Gene Tierney plays woman of mystery
She’s star of ‘Sundown,’ story of Africa – Harry James’ band on Stanley stage
By Kaspar Monahan
There’s a lot of shooting in Mr. Walter Wanger’s “Sundown” at the Stanley, but for all the real excitement it stirs up the boys might as well be using pop guns and bean shooters.
This is to be regretted for Mr. Wagner is a conscientious producer who has tried to inject into his fable concerning the Axis-British war in North Africa a message of international significance. He has his gallant Britishers score a smashing victory over their adversaries in their sector of the front, to be sure, but as drama “Sundown” is about as important as a Hollywood horse opera. In fact substitute Indians for the black desert tribesmen under Axis command and Autry and his pals for Bruce Cabot and his make-believe Britishers and “Sundown” is unmasked for what it is just plain old hoss opera.
And aside from eye-appeal, the presence of Miss Gene Tierney isn’t much help. She is a mysterious beauty who flies around the desert and in exotic garments, exposing her not uncomely midriff. It’s revealed she’s a sort of “Eurasian,” her pappy being Arabian and her mama French; and she rides airplanes here and there as she looks after her trading post business.
She’s a suspect
Guns and ammunition, somehow, are being smuggled to hostile tribesmen. Is this Eurasian houri involved? Well, there’s a hint of great mystery to it all, but Miss Tierney never for a minute exudes any more mystery than a bottle of perfume at the five-and-ten not as much, in fact. But scrumptious to look.
Their in-smuggling agitates Mr. Cabot, commissioner at the outpost, and fellow officers George Saunders and Reggie Gardiner; also an Italian deserter, Joseph Calleia, and regiment or two of colored extras recruited for the desert campaign from the Los Angeles black belt.
There’s dire and dark business of furtive caravans winding through a cave, airplanes landing on secluded lakes and the transferring of guns and shells to the Axis tribesmen. There is the whine of bullets from ambush, there are stalking and plotting and bloodshed.
In all this hullabaloo a mouthpiece for Mr. Wagner delivers a long sermon on the plan for world dominion by the Axis through the process of conquering the land in Africa and other continents. The Axis, however, is never really mentioned, for the film was made before we went to war and when it wasn’t cricket to call the Nazis bums. There, some talk too about the church holding the empire together and the army defending it. But such ideas are left at loose ends and flapping feebly. The talk serves no purpose except to delay action. The film never for a minute develops any real tension, the players to a man and to Miss Tierney never for a minute appear to be anything else but mere actors make-believing with half-hearted conviction.
Mr. Harry James is a busy band leader, repeatedly blowing on his famed trumpet as his boys wax alternately hot and sweet. Billy Rayes, expert juggler, who mixes patter and impersonations with his jugglings, and the Four Samuels, clowning hoofers, provide the major variety acts. Mr. James’ specialists – Helen Forrest, Jimmy Saunders and Corky Corcoran – are much in evidence and opening day crowds applauded them generously.
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SAN FRANCISCO – This city’s concern over whether or not it will be bombed by Japanese planes seems to ebb and flow with the tides of war on the other side of the Pacific.
But right now, I believe the San Francisco public mind has settled down to a resigned but firm belief that sooner or later this city will have a taste of it. It may be soon, it may not be for a year, but some day it will come – that’s what the public thinks.
Lots of people here ask me, in consequence, about bomb shelters in England, and whether they should build private ones for their homes. They’re especially interested in the famous Anderson shelter, so I guess I’ll just spout off a little about the Anderson today.
It was named for Sir John Anderson, who was Minister of Home Security at the time it was adopted as more or less the official home type of shelter. It was issued to the British public on a what-you-can-afford basis. People making below $800 a year paid nothing.
The Anderson is a corrugated iron shed shaped like a miniature dirigible hangar. You dig a hole in the ground about two feet deep, set this iron shed into it, and then cover the top of the shed with dirt a couple of feet thick.
The Anderson is big enough for about six people and is good protection against blast and flying splinters, but of course is no good at all under a direct hit (and neither is almost anything else). I have seen an Anderson absolutely unharmed by a bomb 20 feet away.
England tried the Andersons for a year and a half. but when I left in the spring she was about to abandon the Anderson idea. Of course most people who already have them won’t throw them away, but the government’s approval was switching to a different type.
They made people miserable
The main reason was that the Andersons turned out to be so miserable inside that people hated them. England is mostly low and soggy, you know, and it was almost impossible to keep water from rising and standing on the shelter floor.
Also they were cold, and if you used an oil stove, the fumes soon gave you the miseries. They were cramped and gloomy, and sitting all night in them, night after night, was terrible.
The trend when I left was veering more toward shoring up one room of your house for protection. Such as bricking up the windows in that room, and installing extra pillars of wood or steel piping to support the roof in case it decided to cave in on you.
Also, the government was toying with a heavy steel table affair which could actually be used as a table in daytime, and the whole family could sleep under it at night.
On the whole, Britain’s bombing experience showed that there are actually worse things than bombs – one of them being a distortion of life so bad it can’t be endured.
Thus, although the Anderson is on the whole a safe shelter, it is just too uninhabitable for permanent night-long living. The ideal in shelters, as in everything else under wise war conditions, is to live as near normally as you can. Live in your own hours, and hew as closely to your usual pattern as possible – that’s the answer.
The fact that Andersons are frowned on now in England does not seem to me an especially pertinent argument against their use here on the Pacific Coast. For bombing conditions here are almost bound to be much different from England.
The average London suburban family has spent at least a part of every night for months on end huddled in that lousy backyard dungeon, with the Germans actually overhead.
But few people can conceive of such a thing happening in California. If the Japs do come it will have to be hit-and-run, sporadic raiding. Maybe out one night a month. If they ever get the strength and we the weakness for them to bomb us as the Germans bombed England then we all better yell for the Indians to come quick and save us.
They’re good for short periods
So, since Californians have no reason to expect to sit in a shelter for more than a few hours a month, they could certainly tolerate a shelter such as the Anderson, which has after all proved itself good in everything but comfort.
If anybody wants to know specifically what I would do if I were a San Franciscan, here is just what I’d do, depending on where I lived (and assuming I could afford to spend a little extra money preparing for something that probably would never happen at all).
If I lived in a wooden house and had a backyard, I’d build me something approximating an Anderson shelter, and fix it up with electric lights and an electric heater and – a good system of drainage.
If I lived in a strong brick house, I’d brick up the windows of one room, provide for ventilation and heat, brace the ceiling with some steel piping, and have plenty of picks and axes so you could get out if it caved in on you.
If I lived in an apartment house, I’d get together with the landlord and other tenants and see that the basement was converted into a sound habitable shelter.
Yessir, that’s just what I’d do. But before I did that, I’d get myself the damndest array of private, home-grown fire-fighting equipment that any citizen ever stalked the streets with. For I think that if the Japs ever set out to destroy the citizens of San Francisco instead of the actual military objectives, they’ll do it with fire bombs.
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
NEW YORK – Although all the rest of the American community is yielding rights, and property interests are simply ignored and quietly waived for the sake of national safety, the unions, up to now, have made in one single concession and there are indications that Congress will demand none.
The closed shop has not been waived or even compromised even for the duration of the war and remains an issue which must be conceded to the professional, political unioneers, such as John L. Lewis, or fought out to the impairment of the fighting effort. The compulsory closed shop with the Government providing the compulsion has been condemned by President Roosevelt as an Hitlerian device. Mrs. Roosevelt has conceded that workers should not be compelled to join unions as a condition of employment in lawful occupations, wherein she obliquely endorsed the open shop principle.
Closed shop issue is still open
Frances Perkins concealed in a great heap of tangled language and thought in a speech to the American Federation of Labor that the compulsory closed shop constituted a violation of the human rights and dignity of the independent objector. It seems that they were a little ashamed of their admission, as though it might cost them some favor among the political unioneers or constitute an admission of error, for none of them has given this fundamental right of free people more than a brief nod in passing.
Yet the issue is still open, the union politicians are still pressing for the right to drive all men and women who work into union rank subject to union discipline, and it is a dangerous possibility that as a bribe to the more reckless and power-hungry union politicians, the closed shop will be granted by many individual concessions and thus established as a fixed custom.
Nor has the American Federation of Labor made any move to abolish its extortionate rates of admission and its practice of Balkanizing the entire country into thousands of petty local jurisdictions having the right to bar out-of-town workers from employment except on the payment of outrageous transfer fees.
It has been shown and never denied that these AFL unions do impose such charges and that they have literally extorted millions of dollars from workers employed on war projects. It has been shown that the unions have no moral or financial responsibility to their members, nor to the community, under the existing Federal laws and that common criminals including some of the vilest jailbirds in the country, have been politely tolerated in the highest positions in the AFL.
The hod-carriers’ union, whose locals wrung millions of dollars from the poorest workers with never an accounting in 30 years, still maintains its national headquarters in Washington unrebuked and unmolested and revelations that crooked unioneers acquired racing stables and yachts have aroused not the slightest reaction in the national Government nor the faintest signs of reform in the AFL.
The New York waterfront, one of the most sensitive danger spots in the country, is ruled by brutal crooks whose power is derived from union charters and political affiliation, but that appears to be an acceptable state of affairs in a country which is fighting for the freedom of humankind everywhere in the world.
Union menace greedier than ever
All elements of the American nation except the unions have had to make concessions and sacrifices, but the unions remain immune even though the rank and file are persecuted and robbed by the union bosses lest the bosses call the men out and obstruct the war effort. The truth is, of course, that the rank and file, being loyal Americans in an overwhelming majority, would smash down any crook or traitor who tried to drive them off their war jobs for some petty political advantage.
They would thank President Roosevelt for an opportunity to show that they are loyal to the country first and they would honor any man who established some protection for them against the brutal and arrogant greed of their crooked bosses. But the unioneers still ride high, the graft still rolls in and the common man for whose freedom this war is fought still degrades himself into a cringing beggar in the presence of the union boss with the power to run him off a job and still pays into the fat fortunes of the criminals money earned by honest toil for the support of his family.
The union menace is not beaten. It is more greedy and dictatorial than ever and there is grave danger that the vices of the system will acquire the force and dignity of law under cover of the war for the four freedoms.
Clapper: Anti-Axis pact
By Raymond Clapper
WASHINGTON – The Declaration of Washington, which binds 26 nations to full effort against the Axis and not to make any separate peace, will serve to emphasize the solidarity of the peoples fighting Hitlerism.
The signatories pledged themselves to the principles of a free world, laid down in the Atlantic Charter. The Declaration of Washington is a pledge to achieve the victory over the Axis which is necessary before the aspirations expressed in the Atlantic Charter can have a chance anywhere.
The actual declaration is simple and restricted, and stays close to present realities. It is concerned with full use of economic and military resources of all parties to win the war.
The fact that Russia is not at war with Japan was a complication. This situation was met in the statement that each signatory pledged itself to fight against those members of the Axis with which it is at war.
Separate peace pledge seems tight
However, the pledge against a separate peace seems to be tight. Each government pledges itself not to make a separate peace or armistice “with the enemies.” That would seem to bind Russia against dropping out of the war ahead of the others should she become satisfied with her victories over Germany.
Although 26 nations signed the agreement, the list does not include any South American nation. Central American republics signed, but none below Panama. The reason is that none of the South American nations has declared war. Whether the Pan-American conference at Rio de Janeiro later this month will adopt a declaration giving support to the Declaration of Washington is uncertain, although the interests of hemisphere solidarity would seem to make it in order.
The Declaration of Washington subscribes to the principles of a free world set forth in the Atlantic Charter. However, the Atlantic Charter looked ahead to the post-war world and the Declaration of Washington goes no further than to bind the signers not to make a separate peace. No pledge of co-operation to carry out the peace is stated or even implied. Some in this Government had hoped that might be done. That is a step which still needs to be taken.
The Declaration of Washington, in spite of this failure to look through to a partnership in controlling the peace, will have its effect in increasing the solidarity of the anti-Axis powers.
Necessarily the first job is to win the war and it is a bigger job than most people realize. It will take everything we have.
Synchronizing aids Axis’ strength
The resources of these 26 nations, in materials, manpower, industrial capacity, and in the justice of their cause, are overwhelming in their over-all total.
But this superior strength is still partly potential rather than actual mobilized strength. Certainly that is true of the strongest of the anti-Axis nations – the United States. We are capable of out-producing Japan many times over. Our steel industry, which is a good yardstick, is 10 times as large as Japan’s. Yet Japan has managed to get the most weapons at the right spot first. The Axis has done it time and again.
The job on our side is to produce the weapons and get them where they are needed to turn the decision. Pooling of strength among the anti-Axis nations, operating as one vast machine, will add extra strength to the effort of each nation. The Axis gains much of its strength by synchronizing. This method will be used now to even greater advantage since we are involved in a two-ocean war.
The Declaration of Washingion is a way of saying that the anti-Axis powers likewise are resolved to synchronize their effort and to fight the war as one team.
Maj. Williams: New machines
By Maj. Al Williams
“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”
Not only sweat and blood and tears must be contributed to the successful prosecution of the war. We must also stimulate the contribution of new ideas in machinery, inventions, and, if necessary, tactics for winning this war.
Whether the readers of this column have been bored during the past five or six years by our insistence upon the necessity for building American airpower of gigantic proportions – or the provision of the last word in mechanized land army forces or the modern type of hit-and-run Navy – is decidedly immaterial. Right or wrong, it has fought for these and against shipping planes abroad until we had such an abundance here that aggressor nations would have shuddered at the mere thought of attacking us.
Sometime ago, I asked the simple question, “Why don’t we bust loose and beat this foreign gang of war-makers with some kind of a ‘first’?” Why don’t we, for instance, instead of following their plans and tactics, cut loose and take the lead from them? This question was based upon the suggestion that instead of building more submarines modeled after the type built abroad (between 1500-2000 tonnage), why don’t we set out and build at least one submarine of fifteen or twenty thousand tonnage?
We need new machines
Right or wrong, success or failure, such a gigantic submarine would be a true exhibition of Yankee daring and enterprise. No one can deny now that this is a true hit-and-run war. Machines and weapons that cannot fly must resort to hiding themselves beneath the surface of the sea or earth to avoid the things that do fly.
American aeronautical engineers set the country an excellent example of enterprise when they built the enormous “B-19,” the biggest bomber ever built. We airmen didn’t expect the “B-19” to upset the war in our favor. We didn’t know whether it would merely result in providing an answer to how big bombers could be built. That answer in itself was justification enough for building the “B-19.” Now why doesn’t the same rule apply to the only other kind of machinery for sea warfare which has proven its value in this hit-and-run war, that is, the submarine?
Why shouldn’t the United States be the first nation to possess the first, real, submersible aircraft carrier. This is no “Buck Rogers” dreaming. The conception of such a war vessel is old. Way back in about 1922-23, our Navy purchased a tiny, pontooned biplane from Germany. I think it had been built by the Heinkel Company. This tiny plane was designed to be housed in a submarine. It was a tiny affair from which the wings could be stripped in a few minutes and the whole thing housed in a sub. True, it wasn’t a fighting aircraft, but it could carry a man aloft and thus obtain the one thing without which a submarine cannot live in a war zone, information as to the enemy’s whereabouts, strength and disposition. This project was dropped. Why? No one knows.
Then later, about 1930-31, an experimental contract was let to an American aircraft designer to build a tiny flying boat, the wings of which could be folded in seven seconds, and be housed in a submarine. This tiny plane, designed to work from a submersible aircraft carrier, flew beautifully, yet it was eventually dumped into a cold storage shed. Why? Here again the submersible aircraft carrier idea had been scratched and dropped.
Let’s try the idea!
Now just imagine what might be accomplished if we undertook to build a giant submarine of tonnage comparable to the orthodox surface carrier tonnage of 15,000-25,000 tons displacement. If the tiny planes could be roosted on subs and utilized for scouting, why under the sum couldn’t medium bombing planes (suitable flying boat types) be based on a giant sub?
To my knowledge there are two countries that have been building submarines in which tiny aircraft are housed. One is Japan; the other was France. And I have my suspicions that the Germans haven’t been lagging on this idea, either. It’s no secret now – since our newspapers carried the news – that our east and west coast sound detectors have picked up evidence that enemy aircraft were operating off our coasts. To everyone’s puzzlement, these planes apparently disappeared as if they had vanished into thin air. On the east coast we know there are no enemy aircraft carriers. Germany has none; neither has Italy. On the west coast we know the Japs do have aircraft carriers. But we are not ready to assume that the Japs would risk a carrier close to our shores. They know and we know the folly of operating a carrier within easy range of shore-based aircraft.
Where did these aircraft, which caused the scares come from and disappear to? From what roosts did they fly? And if they didn’t fly from sub roosts, then let us build such submersible roosts – submersible aircraft carriers.
Millett: 1942 is certain to be a difficult year
By Ruth Millett
It was a pretty nice Christmas even if the year was 1941 – a year that had brought us little news but bad.
For on Christmas we called time out from thinking about all the problems that are bigger than we are and for a day went back to living within our own small family groups.
For it was a marvelous big day, whether or not Dad liked the book we had picked out for him. And it was a big day whether or not Mother liked the housecoat that was so much more sophisticated than her shining-eyed face. For this day was more important than headlines.
For a day we held our families close, thought of our friends – without remembering their faults – forgave, at least temporarily, anyone who had hurt or angered us during the past year.
In a world so filled with war and hate that the most perfidious crimes were regarded by our foes as good strategy – we softened our hearts enough so that our own little worlds looked bright.
But the day is gone – the brief respite from the tough job that lies in front of us. Now we are facing 1942 – a year that is sure to be hard.
Facing this year we can be glad that we were allowed this Christmas that came while most of our lives were still unchanged by the war, and while the great majority of us could have our families with us.
That day of happiness, of peace in a war-torn world gave us poise and strength for meeting whatever hardships the new year may bring.
We renewed our ties of blood and friendship, as they can only be renewed at Christmas time – and we are better and stronger for it.
Whatever 1942 brings – we’ll be able to take. Our own small worlds are at peace – even though most of the world is at war.
Poll: Workers favor pay ‘sacrifice’
Majority in poll back stamp deductions
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
PRINCETON, New Jersey – New evidence of the willingness of the American people to make financial sacrifices for the war effort is revealed in a survey just completed by the American Institute of Public Opinion.
This survey finds that a sizable majority of the American working population would be willing to have their employers take two cents out of every dollar of their wages – or two percent – each pay day to buy defense bonds or stamps.
Jap attack changes attitude
The number willing to accept this idea has more than doubled since the Japanese attack on Hawaii in early December.
The issue put to a cross-section of all employed persons throughout the United States was as follows:
“Would you be willing to have your employer take a small part – say two cents of every dollar – of your wages or salary each pay day to buy defense bonds or stamps for you?”
| Yes | 69% |
| No | 19% |
| Undecided | 12% |
Earlier study cited
Before America’s entrance into war, the idea of compulsory purchases of defense bonds or stamps was not approved by the majority. Results of that earlier study dealing with a similar question, which emphasized compulsory buying, are shown below.
“Would you favor a law for buying defense bonds or stamps which would make it compulsory for everybody to invest two cents out of every dollar of their salary, wages or other income in defense stamps or bonds?”
| Vote of Employed Persons (Before Jap Attack) | |
|---|---|
| Yes | 33% |
| No | 61% |
| Undecided | 6% |
Dorothy Thompson wins divorce plea
WOODSTOCK, Vermont (UP) – Columnist Dorothy Thompson yesterday was granted an uncontested divorce from Sinclair Lewis, novelist, playwright and Nobel Prize winner on grounds of “willful desertion.”
Under the decree, which becomes absolute February 1, Mr. Lewis is forbidden to remarry within two years except by permission of the court.
Miss Thompson retains her marriage name and full custody of their only child, Michael.
Only witness in the short proceedings before Judge Orrin B. Hughes in Windsor County court was Dr. Cornelius Praeger of New York who is engaged as a physician for both. He testified that on several occasions, Mr. Lewis said he did not want to live with his wife.
Mr. Lewis, 56, and Miss Thompson, 47, were married in London in 1928. She claimed he deserted her in 1936 and that they had not lived together since.
Sally Rand, cowboy licensed to marry
LOS ANGELES (UP) – Fan dancer Sally Rand and cowboy Thurkel (Turk) Greenough today held the license which will permit them to marry Tuesday at the Grace Episcopal Church, Glendora, California.
The marriage license bureau was kept open late last night awaiting the arrival of the couple, who were delayed on their airplane and auto trip from Greenough’s Red Lodge, Montana, ranch.
Miss Rand, never before married, listed her age as 37. Greenough, married once previously, is 36.
State Police said they believed the accident occurred when Mr. Paddock, driving north in State Route 43, failed to stop at the intersection and crashed into Mr. Woolsey’s machine traveling west in State Route 140.
Conscientious objector joins Army Air Corps
SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts (UP) – Registered in the draft as conscientious objector, Harry Yu Chin, 23, an American-born Chinese and a physical education instructor at Springfield College, leaves today for Maxwell Field, Alabama, for training. He had enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Mr. Chin told recruiting officers that his conscience caused him to oppose bearing arms until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
Bomber crashes, burns
SAN DIEGO, California – A four-motored Army bomber crashed and burned last night after its landing gear stuck, but it was believed all occupants parachuted to safety. An eyewitness said that he saw six men leap from the ship, which the Coast Guard identified as a Consolidated B-24.
Martin in Naval Reserve
SAN FRANCISCO – Tony Martin, screen singer, was sworn in yesterday as a “chief specialist” in the United States Naval Reserve. He will assist in promotion work in connection with college recruiting of flying cadets. The rank is a newly-created classification.
U.S. State Department (January 3, 1942)