The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-08-13
JIMMIE FIDLER h HoHyuood

| it suits her whim to do so.
 In the second place, I'm amazed by the fact that the Warner Bro- thers-and Hollywood's other major producers-are such namby-pambys that they let players like Miss Park CT "get away with it." If, instead of taking their rebels back to favor after a few weeks without pay the studio bosses would get together and lay down the law, Tive up to your contracts or else" there would be noticeable decline-but quick!-in the number of stellar walkouts that now are costing movie companies millions every year.
 Recently the Screen CartoonistS' Guild, by theatening a strike, high i pressured Walt Disney into giving it's members blanket pay boost Of 25 percent. Disney then did exactly what he had repeatedly warned the Guilds leaders he would have to do he laid of 42 percent of his entire staff (not only cartoonists, but workers in all departmental. claim ing that he could not possibly meet l the increased wage rate without trimming the number of his em- ployees and eliminating from his production schedule all but the most profitable pictures If Disney's state ment about his financial condition is true-and I believe every word Of it-there's real irony in the situa- | almost every other producer in Hollywood was piling up unpreced- ented profits, Walt Disney devoted fully 85 percent of his production facilities to training and propa- ganda films for Uncle Sam. And he made them all on a NO-PROFIT basis. Other studios beset with de- mands for higher wages have flnan- cial reserves to meet them. Disney's hasn't. He traded his reserves for the chance to carry out patriotic duty.
 With Van Johnson playing an Arkansas hillbilly in The Romance of Rosy Ridge" 1t seems apparent that Amercia's "homespun" humor- ists are going to have to find new repertoire of jokes. The wit who tries to tell a story ridiculing hillbillies, henceforth, will be taking his life in his hands if there are bobby-soxers in his audience.
 Every once in while, in the Hollywood news there's an item i've only all the facts were reported, Such an item was the one-line re- port that Martha Cheavans had sold an original story, entitled Fall On Your Knees" to Producer-Di- rector Frank Borzage for $60, ,0OO. The inspiration lies not in the fact that the author realized a very fat price for her second story, but In the unpublished fact that for four years, ever since she wrote Penny Serenade," she's been too i'll to leave her bed. She wrote her new story in longhand, holding the paper against a script board suspended directly over her head.
 Speaking of literary productions, note that Dr. Clifford Adams and Vance Packard have collaborated on a weighty, semi-scientific volume entitled How To Pick A Mate" It strikes me tthat anyone too lazy to read a book, can arrive at the same conclusions in this case, by merely observing how Hollywoods frequently divorced glamour stars pick their mates, and then doing the opposite.
 Maybe it's best not to read books, or rather, not to read Hollywood columns. For instance, scanned one the other day in which the columnist quoted Katharine Hep burn as saying: q respect anyone who tells me I'm wrong" Imagine that bit of literary TINT. falling in- to the hands of a studio worker credulous enough to take 1t at its face value. Wanting to be respected, he waits until he hears Miss Hep burn express decided opinion be- tween scenes, then strides up and says, boldly, That ain't so, miss, not by jugful!" Or, judging that what's sauce for one star should be sauce for another, he tries it on a gal like Connie Bennett. In either case he might be respected but where's he going to find another job?