wayne at the alamo

cratic force in Cuba" because he al-ways appeals to "public opinion onthe TV and also in person." Com-ment; By this criterion, Adolf Hit-ler was the most democratic force inGermany.

Mills wi-ites breathlessly about theeconomic performance of the Castroregime. He turns molehills intomountains and makes the incrediblestatement that the Cuban revolutionis the first in the world "which be-gan right away with an increasedproduction." This is false and is re-futed by all unbiased and competentobservers.

He seems completely insensitive tothe fact that Castro and his Com-munists have destroyed freedom ofthe press, due process of law, theright to vote and the other basic lib-erties of Western civilization. Hevoices no objection to the wholesaleexecutions, the denunciations and thepei'vasive secret police system; hedismisses the sufEocation of the Cu-ban press with the fantastic falsehoodthat that press was "just a part ofBatista's ruling gang"; and he assureshis readers that the leading figuresin Castro's regime are not Commun-ists.

Now let us turn from the little liesto the big ones. Mills or his alter egoclaims that the United States sup-ported Batista (whom he character-ized in professional fashion as a"butcher . . . a sick barbarian, a cruelsavage . . . bloody bastard") rightup to the end. This falsifies history.The United States put pressure onBatista to get out in 1957-58 andembargoed arms shipments to his re-gime in March 1958, thereby pullingthe rug out from under him and en-suring his downfall. At the time, ac-cording to Mills' own admission.Castro had only 300 men under hi.scommand and hence could hardlyhave been the ratified voice of theCuban people.

Then, Dr. Mills claims that UnitedStates investment is the cause ofLatin American poverty and citesCuba and Venezuela. He neglects tostate that because of "oil imperial-ism," per capita income in Venezuelain 1956 was $750, or two and a halftimes the Latin American average.Corrupt and rotten as the Batista re-gime was, it is worth rememberingthat Cuban real national income rose

38 per cent during 1953-57. Nor wasthis gain absorbed by Mills' greedycapitalists. During 1946-54, wagesand salaries moved from 56 per centto 65 per cent of Cuban national in-come.

Mills may be right in one im-portant respect. If the Communist re-gime in Cuba survives, it may bringCuba into an era of rapid, dynamicexpansion. What Cuba has lacked isvigorous, accelerated capital creation.The USSR can afford to provide the

capital and technicians for this, sincethere are only seven million Cubansand since the stakes are all LatinAmerica. Moreover, Communist tech-niques of organization, propagandaand coercion make it possible tospeed up real investment and "mo-bilize" idle labor. The fallacy of theinnocent supporters oE Fidelismo isto imagine that only Communism cancreate capital resources swiftly andthat nations must choose betweenfreedom and factories.

Movies

Wayne at the AlamoJOAN DIDION

I N THE course of my duties as oneof two utility infielders on the staffof a sixty-cent magazine, I am fre-quently dispatched to see movies.(Despite its sedentary nature, this isreferred to around the ofEce as "do-Ing legwork," and is much re-spected.) Ever since the day whenmy companion infielder, an oldBarnard girl, admitted that she likedRossellini, the nouvelle vague, JulesDassin, Peter Sellers, Ingmar Berg-man, and movies made on the WestSide with local talent and some left-over sixteen-millimeter film, I havebeen able to wallow in my ownfavorites: the Movies that are Bet-ter Than Ever, the twenty-four-caratCoast Product.

Despite a distinct preference formovies released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. mostly because their Broad-way projection room featui-es muralsshowing great scenes from greatMGM movies (it is an inspiring thingto sit there of a rainy Wedncsdavafternoon and contemplate the olddays, when Dalton Trumbo was writ-ing movie.s like A Guy Namfd Joeand Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo), Icommitted myself in.stnad not lontago into the care of United Artis's.to see John Wayne's The Alamo, (Iuse the possessive advisedb': M-.Wayne not only produced it. directedit, and played Davj- Crockett in i*.but cast both his teenage son, Patrick,and his toddling daughter, Alissa, infeatured roles.)

There seemed to be no real rea-

son other than John Wayne's pres-ence, why I should like The Alamo.This was no Western, no thing ofperfect symmetry, no classic taleplayed out beneath the blazing still.sun of American myth, reaching itsagon in the dust of a never-neverMain Street. This was a message pic-ture, as surely as Gentlemen's Agree-ment, Pinky, HoTne of the Brave. Al-though I do not like to admit it, per-haps I simply approved the message,loved John Wayne for writing in theHollywood Reporter that he wantedto "show this living generation ofAmericans what their country really.stands for," adored him for sayingthat he got the money (it took twelvemillion dollars to get this particularmessage on the screen) "from greatmen like Clinton W. Murchison andO. J. and I. J. McCuUough."

Because if you do like The Alamo,and I did, you like it in the face ofobstacles some would think steep.(So many thought those obstacles notonly steep but insurmountable, infact, that it became necessary for TheDaughters of the Republic of Texasto announce that "it is entirely out ofline for the New York papers to beso sarcastic") When I saw TheAlamo, it was running three hoursand thirty-six minutes (Obstacle#1) . which made seeing it onlyslightly less strenuous than defendingit had been. John Wayne, however,later acceded to popular demand andagreed to cut the prints a little. Asfar as I was concerned, he could have

414 NATIONAL REVIEW

Books of InterestLet Us Now Praise FamoiLSMen, by James Agee and EVEUISWalker (Houghton, $6.50). Re-issue of the 1941 classic inwhich a harrowingly honestman's search for the personalmeaning of charity is brilliantlydisguised as a documentary ac-count of three Alabama familiesduring the Depression.

The Blowing Up of the Parthe-non, by Salvador de Madariaga(Praeger. S2.95). A brisk littlebook by a man who is of thenovel opinion that wars, hot orcold, are for winning.

Povip and Circumstance, byNoei Coward (Doubleday ,$4.50). An instant antibioticagainst taking-oneself-too-seri-ously; a little novel that hasthe texture and flavor of thefroth on the top of a frozendaiquiri.

The Earp Bro'hers of Tomb-stone, by Frank Waters (Clark-son N. Potter, $5.00). A dissenton Wyatt and the boys, in whichit is revealed that there wasdirty work afoot down at theO.K. Corral.

SermoTis and Soda-Water, byJohn O'Hara (Random House,S5.95). Three short novels inseai'ch of an editor—but proof,nonetheless, that nobody butO'Hara really knows the roadfrom Gibbsville to "21."

edited out almost every sequencefeaturing Laurence Harvey (Obsta-cle #2) ; my first thought was thathe could have edited out everysequence featuring Laurence Harvey,but since Hai-vey, through some mis-adventure, was playing Travis, thissolution to the length-problem mighthave proved perhaps too extreme,perhaps a little impractical.

All right, now. Overlook the length.Overlook Harvey. Overlook FrankieAvalon, who finds it necessary nowand then to give out with a littlemodified rock. Overlook the homely.

rough-hewn, synthetic good humorput forth by Chill Wills and the restof the Kentucky mountain boys.Overlook the birthday party givenfor the Alamo's favorite toddler(Alissa Wayne) on the eve of thesiege. (This should be easy enoughto overlook since it has, I understand,been cut) Overlook the fact that sheis heard to lisp, after the shooting'sover, "Where's Daddy, Mummy?"Overlook the first thirty or fortyminutes, during which time Travis(Harvey) pouts around, Sam Hous-ton (Richard Boone) strides aroundto no effect, and Jim Bowie (RichardWidmark) tools around like a LosAngeles teenager deprived of hiswheels.

Wait. About forty-five minutes intoThe Alam-o, a man appears on thatimmense Todd-AO horizon. Hesmiles. He moves his shoulders alittle. He says "Les-go" or somethinglike it; who cares what he says? Hegoes riding through the tall grassdown to San Antonio, right off thetop of the screen, and you are, if youare like me, lost, lost forever. It isJohn Wayne. It might be ClarkGable, appearing in a white linen suitamid the flaming ruin of Atlanta tocarry Scarlett home to Tara; it mightbe the purr of an American plane—

always distinguishable from Axisplanes, which had engines thatwhined—coming in overhead just asthe rations run out in a World WarII movie. From then on, the ballgame's over.

At least it was for me. I wept asWayne told his Mexican inamorataHow A Man's Gotta Live. I wept ashe explained why Republic Is ABeautiful Word. I wept throughoutthe siege of the mission; there was nouse in my companion's trying toamuse me by pointing out that it hadjust come home to Richard Widmark,although the problem had been underdiscussion on screen for some threehours, that "WE NEED MORE MEN.'"I was inconsolable by the time thebattle was done, and Wayne lay onthe cold cold ground, bleeding asno one has bled since Janet Leigh inPsycho. The last white womanwalked out of the Alamo then. Shehad soot on her face, and she wascarrying her child, and she held herhead high as she walked past SantaAnna into the sunset. So conspicuouswas my sniffling by then that youcould scarcely hear the snickers frommy neighbors, a couple of young menfrom Esquire, both of whom re-sembled Arthur M. Sdilesinger Jr.

They don't make 'em like Duke onthe New Frontiers.

EVERYBODYEVERYWHERE

CANOWN

GOLD.WHY

CAN'T

Read the shocking answer inGOLD SWINDLE—The Story

of our Dwindling Gold.

Foreign traders and foreign••overnments have establishedpre-emptive claims on the goldyou surrendered to yourfrnvernment in trust 25 yearsafio. How did it happen?What does il mean to you?The answer is in GOLDSWINDLE by George RaceyJordan—SI-25 postageprepaid from:

THE BOOKMAILER, Inc.BoK 101—Murray Hlfl StationNew York U, N.Y.

DECZMBER 31, 1960 415