The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 19

The Age, Saturday, October 27, 1962 19 Jhe More We Are Together Cinema-wise, as the Austericans say, it has been an amiable week. Frenchmen have learned to fraternise with Germans, Americans with Japanese, and the British upper crust has made its peace with rock 'n' roll. Max Beerbohm's "Charming Little Reputation" "My gifts are small. I've used them very well and discreetly, never straining them; and the result is that I've made a charming little reputation." So Sir Max Beerbohm about himself. His small gifts won him, in the end, a knighthood, and, something much more valuable, the title "the incomparable." AT THE CINEMA With Colin Bennett Brfagtf 7 seem to belong in quite another context.

The Young Ones, at the Regent, is a rarity in British cinema; a teenagers' musical which has spontaneous gaiety and life. The youngsters headed by rock 'n' roll singer Cliff Richards and dancer Carole Gray form a bright, spirited team. Sidney J. Furie's direction has pace and invention. The dance numbers though sometimes blatantly imitative of Leonard Bernstein are delivered with infectious enthusiasm.

As an aristocrat-tycoon' trying to wrest a London youth club away from its youth, Robert Morley Joins in the fun with style and relish; and, like the very squarest critic, he must admit defeat before the end. FOUNDER Kruger) tries to surprise the four The German officer (Hardy have killed his patrol. A scene TUDOR DYNASTY: NEW SLANT ON HISTOR This is an historical novel by somebody who has before. Indeed, Antonia Ridge is more often playwright than as a writer of books, though Russia" made a name for itself. never entered the field heard of as a television her "Grandma Went to strosities like "accrescency" or "in enubilable," whatever they may mean.

One is inclined to write him off as a bore and a much more old- fashioned, writer than Steele or Addison. But he survived his fin de siecle affectations, sharpened his wit, and grew more interested in people than in manners. He is never in a hurry; his writing always give the impression of leisure, and the rhythm of his prose is polished and repolished. But there is a wide gap between the Edwardian dandy and the charming old chap who made himself a new reputation as a broadcaster with the B.B.C. half a cen-tury later.

Beerbohm as a writer could hardly exist today because his mode of living has been destroyed by the income tax collectors. His father was a corn merchant, and he must have been a very wealthy one, for he sent the boy to Charterhouse and Merton and enabled him to develop i his taste for the more refined and expensive pleasures. In early middle age he retreated from England to Rapallo where he composed his reminiscent little essays, taking his time over each sentence as though polishing a small jewel. Social and political questions seem to have horrified him, so he ignored them. He was even capable of sentimentalising over the childhood frustrations of George IV and writing, with tears in his eyes; all Royal children, of whom I have read, particularly George, seems to have passed through greater trials in childhood than do the children of any other class." Clearly Mr.

Beerbohm had never soiled his shoes by taking a walk through London's East End. But his carefully cultivated literary palate made him perhaps the most accomplished parodist in the language, and the examples of Henry James and George Meredith in this collection are so delicately exaggerated that the authors must have blushed to read them. Irony was Beerbohm's favorite weapon, and he sharpened and honed it all his life. It is keenest in his dramatic criticism, which may have seemed drudgery to him but is a joy to the reader. Perhaps it was because the theatre brought him, in spite of himself, closer to people than the study or the drawing-room that his writing on Shaw, the Duse, Bernhardt and his eminent half-brother, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree has more warmth and vitality than his epicure's essays.

Perhaps it was simply that the "Saturday Review" did not allow him too much space for setting up his elaborate patterns of words. One can have too much of a good thing. IVE SOLDIERS, A TRUCK and a great deal of sand are the simple components of Taxi To Tobruk (Savoy). Tne mm is rrencn, proaucea and directed by Denys de la Patelliere. Four of the characters are French commandos, the fifth is a German captain they capture, when stranded 400 miles from base at the time of El Alamein.

The usual hazards are endured: thirst, bombing, booby traps. By the end each side has shared the need for survival with the other, and has learned to respect the enemy. As the old cliche of war pictures has it, "He is not so bad when you get to know him." This quintet's situation is familiar enough. People like John Mills, Curt Jurgens and David Niven have all covered the same mine-laden ground before them. Taxi To Tobruk, however, wins from all three earlier films.

De la Patelliere endows it with great humor, fresh, sharp characterisation of each man, and some really tense moments of danger a la The Wages of Fear. The basic ironies of war are brought cleverly into relief, as the advantage seesaws between each side only to be proved no advantage at all by the time the bitter ending has arrived. In its photographic use of simple settings, and in its acting of the French roles (Lino Ventura, Charles Aznavour, Maurice Biraud), if not the German one (Hardy Kruger), this is a skilfully constructed picture amusing, tough-minded, yet moving. While avoiding the more hackneyed aspects of the "togetherness" theme in war films, it certainly does not misuse the war subject as escapist entertainment. Months have past since we have had an American tale of such sublime ballyhoo as My Geisha (Barclay).

This picture, written by Norman Krasna, is all about a New Wave film director (Yves Montand) who decides to make a version of Madam Butterfly In Japan (for the sake of "documentary with genuine Japanese players. He sets out on this venture because he is sick of playing second fiddle to his actress wife (Shirley MacLaine), whom he directs in all her comedy vehicles. But the poor dumb ox picks a geisha girl for the part of Butterfly without once even vaguely guessing that she is really this very same wife, intent on proving that the part is within her range and disguised with brown contact lenses, a wig and flour on her face. All this sounds like comedy, and Is intended that way; but, alas, comedy which takes itself far too seriously, sedately and sentimentally, largely wasting the comic talents of its stars. Miss MacLaine must concentrate too hard on being Japanese, and M.

Montand on being unobservantly foolish, to have much time for comedy. Britain's Jack Cardiff, who used to be one of the world's finest color photographers, directs My Geisha, and his influence over the visual design and composition of the Tech-nirama picture is obvious. His Japanese vistas are exquisite and from Taxi to Tobruk. RECENT NOVELS Reviewed by ALAN NICHOLLS actor of high repute, married to a girl a third of his age who, because of a life deprived of good human contacts, needs him desperately. In her protection, he commits an accidental homicide.

His plight and hers, as the law moves into their delicate private situation, makes a story of high suspense. The suspense is not about "whodunit," but about what will happen to two people skilfully enough portrayed to have the reader's deep sympathy. The style is a little over-wrought, but it does not conceal the core of what Is a moving and honest little story. EPITAPH FOR GABLE "THE INCOMPARABLE A selection introduced by S. C.

Roberts. (Heinemann, London, Australian price, 449.) Reviewed by GEOFFREY HUTTON. in Edwardian frills: "Nay, but It is useless to protest. Artifice must queen it once more in the town, and so, if there be any whose hearts chafe at her return, let them not say, 'We have come into evil and be all for resistance, reformation and angry cavilling. For did the king's sceptre send the sea retrograde, or the wand of the sorcerer avail to turn the sun from its old course This elaborate posturing is only a small sample from the opening of a piece on the revived use of makeup by the young ladies of the late 1890's.

The essays of the time are insufferably arch; paragraphs saying nothing much open with hls-tronic cries of "For, behold Beerbohm shows off his Latin scholarship by making up mon- The late Sir Max Beerbohm. died in 1956. The Bookshop of MARGARETA WEBBER Mt-EWAN HOUSE. 34? LITTLE COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE. MU2418 and 67 20R9.

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S. ECKERSLEY "PTV. LTD. Society Printers Stationers 17 Toon a Road, South Yarra (4 door from Punt Road) TKL.1 BM 4895 VOk it i'jf I 1 it WML ft "Tense moments of danger French commandos who OF THE The story of Katherine's childhood, and her relations with her mad father and her brutal and lascivious mother, is excellently told. The introduction of Joan of Arc will fix the period in the minds of those whose knowledge of historical dates and times is shaky.

Antonia Ridge writes naively, yet with clarity and strength. Here is an historical novel well worth the reading. "THE DESPERATE PASSION OF HENRY KNOPP," by Maurice Levinson. (Faber, London; price 20.) IP ANYONE COULD MAKE metaphysics funny, Maurice Levinson has in this book. The fun and the metaphysics are both genuine, and they blend in a fine vintage flavor.

The hero, 'Henry Knopp, is a philosophical school teacher with a biological urge. His wife has denied him nuptial satisfactions, and in all integrity andhumility he seeks a substitute. In mosjt things he has a rigid moral code. If it comes to matter like corporal punishment, or teaching to please the Establishment rather- than serve truth, he is prepared to be martyred. But in the matter of love, the simple fellow thinks that the world owes him something which he will seek and gain if he can.

THROUGH fleas acting as the intermediaries nearly every time. Control Is now comparatively easy. Rats, especially those on ships, can be checked by fumigation. Fleas can be killed by DDT and more recent insecticides. There are still a few areas in the world where plague is mildly endemic, and But being an innocent, a stranger to worldly wisdom, he is handicapped almost out of the race.

Not quite, it is true. A woman colleague, innocently honest, If less immaculate than himself, understands his plight. But this is only part of the book's theme. Levinson is really writing seriously about good and evil, in spite of his slap-stick. The story is full of sinister characters, representing the world Knopp would like to keep himself innocent of.

They come near to destroying him because of his intolerable if unostentatious goodness. He is saved i only by the accidental intervention of a cynical tramp. The writing is stylised In a way that keeps place and time in the background of the story, which in consequence has the simplicity of an allegory. It nevertheless has a painful truth about it, none the less scarifying for the author's wryly humorous acceptance of it. "HANNO'S DOLL," by Evelyn Piper.

(Seeker and Warburg, London; price 189.) EVELYN PIPER ALREADY has a reputation for writing novels which combine "mystery" with sound, evocative depiction of real life. Hanno is an elderly, fat comic THE AGES SECTION FOR SCHOOLS in these medical standards can be raised. So the terror of the ages, recorded from the time of Sennacherib's destruction in the 7th century B.C., has surrendered to human skill and patience. ORONARY THROMBOSIS killed Clark Gable in November, 1960. He was 59 vears old.

han- pny for the fifth time. and in his thirtieth year as a top Hollywood performer. He left an estate of around 2 million, a young widow, and a son born soon after his father's death. But in the film hierarchy he left no successor. The reason was that Gable belonged to a breed of actor rapidly approaching extinction.

He waste both his studio and to his public a star. His range as an actor was limited. He regarded films, not as an art, but merely as entertainment. He was mean with money. And, outside marriage, his dealings with women verged on sexual banditry.

He had, however, a physical presence so potent that his films became THE "BLACK DEATH" EERBOHM'S "CHARMING little reputation" has worn better than most of the work it was built on. His caricatures and particularly the affectionate mockery of the great 19th-century writers still have currency. They are mannered wildlv exasperated and deadly accurate. His writing has not lasted so well. There is Zuleika Dobson, a breath from a' waggish, affected and obsolete Oxford, which has been around the bookstalls in recent years as a Penguin.

The essays, books of them, are probably read by students of prose, but by row grown men. Like Milton (in miniature) one might say that Beerbohm is the more highly respected the less he is read. A friend, Sir Sidney Roberts, has dorie him the service of going through his many pieces and publishing a careful selection, careful because it meticulously covers his range of writing from his first book of essays published in 1896 to some of his radio talks half a century later. On the way we cover samples of the dramatic criticism which occupied 12 years of his life hard grind he thought dabblings in history, reminiscent essays about Beardsley and Swinburne and other acquaintances, self-mocking humor in a style later developed by the "New Yorker" and causeries, elegant and leisurely, in a manner more familiar in French than in English. Beerbohm belonged to a class and a period which cherished beauty of phrase as it did of waistcoats or pipe-racks.

He followed Shaw as dramatic critic of the "Saturday Review," but rather snobbishly considered his predecessor a journalist because he tried to make every word "tell." To Beerbohm this seemed slightly vulgar; he preferred to achieve his effects by subtler and more devious means. Some of them have dated; in the earlier essays, written before the turn of the century, one Sees the young university exquisite, writing "THE KING OF HOLLYWOOD," by Charles Samuels. (Allen, 25.) vehicles for a unique cargo. During the war, in which Gable served with distinction as an air gunner, he was also considered a prize catch by the Luftwaffe. In a special bulletin, Goering promised the flyer who downed Gable, dead or alive, a bounty of 5000 a promotion, and a furlough.

In this hurried, gossipy and ill-written book Mr. Samuels does little to illumine or explain his subject. He composes in headlines, he frequently confuses candor with muckraking, and he provides no index. The king is dead. For a man who gave great pleasure to many audiences this is a poor epitaph.

P.O. his Martians practically helpless apart from their machines, both constructional and fighting. One remembers the quip about our addiction to the motor car and TV that future generations may be born with no legs and square eyes. There is no doubt that the Martians would have conquered and enslaved any parts of the world they chose. In intelligence and powers of Invention they were immensely superior to the human race, but with all their scientific knowledge they did not understand one vital fact.

They came from a planet purified of infection, and they fell victims to the bacteria that inhabit every cubic inch of the world's atmosphere. So the most powerful physical forces (Martians in combination with their machines) ever to move on the Earth were overcome in a matter of days by the most physically weak Inhabitants of our planet. This denouement was the most brilliant (and perhaps the most logical) of all the scores of scientific ideas developed in "The War of the Worlds." But the reader must not ignore other aspects of this wonderful novel. Wells Introduced a great deal of appealing cverydny realism into his story. The curiosity of those who first approached the space cylinder, the borrowing of the dog-cart from the Innkeeper at Woking, the author's concern for his wife, the story of the curate, and the flight by the author's brother from London to the Essex coast are only a few examples.

The episode of the artilleryman Is also In a discussion which echoes the division between Eloi and Morlocks in "The Time Machine," Wells makes the highly intelligent and imaginative soldier produce ideas about community life that foreshadow Wells as a future social philosopher, which was a sad loss to creative art. The story has a few weaknesses, however, and students may care to discuss these questions. Why do we never learn the name of the narrator Why does Wells introduce the narrator's brother Why does Wells Invent such an unconvincing "nervous breakdown" for the narrator And why is the story given a highly sentimental ending When the famous physician Guy de Chauliac was asked to explain the cause of the Black Death of 1348 he answered: "The grand conjunction of the three superior planets, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, in the sign of Aquarius." Not until 70 years ago was it fully understood that the great catastrophe was caused by a far more ominous conjunction, the rat, the flea and the plague bacillus. "THE WAR OF THE WORLDS" From 1895 to 1910 H. G.

Wells wrote a number of short novels that have been called "scientific romances." Among the best was "The War of the Worlds," the story of a terrifying invasion from Mars. Three strains of inspiration can be seen in the novel, all of them significant in Wells's long literary career. They are scientific Imagination, homely realism and social 'analysis. SEWARD'S BOOK SECTION WE SEARCH THE WORLD SUCCESSFULLY FOR RARE AND OUT-OF-PRINT BOOKS. NEW WIZARD OF MORDTALLOC Life of Jack Holt (Maurice Cavonouch).

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H. SEWARD PTY. LTD. 457 BOURKE MELBOURNE MU6129. THE 13TH CHILD," by Antonia Ridge.

(Faber, London; price 17.) CTUALLY THIS NOVEL started off as a television play. Antonia Ridge was asked to write a play for St. David's day, on the subject of Owen Tudor, the weisn squire who married Katherine of Valois and so founded the Tudor dynasty and fathered Britain's subsequent Royal line. The subject fascinated her, and she found far more material than she could fit into a play. She kept it and enlarged on it with research lasting over 13 years.

"The 13th Child" is the result. This book ignores the British legend, fostered by Shakespeare, that Katherine fell in love with Henry at first sight. On the contrary she takes the French view, that she met the King when she was a frightened, convent-bred terrified by her royal mother Isabeau, of the brutalities and the pomps of the French court. It was only during the short and tragic year that followed her marriage and was ended by Henry's death that she flowered into a mature and loving woman. The portrait of Owen Tudor, the widowed queen's gentleman of the bedchamber, and the story of Katherine's scarcely credible secret marriage to him, will fascinate readers attracted by the more grotesque and romantic corners of history.

Singapore, all seaports. In those cities it was quickly isolated and dealt with. It is now understood that plague takes two forms. In the first the lymphatic glands swell up Into lumps (buboes is the Portuguese word). and in the second the lungs are attacked.

Death occurs in four days, with nearly 100 per cent, mortality in pneumonic plague (this was the variety which recently killed an English research biologist). We all have a natural immunity to some diseases, even the most deadly ones. Few are immune to influenza, but most are to poliomyelitis. Perhaps half are Immune to plague. Despite the alarming figures given by some historians, about 75 per cent, of those who are infected eventually recover.

The pneumonic form of plague is largely spread by direct-contact between human beings, but is also carried by the rat flea. This explains why scientists have chosen it as a suitable agent of germ warfare. The more common bubonic plague is spread almost entirely by fleas, especially rat fleas. These fleas prefer to live on rats, but when their hosts die they pass either to other rats or to human beings. The bacilli live in the feeding tube of the flea, entering its host's blood when it is sucking.

After the plague had swept through an area, with ghastly results in olden times, there was usually a lull. Millions of rats and possibly millions of men, women and children were dead, and no others were susceptible to infection. But some of the wild rats and other rodents kept up the disease in. their sparse population. Fleas carrying the plague bacillus can live for months apart from their rat hosts, getting blood from animals that are not susceptible to plague.

So perhaps for generations these wild creatures act as a distant reservoir of the disease. For reasons that are not known, wild pests sometimes suddenly in-' crease in numbers and swarm near towns and cities. Australia has its "plagues" of mice, flying foxes, rabbits, kangaroos, emus, and grasshoppers. When wild animals carrying plague fleas (usually of the rodent class) overrun a populated area, they infect new generations of town rats, which, in turn, infect people, SPRING BOOKSHOP 7 COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE FOR BOOKS IN RUSSIAN, UKRANIAN, LATVIAN, ESTONIAN, LITHUANIAN, HUNGARIAN, POLISH, CZECHOSLOVAKIAN AND GERMAN. RUSSIAN L-P RECORDS AND CHINESE PRINTS.

63 9245. i 1 5 I i 1.1 -I lw I -1 1 Lh) -lis- ft if I I Ml" IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT the rat is the master criminal of history. This is because he helped to spread the most deadly disease of temperate climates bubonic plague. Man shares about 80 diseases with other living creatures. These diseases are called zoonoses, and until they were understood human beings were in constant peril from snails, parrots, cows, dogs, mice, squirrels and many varieties of insects.

But the greatest villain has been the rat. He has a liking for human company, and has followed men all over the world. With him he has taken lice and fleas, and from them have spread two diseases that have influenced history typhus and Plague. Typhus is a disease that particularly affects people who live crowded together. It was once known as hospital fever, gaol camp fever and ship fever.

But plague struck everywhere, and it raged for longer periods. Plague is caused by a microorganism called Pasteurella Festis. It was isolated in 1894 by the Swiss scientist Yersin, and his discovery was confirmed by Kitasato, a Japanese. So great was the horror of plague that it was recorded for 3000 years. A great epidemic (sometimes called a pandemic) in the 6th century completed the ruin of the Roman Empire that had been started by the barbarian hordes.

Another pandemic arose in the 14th century, spreading from China to Ireland. This was called the Black Death, and nearly half the Populatiqn seem to have died. Pope Clement VI asked for the statistics, and was given the figure of 2.836,446 corpses. The epldemlo of 1640-70 from Turkey to England is the best documented. When it reached England it was known as the Great Plague.

Pepys, Evelyn and Defoe (by hearsay) have left us vivid accounts of the terror that It caused. There has been no outbreak in Europe since the early 19th century, but it continued to rage elsewhere. During 1898-1908 over 10 million People died in and around Calcutta. Plague remained endemic (that Is, persistent) in parts of India up to the last 30 years. Jn 1895 it appeared in Hong Kong.

Ships carried infected rata to Bombay, Java and Timor. Serious outbreaks occurred in those places. It also found in Sydney, flan pranclsco, Glasgow, Lisbon and INTERMEDIATE CANDIDATES have been fortunate this year in being able to study "The Time Machine" and "The War of the Worlds." Although written more than 60 years ago, both stories have a scientific fascination even today, when a rocket is speeding towards Venus. No novel can be fully appreciated unless read in the context of its composition. "The War of the Worlds" was written in 1897, when aeroplanes were unknown, motor cars were rare curiosities, space rockets half a century away, and gas warfare not even contemplated.

Fiction writers had brought Martians to the Earth many times before Wells wrote of his invasion, but none of them had given a scientific verisimilitude to their stories. The genius of Wells was that he created Martians by an evolutionary process that might well bring them to our planet in the shape, and for the purpose, that he described. If the reader were to jot down the apparently logical scientific ideas that he came across in reading "The War of the Worlds" he would end up with scores. One does not know which to admire most the number of the ideas, their relevancy, or their constant relation to human problems. Wells "gave a local habitation and a name" to every part of his story.

All the places in it were geographically exact, as matter-of-fact to Londoners as Werribee, Sunshine. Colllngwood, Royal Park, and Bourke Street are to Melburnlans today. The Martian terror struck directly home to Wells's readers. In the 1890's there was a great deal of public curiosity as to whether Mars was inhabited, partly under the stimulus of Professor Lowell's writings. Wells made use of the scientific information then available to Imagine his Martians as creatures millions of years "ahead" of the human race, consisting mostly of brains, and with small, flabby, oily-sklnncd bodies almost devoid of physical strength.

Wells was always something of a social "preacher," and this development of Martian physique had its lessons for the men of the "machine age." Wells went so far as to make NOVEMBER ISSUE ON SALE MONDAY Walkabout Australia's Way-af-Life Magazine iVeicfi; Published FLOWERS AND FURY BY GEOFFREY DUTTON The third collection by distinguished poet, author and critic, whose last poetry book won the Grace Leven prize. Unlike the eorlier collections, which followed the poet's wanderings In many lands, the poems In this book stem directly from his Australian experience. A great many of them are love poems, of original and compelling quality. The book bears on evocative dustjacket by Melbourne artist Robin Wolloce-Crabbe. 207- AT ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS PUBLISHED BY F.

W. CHESHIRE Rescued from the Great Plague in 1665. Pcpys, in his Diary, recorded that a saddler in Gracechurch Street, London, having buried all his other children of the plague, tried to save his little daughter by handing her over naked to a friend, who clothed her and took her to Greenwich,.