IS THE LINE CHANGING?
DALLIN, DAVID J.
East and West Is the Line Changing? By David J. Dallin Mr. Datllin coattauto hu analysis of RuuU'i r*canl action*, begun in lut w**k't i*»u«. OBVIOUSLY THE JANUARY CONFERENCE of the...
...Quick's a flash I said right back, 'You're another.' I guess that was holdin' him...
...Oscar Levant may not resemble Robert Taylor, but constant references to his appearance tend to patl...
...When Stalin announced in 1925 that a period of "capitalist stabilization" had begun, this meant that Russia must cease to engineer bloody inaurrections against democratic governments but must, instead, develop trade and concentrate on its own internal affairs...
...Finally, the depression in the United States, awaited in Moscow as a rain in the desert, did not materialize...
...The French and Italian Communist parties — on which all hope was based when the Cominform was created seventeen, months before — had lost heavily in membership and failed to inflame popular movements...
...The cold war initiated by the Kremlin had failed...
...EVEN IF EAST GERMANY IS SACRIFICED for the sake of peace, this will not mean the end of the Soviet retreat...
...To recognize now that its integrated aggressive policy was a failure...
...The first outlines of the future Atlantic Pact were already known, and Western Europe's rearming was in the cards...
...One local retreat will have to folloe|F4he other...
...Today, recognition by Soviet Russia of its defeat in the cold war would involve admitting it has made serious blunders all along the line...
...People mature...
...I advise all radio people on this side of the line to buy it and look it over for now ideas...
...A young man was talking to a companion about a triumph at repartee: "I'll tell you I gave it to him...
...So had the Berlin blockade...
...But on the whole, the wealth of talent called to serve the radio audience is squandered on programs which are repetitious, dull and commonplace...
...Two years ago it rejected the Marshall Plan and put its satellites at the mercy of the phony Molotov plan...
...As in 1925, Stalin and his lieutenants had to make a strategic retreat...
...Although orientation to this policy was not painleas, Stalin had his way in the end...
...In each nation freed from SoWrt^e^gg^ pew and the* case in Yugoslavia today...
...He said to me, 'You're a liar.' Just like that he said, 'You're a liar.' An' d'you know, I never even stopped to think...
...The all-out attack—the great conflict expected in 1946-48—had to be called off...
...Sinclair has many ideas on how to use oar wealth...
...But people do grow beyond the appreciation of their charms...
...This would deliver a severe ideological blow to Communists the world over...
...In Western Germany, especially in the Ruhr, Communist influence had decreased markedly...
...and M will spread like fire among the satellite nations, whose antiCommunist sentiments have bean brutally suppressed for three years...
...and that successes in the Orient do not compensate for the failures m the West—to recognise and to admit these truths calls for a lot of courage...
...In some cases, a physical peculiarity or defect becomes the axle around which the humor turns for weeks and mouths and years...
...Even American people grow up to adolescence and beyond...
...OUR FABRICATORS OF RADIO PROGRAMS seems to be stalled at an unfortunate point...
...These are the implications of a real peace between the Soviet Union and the West on the German problem...
...To the Kremlin, they are tantamount to a lost campaign...
...But, since industrial last Germany was supposed to perform economic and political miracles, its loss would represent a groat shrinkage in the area controlled by "socialism" and a corresponding extentien of "capitalism" to...
...In Moscow, where long' range plans and perspectives prevail, where each particular move is regarded as a link in a long chain, the question of subsequent moves inevitably arises...
...I don't want to mention any names, for many of these performers are really talented singers, dancers, story-tellers...
...The guest may be a charming soprano who is permitted to sing one or two little songs, but for the most part is forced to waste her lovely voice on stupid amenities or more stupid wisecracks...
...o O 9 IN EACH OF THESE SHOWS there Is usually a featured guest, An elaborate palaver suggests that the star has wandered into the radio studio entirely by accident, and that he Just happens to have a song or a stunt to perform...
...The whole structure of the European satellites built up by the Soviet government against the other powers, ^will be jeopardized...
...A script is produced centering about" some real or fancied charateristic of the star...
...Someone says something which has the outward form of wit—something about the heat or the cold or the fact that taxes are high or about practically any standard topic—there is perfect timing—a pause—then an outburst—and many listeners probably think there really has been a joke but that they were unfortunate enough to miss the point * . * * MOST RADIO PROGRAM PRODUCERS are still on the Punch-and-Judy level...
...Efforts to keep them forever at the juvenile level are bound to tail...
...For this reason,'no far-reaching concessions can be expected from Andrey Vyshinsky in Paris...
...Another thing which irritates the unseen audience is the elaborate pretense that there has been a joke when there has been none, or that something has happened when—as a matter of fact—nothing at all has taken place...
...But they are so manipulated that the audience gets practically no benefit from their presence...
...It is published by J. M. Dent & Sons of Toronto...
...The German problem will not be solved until its western and eastern halves are reunited...
...They possess excellent technical resources...
...When I started thiseessry, I intended to write about A Play on Words, a book of radio sketches by Lister Sinclair, a talented and ingenious Canadian...
...They are hu-' miliating for a government which at home claims incessant victories over its opponents...
...Not a second I waited...
...However weakened and decentralized, Germany's economic power would soon begin to radiate eastward and, with the passage of time, jeopardize Stalin's hold on Poland and Czechoslovakia, and consequently the Balkans...
...They have plenty of money...
...it trill apjjj* * Eastern Germany tomorrow...
...Then there are variations of patter about the man who is bald, the one who has a long nose,' the one who Is stingy...
...it also rejected a large American loan to Russia*, predicated on a peaceful Soviet policy, and created, instead, what amounts to a separate German slate in the East along Communist Unas...
...This is the lesson which the radio administrators and, especially, the sponsors have yet to leam...
...To accomplish this, the Soviet dictatorship in the eastern zone must be abolished, and the will of the people permitted to become law...
...territory it had once forfeited...
...If peace with Austria is -finally concluded, the West will knock at the gates of Hungary and Rumania...
...that Us arrongant tactics in the UN have only served to alienate and irritate ether nations...
...They do make lavish use of these human and mechanical riches, and we radio fans do have a chance to hear some fine programs...
...He said, 'You're a liar' an' I shot back, 'You're another.'" Interested as I am in vocational guidance, I felt like turning around to tell the young man that he could draw a large salary as a radio scriptwriter...
...Struggling for its own interests, Germany might then conceivably appear to the exhausted small nations of the east as the champion of national Independence against Soviet imperialism...
...The characteristic feature Of our radio week is the big personality "show" built around a celebrity — frequently a comic one —like Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Fred Allen or Henry Morgan...
...OBVIOUSLY THE JANUARY CONFERENCE of the Communist Central Committee in Moscow—which I discussed last week—had to face a difficult situation and to draw conclusions from unpleasant developments...
...This country, with its dramatic history and its sharp geographic and population contrasts, offers rich possibilities for radio entertaiomeni...
...I didn't wait a minute...
...I have long been fond of Al Jolson, but I get "¦ tired of the endless warming overof jokes about his age...
...The day Moscow leaves Eastern Germany, Western political forces will take control of an area which borders on Poland and Czechoslovakia...
...No one can successfully make any sort of case against Punch end Judy—they have been great international entertainers for many centuries...
...THE RETREAT IN 1949 IS DIFFERENT, however, from that of twenty-four years ago...
...To implement this self-criticism might prove unbearably difficult...
...Snip-snap...
...They command the best artistic talent in the country...
...In vaudeville the comedian's wit was often heightened, or practically created, by a vigorous application of the bass-drummer's arm...
...Inside Russia, where the power of the Kremlin is based on its real or pretended power, on its international prestige, on its invincibility, on its continuous victories and gains, such a reversal and retreat may give rise to unexpected and ^dangerous political manifestations on a grand scale...
...The Home Front Radio Can Gram Up By William E. Bohn COMING BACK FROM OUR PRINTING PLANT on a bus the other day I was roused from my newspaper-reading by a conversation going on behind me...
...In radio entertainment the same effect is achieved by well-timed collaboration of the orchestra, the studio audience and the assembled cast...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 22
