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University Daily Kansan Friday, Jan. 4,1952
Daily Kansan Editorials
'Saturday's Hero': True Hollywood Style
Editor's Note: The following review is perhaps a little late for most KU students. It was only recently syndicated by the Associated Collegiate Press. Unfortunately, "Saturday's Hero" played in Lawrence some time ago. Doubtless, though, the movie is still sticking in the minds of many.
We run it on the editorial page not as a movie review but as proving a point. Hollywood has been going overboard lately to expose what it considers to be scandals. There's some sort of a ballyhoo involved which must be watched carefully lest too many people go overboard also.
Admittedly, the movie had its good points. But the bad points, isolated in the following editorial, were far too numerous. Football may be too big, but only an honest and direct attack will clear it.
Apparently Hollywood this year has declared open season on some of college life's more vulnerable components. First it was the Greek-blaster "Take Care of My Little Girl," and currently it's Columbia with "Saturday's Hero."
This picture centers around Steve Novak, the son of Polish immigrants, who is a real nice kid despite the head-swelling distinction of being a high school football star.
As numerous college offers come rolling in, Steve overcomes the temptation to stay home and help support his aging father and war disabled brother, finally accepts his football scholarship at Jackson university, Va. (a safe distance from Hollywood).
It is made clear that the only reason he accepts is to get an engineering education.
At school Novak is troubled to find that he must work for his keep several hours a day on the practice field, a schedule which naturally interferes with his studies. As time passes, Novak doesn't. But this is a mere detail to a school with ambitious football hopes, and the marks are doctored to a healthier status.
Our boy finds no trouble in making the team—everybody's crazy about him. But as the seasons roll by and his name gets bigger and bigger, Novak's conscience begins to bother him.
To complicate matters, he falls in love with the niece of T. C. McCabe, his alumni benefactor, who is carrying the financial load of building alma mater's football reputation.
Finally, after permanently injuring a shoulder, Novak decided it's a bad deal, takes the girl away from jealous guardian McCabe and goes home to get an education at night school.
"This is how one man beat the Saturday afternoon racket," according to the buildups given this movie.
The less said about the acting the better. John
Derek lets his expressive eyebrows do most of the work as he furnishes a dozen soulful scowls per reel. Donna Reed, as the poor-little-rich-girl heroine, appears to have more frustrations than a tap dancer whose shoes are-soled with bubble gum.
The football actions scenes were well done, but would have been better had they included a few feet of film showing the other team on offense. (Anyone can win if the opposition isn't allowed to have the ball once in awhile).
The film's approach to the ills of football keeps it from being really effective. In true Hollywood style, it insists on centering its theme on a good looking hero who inevitably must live happily ever after. Further, it takes the easy way by blaming everything except the second war on a single monster called "football."
Another hanky-dampening scene comes when Novak's teammate admits through sobs that he swiped a handful of coin from the chapel collection box. He was made out to be a real nice kid who had been corrupted by the Big Game.
For example, when the hero's father dies. Novak's brother reads him off, saying something to the effect: "You were too busy playing football to bother with pore ol' paw!"
We'll go along with the film in its shaming the fans, the coaches (the one in this movie looks more like a bookie), the alumni and the sports writers. But the point has been missed.
The players are portrayed as good, clean, :ed-blooded, 100 per cent rah rah, American boys who are unfortunate enough to be able to play football. Not a word is offered about the school administrators who hypocritically turn their heads from the questionable activities within their colleges.
In fact, the deepest single impression made by this film—if accepted at face value—is that college athletes must be enormously stupid. Who can sympatize with these "kept men" who play a dangerous game for a paltry $100 per month?
In short, this film has too many weak spots. It was heralded as "The story never before told." We won't argue that, but we wish they had told it better.
Princess Elizabeth has returned home now and all America is thinking how different this world is in some countries a girl can hope to be a queen without having to pose for cheesecake.
Of course Elizabeth's sister Margaret Rose, a high-flying member of London's night life, may consider this an unfortunate consequence of being born into royalty.
Letters To The Editor
Universal Military Training-- To Be Or . . . ?
Dear Editor:
Congressmen will be heading for Washington, D.C., Jan. 8. They will be faced with the legislation of the proposed Universal Military Training bill prepared by the national security training commission which Carl Vinson, chairman of the House arms service committee, says he will introduce the first day the House convenes. By its nature, the bill will be referred to his committee and he promises immediate hearings beginning Jan. 9 in order to bring the bill to an early final vote.
What is UMT? Some people have the conception that UMT is providing manpower for the armed forces, but the present draft takes care of that. The proposed UMT plan is permanent peacetime conscription of 18-year-old boys. It provides six months military training.
UMT is not an emergency measure although it is using the guise of emergency and the present crisis to be pushed through Congress.
A few of the real issues, whether
enacted in the present or in peacetime, are these:
1. Cost. The cost for one year is staggering. Publicly controlled educational institutions spend about $700 per student annually while UMT costs are estimated to be for six months $2,700 per trainee.
The total approximate cost of three billion according to Dr. Donald Dushane, secretary of one of the commissions of the National Education association, would give every county a 10-room school building, a library, a hospital, employ 10 public health doctors and 10 nurses, maintain a psychiatric and behavior clinic, provide 10 full time recreational and juvenile guidance workers, meet the payroll of one junior college with 10 instructors, plus providing all expenses of a three year postgraduate course for 10,000 selected students each year and erect a $750,000 trade and technical school in each congressional district each year. All this and there would still be an unexpended sum of about 30 million dollars.
by Bibler.
3. Morals. The UMT report has nothing to offer on dealing with what it agrees is an immense moral problem.
2. Security measures, UMT would not provide an immediate armed force in time of emergency because of the need of extensive re-training. The present draft takes all available men now and UMT would add no additional manpower during this present crisis.
If you want UMT, simply do nothing.
Students, now is the time to voice your opinion.
If you don't want UMT, write your representative now.
The following are the represent-
tives from Kansas with their respe-
tive districts and home.
1. Albert M. Cole, Holton
2. Errett P. Scrivner, Kansas City
3. Myron George, Altamont
4. Edward H. Rees, Emporia
5. Clifford R. Hope, Garden City
6. Wint Smith, Mankato.
Harold C. Lohrentz,
Education Junior.
Little Man On Campus
"Well, we've simply got to flunk someone! Get me a list of the students who are taking this course as an elective!"
Everybody's In Step, Even Us
The staff members of the Daily Kansan appear to have been as well informed on what made the big news last year as were the editors of the nation's newspapers.
A comparison of the polls taken by the Daily Kansan, the Associated Press and the United Press on the top news events of 1951 shows the three groups were almost unanimous in their selection of the top 10 stories.
There was complete agreement on the choosing as the No.1 story the firing of Gen.Douglas MacArthur and the subsequent foreign policy debate. In naming the other choices the three polls showed similar results.
On several of the events there were different divisions of the topics. For example, the AP grouped the Kefauver crime investigations, the RFC disclosures and the tax probes under the single heading "decay of public morality." But the Daily Kansan and the UP separated it into several individual events.
An indication of how important in students' minds are the problems of inflation and atomic warfare may be found by examining the polls. Both of these topics were included in the lists of the press associations but neither made the grade in the Daily Kansan survey.
Apparently the closeness of the Midwest floods influenced the students' voting on that subject. While the Daily Kansan listed it as No. 4, the Associated Press rated it No. 6 and the United Press named it No. 9.
The biggest surprise found in a comparison of the ratings is that the news of the college sports scandals rated Nos. 5 and 6 in the press association polls but just barely got aboard the first 10 of the Daily Kansan. It would seem that this story was considered more important outside the college area in which it occurred.
A complete comparison of the rankings of the events in each of the three polls is as follows:
| | DK | AP | UP |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Firing of Gen. MacArthur | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Korean war | 2* | 2* | 2* |
| Cease-fire talks | 3 | 2* | 2* |
| Midwest floods | 4 | 6 | 9 |
| Kefauver investigations | 5 | 3* | 3 |
| British elections | 6 | 4 | 8 |
| Tax scandals | 7 | 3* | 7 |
| Middle Eastern tension | 8 | 8 | x |
| NATO | 9 | 10 | x |
| Sports scandals | 10 | 5 | 6 |
| Battle against inflation | x | 7 | 4 |
| Atomic developments | x | 9 | 10 |
| Korean war atrocities | 2* | 2* | 5 |
News Room Student Newspaper of the Adv. Room KU 251 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS KU 376
- indicates more than one category.
Daily Kansas
Member of the Kansas Press Assn., National Editorial Assn., Inland Daily Press Assn., and the Nationally Represented by the National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017.
Editor-in-Chief Alan Marshall
Editorial Associate Anne Snyder
EDITORIAL STAFF
NEWS STAFF
Managing Editor ... Charles Price
Assistant Managing Editors ... Nancy Anderson, Benjamin
Holman, Lee Sheppeard, Ellsworth Zahn
City Editor ... Joe Taylor
Sports Editor ... Charles Burch
Telegraph Editor ... Don Sarten
Society Editor ... Katrina Swartz
News Adviser ... Victor J. Danilov
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Business Manager ... Bob Sydney
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Promotion Manager ... Ted Barbera
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