Hitchcock Films ‘Atrocious’

by Robert Simmons

When producer David 0. Selznick
brought Altred Hitchcock to Holly-
wood in 1940 to direct Rebecca, the
director was already established as
a master in England. His ﬁlms were
mature, exciting, funny, and sus-
penseful. He had perfected a direcA
torial technique that was innovative
yet economical: that is, he attempted
many new things with the camera, but
his iilms rarely had any unnecessary
scenes. His camera was more than
an observer of the action, it was
always used as a participant to en»
hance the effect of a scene. His
best stories were of ordinary people
unexplicably thrust into abnormal
situations, Uniortunately, sometime
in the sixties (the date is usually
fixed before or after Psycho) Hitchr
cock’s skill seems to have slipped
into decline. The two films offered
this weekend, Marnie and Topaz ,
were produced during this period.

Exponents of the polithue lies a
tours have tried to defend Marnie
on the basis of what Hitchcock once
was. it is true that typical Hitch-
cockian touches such as a trans»
ference of guilt theme, much overt
sexual symbolism, a preoccupation
with physical objects, a romance
rooted in abnormal psychology, and
the probing camera are all in this
work. However, the atrocious acting,
stupid script, and slow pace are

hopeless. Hitchcock was forced to do
Topnz as the result oi an old cone
tract, so he was not responsible for
choosing the rather unsuitable ma-
terial of this bestrseller, There are,
once again, a good number of typi-
cally treated scenes and much visual
beauty, but overall this lilm is an-
other iailure, For the few people who
have never seen either motion picr
ture (both are on television all too
frequently) they may be fun, those
expecting good Hitchcock will be,
disappointed. Most of tiis good films
are available and have not been
shown here. One wonders why these
two losers were chosen.

The Film Odyssey feature tonight
on the educational channel is the
Russian classic Ivan the Terrible,
part 1. Made during the war by the
master of the montage effect, Elsenr
stein. the lilrn is produced on a grand
scale and is a visually exciting ex-
periment in structuring an entire
film toward a total effect.

At the Strand is the maudlin old
age piece The Summer of ’42. This
movie's basic appeal is in its nos-
talgic humor and pathos. Thedirec-
tion is iocused on awakening memo-
ries at the expense of the narrative,
The music is overbearing. The per-
iormances are adequate to good. The
film is romantically appealing, tech-
nically annoying, and only moderate-
ly entertaining. Nonetheless it wasa
big hit,

Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage
Point: Perspectives on the Presi-
dency, 1963-1969 (Holt, Rinehart,
and Winston, N.Y., 1971)

by Alan Jones,
Professor oi History
and American Studies

Watching the inaugural oi Richard
Nixon, Lyndon Johnson reflected on
how "inadequate any man is for
office of the American Presidency.”
He brooded on his belief that every
man who occupied that office was
humble enough to realize that no
living mortal has ever possessed all
the required qualiﬁcations. He cone

, cludes with a plea: “It is not a

question of the incumbents’ wanting
to do the right thing, The American
people, in their wisdom, have never
yet elected an evil man to lead
them.”

if these remarks imply that Rich-
ard Nixon might be an inadequate
but not an evil man, so they also
confess Johnson’s sense of made
quacy and failure in the presidency.
By pleading unconsciously that he
tried to do the right thing, that
ho was not an evil man, he coniesses
his sensitivity to criticism that he
did the wrong thing, that he was an
evil man, a war criminal. These sen~
tences, along with a few others, like
the last cry that he had given the
Presidency “everything that was in
me," intimate the unconscious mo-

The Corporate Diplomat

by Curtis L, Gorrell

Many, it not most students today,
view the business sector of our
society as being staid and stuffy,
status quo and establishmentoriene
ted. Businessmen are the first to
disagree with this characterization.
Given the opportunity to express a
view of themselves and their role in
society and world affairs, a number
of corporate executives represent»
ing Midwestern-based ”multina-
tional” companies drew the compose
no picture of concerned and
progressive, innovative and dynamic
corporate leadership.

.Before reading this summation of
the major ideas presented and opin—
ions expressed, one should note the
limitations and biases inherent in
the article presented here. The
range of the interview surveys drew
comments from representatives of
a total oi only five companies; the
focus was structured, specifically
directed toward multinational core

Whelan Doubts
Thornton View

To The Editors:

I would like to object to what must
be distortion, garbling, and printing
out oi context in your report on
Virginius E. Thornton III - - parti—
cularly your implicationthat he sees
an “insult to blacks" in having the
search for black faculty linked with
the search ior women faculty. 1
suggest that you give him space
for rebuttal and a clearing of the
record in next week‘s paper.

Sincerely,
Heide Whelan

The interview with Mr. Thornton

which was published at the leit

handeside at last week’s 5&8 was

checked with Mr. Thornton and ap-

proved by him betore publication.
-The Editors

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porations in hope of attaining the
broadest possible view of societal
and international problems. But the
fact that the limits upon the informa-
tion gathered provide no basis for
long-standing, generalized conclur
sinns, detracts in no way from the
interest, relevance, or importance
oi the comments following.

Today, says Dr. Robert B. Gorrell
an industrial consulting psychol-
ogist, “Management people are
moving irom a strictly technical,
profit-conscious, hardware ori—
ented, Machiavellian kind of thing,
to a philosophy that incorporates an
entirely different outlook and appre»
ciation of people and their needs...”
Today a “corporate diplomat” has
evolved and emerged. This entity is
a representative for the multirnav
tional corporation much in the same
iashion that a diplomat represents
a nation—state; a man not only well
versed in the profit, product, and
technical aspects of running a busir
ness, but also a man taking a global
view of international relations and
people relationships.

in defining a key element contri-
buting to the make-up of the corporr
ate diplomat, Mr. Roger R. Regel-
brugge, Vice President . Operations
international Group for Koehz‘ing
Company, iinds that “...the whole
thing comes right down to yust being
flexible - recognizing that the thing
you did yesterday may havejust been
the most perfect thing to do, and it
may not at all be valid today, so
you've got to be ready for a change. H
The corporate diplomat is not an
American executive overseas, he is
an international executive. Mr. Odd
Stray-Gundersen, Director oflnter-
national Licensing at Koetiring, be»
lieves that “.,.the time of the allr
American good guy precedent is
gone. You are not going to be able
to make him a successful prece-
dent oi a multinational company
because he simply doesn’t under-
stand.”

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people, and commitments spread
worldwide, multinationals today are
internalionalizing ownership, man-
agement, and ideas. The United
States no longer holds a monopoly
over new ideas for products, new
ideas for working with people; the
American executive is no longerthe
only teacher, but a participant in a
network of teachers and innovators.
Says Mr. Frank H. Roby, President
of Sola Basic Industries, “We’ve had
technological leadership. We’ve
transferred it to other nations...
but they’re no dummies anyway. We
don't have any headlock on all the
technology in the world. Ideas can
come from anywhere. They have
some better ways or doing things...
now we're getting down to some of
the things that other people ale
ready know."

The corporate diplomat is building
bridges across cultural gaps, set»
ting up channels for the flow of in-
formation. The emphasis today is
placed upon contributing, one cul-
ture learning from another, the idea
of business as a part ot society with
a responsibility to create solutions
ior the problems otsociety. As Roby
comments. "You can be pretty theo—
retical about things in a polilical 0r
diplomatic situation, and you can try
to find the ‘hook’ solutions, but if
trade is going and people benefit
and their daily lives are affected,
then sometimes they yust throw away
the book and do what comes natural.
and that’s probably the better way
of Settlement.”

The importance of the corporate
diplomat is that, above all else, he
has been relevant. He has focused
attention on and has made inroads
to the possible solution of problems
of global concern: how do we live,
share, learn irom and understand
one another in a global community?

This article is not written to judge,
to approve or disapprove oi the
corporate voice, but simply to allow
[or the representation of a corporate
View. And whether one agrees or
disagrees with the sympathies ex—
pressed here, one might keepin mind
a closing remark by Frank Roby:
“What I agree with is recognizing
the problem, and to begin attacking
the problem. I might choose to do it
one way, and you might choose to do
it another, but the crime would be
not to recognize and not to do some-
thing about the problem.“

_——_l
The sols Housing Supplement
will be delayed until next week

l Those who have information or
comments about the housing sil-
ua ' u should send in thei ~ on

t butions before Tuesday even
ing to the son

The Scarlet and Black ‘ FObtuart‘ZSE’lm

[8] Book: Ignores Credibility

tives behind the Johnson memoirs,
the guilt oi a proud, sensitive, and
complicated man.

Never For Power

The memoirs as a whole do not
convey a sense of guilt; they are not
a plea or a confession The dominant
tone is detached, impersonal,
authoritative. The basic mood is of
quiet exultation: “I used the power
oi the Presidency proudly, and 1
used every ounce of it Ihad,” But
again there is the brief insistent
denial thal he was ever "avid for
power.”

What does one say about the book?
That it is credible evidence of a
man who was plagued by the problem
of credibility, Perhabs so, but a
glaring omission in the book is any
real analysis oi why people ceased
to believe him. And while he brieﬂy
remarks that by 1968 there were
deep divisions in the country, "per
haps deeper than any we had ex-
perienced since the Civil War," the
book offers little explanation of why
this was so. If the memoirs evade
this question, they do offer con—
vincing evidence of other important
and more positive mattersnoflohn»
son's real commitment to carry on
and expand the Kennedy program,of
his personal leadership in legisla»
tion on education, cities, housing,
poverty, civil rights, and oibis pre»
occupation with the problem of Viet-
nam.

Vietnam was, of course, the great
problem. It dominates the book as
it dominated the Johnson Pres~
idency. But the book does not say
much that was not heard during the *
Presidency. inheriting Vietnam with
the Presidency, Johnson approached
both tasks with the slogan of his

first Congressional campaign: “He
gets things done.” This rather
simplistic personal creed was com—
bined with long assumed Cold War
dogmas and defined his task in Viet»
nam. As he puts it in an ambiguous
paragraph which tries to yustiiy his
speeches in the 1954 election: “The
American people knew what they
were voting tor the 1964. They knew
Lyndon Johnson was not going to
pull up stakes and run. They knew
i was not going back on mycountry’s
words. They knew I would not re-
pudiate the pledges of my prede-
cessors in the Presidency.“ He
would have us believe that the Amer-
ican people knew he was going to
escalate the war and send 500,000
troops tn Vietnam in the next three
years. He does not quote his Octo-
ber 21, 1964, speech at Akron, Ohio:
"But we are not about to send Amer-

ican boys nine or ten thousand miles
away from home to do what Asian
boys ought to be doing for them-
selves.”

Getting it Done

This is the issue of credibility, of
presidential iailure and guilt. John~
son does not explicitly recognize it
as such in his memoirs; He offers
no excuses; he casts no blame on
predecessors, advisers, or gen»
erals He takes a stubborn pride in
getting the job done, something he
seems to think he accomplished when
after the "great defeat" of Hanoi
in the Tet offensive he stopped the
bombing, stabilized the forces, and
started the Paris Peace Talks, Four
years ago next month,

But his was a vantage point high
above the battle; the results of his
decisionrmaking are dimly per
ceived in the book as they were lite
tie recognized at the time. There is
little sensitivity to how his decisions
divided America or destroyed Viet-
nam. Perhaps he doesn’t write of
these matters because they are too
painiul for a proud man.

He asserts that “the job of the
President is to set priorities for
the nation." He set Vietnam as the
great priority. Previous presidents
gave it lesser priorities; only John—
son chose to make it paramount.
For him it was the basic job to get
done, and he was consumed by it.
There is an Ahabvlike pride and
arrogance here, a quality at evil.
And I believe that he came to recog-
nize it as such and that his with-
drawal from another race at the
Presidency was a kind of personal
atonement. Perhaps this is too sim-
ple. One should speak of Lyndon
Johnson rather in terms of complex-
ity and tragedy, and one should speak
of Presidential responsibilities with
sympathy and understanding and
even a little awe. One has also to
speak of Lyndon Johnson, I believe,
in terms of guilt and evil in their
deepest religious sense. ,

$8.8 Positions

The Committee on Student

Publications and Radio is
seeking applications for inan—
aging editor and layout or copy
editor for next year's Scarlet
and slack. Applications should
be submitted to Mr. James Hot-
tois no later than March 1.

Bottles Show Ecology Apathy

by Greg Vrenicar

There is a widespread tendency
among those who advocate “making
some changes" to emphasize the
capabilities and strong interests oi
young people to live differently and
to solve some oi the pressing prob-
lems that face America today. Last
year on this campus, Dick Gregory
said that his hopes lie with the ener-
gy oi those “right on," socially
concerned kids like you and me.
Ralph Nader has been touring the
states praising the great organiza-
tional etiorts now being undertaken
by student interest groups, “New
politics“ candidates say they are
depending on an enlightened student
vote and lots at volunteer help in the
upcoming election.

All this is very flattering to most
of us who sit in our ivory tower in,
stitutions like Gl'innell, largely une
affected by the problems that
supposedly concern us. We are told
what we want to hear; we ieel good
knowing that things are getting bet-
ter because somebody is “doing
something.”

But who is that “somebody?“ If
it’s not me, who is ilv in many
cases, nothing is being done simply
because everybody iigures that
somebody else is doing the work,

A prime example of the lailure
oi students to put into practice their
espoused concern can be witnessed
on this campus right now. The issue
is ecology. The assumption is that
students will tnke a little of their
time to insure that environmental
damage is minimized. The problem

is empty soda bottles.

Having earlier removed canned
soda machines from the dorms be-
cause throwing away cans was eco-
logically unsound, SGA and the For
eign student Board (rse) reinstalled
soda bottle machines in the dorms
about one year ago, The idea was
that students wanted soda, that the
FSB needed money derived from
sales, and that having bottles would
minimize the ecological damage.
According to the plan, students would
be required to carry the cases oi
empty bottles back to the machines
where the pop is sold. Supposedly
the students who wanted pop, the
FSB, LEAP, and everyone else had
reached a workable arrangement.

The plan depended, however, on
student volunteerism which has not
materialized. Look on your floor to-
day and you’ll probably see several
iull cases oi empty bottles, waiting
to be carried back to the machines.
Look in your room and your friends'
rooms and you'll see more empties.
And it you’re like most other people,
you won’t even think tWiceaboutit——
somebody else is supposed to do it.

That “somebody else” is each and
every one oi us. We are all expected
to take care oi the empty bottles. Un-
less we take on the responsibility,
SGA and FSB will be forced againto
remove all pop machines from the
campus. And, if they do, they will
think awfully hard next time when
someone suggests that students
should be depended upon to return
the bottles.

 

