St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 48

2F ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1947 THE EVERYDAY MAGAZINE FROM NINE TO FIVE By Jo Fischer Sophoulis, the Grand Old Man of Greece He's Held Every Big Job in Greece, Now Heads Country for Third Time The Slew Films By Myles Standish Fair Enough, But Not Art By J. P. McEvoy ATHENS, Greece. THE head man in Greece today is a salty old codger named Themistocles Sophoulis.

He is Undoubtedly, in "THE LONG NIGHT," currently at the FOX THEATER, Director Anatole Lltvak and Screenwriter John Wexley were under the delusion they were making an artistic motion picture, one stark, honest, realistic and com- passionate, one laying: bare the motivations for tragic human actions. Well, they weren't. Simply because they haven't been etark and honest, but have watered down what was meant to be a tragedy to standard Hollywood box-office proportions, they have turned out merely a conventional melodrama, well-done and Interesting enough for Its type, but short IV A 'I; 1 i. 1 4 f- i i they could be so many Spyios Skourases but Sophoulis really looks like that elder statesman who could be the reincarnation of his namesake Themistocles of old. who we are told mixed political shrewdness and practical sagacity and was a fighter, a philosopher or a finagler whichever the occasion required.

ALWAYS a revolutionary and a rebel and later, as he mellowed with age, a Liberal with a genuine sympathy for the underdog SophoiiIiH has held most of the important posts in hi country ami 1m heading thn government now for the third time and today, after half a century of battling, is the only man who could be found to bridge the 33-year-old chasm between the two major parties. His one hope today is to emulate his illustrious namesake of whom Plutarch wrote. "but that which most of all redounded to Themistocles credit was that he put an end to all the civil wars of Greece, composed their differences and persuaded them to lay aside all enmity To this end he has proclaimed an amnesty for all political prisoners, guerillas all engaged in bloody civil strife, promising them pardon and freedom if they will "return to their country's bosom." but adding that if they don't he will "proclaim the alarm of the whole race and with a deeply grieved heart but with an indomitable will shall smite the un-repenting and treacherous rebellion." The Grand Old Greek who Is Themistocles Sophoulis knows too well the story of his country's past to be dreamy about the the present or starry-eyed about the future. He has grown poor in the service of his country but rich in the esteem of his countrymen. One of the few Elder Statesmen of our time, he proclaims that tokrance and moderation akfhe will knit his people together that there is no purely military solution for the troubles of his country or the world.

He likes to say that every time a new book comes out he reads an old one and that in the present hs in the past the trouble with the world that there is plenty for everyone's need but there will never be enough for everyone's greed. eighty-five, eighty-seven or eighty-nine years old depending on who In telling it. Himself, he is purposely vague as are most old men, but when somebody asked him recently if he didn't think he was pretty old to take the Job of Prime Minister and head the government in these explosive times he scoffed. "Me old? My father lived to be 105, and I'm in better shape at my age than he was." The good shape that old man Sophoulis finds himself in is a national legend. The Greeks tell you with pride that he has all his teeth and his favorite dish is octopus which chews and tastes like an old rubber hel and calls for a digestive apparatus like a turkey's gizzard, which they say can bend a six-penny nail.

The old boy's eyesight is just as keen as ever. Not only can he do a master X-ray job on the politicians, who crowd the corridors outside his office, thumbing rides on the old Gray Train, but he has lost one of his interest or skill in appraising feminine lure. When the old fellow met the Queen of all the Greeks (a charmer and no mistake) he exclaimed rapturously: "What a dish!" (The Greeks have a lustier word for it and the King was not amused.) Incidentally, they tell the story that the King was milling around at a cocktail party recently and an American lady tourist who didn't quite catch the name asked him by way of making conversation where he was stopping. The King replied somewhat wistfully: "Anywhere they let me." Sophoulis was born on the Island of Samoa which is not far from Turkey and was under Turkish rule for nearly 400 years. Around the turn of the century he organized a rebellion.

The Turkish fleet blockaded the island, the rebellion was bloodily suppressed and Sophoulis condemned to death. He managed to escape to Athens where he carried on the work for independence for his homeland. How he finally accomplished it single-handed without money or arms is a true story 'We can't possibly lose, girl. I know the horse personally-he UNcd to dt'llver our milk." of Its pretensions. They were probably under the spell of the French film of 140, "Daybreak," from which "The Long Night" was adapted.

In the original, a factory worker, played by Jean Gabln, finds his romance with a girl broken up by her love affair with a magician, an affair which the worker mistakenly believes to be Incestuous. In the Inevitably tragic pattern of the Greek drama, he kills the magician and allows himself to be killed by the police. That of course, was too strong meat for the American box-office and censorship. In the Hollywood version, there is no serious thought that the magician is the girl's father. He claims to be for a moment, but it "is quickly proved a senseless lie.

The girl, though fascinated by his oily wolfishness, is true to her steei-worker boy-friend. It is only because of the magician's silly preening that the hero shoots him In a moment of anger, with no tragic deliberation involved. And though the hero holes up and means to shoot it out to the death with the police, the heroine talks him out of it, and he comes out to face trial. As the magician was sucker enough to allow himself to be shot with his own revolver Jn a room alone with the steel-worker, it takes no legal wizard to figure that with a smart mouthpiece the hero is a cinch to beat the rap on a eelf-defense plea. Litvak and Wexley have fashioned some exciting atmospheric crowd scenes as the police "lay siege to the killer, and pome other scenes in a cheap night-club and a bedroom with an air of tawdry realism about them.

Henry Fonda aa the flow-thinking steel-worker is realistic enough, but hardly inspired. Vincent Price overdoes the melodramatic magician so much he makes almost a Vitamin Flintheart caricature. But Barbara Bel Geddes, stage actress in her first motion picture My Day By Eleanor Roosevelt -O- HE'S A SALTY OLD CODGER. insisted and only then did Sophoulis ocme out of the woods, proclaim himself the new leader of Samos and take the Turkish sur-. tender.

The Turks were forced to withdraw from the island and then Sophoulis proclaimed the union of his homeland with Greece. For craftiness and guile it equalled any of the homeric exploits of his fabled ancestors when they outfoxed the Trojans. In his youth Sophoulis was a professor of archeology in Athens University and wrote several books in Gorman and Greek on his specialty. He is an authority on his country's long and tumultuous history and a walking compendium of ancient wit, wisdom and political skullduggery gleaned from loving and expert study of the old Greek philosophers and Ktatesmen. Ills colleagues in today's government look like the successful Greek businessmen we know in the states THEMISTOCLES SOPHOULIS which gives you some idea of the old boy's mettle.

The story goes that he returned secretly to Samos in 1912 and engineered a succession of patriotic demonstrations which the Turks obligingly put down with their customary violence. SOPHOULIS, older and wiser now, capitalized on this by sending out passionate purple propaganda appeals to the world in general which stirred up so much public opinion in Europe that Great Britain, France and Russia wer forced to take steps to "protect" these persecuted patriots from the "unspeakable Turk." These great protecting powers demanded that the government of the island treat immediately with the leader of the rebellion but the government was honeslty bewildered. There wasn't really any rebellion and they couldn't find any leader to treat with but the great powers NEW YORK, Thursday I'VE received a letter from a woman berating me because I said I approved of universal military training. She thinks we are going against the laws of God and man when we call young men of 18 into the service, and the idea that boys of that nge might be called for a year of nilitary training fills my correspondent with horror. I have never been quite sure that in the atomic age it is quite necessary to have what is known as basic training, but I nm quile sure it would be good fur us to upend a year learning diwcipllne, checking on ourselves physically and mentally, and learning such things as are needed by a citizen of the United States no matter what our service may have to be.

I used to argue with my husband as to whether what is usually understood as universal military training would have much weight in the light of the discoveries of modern weapons of war. But as to every man and every woman, too in a democracy giving a year of service t6 their country, that I feel would be of value to us, one and all. thinking on armaments and definite. Always before, our defenses had meant land and sea forces. The argument that these were outmoded in favor of air forces was so revolutionary that the men within the services who fought for recognition of this now self-evident fact were looked upon "ruck puts." And they were usually exiled to remote pot where they could do no harm with their strange ideas! VESTEUnW.

IN A full meeting of Committee No. 3 of the General Assembly, not one dissenting voice was raised againrt the Economic and Social Council's report fin the international children's emergency fund. This unanimity was so unusual that a number of speakers commented on it. The previous afternoon, in a subcommittee meeting, we had spent hours arguing about procedure, until finally one of my advisers was moved to write a verse, to be sung to the tune of "Sur le Pont d'Avignon." on the subject of what we did with procedure in the United Nations! At last, however, we closed with the decks cleared for action at our next subcommittee meeting. role, is amazingly good.

She gives a tremulous Joy to the aimple heroine that lifts the love scenes from the commonplace, and Is a sensitive, sure actress. She's a pleasant relief from the beautiful amateurish babes we've been getting as new screen material In the second feature, "UNDER THE TONTO RIM," Tim Holt fights a Western robber gang to a finish again. BROADWAY By Walter Winehell Cose History of a Geek Typewriter Doodling: ALLY WANGER (the Broadway show girl-factory ty "NIGHTMARE ALLEY'" at the ST. LOUIS is a rather morbid and sordid affair about a ruthless carnival barker who get hold of a mind-reading act code by making love to a woman, rises to be a fashionable hotel-circuit "mentalist," gets coon) says there is no un Try and Stop Me By Bennett Cerf A MEMBER of the staff of the Phoenix Flame attended a garden party at the home of one of Radio's Very Great Comedians. "How was it?" asked Editor Hig-don later.

"Wonderful," enthused the staffer. "He's certainly one of the great wits of the age! What repartee, what satire, what awareness of world problems! And he's so modest with it all. He appeared actually surprised when everybody laughed. What I can't understand is how such an attractive personality can put up with that colorless, dull little goof who seems to cling to him like a Fhadow." "Don't tell anyone." whispered Higdon, "but that's the fellow who writes every line of the Great Comedian's material." into a high-powered spiritualist racket, is double-crossed by an equally ruthless fake woman psychologist, takes to drink, and sinks to the bottom, represented by the job of geek" at a carnival. Although the picture only hints at what a "geek" is, the original novel by William Gresham made it plain enough.

A "geek" is an alcoholic who earns W. P. Boston Fabrics, Inc. Moir failles. $frf 1 Q71, THE OTHER EVENING, I went to the theater and saw a very remarkable performance.

"Command Decision," a play which reminds me of the besfwar plays produced after World War I. It presents the problems of war on the command level, bringing vividly before us the struggle for preparing us between World War I and World War lithe struggle for a change in our 9 i dris, v.nng suits, bridu' nd brid-s-maidt gowni. 39" wid. 1121 IOCUST ST. Yd.

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They're showing up quite a bit for the little girl's school wardrobe, and also in that lovely mother-and-daughter combination. A smock is a particularly happy solution for the woman who combines homemaking and a job outside the home, because it offers such complete protection for her street or business costume. It's better than a pinafore for the little girl in school because it protects sleeves and cuffs of the dress or blouse from becoming smudged, always a real problem with a child. Of course, it offers the same over-all protection for the garden variety of housewife, plus the possibilities of a lot of lively color. If you're making your own, take a look through some of the sateen weave upholstery prints and plaids.

You'll often find unusual designs here that make up perfectly into smocks. The multicolored stripes in fairly inexpensive percales make up into- striking smocks, too. A pretty idea is to outline the yoke with a self ruffle, edged with bright ric rac. For the sake of "good service, make your smock with long sleeves and also long enough in the body to give ample skirt protection. Of course, you won't waste time and money on anything but fast color, fully pre-shrunk cottons.

Something new and piquant for scrambled or fried eggs. Soak one and one-half teaspoons powdered rosemay in one-fourth cup butter or margarine for 15 minutes. Use for scrambling or frying eggs. CARY GRANT LOOKING FOR A GUY. jj FOR YOUR OLD SINGER SEWING MACHINE ROUND BOBBIN DROf HEADS Model 15-30 $30 cots for Modrl U.

IS St for Sinavr Urn iS for WbMl.r-WlltoK SI itr if ra Iriiia la Hd Pick-up anywktr or prM at ear iihim HEAD ONLY Wrhen old Seth Abernathy celebrated his hundredth birthday, a reporter said to him, "Pop, I'll bet you've seen plenty of changes around these parts." "Yep," agreed "And I've been against every durn one of them." employment among chorines. He can use 500 chorus girls for swank spots all over the land from the Flamingo in Las Vegas to the Town Casino in Buffalo. But, girls, fevvensakes don't phone or write this column about it. Wan-ger is in the N.Y. phone tome.

Leading shoe shops (for men) in midtown are displaying red shoes. Wha' Hoppens? Hop Whappens? Cary Grant is supposed to have told intimates that he will slug author George Frazier because of "an insulting anecdote" in Frazier's book, "The One With the Mustache Is Cos-tello." A powerful novel, "The Ring and the Cross" will make a few prominent Texans squirm. Johnny Meyer's costume at the hocus-focusers' affair was infant attire plus a nippled milk bottle. The "brazen way of flouting his most recent front page predicament inspired Bob Hope to pun: "Johnny Meyer's paternity suitW FLAGSTAD GETS her hand kissed, but Carol Brice, great Negro contralto (due at Town Hall Nov. 2), is shoved around on her tour.

A swank Boston hotel let her dwell in it but said; they'd serve her only in her room. On trains (below the Mason-Dixon Line) she has to dine behind a curtain. No Yellow cab in. Washington would ride her. That's no clown feud between Henry Morgan and Jack Parr.

The "inside" is over similarity in scripts. One charges the other with burglary, etc. THE MURPHY SISTERS' Apollo recording "Girls, Don't Ever Get Married" Is getting a big play from the network jocks. Funny, because the other side of the platter Eat is banned on most stations. On Madison Avenue there's a Society for the Prevention of World War III.

Must be working overtime. Beginning of the End "Rankin Raps Joe Louis." WALTER WHITE'S PIECE in a Saturday review offers this orb-popper: That some well-known TURNER SEWING MACHINE Cf). his daily bottle by putting on a show in which he bites the heads off live roosters and drinks their blood. The picture shows some promise in the early scenes of carnival life. There it has some tough realism and tautness.

But with the protagonist's rise into high-class fakery, it become unreal and falsely melodramatic. As a matter of fact, removed from the bizarre aspects of the carnival atmosphere, it isn't much different from the usual story of the ambitious man of lowly origin (often he's a steel-worker who becomes president of the company or a district attorney running for governor), who reaches the heights and tumbles to be a drunken barfly. In this, however, there's no bright spot to give the drama point The hero is a heel from beginning to end. He doesn't merit or get any sympathy from the audience, and the ending is merely depressing. Tyrone Power is convincing enough as the young barker, but shows his shortcoming as an actor in the climax and denouement.

Coleen Gray, a newcomer, is woefully inadequate as an actress as the barker's wife. Joan Blondell, as a hard carnival performer and Helen Walker as the psychologist, are much better. The B-feature is "ADVENTURE ISLAND," about some beachcombers and a tropical island ruled by a madman. Some Old Private-Eye Story Although "RIFF-RAFF," at the AMBASSADOR, starts out with lots of atmosphere and mood in a tale about murders for -a map of some South American oil deposits, it quickly slows rJown to trite "private-eye" stuff. All the conventional ehar- acters are there the tough, breezy, elightly Help a baked apple or stuffed pepper keep its shape by baking in muffin tins.

PtlMAR 0767 57 DELMAR Americans are light-skinned Negroes who pose as white folks, including a few members of Congress, he says. Add Lovely Lilts: "So Far" from "Allegro." Partic the way Francis Sinatra thrushes it. Oh, those terrible capitalistic nations. The United States is spending more coin to aid foreign nations than to rebuild its armed forces. If this world isn't careful, there'll be nothing left to be careful about.

Playwright Irwin Shaw (he once beefed about critics being too nasty) is now critic for a weekly and a picayune critic, too. He criticized an actor for blinking too much and opening his mouth "too wide." ALL-WOOL SUEDE HOODED SPORTS COAT shady private detective (Pat O'Brien) the mysterious night-club singer (Anne Jeffreys) who doesn't show for certain until the end whether she's for or against the shamus, the sleek, unctuous villain (Walter Slezak) and his thugs. There are the usual merciless beating of the detective and his brushes with the They'll Do It Every Time By Jimmy Hatlo J2993 SO SHE CAU6HT -fUE THATS A BEAUTIFUL THE 5:15. BUT JK' kill VI JOB, PIERRE. IT'S aha: i.rrMmcri rr vJ EXACTLY THE WAy SO DID A FRES HAVE WHAT ZEy I WANTED IT.

I AIR FIEND win. CALLZEHEAVi) MUST HURRY NOW DATc AND CATCH THE XZ ESrCE 5.15- i ar-mi law. The Panama City atmosphere doesn't make it any newer. The direction by Ex-cameraman Ted TeUlaff cannot be accused cf being over-subtle. The same comedy gag about starting an rid car is repeated three times.

The camera pans a half- doren times to the map hanging in plain view on a screen in the detectives office, while all the intrigue is going on to find it. Nobody is going to miss the piont if Mr. Tetzlaff can help it. There Is also a Western, "WYOMING," featuring William "Elliott, John Carroll and Vera Ralston. Farce, Fantasy, Flop Ginger Rogers gushes with such determined cuteness in "IT HAD TO BE YOU," that it's plain she's going to make it a comedy even if she works herself to exhaustion.

Cornel WY.de isn't far behind her in archness as the man of her For the mairtifdy of ycur vvrtra'cbw choose this all-wool suede hooded sports coat. Notice the full swing bad. Cuffs and hood faced with blacl. In grey or green. 10 to I 8.

Other Sports Coats, $35 to $59.95 'jb- jit 1 Flat'er your legi with Admiratiej Nylor Ourj dreams come to life as an impudent Indian, spoiling her wedding to a stuffed shirt so she can marry a childhood sweetheart, who also wore an Indian costume as a party one time. This attempt to combine psychiatry, fantasy and farce in the Thorne Smith manner falls pretty flat. Somehow Mr. Wilde's uninhibited conduct doesn't seem funny when you know he's supposed to be a phantom, anyway. Miss Rogers's frantic gyrations would have been Justified in only the most wildly funny farce ever to hit the screen.

"It Had To Be You" is hardly thaL The second feature is "BLONDIE IN THE DOUGH." talNlA JANUSVtvtfSKl, 4960 31st ST. DETROIT, SEVENTH and LOCUST ii i i 'i iV ru tt ft r. ttm 0 0 'm 1 0 i on ri 1-1.