"THE GRAPES OF WRATH."

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 58, 5 September 1940, Page 18

"THE GRAPES OF WRATH."

No book in a generatjon has stirred the world more than John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." Its touching story of hunger and sickness and desperation among California's 200.000 migratory workers shocked millions of workers just as did the works of Victor Hugo and Tolstoi in other eras. Even before the novel was on the bookshelves Darryl F. Zanuck read the proof sheets and recognised the gripping, human story that it told, a story packed with thrilling drama and raw emotions, because this was real, this was happening to tens of thousands of hard-working American farmers who had lost their lands in the Oklahoma dust-bowl. Zanuck assigned Nunnally Johnson, famed fiction writer, scenarist, and movie producer, to adapt the book to the screen and to serve as associate producer. He placed no restrictions on Johnson, who lifted bodily Steinbeck's own dialogue, word for word. Out of 750 lines in the movie script, 675 are Steinbeck's, the others serving merely as transition sentences. Steinbeck himself read Johnson's scenario and heartily approved of it for its faithfulness to the plot and characters of the novel. The only drastic change was the ending, which for obvious reasons could not be portrayed on the screen

Two well-known members of the Russian Ballet passed through Auck j land recently on thdir way to America—David Lichine, choreographer and his charming wife, Tatiana Riabouchinska. statuesque blonde ballerina. They were on their way to the United States, where M. Lichine with prepare the way for the Ballet's visit to the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. It has been engaged for an eight months' season. After the New York season it was hoped to return to headquarters at Covent Garden, but should war interfere with their plans once more, the ballet would probably tour South America, Australia, and New Zealand instead. M. Lichine praised the dancing of young Rowena Jackson, the 13-year-old Auckland dancer whom Anton Dolin also praised highly when he saw the talented young girl dance on the occasion of his visit to New Zealand a few years ago. Rowena has been studying under M. Lichine in Australia and will continue her studies on the lines he has directed. He hopes to have her in he Covent Garden Ballet if she fulfils the promise of her studies, thus taking her place in England with talented Bebe de Roland the* charming young 16-year-old Wellington dancer, now an established star.