother-in-law of Premier Nehru, presents a documentary surprise for Westerners in his candid report on Red China. The Great Peace (Harper) is his account of his study of Chinese Communism and of how his sympathy turned to hostility when he saw the truth.
"China offers little hope for the future," he concludes. To reach that
decision he reports with clarity and insight the miserable lot of Chinese under the not-so-benevolent communist rule, the failure of much of the Reds' plans and the danger now of Mao Tse-Tung's probing for domination in Asia.
"We can ignore them only at our peril" he warns, because "the four hundred millions of China are being reduced to mere passionless bodies and their representatives, for they have bartered their humanity for their right to eat."
Huthesews writes with enlightening detail about the Communist germ warfare charges against the U.S. and gives the ultimate indictment of Mao's China: "I now know what George Orwell's 1984 would be like. . ."
I SAYS "THANKS" ANE HE SAYS TO HIS
FRIEND JESSE I GOT A TALKIN' HOUSE"
OTHER FELLER SAYS "YAH' ANE I'M THE
PRESIDENT OF FRANCE"... SO I UPSTO
HIM ANE'S SAYS "FRANCE BETTER GIT A
GUMMINT REMEMBER THE MAN FEDA
HOPE ONE LESS STEW A DAY A YAN
JESSE WHEN THE HORSE WAS GUTTIN'
ALONG WITHOUT..." ANN!
WOULD YOU ALWAYS!
Loser's Choice, by Ruthven Todd (Eiermitage), a story of a traitor who is a sort of left-handed hero—a man clinging steadfastly to a cause he knows to be lost.
Edward Hartley, who had abandoned his birthright, remained faithful to the ideals of his chosen leader even after he had seen the man himself groveling disgustingly in the ruins of his capital. Neither his sweetheart's death nor the duplicity of the Pastor from whom he had expected better things could shake his resolution.
Todd, a Scots-born writer who expects soon to become an American citizen, has attempted to lend universality to his story by giving it no definite place in space or time. The attempt fails despite his writing skill, because his Traitor, his Leader and his Pastor are all too clearly creatures of World War II—the simple, "good old days" when treason consisted of broadcasting over the wrong radio station rather than placing whole populations in danger of flaming death. . .
The Boy Who Saw Tomorrow, by Ian Niall (Appleton - Century Crofts): Niall is not clairvoyant, but he is "entirely Celtic"—"among my ancestors was a witch . . ." he says. "It would be strange if I did not believe that there are people who are fey."
Niall places his foredoomed lad in a British setting which gives full play to his keen understanding of town and village life.
His novel tells of Jimmie Marsel, who first discovered his tragic gift of prohecye when he was barely old enough to talk. Jimmie's "second sight" was a curse because he could forsee only catastrophe -blazes, suicides and sudden deaths which meant trouble for himself and others whether he warned them or not.
A strange and moving book.