1918’s unfinished business –
Germany reaps the whirlwind as Yanks smash cities flat
‘Only this can take glamor from goosestep’
By Gault MacGowan, North American Newspaper Alliance
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1918’s unfinished business –
G.I.’s overseas rap plan for releasing men
Charge Army’s vague on demobilization
By Judy Barden, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Wide search launched for Gen. Harmon
Pacific air leader lost on routine trip
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Book’s happy ending hits Page One with capture of Manila by Yanks
Open City story of tortured people
By John D. Paulus
It isn’t often that a novel has a happy ending that makes Page One in every paper of the land.
One such book is Shelley Mydans’ novel, The Open City, a story of the internees at Santo Tomas University compound in Manila. The happy ending was the recent capture of Manila by MacArthur and the release of the 3,000 men, women and children from the hands of the Japanese.
In Open City, Mrs. Mydans has fashioned a novel that burns in your temples, a book that makes you wonder how Americans could have let these things be. From her eight months’ stay in the Santo Tomas camp, Mrs. Mydans has built a story that should become a monument to the people who lived there through the torture and despair that only defeat can bring.
Blended story
This novel is partly a report on prison life under the Japanese and partly a study of what happens to people when they have been isolated from their own civilization and left to govern themselves with their own meager resources.
Mrs. Mydans has been able to blend a hard, factual story with a fictional tale of a young American who was driven to the St. Tomas Compound in a Jap staff car and deposited among the other internees. He had told the Japs that he worked on a nearby plantation and they seemingly believed him. But word soon spread around the camp that he was an American soldier who had escaped from a military prison on Bataan.
What his secret was, how it was discovered, and what happened to him because of it give the book its plot. But its substance, its very flavor, comes from the envy and deceit that lay hidden in a few at Santo Tomas, as it does everywhere.
Notable characters
Mrs. Mydans has fashioned some very interesting characters, too. In the background of the prison camp, they may appear to be matter-of-fact, but they have nobility and baseness, as do humans all over the globe. Notable among these are:
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Harkinsen – the chairman of the compound, a worried-looking man ever trying to wring new concessions from the Japs.
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Dr. Busch – a tireless physician, trying to keep a hospital going with meager drugs and facilities and some back-biting among his own people.
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Vanny Parkness – a self-appointed actor who boldly made fun of the Japs, in a song during a camp show.
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Mrs. Jenks – an old woman who went crazy from the mental torture and who set up a “bridal suite” in a hallway for herself and Mr. Jenks.
There are many other characters, of course, and they all contribute to the description of the close quarters, deprivation, strain of waiting and the physical hardships which this group had to endure.
American villain
And shocking it is that the biggest villain in the book is not a Jap – as well one might be. It is, rather, a human scum named Lance Diamond, who tries to run a one-bed brothel in the camp. When he is barred from doing so, he takes a vicious revenge upon his fellow prisoners, a revenge which will disgust every reader.
Yet perhaps this one great villain focuses even more attention on the other people, the good people, in the camp. And the reader, at book’s end, can’t help but have pride in the courage, honor and steadfastness of the men and women who lived through a three-year ordeal unsurpassed in the history of America.
You will like Shelley Mydans’ book – and you will cheer her heroes and heroines.
Bravo to Doubleday, Doran for publishing it.
Origin of popular music attributed to Negroes
David Ewens brings rhythms of earliest boogie up to date
By Adele Dennison
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Films at war fronts ‘two-hour furlough’
G.I.’s find them a great remedy for homesickness, major claims
By Maxine Garrison
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‘Oscar’ goes to war!
Plaster proxy takes his place
Saturday, March 3, 1945
HOLLYWOOD, California (special) – “Oscar” has gone to war!
“Oscar,” Hollywood’s coveted statuette which symbolizes honor for achievement in the motion picture world, will be presented to winners again for the seventeenth consecutive year on March 15 at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
The statuette will be there – but only by plaster proxy, for the gold “Oscar,” which has become the most sought-after honor in filmdom, is off to war and away from Hollywood for the duration. His Composition counterpart will be replaced by pre-war bronze and gold trophies when victory comes.
Monahan: Extras’ union official hits at film ‘serfdom’
By Kaspar Monahan
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Peeping behind the screen in topsy-turvy Hollywood
By Erskine Johnson
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Movie acting hard work!
It’s not for lazy girls, says Adele
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Stars hoard their bonds
Plan spending spree after war
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Lean days catch up with star
‘Congress lady’ in soap opera
By Si Steinhauser
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Malone plans mercy trip
Will fly cargo of blood to AEF
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Bleak outlook –
Majors face training with fewest men
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Win mythical title –
Army floormen top Navy, 50-48
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Senator urges Roosevelt to call in big-money bills
Move suggested to bring currency out of safe deposit boxes and other hideouts
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Stock values up $500 million in past week
Roosevelt’s Yalta report spurs buying
By Elmer C. Walzer, United Press financial editor
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3 lines may get Atlantic routes
‘Chosen instrument’ bill appears dead
By Henry Ward, Press aviation editor
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Poll: Diverse vote gave victory to Roosevelt
Farms, small towns supported Dewey
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
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What was the name we gave to this specific war crime?
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