Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 October 1951 — Page 21

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24, 1951

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Inside Indianapolis’ By Ed Sovola

TWO MEN *who are. vitally interested in a big hut trotdble-free Halloween have their fingers crossed as they anticipate the best this year,

Police Chief John O'Neal and Lt. Forrest Higgs, Juvenile Ald Division, have confidence in the youngsters. So far, only nine pranks which can definitely be put in the Halloween en annoyed victims enough that they were reported. y Lt. Higgs, with all his faith, ¢ is quick to'caution citizens not to expect wings to sprout on Indianapolis children. He simply believes we're reaping the harvest of work that has been done in the past. And he stresses that more could be done.

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ALMOST in the same breath, Chief O'Neal wants it. known that on Halloween night 114 Civilian Defense volunteers will be stationed in 57 areas of business sections throughout the city. “Just in case,” the Chief said. They will wear armbands for identification purposes; they will patrol two squares and be near public telephones at all times; their primary purpose Will be to have a psychological effect on the funmakers. The civilian corps will try to be helpful. Of course, If they spot an errant lad or two, they'll take necessary steps to prevent vandalism. It. Higgs, who.organized the first PAL Club in the ‘city, has many ideas on the subject of youth: A product of the West Side, Lt. Higgs remembers his early associations with the Boys Club of America. He joined at the age of seven. When he was 14, Lt. Higgs began to work for the club. - Thirteen years ago he joined the Police Department. Eleven years ago Lt. Higgs organized the first PAL Club and has seen eight more come into existence.

THERE ARE FEW problems a boy can get off his chest that Lt. Higgs doesn’t or can’t understand. He's a stickler to the proposition that vou can lead a boy to good, clean fun. Show the youngster at an early age the right path he should follow and he won't give you any trouble Lt. Higgs can take the picture of his first football team of the 1940 PAL Club and tell vou what

It Happened Last Night

By Earl Wilson

NEW YORK, Oct. 24—The GIs of World War IT may sometimes wonder whatever happened to Miss Janis Paige, “the pinup of the pinups,” the gal who got so many titles that they finally titled her “The Title.” Well, today Janis is being seen a lot—and a lot of Janis is being seen on Broadway.

“I had to come here confesses red-haired, bosomy Janis, “because, after 17 Hollywood pictures, I couldn’t get a job. “I was colder than yesterday's spaghetti.” And now she is featured with Jackie Cooper in the new Lindsay and Crouse murder comedy, “Remains to Be Seen,” at the Morosco Theater. But what remains to be seen of Janis is very little, for Janis shows considerable in one scene when she takes off a negligee and bounces around in black panties and bra. Janis is the center of a controversy. One critic thought she didn't show much but Janie. Other crifics praised her. Actually Janis is not wearing any less than Mary Martin did when she crashed Broadway. And girls often seem to make good that way maybe since Garbo and Dietrich wore slacks, and Mary Martin wore panties, the slogan should be, “Any Jeans to an End.’

THE MIRACLE of it all to Janis is not the panties, but the fact that finally after a Hollywood career, she is really “acting.” “How could I know about acting? me the other day in Sardi's. “After I got out of high school in Tacoma, I went to Seattle and worked in a plumbing store for $15 a week. “Sure, I sold nuts and bolts and elbows. and messed up the books but good. They had to get samebody in to straighten them out after I left" 8he was studying singing hoping to make the opera. One lucky day she and her mother took a trip ta California. When she was called in to substitute for some other singer at the Hollywood (Canteen. a talent scout observed her he could hardly help it—and she wound up in a picture called “Hollywood Canteen.”

.

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" she asked

The titles started then. She was “Miss Delicious.” “The Girls the Bellboys Would Most Like to Paige,” “Miss Wingspread,” and 54 other titles.

But she wasn't acting. Because the sort of things she did in pictures, she didn't really have to learn to act. :

Pakistan Polo By George Weller “

GILGIT, Pakistan, Oct. 24 (CDN) —Polo, the sport of kings elsewhere, is here the sandlot baseball of the canyon Kids. Polo in the Karakorums is nothing like the gentlemanly sport mirrored in the whisky ads. To watch these unhelmeted mountaineers with their Gay Nineties mustaches streaming in the wind, ride against each other six to a side, is a sight nobody forgets. Polo is the national game in these mountains.

It combines the free-swinging of ice hockey, the speed of lacrosse; and a few special rules borrowed out of football,

The horses are ‘tough little mountain ponies. They don’t ask to be relieved &very five minutes like under. the Western chukker system. They play at full speed for a full half-hour at panting altitudes up to 8000 feet. And they're the same horses that brought the player to the game, from a village perhaps 20 miles away.

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IN REGULAR POLO when the white ball flies high in the air you wait for it to hit the ground, then hit it with the mallet. But not in mounain polo. Here you reach up, while traveling at full gallop, catch it, and run away with it,

Watch a baldheaded mountaineer catch the flying ball with his bare hand and ride off for the goal. Another rider drives at him sideways across the field, reaches across, and tries to grab his hand. Next he gets him around the neck, the two horses galloping together. Next the grab turns into a stranglehold. Only when he is choking does the ball owner flip the ball to a teammate. For an interlude of seconds the game turns into touch football. When someone misses the ball and it hits the ground, the game turns back into polo. Then everybody cuts loose with mallets again.

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THE NARROW mountain valleys seem to have imposed these wild rules on the game the Moghuls and the British played so much more sanely. The polo fields -in reality clearings between two stone walls only 40 yards apart—are

re Sane Halloween o . + UIs Parents’ Job

85 per cent of the boys are doing. Sounds like a junior edition of Who's Who. With the aid of parents, Lit. Rigs” says we could have one-of the best Halloween nights in the city’s history: If parents took as much interest in the season of spooks.and hobgoblins as the police and the Juvenile Division do, it would be a cinch. oo oo & IF A FATHER took as much pains to get ‘along with his offspring as he does with the people with whom he works, Lt, Higgs believes domestic problems would be cut to a minimum. “When you bully a kid, you're asking trouble,” said [.t. Higgs. In gis experience, he has found that the chronic crank in the neighborhood bears the brunt of pranks. The “sourpuss” is asking for trouble whenever he shows antagonism to children. “You seldom hear of a popular man or woman in a neighborhood as victims of pranksters. Un- ° fortunately, we have the exceptions to that rule,” .t. Higgs added. - He recalled of a group of children being treated to candy and apples. Everything was fine until one of the boys in the group: threw an apple through a front window as they were leaving. The lady of the house reported it to the police. The entire evening was ruined. LE ONCE the deed is done, feeling sorry eases the bad feeling only a trifle. Lt. Higgs has talked to hundreds of “sorry” youngsters. “Destroying and damaging property is a silly way to have fun. We all know that, don't we?” Lt. ‘Higgs looked me squarely in the eve. “You were a kid once.” . Yes, I believe records show that I wag once. And how well T remember a certain Halloween night when a few of the neighbor's new hedges were yanked out by the roots. Ouch. Lt. Higgs has been instructing since Oct, 1, through the medium of the nine PAL Clubs, not to get rough this month. “Parents can help if they just talk about the merits of clean fun during the Halloween season and at all times. With their co-operation, interest, the kids can hand all of us a fine surprise and feel proud. Much better than feeling sorry on scared.” . Lt. Higgs, I hope you have the surprise of your life this Halloween.

for

Any Jeans to an End In Crashing Broadway

She got pretty mad when they asked her to play a cheap Broadway tramp in a film, and got out of her contract. > bb OFF SHE WENT on a stage tour with Jack Carson—Ilater she got herself a vaudeville and cafe act of her own and went round the country... We who saw hér around at that time never suspected that this beautiful hunk of feminine architecture was having it rough. : “One morning,” she says, “I was coming out of a stage door in Toledo. The autograph kids were waiting for Jack Carson.

“One big kid said ‘Oh, who wants Janis Paige's autograph! That has-been. ” er Cheerful things like that . , . So quite surprisingly she was asked last

summer to try out for the new Lindsay & Crouse play—all about a red hot band singer named Jody Revere. “I didn’t want to go. I wasn't ready for this. “I went anyway—and they offered me the job. I told them, ‘Do you people know that I have no experience on the stage? I'll have to think this over. She went off to Miami on a personal appearance, thought it over, and accepted. “That opening night,” she said, “I felt like I was walking under water when I came on stage.” Sunk, that would be.

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HER DISROBING is done innocently. This band singer is staying in her late uncle's house, and she has to go to bed, doesn’t she? For heaven's sake, now! “I was embarrassed at first and didn't want to do. it,” Janie says. “Then I got into the mental attitude that this girl was a band singer who has dressed thousands of times in the bus in front of the guys in the band who are like brothers to her. “So finally I found it was necessary to do the undressing. But 1 don’t think anybody on stage is aware of it? And I think it's kind of cute where I have the music notes embroidered on the back of my pants!” o> oo oe TODAY'S BEST LAUGH: Face powder can catch a man, but it generally takes baking powder to keep him.—Charley Jones. a. oP TODAY'S DAFFYNITION: Norman Kaye says, "A hula is a shake in the grass.” . That's Earl, brother.

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ICs a Different Game As Canyon Kids Play

You have

three times as Jong as football fields. to play fast backwards and forwards because there's no room to play across. Almost every shot is a carom off the irregu-

lar stone walls, unpredictable in their bounces. The mallets themselves are eccentrically canted in order to make possible these sidelong shots. o> Pb ob OF COURSE there's none of that sissy business here abeut attacking a player only when the ball is on the right, or mallet side. Hit him anywhere, is the mountain rule. : Oldtimers sigh, though, for the days when the game was really free, not restricted to two half-hours of play. Then the game was to score nine goals, if it took three or four hours. They were men in those days and ponies, too, One of them named Akbar still-survives, a sorrel with 18 years playing behind him who never left a game.

Auto Jumps Curb, Hits Red Cross Seeks More Volunteers

House and Another Car

"A woman bounced her car off volunteers. a house last night and into a

South St. Mrs. Marcella T. Dithley, 22, of 525 S. Pine St., broke her]

nose and hurt both knees. Gen-| Harlan J.

The Red Cross

To plan how to recruit them, a

meeting for all Red Cross volunparked car at Kentucky Ave. anil 2 be held at 8 p. m. to-| absolutely essential to insure the

morrow in the YWCA, 329 N. Procurement of enough blood | Pennsylvania St. Hadley,

needs more ly needed in the Red Cross Blood (Center, 18 W. Georgia St. | “With the increased number of

blood donors, more volunteers are

{plasma for our armed forces,” Mr. Hadley explained.

chapter

eral Hospital listed her condition chairman, explained:

as fair today. Police ‘charged!

her with disorderly conduct and been asked to recruit a friend or carry an operator's relative who js interested in giv- Former Hollywood starlet Nancy ling free time to the Red Cross Valentine sailed for London -

failing to license, The car she was driving program. These

“Each Red Cross volunteer has Ex-Starlet to Rewed

NEW YORK, Oct. 24 (UP)—

recruits are also aboard the Liner Queen Mary

smacked the curb, knocked down asked to attend the short meeting yesterday to join her husband,

a state highway marker, scraped to learn of the

against the house at 415 S. West their services.” He said volunteers are especial- time in a Moslem ceremony.

St. and hit a parked car, |

_urgent need for the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, ‘and Marry him for a second

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The Indiana; polis Times

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WEDNESDAY, ‘OCTOBER 24, 1951

Cracks in the Krein Wall

Russ Armed Might Overestimated

CHAPTER THREE

HOW STRONG

IS THE RED ARMY?

By EDWARD CRANKSHAW OX PAPER the Soviet army is overwhelming. Nobody knows its real strength; but it is/commonly accepted now that it consists of something under three million men (2.8 million is the figure usually given to

make our flesh creep) and has in being 175 divisions. I myself do not helieve that the Kremlin at this moment possesses 175 complete divisions on a war footing. I do not believe that there are enough senior N. C. O.s and middlegrade staff officers (majors and colonels) to staff all these divisions and at the same time attend to the training of the great mass of short-term conscripts, _ which-inelpdeés a high pro- - portion of scarcely literate Young peasants. The demand for skilled men of this kind is far larger than the supply. Industry screams for them and does not get them. During the discussion of the 1950 budget in the Supreme Soviet, speaker after speaker indicted the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Labour Reserves for their continued failure to produce enough skilled overseers and techni-

cians, It was not the fault of the wretched scapegoats: The ~material did not exist. Ld ” = WHEN I WAS in Russia in 1947, most individuals in the

white-collar classes were doing two or three separate jobs. They were working up to eighteen hours a day in order to earn

Sufficient. roubles to-supplement—-

their rations with purchases in

Mr. Crankshaw is an Eng-

lish historian and editor who has studied Soviet Russia for

many years. During the war, he was a member of the British Military Mission” in Moscow. This is the third of a series of twelve articles from his book, CRACKS IN THE KREMLIN WALL, just published by Viking Press.

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the freé «commercial shops.” They were able to do this only because the demand for their skill was so great. During the war my own opposite number, a middle-grade staff officer in the Soviet War Office, had to divide his time between three, distinct appointments He was a G. 8. 0.1 on the

General Staff, and every week he spent three or four days supervising analogous departments at Army Group and

Army Headquarters in the field. And so it is with every ministry. There is only one organization in the Soviet Union which is not desperately short of skilled and responsible leaders, and that is the combined M. V. D. and M, G. B.,, which between them, it is believed account for over a million men. These, though armed and

—egquipped--toform “a ¢om="

» plete standing army, are

> not wvsed to fight. Daring the war there were some 600,000 N. K. V. D. troops in Russia, but they were

never, even in the most desperate moments, used to fight the Germans. Their job was at home. But even allowing the official Western estimate of 175 di-

visions to be correct, what sort

of force does ‘this make? In the first place, it has to be

remembered that the Soviet di-

vision is a small one. It has

_ Some 10,000 men, or about half

“tHE Rumber of the ordinary British division; so that 175

‘Movietime U. S. A.’ or Televisiontime U.S. A.'—

Are Movie Theaters On The

By ERSKINE

JOHNSON

Times Special Writer

OLLYWOOD, Oct. 24— Movietime U.

vision Time U. S. A.?"

S.A" or "Tek-

Are 23,120 motion picture theaters destined for

oblivion? I= Hollywood doomed? Will the movie stars of today be the television stars of tomorrow? Will it be million-dollar movies at home via a coin-in-the-slot gimmick or big-screen theater television at current box-office rates? Will it be live or filmed-tele-vision. From Hollywood to New York, the arguments, the predictions, the theories and the pro and con answers fo these questions are as bewildering to movie and television leaders as they are to Mr. and Mrs. John Public. » » » IVE JUST RETURNED from a coast-to-coast tour by automobile, airplane, train and excursion boat. I've felt America's entertainment pulse. Frankly, anyone, I've seen people standing in line in front of movie theaters and I've seen movie theaters boarded up with signs out front saying “Temporarily Closed.” “I heard a Milwaukee, Wis, movie theater owner say: “I can't get people. into my theater: even when I give ‘em passes.” I heard a New York teen-ager say: “Hollywood is are better than television stinks.” » - Ld MYTH OR REALITY, a worried Hollywood is attacking with an industry sales campaign far greater than its recent “Movies Are Better Than Ever” tactics. The ticket-selling

I'm as confused as

right. ever. 1

Movies think

campaign,

now in full cry under the title, “Movietime, U.S.A." will cost the film industry more than

$1 million and will include" special radio and TV broadcasts, personal appearance of more than 250 stars to cities throughout the country and a mammoth film exposition in New York City in March. Hollywood has a fight in the script. There may be confusion about the future. But the fact that even theater owners are rushing to buy big-screen TV equipment in an “if you can’t lick 'em let’s join 'em” move is evidence enough that television is the biggest threat to movie theaters since the first nickelodeon opened 50 years ago.

” ~ » ROM lofty teakwoodpaneled movie offices in New York to pink-tiled swimming pools in Holly-

wood, television's growing threat to movie theater attendance 1s No. 1 in the entertainment world’s conversation. Already there are a startling 13,093,600 television sets in the U. 8., compared to the 14,685, 150 movie theater seats in all 48 states. With only 105 TV stations currently operating in 69 cities, television still is only a growing threat to the giant movie industry. What will happen when 2000 or more TV stations hit the airwaves within the next two or three years is what has the movie barons yelling for publicity drum beating and headache tablets. But an even bigger and more

fmmediate“hreat to Holly- -

, Wood’ 8 long time gold grab bag,

“is the rush of big-name movie

stars into TV, the making of movies especially for TV and

EDITOR’ S NOTE: Movies vs. TV is the big battle in the entertainment world these days. Here's a report from the film capital on how the outcome shapes up, told by a veteran Hollywood correspondent who has just returned from a coastto- -COAst tour of America.

the sale of old movies to the video channels. = Ld » NOT TOO LONG AGO Hollywood regarded television as another medium, like radio which, a novelty, took its toll at the movie box office 20 years ago. Remember when thev stopped the movie to broadcast the latest Amos 'n’ Andy adventure? But movie fans returned to. the movies when the radio novelty jag wore off. Now Hollywood realizes that television is not another medium but actually a small athome screen capable of displaying motion pictures with all the dramatic punch of *Dbig ger-than-life theater screens. Optimistic observers in movieland predict that except for . “live” sports events and big news story coverage, 95 per cent of all television shows’ will be on film—made in Hollywood film. Already, 50 per cent of all TV programming is on celluloid.. Nearly 30 video film produc-

PAGE 21

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Soviet divisions are the equivalent of some 90 British or American divisions. This is still a great many, but

is it, seen from the Kremlin, as excessive as it seems to us in the West?

= ” ” THE SOVIET Union occupies one-sixth of all the land in the world and has land frontiers of inordinate length and extreme vulnerability. The size of the problem from the point-.of view of the Soviet General Staff is clearly

of the Soviet forces into self-

LIVE OPERATION—Hollywood thinks all TV, except "live" sports like this and big news events coverage will be on celluloid.

tion companies, shooting shows from five minutes in length to one-hour features, have taken over all the available sound

ON THE SCREEN—Theater owners are rushing to install big TV

screens to draw closed-circuit events like this boxing match.

Protect Yourself On the Highway

You ‘have live . . .

one second to

That often is the situation on today’s highways, says motoring experts,

You can “beat” that “death sentence” if you become what these experts call “a defensive

driver.” They tell you how to protect yourself during sudden

emergencies in PARADE Magazine next -Sunday.

PARADE comes with Sunday Times,

the

stage space in Hollywood. The product involves 32 separate film series, 20 of them considered major entries in the programming field, at a total es-

timated production cost of $18,450,000 Meanwhile,” to much Hollv-

wood molar gnashing, independent producers are selling off their old pictures to television Just as fast as they can obtain legal rights to do so.

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SOME OF THESE are prestige movies, with important star names, such as Wanger’'s Oscar-winning “Stagecoach,” several big David O. Selznick pictures, 10 Pine-Thomas action thrillers, 26 Republic studio films, 52 Monogram features and 101 “Our Gang” comedies, just sold by Hal Roach to TV for $300.000.

The Screen Writers and Screen Actors clamoring for a television money in the sale of such films. But so far the oniVv legal action taken has been by Roy Rogers, who won a temporary injunction from a Federal judge restraining Republic leasing or selling his films to TV. The restraint is in connection with a suit filed by Rogers against the company seeking to clarify his rights in connection with video showings of films which he made originally for

Guild Guild are share of the

theatrical release. The result of this suit with tHe future sale of other theatrical films to television. In Denver, Colo., one of the

last two major cities in Amerca still without TV broadcast stations, a new threat to movies has popped up. Until a Denver TV station can get on the air, the TV programs of three video networks will be piped by

coaxial cable into a Denver theater. HoLLYwoor S seven major motion picture

studios, in a desperate “we're - fighting - for - our lives” attitude. have banned-the appearance of contract stars

we topo a —

jndi““cated by the present breakdown

Walter-

contained armies, each, as far as is possible, drawing its supplies from industrial areas in its immediate rear. There are six of these commands: The Northern Army, based on Leningrad; the Western Army, based on Minsk; the Southern Army, based on Odessa; the Caucasian Army, based on Tiflis; the Turkestan Army, based on Tashkent and Frunze; the Far Eastern Army, based on Chita and Vladivostok v The reputed 175 divisions, equal to 90 of ours, have to be shared out between these widely spaced commands, leaving a strong force for Germany and Austria. We talk very glibly about the advantages of interior lines; and certainly Hitler, sitting in

Berlingwas--able-to-make-tha. “most of these advantages dur-"—

ing ‘the last war. But interior lines in the Sov-

+ fet Union are another matter.

With those immense distances, linked. by still inadequate railways and next to no good roads, the task of switching a couple of divisions from one front to another is not an easy one. And while to us the outline of the Soviet Union on the map represents a vast area of hidden menace, from which thrusting columns may debouch at any point, to Moscow that same outline represents a thin red line, impossible to defend, which may be pierced

at any point.

(Copyright, 1951, By Edward Crankshaw. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

“TOMORROW: Won a Race.’

ay Out?

on both “live” vision shows. But, as far as TV is concerned, it doesn’t mean a thing. With the exception of a dozen or so big names, there are few stars left on major payrolls. The accent in Hollywood today is on good stories, not highsalaried stars. For the first time in filmland history, unknowns are really getting the breaks. Why, then aren't there more movie stars on television? They're on their way, and a year from now you'll be seeing most of them on your home TV screens. They're shifting over to television just as fast as their agents can arrange the deals and to heck with the studio golden spoons which once fed them. But they'll still be seen on film, just as they were in the theaters, only in half-hour serials, musicals and comedies, instead of full-length features. » = = THEY'VE JUST BEEN waiting for the time when TV sponsors could afford quality TV film. Now that time has arrived. This adds up to good news for TV fans but bad news for New York's television pioneers. The ladies in _the low-cut gowns, the repetitive Broadway

Snails Never

and filmed tele-

comedians, the dance teams and -

the tumblers, the puppets, the

unknown Garbos and the cameramen who cut off all of their heads—they've all had their day. And just so I won't be called biased because I'm a Hollywood columnist, I'll quote a big New York advertising agency boss who, for obvious reasons. told me in his Manhattan office a few days ago: “As soon as possible we're hiring film players for all of our TV shows and we're going to Hollywood to put them on film. Audiences are as tired of New York vaudeville, interview and dramatic shows as I am, Television is going to Hollywood. It's going fast and it's going on film.” = " =" FOR ONCE, the movie stars played it smart. For three years they watched while television learned to stand, to crawl and to walk in New York. They watched Broadway performers strain through too-quickly rehearsed scenes on cramped sets, They saw big name comedians look silly in amateurish skits. They smiled over stories of New York directors who did not know camera angles and of electronics engineers who didn't know the value of a close-up or a medium shot or a long shot. They watched and they wait-

ed and they smiled. They knew it had to happen. And then it happened. Sponsors .started screaming

that their $30,000-a-week shows were awful because the leading

man forgot his lines or the leading lady tripped or the cameraman missed half a dozen cues.

= s ” TELEVISION, IN ITS quick growth, brought vaudeville back from the dead and killed it over again. Dramatic shows were turned into comedies and comedies didn’t get any laughs, They turned the TV cameras on radio shows. And they won-

dered what happened to the ratings. The cry went up: “It's gotta

be on film. You can't edit a live

show. And don’t give me a radio show--TV is movies—not radio.”

So now it's going on film, with movie players in front of the cameras and movie technical know-how behind the came eras and, just like radio did 20 years ago, television is moving westward to Hollywood,