Plans are drafted to expand participation in war effort
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Male problem arises
Hollywood (Wide World) –
Studies report that, with so many men entering the nation’s armed forces, it’s getting pretty difficult to find young, clean-cut chaps for extras…
… Whenever movies use swimming pools or homes of players or wealthy owners of nearby estates for certain film scenes, there’s a gentleman’s agreement that, instead of the owners being paid, the studio donates a flat amount to a charitable organization.
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Empress Zita reported in New York hospital
New York, April 25 (INS) –
The Empress Zita, mother of Archduke Otto, pretender to the throne of what was once Austria-Hungary, was revealed to be in Doctor’s Hospital in New York tonight for what was described as “a supervised rest and diet.” She had been living in Québec.
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The Pittsburgh Press (April 26, 1942)
Army barks ‘no’ to studios planning to exploit heroes
By Paul Harrison
Washington – (April 25)
The War Department spoke sharply to movie studios, song publishers and other companies which have tried to exploit the names, pictures or stories of current war heroes such as Gen. Douglas MacArthur or Capt. Colin P. Kelly Jr.
No doubt a lot of people feel that such figures already belong to history and to the democratic world. And so they do in news and factual magazine articles and newsreels, but you can’t use a hero’s fame to try to sell something. A music publisher may not plaster MacArthur’s picture on the cover of a song. Neither could Monogram Pictures use the title The Little MacArthurs on a movie featuring the Dead End Kids.
Any such exploitation, warns the War Department, is not only undignified, but is also an infringement on the rights of the heroes or their heirs.
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I DARE SAY —
At last the movies are delivering good war propaganda!
By Florence Fisher Party
Good news to report: The movies have swung into action. No longer will we be having to see, in the name of patriotism, pretty Technicolor shorts, showing favorite actors in pancake makeup personifying Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson in episodes from American history (which always made me think of Friday afternoon exercises in grade school).
No longer will the Army, Navy and Marines, to say nothing of the Air Force, be used exclusively as glorified backdrops for Betty Grable and Dorothy Lamour.
We are to have something from the movies as adult as Norman Corwin’s radio programs; as stirring as the theater’s war plays; as real as the headlines in our newspapers.
You saw, a few weeks ago, a short called This is Blitz. It was as unsparing and terrifying as any record that had come out of this war. Then, last week, you saw another short – the one that got the Academy Award: Churchill’s Island, which showed why England did, and still can, defend her island from successful invasion.
To me, this short, which probably did not take more than twenty minutes to show, is the very best motion picture we have had out of the war, and provides the healthiest and most stirring kind of propaganda. No editorials, no government effort, no radio blast could have hoped to do more to cement our two countries than was accomplished by this one single picture!
It should be shown in every theater; it should reach our whole population. We do not understand the British people. Word sifts to us from the camps that the English boys are not liked or are at best misunderstood. Somerset Maugham, the other day, had an excellent article in the Saturday Evening Post, in which he attempted to explain why Americans did not like Britishers. It is terribly important that we DO like them; that we work together with the closest harmony and sympathy. A picture such as Churchill’s Island provides the most effective kind of solution to this difficult and dangerous problem. It seems to me that pictures like this should be advertised better, should be brought to the attention of editors and all those who have the power to give them the needed publicity.
Watch for these
The World in Action is a series of 12 such pictures, only two of which have already been exhibited. Watch for them. Make great effort to see them. If the others attain the high excellence of these first two, then indeed can we assert that the “short” takes its place alongside the most meritorious propaganda as a weapon for victory in this war.
Some time ago, when we were enjoying the illusion of peace, several shorts of equal artistic merit, were produced and shown in all too few motion picture theaters. This series of “travelogues” (insufficient name!) was known by the trade as the World Windows series. They were so far above travel shorts previously made, that it was extraordinary that they were not more widely shown. The exhibitors were said to report that the audiences “weren’t interested.” I question that report. The reaction of all the audiences, of which I was part, when these pictures were shown was most impressive.
Now that the war is leveling the great landmarks of the earth, it seems to me that pictures like these, evoking our most poignant memories of traveled lands, would be bound to take an additional meaning. When I think how many wearisome, cheap shorts are shown, and that beautiful and thrilling pictures like these are available and not used by the exhibitors, I am driven to the suspicion that the taste of the public is – at least in that regard – underestimated by them.
We have had a number of excellent feature films made lately, by our major studios, which have touched on the war. If you have failed to see them when they were first released, it will be worth your while to watch sharply for them at your neighborhood theaters. To Be Or Not to Be is an uneven and unsatisfactory picture in many respects; but it strikes at least one note: It makes fun of the Nazis in a grim, oblique way, and manages to show up the very flaw in their natures which is apt to lose the war for them: Their complete lack of elasticity and humor.
Mrs. V is an excellent story of espionage and does much to reveal the innate character and temperament of the British people. There are two other fine pictures which have not yet been shown here: The Invaders and Saboteur. Do not miss them. They will do much to rid your mind of foolish prejudices against “war pictures.”
The Moon is Down
One of the most extraordinary revelations of war psychology has occurred in the case of the play The Moon is Down, which as you know is now playing in New York to divided audiences.
The novel from which the play was adapted by its author, John Steinbeck, escaped this agitation. Its characters were accepted as reasonably true and believable. The German colonel Lanzer seemed, in the novel at least, a credible figure.
But in the play, he is found to be unacceptable to the American audiences, who insist that he is drawn too sympathetically. In short, theater audiences will not accept a HUMAN German officer.
Peru President plans U.S. visit
Striking South American invited by Roosevelt
By Milton Bronner, NEA Service staff writer
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Stoneman: Bloody summer due in Europe, with epic clash in Russia only one of many likely struggles
All hinges on Soviet stand; beginning of Axis end or stalemate seen
By William H. Stoneman
Where Hitler’s offensives may strike:
1. Need for oil may cause Nazi smash at Baku and Astrakhan.
2. Germans may try to crush Russian armies on Central Front.
3. Or they may push hardest against defenders of Leningrad in north.
4. Murmansk, port of entry for Allied supplies, offers tempting goal.
5. Sea attack on route of Allied war aid to Russia is certain.
6. Malta, thorn in Axis supply route to Libya, may be invaded.
7. Heat may make Axis drive on Europe and Suez impossible after June 1.
8. Drive for Middle East oil might go through Syria and Palestine.
London, England – (April 25)
As the belligerents make final preparations for the summer fighting season of 1942 on and around the European continent, London is full of prophecies on the course this year’s fighting will take.
Everything else, it is agreed, will depend to a large extent upon the fighting in Russia where the Germans – probably with the assistance of the Japs – are about to make the greatest military effort in history.
Around this central struggle will be a number of satellite engagements, some of them of magnificent proportions and all having direct bearing on the do-or-die effort of Germany to shatter the Soviet Union as a fighting force.
May start Axis defeat
These subsidiary wars will probably occur between now and autumn in such widely scattered places as North Africa, around Malta, perhaps in Syria and Palestine, and in the North Atlantic along the lifelines to Britain and Russia.
Together with the Russian campaign proper, they may result in the emasculation of Germany and the beginning of an outright Axis defeat in Europe. Again – if things go wrong in Russia – they may simply serve to hold the Axis until American power is at its height. Then again, there may be stalemate everywhere.
Nazis eye two goals
No well-informed person in his sense is willing to make a hard and fast prophecy about what is going to happen in any one of the theaters this year, but expectations of highly-placed persons which have been right, or at least reasonable, in the past indicate that in Russia, the Germans will probably launch their offensive before May 15 and with two immediate objectives, an advance to Baku and Astrakhan, which would allow them to seize and hold the oilfields, and the smashing of the Russian armies on the Central and Northern Fronts.
This is going to be a bruising affair in which neither side will expect to get anything quickly or for nothing. The Germans will be greatly assisted by the fact that the Russians have not succeeded during the winter in robbing them of strongpoints which they won last year. They will be handicapped by their losses during the winter and by Russian naval supremacy in the Black Sea.
Stalemate forecast
The Russians will have almost unlimited reserves of men and their material position – thanks partly to Anglo-American shipments – will be better than it was nine months ago.
The best qualified judge of the situation whom this correspondent knows believes that the Germans cannot achieve a smashing victory and that the result of the summer campaign will be a stalemate which will confront the Germans with another winter campaign.
If the Japs attack the maritime provinces, as everybody here seems to expect, the Russians will have a harder time in the west but experts believe they will be able to hold the bulk of their territory in the Far East.
Northern action seen
The situation in the North Atlantic and Western Europe is directly connected with the Russian situation. In counting on successful Russian resistance to the German summer offensive, it is necessary to assume that Allied shipments to Russia will be maintained.
It is common knowledge at the same time that the route to the northernmost Russian ports is now exposed to terrific attack. Therefore, it appears possible that one of the two sides will make a brave attempt to secure full control of the route and that there may be a knock-down, drag-out naval engagement in northern waters.
Nothing specific can be said about possible action in Western Europe but everybody is free to draw his own logical deductions from the situation. Without knowing anything about any decisions which have been taken, it can be assumed that the harder the Russians are pressed, the more desirable a diversionary action would be.
Other fronts likely
If, on the other hand, the German offensive in Russia is smashed, it might be more tempted than ever to crack down on Germany’s rear.
North Africa, the Near East and the Mediterranean are bound to flare up again and because the heat in North Africa becomes almost impossible after June 1, something may happen there as soon as or sooner than in Russia. The fact that Marshal Erwin Rommel’s recent advance did not develop into a full-scale offensive does not prove anything regarding his eventual plans. He has enough men and material to try something serious and he is not the type to sit around sucking his thumb. Experts expect heavy fighting in Libya soon.
Malta pounded hard
Malta is still being pounded almost daily and a good many people expect the Germans to make a direct assault on the island as a preliminary to an offensive in Libya. Despite the plastering it has taken since December, the island still sits athwart the Axis communications with North Africa and its outright capture would be worth thousands of troops, hundreds of planes and many thousands of tons of shipping.
Malta’s capture still seems so difficult as to be almost out of the question but under favorable conditions it is presumably possible.
According to some viewpoints, an attempted assault on Malta might be welcomed as a means of wiping out large enemy forces and giving the Axis a serious setback in that part of the world.
U.S. soldiers find Australian weekends dull
Demands for relaxation of blue laws renewed
By Don Caswell, United Press staff writer
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Japs may drop invasion plans
Completion of New Guinea, Burma drives seen
By Robert P. Martin, United Press staff writer
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Allied navies spread thin to fight enemies
Light sea forces working overtime in effort to cover all oceans
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