PAGE TWO
Fun is a Funny thing!
IT'S
TT'S funny what people think h funny. I asked readers to tell me their biggest film laughs since talkies began (excepting a dozen or so that I thought of myself, and the results are surprising, fascinating, luminating.
By far the biggest vole went to the scene In "Bachelor Mother" where Ginger Rogers and Davil Niven are wondering how to feed the baby that has so unexpectedly arrived.
Niven, reading from a book on baby-care, says that the food is spread on a plece of gauze and then placed on the baby's navel,
Then he discovers that two pages have stuck together, and he has turned over from feeding hints to the anatomical detalls of baby's health,
I still can't ace why the umbilicus Is such a tremendously humorous indentation.
That "Yippee"
Next in order of popularity is Charles Loughton's "Yippee! b "Ruggies of Red Grp."
Remember how this most respect. able, restrained, and very formul manservant gets drunk and aud- denly gives vent to a bellow of al- coholic gladness?
It's the shock that makes this Joken startling, unexpected to-
hell-with-every-
thing that catches
you right in the
midriff
Next
COBES
William Powell
fishing In "Libel-
led Lady."
You may
+
ing an armful of wood and remark- ing. "Bit chilly, ain't it?”
This is a joke of the most obvi- ous kind, yet it never quila rcoches the point of being offensive,
Then comes Charles Laughton's petulant remark at the door before he goes in to his bride, Anne of Cleves (Elsa Lanchester), in "The Private Life of Henry Vit."
Annoyed that he must marry this woman, he stops ni the door, pouts, and cries, "The things I've done for England!"
Popular vole also picks an old school tle.
the
Remember how. in "The Lady- Vunishes," Basli Rudford and Naun- lon Wayne keep on wondering about the fate of England? And how it turns out that they've been fretting themselves about the re- sult of a Test match?
There was equal voting for Renee Houston's remark to the sanitary engineer in "A Girl Must Live,"
He says his girl friend lus turned that him down Jor the theatre night. but as he has a couple of tekets she (Renee) might ke to come.
She retorts, "You're not going to make a convenience out of me!"
* ★
VOTING continues in this order
of preference:--
By MOORE
RAYMOND
Edile Cantor's bullfight in "The Kid Fr Spain."
Charles Co- burn's declara- tion in "Bache-
lor Mother""I don't care who's
call that he takes out rod and line the father-I'm the grandfather!"
and a book of instructions. He Mischa Auer imitation of on ape hooks a fish, which drags him foundering down the stream.
It's pure slapstick and wholly visual in its humorous appeal.
More slapstick (or laughs with- out words) takes fourth place in the list.
scene
This is the mechanical feeder
Times." "Modern from Charlie Chaplin is caught and held by a feeding machine which stu him with food long after his ap petite has gone,
M
*
AFTER these four American pic- turca come four British laughter
makers.
In "Frozen Limita," the old man (Moore Marriott) finds gold when. ever he goes sleep-walking.
The Crazy Gang watch him get out of bed, Trot out of the room, and make for an outhouse in the yard.
He soon comes out again, carry-
in "My Man Godfrey."
Charlie Chaplin chasing the wo- men with the mut-like buttons. In "Modern Times."
Gary Cooper holding an imagin- ry ten party in the partly finished house in The Cowboy and the Lady."
Sydney "Old Monre's Almanack" la "Un for the Cup."
Howard representing
The Marx Brothers and a score others crowded into one exbin in Night at the Opera."
Laurel and Hardy getting drunk and laughing at nothing in "Fra Diabolo."
Eddie Contor's chariot race in "Roman Scandals."
And so on....
Surprises
THERE were some surprises. For in stance, a large numbervoird for the scene In "Bengal Lancer" where Fran- chot Tone has to keep on playing the pipe to stop the sobta from biling" him. I found it terrifying.
Then David Niven's return from the dead in Dawn Patrol though it
very grim humeur.
There's no room for further analysis.
Saturday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
June 8, 1940.
Plan
NEW plan for a line-
up of nations to end this war and make future war impossible is behind a movement that is growing
America in
and other neutral countries.-
can
For years at Geneva, Mr. Clarence Strelt, an Ameri. Journalist, watch the efforts of the League of Na- tions to bring order to the world.
Something was wrong, he Bow, As he watched and listened it be- to him that the one came clear outstanding fact in the modern world was this:
Fifteen great Democracies, the rich, creditor, trading nations, held overwhelming power in the world and were not using it. Compured with the Democracies the anti- Democratic countries wore wenh
ind poor.
For more than 100 Years these fifteen Democracles had never fought against one another. Yet the Totalltarlan Powers were
BLACK
WHITE
White to play and mate in 2.
Mate In Two
WONDER how many "Tele-
readers graph"
play
chess?
Or how many, while not actually players, take pleasure in solving chess problems?
Here is one of the finest problems ever conceived. It was composed by Comins Mansfeld, and took first prize in the tourney organised by El Ajedrez Argentino, 1026.
SOLUTION
Q-K7
Breast-Fed is Best Fed
The Mother of this Perfect Baby writes:-
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She
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Doctors and nurses strongly recon- mend that "Ovaltine' be taken regularly before and after baby
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for
ablo to threaten the peace of the world.
And then the great idea came to him:
་ ་ ་
Why not And the way to bring all these Democracies together, with Britain, America and Françe at the head, and present such a strong and united front to the world that every other country would fall over itself to join.
WE are going to have a new line-up of nations, whatever. else happens, in this war.
But a new European line-up will not be enough, says Mr. Strell, Nothing short of a new world line- up will bring pennanent peace.
And that line-up is clear to see. not to here and now. We have wait to the end of the war to see the shape of.it. "We have only to look at the map of the world to realise that all the great countries on this planet fall naturally into two groups, one enormously greater than the other.
There are only four great anti- Democratic Stales. There are 15
a
PICTORIAL SUPPLEMENT
New World
great Democratic States. There 18 Democracies poostis:
300,000,000 free citizens;
98 per cent. of the world's gold; Two-thirds of the world's wealth; Two-thirds of the world's war-
ships:
Three-quarters of the world'z'
trade.
an international organisation called IFU. (Inter-Democracy Federal Unlonists), founded to support the iden, is spreading in all parts of the world,
cannot
The European nations unite now, but can only line up for war, because. the nations are so cut off from one another by langu
traditions, ideologies, and jealously conflicting interests.
What stonda
ge, In the way of an immediate coming together of these 18 Democracies, with all their overwhelming strength, to enforce peace of all nations?
This is not the old League of Nations idea. Al Geneva it was constantly impressed on Mr. Strelt that the powerful Democracles were not using their power because they failed to recognise their 'common interests,
So he has written A book. called "Union Now," calling on the Democracies to unile, and telling them how.
"Union Now" was published privately in France a year ago. Now, in America, it has run into many alltions.
It has been translated Into French, Swedish, and German, and
*
THE model for Mr. Stroit's Fedoration រ៉ម the United States of America. The U.S. is not a country or a nation in the European sense, but' a Federation of States.
Massachusetts and Louisiana, say, ore far apart in distance, trad!- tions, culture, and even language, and they enjoy rights of their own. but they and all the rest of the forty-eight_States are American.
Or consider the British Empire. Scotland, England, Wales, and re- land have their own histories and traditions, but they are all British, and so are the Dominions overseas.
Who wants a
nice
ID you read about the
Dtwenty-one people who
lett Los Angeles the other day to settle on the island of West Caicos and "escape the trou- bles of civilisation, politics, traffic hazards, hunger and threats"??
It's a good idea.
If I could de exactly what they think they're doing I'd be off to-morrow,
Civilisation is hell, but the point the twenty-one seem to be missing is that civilisation The is- is not entirely hell. land of West Caicos, wherever it may be, may be heaven, but it's not entirely hoaven, No place is.
'I cannot stand "that damned man, Hitler." I think there's far too much of him about. It would be an en- joyable thing to go to some place where his name was never mentioned, where there were no newspapers to re- mind us of him.
*
On the other hand (and here is a big snag
when-1 dream of desert-islanding)-1- enn stund Smith, I like Brown and I get on splendidly with Robinson.
I have many a yarn with Smith on the train. I have many a yarn with Brown over lunch in an old City restaurant which was there two hundred years before we were thought of. I have many a yarn with Robinson in the local down the hill these cold nights.
Now, all this is of not the slightest importance-except to. mic. I like being me. Just as you like being you. You might wish for a bit more money. You might wish for a bit more power, such as Neville Chamberlain's got.
Malack
TONE Quality
MAXIMUM RESULTS ARE "ASSURED WHEN YOU USE
"
island?
by WILL SCOTT
But if you had more money, you'd want to be you with still more money. If you had more power you wouldn't want to be You'd Neville Chamberlain, want to be you with still more power.
Being ourselves is the one solitary thing that we're all good at.
And being me is a very peculiar business. It isn't just Smith, Brown and Robinson, It's much more complicated than that.
I like fog when I'm riding in a train. I like cold days in London und artificial light at lunch-time in that ancient City restaurant. I like rehearsals with my amateur dramatic society. I like playing about with systerns of stage light- ing. I like mowing the lawn. I like cigars. Hundreds of things like that.
I'm not explaining myself. I'm just telling you.
The fact is, I live on an island already. We all do. My island is too close to Hit- ler, but that's not my fault. It's his.
I say I live in England-but that's when I'm not really. thinking. I don't. I live on a bit of England.
* *
In England there are forty million people. I don't know more than a handful of them. I never shall know more than a handful.
In England are thousands of places such as Yeovil and Hadrian's Wall and the Man
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mider in England:
MARINA HOUSE QUEEN'S RD. C...
TEL. 33067.
Roll Fil
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by ILFORD LONDON
chestor Ship Canal and Bury St. Edmunds. I have never seen them. I never shall see them now. I get on all right without them.
I stay on my island. It isn't surrounded by water. It's surrounded by the rest of the country in which I have no real interest.
It is populated by Smith, Brown. Robinson and people like them. People I know. People I don't know don't in- terest me at all.
The native customs of my island largely consist (as I have said) of mowing the lawn, playing about with stage lighting, smoking cigars, go- ing to the local, having many a yarn with Smith, etc.
That's my life on my island. That's me. It's been me for years.
And if I move to a desert Island in order to turn my back on this loury world, it will have to be a desert island on which I can keep on being me.
Otherwise I should be as miser- ablo as a man could be.
Smith and Brown and Robinson would have to be on my new island to start with. I don't know what they'd say about that. And I don't know-what-their-wives..would say, elther, I can't see it working.
Nor can I see cigars on that de- sert island. Who's to grow them? Who's to roll them? And If I'm really going to turn my back on civilisation, where am I going to get one of those things to alice the end of?
The locul would have to be on my new faland, and. 1 doubt if the Iandlord would agree.
And what about a lawn mower? --And a lawn to mow? And artißelal
light?
No, out on West Cnicon I'd conse to be me altogether. I'd simply become the man who gathers the coconuts. Which I should hate.
**
No truffle hazards .. But what about a fifteen-foot snake across your path when you're bringing the coconuts in? Isn't that a
trafic hazard?
No Hitler But what about-
With such Federations på models, the way is clear for a world De- mocratle
Mr. Federation; sys Streit.
Counting the British Dominions as soparalo countries, the fifteent great Democracles would be "foun- der States" in the world federa tlon, They would keep their kings, prealdents, councils, languagen, flags, history books. Each would have charge of its own Internal affairs.
But they would pool their armles and navics and their foreign policy. aid they would elect a representative body to carry on their Federal business, “ There would be free trade among all the nations of the Union. Citizens of one State could move to another without passports or
other hindrance,
The United States. would put lis £4,250,000,000-more than half the world's gold-into the pool.
Mr. Sirelt believes that the Do- mocratie Fedoration would be so overwhelmingly strong that all the totalitarian Stiles together would not dure to challenge it.
II. W. S.
"You only got your daddy sent to Dachau. When I denounced granny, she was shot,"
u volcano on Monday and yellow- fever on Tuesday?
And "no plumbing." As they
HILY.
But Civilisation may be hell. not entirely. A desert island may be heaven. But not entirely.
My
island isn't perfect. Bul show me one that is, would you?
I remember an old story about the frying-pan, and the fre. Still, you know that one.
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