QUEEN'S & ALHAMBRA
TO-DAY AT
2.30, 5.15, 7.15 & 9.15 p.m.
TO-DAY ONLY AT
2.30, 5.20, 7.20 & 9.20 p.m.
99
"CALIFORNIA "
PARAMOUNT'S TECHNICOLOR SPLENDOR
with Ray MILLAND NEXT CHANGE QUEEN'S
"THIS TIME
FOR KEEPS”
IN TECHNICOLOR
Barbara STANWYCK
TO-MORROW ALHAMBRA "TAKE A LETTER,
DARLING
"
A Paramount Picture
QUEEN'S ALHAMBRA
&
℗ WATCH FOR OPENING DATE
MGM's Star-Splashed TECHNICOLOR,
Musical Hit!
+
Durante
"IT'S
She floats through
the air with the
greatest of tease!
AQUACOLOSSAL
100?
BATHING BEAUTY
Loves ROMANTIC SINGER
This Time For Keeps
-Mermaids in Aqua-Rovels! ESTHER WILLIAMS
MELCHIOR DURANTE JOHNSTON EXAYTER CUGAT and be whata-
CENTRAL
THEATRE
SHOWING ONE DAY ONLY
AT 2.30, 5.15, 7.15 AND 9.15 P.M.
JAMES MASON
ROSAMUND PAMELA
JOHN - KELLINO
THE UPTURNED GLOSS
ORIENTAL
SHOWING TO-DAY: 2.30—5.157.20-9.20 P.M.
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, --- TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1948..
E
MARRIAGE BY
ARRANGEMENT
VERY month in London
an average of 60 marri- nges take place as a result of marriage agency intro
ductions.
The geven major bureaux. account for roughly 35; the myriad small introduction agencies produce the other 15.
Statistics show that 60 percent of the applicants are men; 45 percent are in the younger age
groups. One big agency reports
that it has very few women on its books over 56 and its oldest wife-seeker is a widower of 80. Of 50 "men questioned, not one had any objection to taking on children of a former marriage.
A cross section of applicants
fees returned.
Numbers of Marriago struck off the register nud ali Bureaux aro now being opened in Lon- don. How do these bureaux work, where do they get thoir clients, what foos do they charge? Hore are the answers given as the result
Usual method of working is for the applicant to fill in a detailed form and send it with a photograph and the registration fee.
Several descriptions of possible partners are then sent and after picking the one which sounds most suitable the introduction fee is paid. Some agencles have no introduction fee, but charge when a marclage la arranged.
The apposite number's descrip- tlon is then sent for approval and If both express. a desire to meet a meeting is arranged. Some agen-
ofa n' inquiry by cles Interview their clients personal-
EILEEN ASCROFT
on the register includes farmers, of family or business
ly, so that they can make a better estimation of character and requiro- menis,
Marriage by arranged introduc- tion la very controversial subject. Many people feel strongly that it la unnatural and wrong. Some are ignorant of what these bureaux real- responsiblllly do and how they work. Others
Civil Servants, nurses, secretics; others who have no opportuni- think it is a sane way of dealing ty of meeting suitable partners and with loneliness and inck of op-
tarien, airmen (including " some men who just cannot afford portunity for soclel contact. wing-commander and a test to marry unless the wife has a small
pilot), a blacksmith, a technical income of her own.
A marriage
journalist, an hotel proprietor,
offers
bureau, he contends, choice outside the small
a house surgeon at a big coun- circle of people one usually meets. try hospital, and many war It means also that through Intro- widows.
duction you meet people of the same ago, religion, outlook, hobbies and environment and you know more about
them before meeting than nuny people do even after marriage. Common Charges
One agency put a small ad- vertisement in n Polish news paper for a Polish woman cllent and received 150 replies. An- ather agency told me a widow registered her daughter and, after seeing her happily marri- ed, came back to register her self.
•
Three Introductions
M.I. 5
"A bit too obvious. I think it's just a trick to get transferred
-¡to an easier job !*
1
DIAMOND LIL
THEN Diamond Lil, an opulent, spheroid, deep synthesis of purple
ribbons and furs,
COLONEL CRESSWELL is anxious
to see the well-conducted, bona-feathers, de agency given_oMelal support slithers into focus from the and recognition. Some mushroom wings. the vast majority of her concerns bring the iden into dis-
paid
repute by shady introductions and audience settle comfortably into high costs with no results.
their seats in anticipation. A In investigating these charges I came across ene woman who paid minority wince with annoyance. ONE of the London marriage £50 to such an agency and never When Diamond Lil, in a voice
of Inspite bureaux is managed by heard from it again. Lieut.-colonel R. A. Cresswell several letters, also several cases that exercises her adenoids far (Sandhurst and Indian army). ees in advance, ranging from
where
and women had men
more than her larynx, confides He has a wife and two children.
to £20, and received no further (sings is hardly the word) to the arch-benti- Colonel Cresswell tells me
he service.
her listeners Colonel Cresswell has approached ments of "You Made Me Love first thought of starting this bureau
several other agencies and, after a when he observed in India the num- bers of girls who came out from meeting in his office, resolutions were You," a Niagara of applause England in the hope of Anding hus- Passed direcing on common charges lasting several minutes over-
of operation: The bands. When he was demobilised and he opened his bureau with his wife. minutes of this meeting are being whelms the theatre and stops He charges each client a regis sent to the Marriage Guidance Coun the show. Music-lovers in the
ell for their consideration, fee of two tration
audience cringe and groan in Gulneas and
which further fee of three guincas
These
their loneliness covers three Introductions. are lower
at some than the fees other agencies-which may charge Ave gulneas for
for registration plus 20 quincas 11 marriage is arranged.
Colonel Cresswell believes that marriage bureaux All an important need today. He points out that war
five
methods
Colonel Cresswell has already written to several bishops asking for their opinions of the work done by marriage bureaux. I have seen their replies, and the majority were in favour of a properly organised and supervised scheme.
Precautions
OST reputable agencies
THERE is one person, however, who fully understands this tuke paradox, in taste. She is Miss
conditions changed many people's M precautions to safeguard their Mae West, actress, author, play- friends and connections. There are clients. They will not accept ac- wright and very rich womuu. consider their own futures because about whom a complaint is received She discovered the secret some
many who have been unable
addresses. to commodation
WHAT KIND
DID I
Anyone
MAN KILL
OF A HELP TO
From JAMES COOPER
MILTON SHULMAN examines the phenomenon of Miss Mao West
Diamond Lil.
Her formal schooling ended at 10, by which time it was felt.. she was well enough equipped intellectually to follow her career, Any other decision might well have been disastrous. from both her own and the world's standpoint.
The mature age of 14 brought her parts for which she wore low-cut velvet gowns and moved about the stage in the sinister fashion employed by the contemporary vamp. Two years later she achieved the consider- able feat of so adapting the shimmy- a series of strenuous wriggles danced it was by Harlem Negroes-that found suitable for performance on the New York stage.
As an exponent of the shimmy she achieved such fame that her pro- ducers, the Shuberts, decited to star As sho her in a play of her own. tells it, after casting aside about 50 pinys chosen for her, she decided to write her own on the theory that she alone know what she could do best.
As a dramatic plece it was some- Not only did it 20 years ago when her first what unorthodox. play. "Sex," was alternately flaunt the hitherto taboo word "Sex" as its title, it also committed every witnessed by cheering crowds
dramatic directors turned it down as and raiding police...
childish and crude. A fourth-Miss West admits he Was somewhat "It's my personality," she told eccentric-hulled it as a masterpiece. "Just like Charlie Chap- Not only did "Sex" eun for years to
On packed houses Broadway, it in's--it's unique, No one can paded its author in gaol for ten days do what Charlie does and no on a charge of indecency, one can do what I do."
me.
error of play construction. Three
Pressed a little further on this
n
THAT followed is now history. A aubject, Miss West will admit WH
series of plays with the same that what she terms her per- theme and the same star brought the sonality is not readily dis- same success. Their titles indicato
their mood-"Constant tinguishable from what other "Picosure Man," "The Wicked connoisseurs call-for want of Hollywood could no longer neglect a more descriptive phrase-sex this obvious source of gold.
---Miss-West.is very proud of her. appeal.
.. many records es a money-making will tell you un-
"It wasn't until I got to. individual. She
abashed that for six consecutive
In 1935
Toronto. triumph afterwards, but as "Suddenly he came towards Twaffe
THREE things worried Luft- though I had slain a friend." us with the evident intention
Lieutenant Heinz Schlechter explained that he of shooting one of us down, but Hollywood that I realised just years she paid the highest income
was talking tax in the United States. Schlechter when he helped to was flying an Me.100G with his Bernd fired a fraction of a what everybody
she earned £90,000. Another year annual, Income was listed at shoot down a Spitfire over the friend Lieut. Bernd Schneider, second before the Spitfire pilot about." she said. "Then some her Mediterranean.
who, though only 21, had 27 who flew clean Into a hail of psychologists told me I had this £120,000. The first was what kind of a confirmed kills. man had he helped to kill?
The second was how old was he?
fire.
was shot down in the Mediterranean and his body lles in the same grave
as that of his most vallant opponent.
"Who could this man have been?
"Out of control, his plane plunged appeal physically and mentally German fighters into the sea.
-in my eyes, The two
my voice, my spotted Miller's Spitfire circling "On May 2 the same year Bernd body movements." alone below them (official The third was why did he description is that Miller was fight on against odds?
trying to protect his command- Now, five years after the day ing officer, who had crashed and that Pilot-Oficer John Newton was
on A raft), Says Miller WILB killed off Cap Schlechter:- Passero, Sicily, his mother has answered the German's ques- tions.
but "Bernd attacked,
the Our un Spitfire got away. known enemy dodged every
CANNOT FORGET attack.
like?
How old was he? What did he took BUT the road to Hollywood "I suppose the R. A. F. presumes was far from a broad high-
this airman is missing.
"Will you be so kind as to send on this letter to his parents or relations?"
MOTHER'S REPLY
way of glittering success. The chronology of her fame has made it difficult for her to hide her age.
And no one is more aware of the monetary value of the illusion the has created than Mae West herself. For illusion it is, Far away from the footlights this hip-swinging, sen- sup, brocaded, almost legendary Agure, turns out to be a quiet-spoken shrewd, carnest American woman.
LOSE-UP, her marble skin revenis nothing about her age other than under 60. that she is over 35 and Only the appallingly long, expertly- curled eye-lashes, Indicate artificiality
Gone is the volco ranging sug- gestively between sibilance, and gutturalness; in its stead comes a matter-of-fact New York accent liberally interspersed with you-sec- what-i-means, cantchas and kindas. And, not a wisecrack anywhere. She saves those, for her playa.
Unromantic reference books and the stage. The Alr Ministry searched their To Schlechter at 37, Herzog "Fifteen minutes passed and Frederickstrasse, Innsbruck, she we had received a few hits. We records and sent Schlechter's letter reveal the fact that it all began to Mrs Miller in Toronto, stating in 1892 when Mrs Jack West, wrote a reply to his year-old were ready to break off the "the investigation proves that it
Franco-German wife of a prize letter that reached her through engagement, as our fuel was undoubtedly refers to your son."
Mrs Müller replied and told fighter, gave birth to a baby the Air Ministry in London. getting short.
Schlechter what he wanted to know. "Just Schlechter wrote:
at that moment the
She sent a photograph to show what daughter. "On March 20, 1943, I was Spitfire got behind us and we John looked like,
She told Schlechter that her son At the age of ilve little Mae But it is in her ability to exploit engaged in an aerial combat realised that we were up against
would have been 20 last Thursday was already on the stage tear the illusion she knows the publie with an R.A.F. fighter off the it. south coast of Sicily and 1 "This was no novice, but n
lics. There is something significantly But it was not a forgiving letter,ing at suburban heartstrings.in want that the secret of her success have never been able to forget first-rate man who meant to For she answered the third question, a varied repertoire which rang- feminine about both the £ and $ it.
settle his fight one way or why John fought on against odds: ed from the neglected child in algns. Miss West has
"You see, he wanted to revenge his ren Nights Ida Bar Room" Instinctively, and very acutely, the "My opponent was a re- another,
Importance of that symbolism. Dr younger brother Bruce, who was shot markably brave man, and I "He could have vanished down and killed less than a year to the princeling in "Richard Freud would have had a lot of fun
with Mae West. III.". experienced
before." no feeling of into the clouds but he did not.
A HILARIOUS DETECTIVE STORY WITH PLENTY OF LAUGHSI NANCY Interior Decorator
He's a two-gun sleath with a bus-track mind.......
A private eye who gets crossed by a brunette!
BOB HOPE DOROTHY LAMOUR
"My Favorite BruMENTE
PETER LORRE LCH CHANEY
A Paramount Maniza
„Prosport by DANNEL, BAM - Boobal by ELLATI BOGENÍ
Next Change: "NIGHT BOAT TO DUBLIN”
JUST LOOKING
AT HIS SOUR PUSS GIVES ME THE
WILLIES
-ERNIE ZNISHMILL
March 18.
OH, MR.
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