The entrance of Miss Deanna Durbin, the well known cinema actress and splendid sin~ ger, into the political world as a figure caus~ ing' some anxiety to Italy, has been duly heralded by Mussolini's "own newspaper "Popolo -d'ltalia" which pleads with her not to promote American aid to Britain. In what appears to be a very quaint article the writer fears "that you like the remainder of Ameri~ wre controlled by Congress and the Such a blinding glimpse into the obvious is indeed remarkable, but it needs to be added that Italian youth are also controlled by the soul-destroying system of Fascism, and Durbin, if she has given the matter any particular thought, would probably prefer the liberty' which is still the lot of American youth than the regimentation of children which is a feature of life in Germany and Moly, The report carried from Rome by the United" Press unfortunately does not say whether this particular piece of stunt journal ism comes from the pen of the ineffable Gayda, or whether some other unknown comedian is responsible for the effort, but if Miss Durbin does not get a very hearty Jaugh out of this appeal she has not the sense of humour which her pictures indicate that she must possess.
The "Popolo d'ltalia" warns her that perhaps tomorrow "we will see the fine American youth marching to battle for the defence of Britain. If this is so you do not know how hard life will be for the youth of tomorrow." But the writer should have point~ ed out that if American youth does go to war it will be to prevent the enslavement of the whole world including themselves, and that if they do not defeat the ngeressor Powers their lot will be infinitely worse than it is at present, It is to be' inferred from the report of the article that what apparent Jy Mussolini fears is the actual entrance of Miss Durbin into the war, for the writer goes fon to remark "To be able to gnaw Axis steel, tough jaws are necessary, and not vosy ones used to chewing gum." The idea of Miss Durbin taking a hefty bite out of, say, a German helmet, or gnawing herself through the side of a tank, has its attractions but Mussolini can rest assured that Miss Durbin contemplates no such thing, so that he can at least spare himself that nightmare, If it were that conditions in Europe were not so tragic the concluding sentence of the article would be positively funny: "If you only knew how good and. beautiful are the children of Rome and Berlin, and how much poetry there is in the youth of Europe, then, you would not listen to our and your enemy." The glorious manner in which the Axis has been spreading poetry amongst the youth of Europe has to be seen to be believed. If in suppression, slavery, deprivation of the sim~ lest liberties of life, if the wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians, men, women, and children is indeed poetry, then such.lands as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and indeed all those other cou tries which the Axis Powers have treated so brutally must be passing through the most romantic period of their histories.
It may be that in this appeal of the "Popolo d'ltalia" there is some deep plot to bring about a schism in the ranks of the film artists in Hollywood. Miss Shirley Temple has been overlooked; Mickey Rooney has been ignored, Clark Gable left out in the cold, Can it mean nothing to Mussolini that they are probably as widely known as Miss Durbin? Has his paper gone out of his way definitely to slight them? Why were not the Marx Brothers and Eddie Cantor included in the appeal? No one knows accept the unconscious humourist who plies his pen for Mussolini's organ, and probably he will never {ell. But to appeal to Miss Durbin as the possible moulder of the opinion of American youth is to ignore all those others who have done their bit through the medium of the screen. It "will probably leave them with their withers unwrung. They together with Deanna will probably have a good laugh over the whole matter, and, if in ponse to the Italian paper's remonstrance they all join in a most eloquent "raspberry," it will be all that the Italian journalistic antic could hope to expect.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.