1955-06-28 — Page 4

14

M

3

THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1955.

A HAPPY BUNGLE GAVE

US DANNY THE CLOWN

LITTLE

man in

D

There is no sign of a man conscientiously putting On

an act

Seconds later, another Danny Kaye emerges Danny Kaye the conscientious citizen.

Housenge

spent making the volca

COVÉ

vocal

every pitch the humans cords are capable of

But then Kaye is just as

ikely as not to lapes into the middle of the act.

carefree Ed lib in

Sammy Prager, his plantat

allegedly doesn't sleep some rights dreaming of the night that he won't know the tune Kaye has suddenly started to “ging.

striped bathrobe, tired, very now and then there comes upon the scene a clown with the priceless ability to make people laugh despite his voice hoarse.

themselves, their creeds, their colour or their language... Danny Kaye offstage. Danny There is the touch of genius on these clowns who belong Kaye taking a moment to

to the whole world. They have a certain inner something relax. He does it easily, that defies definition. Such a man is Charlie Chaplin. So sprawling on a settee in the is Danny Kaye. Take a look at Kaye in a relaxed corner of a crowded dressing off duty moment. Maybe you can put a finger on that room, almost as if he were "something" which makes him more than just a funny man. in the middle of the Gobi desert-unheeding of the

that he could get a quiet mo- gospel in the artis where it's

So it's anybody's guess. hustle and the bustle, the ment by himself.

actually working.

Back in the days when he was The discussion is ended by David chatter of a dozen people

Daniel Kominski, the arrival of a plate of bacon Brooklyn-bornsen of a Russian insisting to someone that

and eggs--and the next Kaye Jewish horse-dealer turned they want to see Mr Kaye

you see is Kaye on stage. The garment worker, he used to about something urgent and

Kaye we all know. The Kaye dream of this sort of thing talking utter personal.

that somehow sounds as though it ought to have a meaning. The Kayo who holds 2,500 people at his finger tips, making them laugh, making some of them cry making all of them happy in a way that looks as though it ten doesn't require any effort at all. How he does it Kaye couldn't tell you.

Of course, there art the with Bert Lee, an old-time less hours of hard slegging American vaudeville actor, who work, planning every detall of took him along on a run through every

hours act. The

spent the vaudeville circuito of the curled around a piano to get Catskill Mountains. * ព Then you suggest that

of just the right appearacte maybe he's given

Danny Kaye has never been while he Les on far from the footlights since. UNICEF a pretty big nonchalance,

the weeks spert boost around the world top of it;

thinking up just the right with all his publicity work.

TRONISCTISC syllables; the

Kaye looks a great deal

You ask him about his work smaller in real life. You might

He has just pass him on the street without with UNICEF.

feature film called didn't finished look if you a second know who he was, unless you "Assignment Children", the re-

To look sult of a 40,000-milé

stump "stopped long enough

him straight in the face.

through Asia, all for free,

foz He talks

good There is the look of the barn clown

there.

the look that minutes, unconscious that he's makes you want to laugh even giving you a lecture on the ime if making you laugh is the last portance of doing something 10 thing he wants to do

at the moment,

Two minutes catch-

breath, ing his

and

gets

he and

walks

about the room He looks hard and mocks seriously at the visitors, one by che. He walks slowly, like a 14 grand inquisitor.

No one is quite sure for Д moment whether

or bolt.

10

laugh

Kays

"is

himself hugely,

enjoying

DANNY

see that all the kids of the world got a decent break to start with.

He wheels around as though you

had bitter him.

"Look," hv

says.

pointing E finger at

you want to get one

He can't help it. The clown Thing straight-the UNICEF job

is there.

is being done and being done are lots of

Then he sees the act is, mak-well and there

ing some

quick grin,

A people who have given an awful of their time and

of us nervous.

handshake, 11

*

lot more

have.

quiet word to let us know he money and everything than I knows who we are, and the tension snaps as quickly, as it was created.

The stunt is impressive. But The odd thing is, it's not meant to be. It's just Kaye behaving naturally.

*They didn't need me to go out and preach the gospel. I'm not going to preach the gospel

"All I'm trying to do is to let people know what's going on. There are lots of people who don't even know what the name UNICEF means let alone what it does.

A few minutes later. whe. you get

a quict word with him, you can see how tired he is. The pained glance he gives

"And it's important that the mountain of correspondence

people should know. I'm trying in the corner, the nervous

to help." glimpse at

his watch to sce how long

he's got until the

the hoarse

voice next show, which comes from: going with the show despite a bad cold, all testify to a man who 19 going full out, and who wishes, almost desperately,

He is breathless and, of course, what he's said is a little confusing. But you know what he means. UNICEF needs a star billing for a little while. but it doesn't need Danny Kaye or anyone else to spread the

years

Then he became an insurance clerk, but a slight mathemati cal sup cost the company a cool thirty thousand dollars

the joke company couldn't see and Raye was out of a job.

The

It was probably one of the world's happier bungles, for Danny Kaye went from there to odd jobs for a while and one of them turned out to be a job

Les Armour.

THE UNIONS

TAK STRIKE

WERPON

GIVES

IT MORE AIR, SEE ?"h

World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester Guardian

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? DID IT

HAPPEN ?

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Another could-be-true story to set you guessing in

this FACT or FICTION series by famous writers. DID this story really happen? Tomorrow will bring you

the answer. ...

1

Tha

stepped

ohte/

ward. Falleg

his staff and

shouted.

He

him

DRAWING BY SHOWIŁŁ,

There

HAVE been a keen lanky roung man with dark, amateur photographer untidy hair and spectacles, very, for many years and, keen on his research job and

this was a link between us- when I write a travel scarcely less so on photography.

The wore a crumpled beach book, always aim to provide Like most scientiste, he was a

Chief does not allow six of eight exposures. stickler for exactitude, the strict suit and a parama hat, which photographs," he said. "This is was the reservoir scene, clear my own illustrations,

curiously old- a sacred place. Please put away and sharp and and literal truth. George will gave

vivid nothing Lashioned

But there was your cameras." air. So I was glad to hear that serve for his name. "The Chief's ash

wrong with that. There was the Chief and his my visit to the Plantation not so much blessing us, I under- nothing else about him

men, the Both Brett and George pro- resplendent than modern, and he made him- stand," George seld, "as lifting Crop Research Institute at a curse."

executioners: But self completely at home,

I tested. Brett had orders.to take the next one was blurred. And don't suppose he Abafu, in West Africa, coin-

look better these pictures from the Gore the next and the next after a photogenic Institute?"

"Why, did someone curse the pictures than cided with

George, but he ment, George from the Institute. that. They were out of focus, did it for a living. You could almost see him releasing the "We

event.

here.

।

You

less

then..

It

In the end there was a com-

of them was good, enough to print.

fixed all this before-muzzy, confused, almost as if "The Chief didor

his shutter in the last split-second hand. George said. "The Chief two or three had been taken on really. In my

expérience, one ancestors,

see, belure his airplane crashed, or as agreed

was ali top of each other. Yet I knew this was impossible. Not one generally reaches these when we bought the land we the burcing house collapsed on arranged.” had to include the Paramount top of him. places either a few days Chief's burial ground. The too late or a week

too bones of his ancestors for many This I must admit: everyone promise or so we thought. We

the Chief "That's a queer thing,” I said early; the annual

buried had a good lunch and the zin could shoot until devil generations back are

in true And the stools they used flowed

West African reached the actual lifting of the dance is just over and the

*You're dama Tight, it's in life, in which their spirits fashion. But George was a sober curse and then we must cover parade of mounted chiefs found refuge

our cameras., -Afterwards. queer," Brett exclaimed "Here, were kept in a scientist, not a drinking type, entised that the Chief 201

did look, at these." He thrust into until sacred at guarded by slaves. Brett was a drinker, agreed, but in chain mail isn't

W25 bounced into my hand a strip of his own film. next full moon, : Jam yes- Every year the reigning chler if anyone could hold his liquor agree. He

had one small what looked like an agreement I held it up to the light and, terday, in fact and jam to- used to wash the stools in the it was Brett, I blood of human

and had to make the best of it must admia creepy sort of victims, and pink gia. morrow but this time

From the way he looked at our feeling ran down my spine. Not this kept the spirits happy and

When we arrived at the reser- cameras, I could tell he wanted one of his was recognisable, promised jam ensured good crops for the vor, dripping in the sweltering, te smash

them with his staff, either. All blurred. next season."

but didn't dare.

was

day.

Science temple

I

to

"But all that has died out years ago, I suggested.

"Has it? I sometimes. wonder!

when Anyway,

we made the

The heart of this jungle reservoir we flooded this burial institute, costing about half ground in 20ft, of water. And a million pounds, is a big, now there are water-lities float- streamlined block of modern ing on top."

So the Chief cursed you all laboratories. Grouped round for drowning his ancestors?" it are the staff bungalows,

"It was the spirits of the white and trim as fresh ancestors themselves, I think, offended. ly brushed teeth. Earth that were so deeply roads, a reservoir, turbine But after some palaver this.

Chief,

who's been very co-opera- generators, piped water, a tive, agreed to placate their club house and a golf course, wrath by means of today's cere- * sum of even a miniature telephone mony. I daresay

money and a decoration in the exchange, it has every Honours List helped to persuade thing; and, all round, press him." ing in on this oasis of 20th- century science, lies the dark, stifling, liana-hung rain-forest, seething with its secret insect and animal life.

to

Face value

never

Long and hot

The ceremony began. I won't describe its details, especially the

Elspeth killing of the bullock, which was

Huxley

·Enterprizing- Elspeth Huxley's later!

book

Aika Faur Guiomar A 'Africa—onewed last

With year East Africa e acqueliance, in more than casual, slace' she was born la Karys and has made it spacio: study, though she now Flows and forms in Witdure..

Wife ta tea-expert Gervas Maxlay cassia of Beralist Aldous-bar. facent Boyal, & Talog to Loya, infatuated the critica. · She hersel har en Book Critic on the 881 Sandey Critter, programma. The Huxlejs Maya cON JOL.

horrid. (In the old days it would have been slaves.) There was nothing ofscene, it was just long, hot and primitive. But highly photogen. And yet, oddiy mough, I

"Well," I said feebly, "I sup- pose we can all make mistakes.

must be a coincidence."

*#Three coincidences?"

No explanation

He handed, me a letter headed Crop Research I seemed to have lost my The Plantatiba enthusiasm and almost bad to Institute, Abafu, and signed by

George.

force myself to take haters tear Brett: What amaz

against : la sort of put this down to the heat, which coincidence: All my pictures W23 terrific, Lad, arter a heavy lunch, gave me a

a nasty

headache.

of the ceremony are blurred,

too. I can't make it out, be- our lenses ause those taken

Kuly, we cover blod

the chief

jast before:

and medicines on several of his are perfectly all right and so exposures. followers and uttered incants are the subsequent

All I tions to draw the curze out of both had a good lunch--perhaps can suppose is that we'd the lake and to the block, which was duly roasted.

swelter

COPYRIGHT. - BESKRIVED

a spot too much ing afternoon excitement a "I've had about as much as I shaky hand blurred film. And 1 called George a cynic. oppressive heat, the Chief and "Scientists abould never take his retinue were waiting on the can take of this heat, Genge yet, neither of us is exactly a things at their face value," he shore. The Chief was

going great said as we walked back. But beginner and personally I don't "What betty man, well-fed and auto the pictures should repay us remember anything By chance I had hit off said, rather primly.

interests

The colours were really terrific." Wrong But I can think of na cratic, dressed in a gorgeous me now is to get

other explanationi,” stat the official opening of this really good colour film."

many-bued silk "cloth womh-hub,

"Can you?" asked Brett. grunted" Like Roman toga,

&

and hung spick-and-span temple.

bangles "When you've been out here 4 WORLD

of our modern god of science. He had a 18 mm cine Kodak, with necklaces and ban

bit longer, all this will be just gold There, was to be a slap and I must emphasise that

A throng of Africans stood routine." up luncheon, speeches by George was a really frst-rate VIPs and an African cere photographer. I know because round, all in togas dyed in mag-I got back to the coast, about,

nificent traditional patterns. I saw his work and, besides the Behind was the blue lake, re- three weeks later and Kok my mony which, everyone told did all the photography for the me, was to be the interest Institute, photomicrographs and flecting the straight-boied green ofered to at them processed

I gave a gasp ing part. The Paramount on highly skilled work.

the scene was so drenched in He brought them, back to me days later, with a Chief from whom the land During the morning-another your, so exciting and African, himself comptention, on hair state. had been bought was com- photographer arrived. He had What a feast for the

The Arst ones were good, and I think all bad Sur. viewfinders boen ing with his regalia and ments Information Office to take to our eyes when the Chiet

sent up by the Govern

was pleased, retinue to bless the enters the official pictures. His name stepped forwand, raised his staff ego en "Brut said, "Look at prised was Brett, a band-bitten little and shouted angrily I thought, an nd reme

man who chewed gum and would soms kind of order. After a few "That's not quite accurate," have libed I think, to have moments of confusion, an inter

guide told me. He was a been taken for an American preter explained

we

of

wonder,

camera!

films to Brett, who had kindly

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

YES NO

di Put your tick is the space abera Lows' dr panel by you paifi tame

mother story in this markos

Sewell Stokes

I came to the pictures of the curse-lifting etremony at Abafu

Offa