Evening star., 1946-10-20
Cinderella Theme and Situations Used
To Foroe Effective and Popular Novel
IE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS
(Prentice-Hau, 49,

By Russell Jdnney. (Prentic
If you want a good old-fashioned
cry, I cannot do better than sug-
gest that you real this novel. 1t
is an effective tearbringer, If ever
there was one. I am not saying
tear -jerker," either; that term i'm
plies your collaboration to the ex-
tent, at least, that you have a
maudlin readiness to weep. "The
Miracle of The Bells" is not Of that
sort. If it does not have all the
elements of the beloved popular
story, it has enough OF them to
do the trick.
1t has a Cinderella theme, it has
the youthful death of lovely
heroine, it has a miracle, 1t has
a case-hardened hero with a golden
heart playing the rescuing knight,
it has a multitude of selfish people
turned from pointless lives to good
ness, and it has the hope OF i'm
mortality. All these are imme-
mortal ingredients in the tales which
people have loved. You can call
them, If you like, ham. They are
commonly called ham. But, I Will
inquire, what is wrong with ham?
1t is a delicious and sustaining
food. and high and low alike es-
TEEN it.
Author Knows Theater.
Not to sidestep the critical issue
entirely, I will add that the op-
probriousness of literary ham comes
from it's ill-cocking. In the hands
OF a bungler, Romeo and Juliet"
could be decidedly hammy. If you
look at the mere plot of the tale
of the star-crossed pair, you can
see that it has the elements. In
masters hand, it became an i'm
mortal tragedy.
Russell Janney has at least one
quality in common with the Bard
he knows theater. He has assem-
bled a story in which he has used
about all the beloved situations OF
fiction and the stage. Whether it
is because of his skill or because OF
the proved durability of those situ-
ations, do not know. But the
miracle" of his book is that, as
whole, it is effective. Even as
you recognize the old props, you
find your emotions engaged.
The story has to do with poor
orphan girl, the outcast Of a little
Pennsylvania mining village. when
she has buried her drunken but be-
loved father, she goes to New York
and gets a job in burlesque. She is
about to be fired when famous
publicity man wanders in and, pity
ing her terror and youth, intervenes
for her. Her stage career then takes
her to Hollywood, where she becomes
the stand in (read understudy) for
a great star. The great star f1ounces
out in a fit of temperament, and the
little orphan gets the part. Gets 1t,
acts it to perfection, and then, pc
cause her lungs are weakened by
the coal dust of the Pennsylvania
mines. dies (of tuberculosis, tooo
Just as the play is completed. Ihe
publicity man, who has been work
ing for her producer, undertakes to
bring her body back to her home
town for burial.
One Working Christian.
There the circumstances OF the
girls funeral work a miracle. The
town is a dreadful, soulless place,
but it has one working Christian
Father Paul, priest of the poverty
stricken little church of st. Michael
the Archangel. Father Paul hears
the story and allows himself to be
persuaded by the publicity man to
make great occasion of the Cinder-
ella girls last rites. 1t begins with
the ringing of the bells for four
days. BY the time that period Is
over, enough miracles have hap
pened to stock half dozen ordinary
novels. The selfish turn from selfish
ness, the proud humble themselves,
the miners forsake the saloon for
the church, the mine owners volun-
teer to put improved machinery IN
the mines. The fact that pair OF
marble statues in Father Pau's
church have moved on their ped
estals becomes, beside this formid-
able reform in human hearts, mi
nor incident. The town is cleanSed,
purged and swept out of itself.
Now the remarkable thing about
MFR. Janney's workmanship is that
he makes the purging somehow real.
Even though you doubt that it would
happen to town full Of hard-boiled
coal miners, you feel it happening to
you. Whence, I submit, no more de-
tense of the author need be uttered,
stale props or new. For, by that cir
cumstance, he has the Father of
Criticism on his side-Aristotle, no
less. Aristotle, to be sure, said that
great drama should purge by the
loftiness OF its beauty and its moral
Mr.. .Janney. writing for people who