Q-What do you do when you are overtired?
A-I scrub the floors and the ceilings and the washbasins and make oldfashioned stews like the Founding Mothers...and I get out that old ironing board, and I press and PRESS!
Q-What is your opinion of the High Fashion Hairdos the girls are wearing? A-Oh la! I think they're adorably feminine! But with my split-ends, that's a touchy subject.
Q-Do you agree that a skyscraper next to Old St. Mary's would be out of place?
A-Naturally.
Q-And what is your solution?
A-Tear down Old St. Mary's! Did you ever SEE those American SOWS walking up those steps in their tight stretch-pants? Tear it down, I say!
Q-Why are there so many suicides in this city?
A-Because San Francisco is just the END!
•
Q-What do you think of the new Digit-Dial system?
A-It's RUINING my nails!
Q-Are you in favor of the "Take an Alcoholic to Lunch This Week" movement?
A-Yes, if you're free. Where shall we eat?
Q-Well, there's this smart little bistro half way up the Tenderloin, where all the waiters are part-time corset models.
A-Ooh...sounds positively European! Do they have free Low-Cal horsd'oeuvres ?
Q-Yes, and after two drinks they let you take home a model and some bonus fish-paste.
A-But what about the WALLS? I MUST go on with my writing, or how else are we to desegregate all those Basic Black American Bosoms with their little chokers of fatty tissue-hmm? I MUST have my walls...I'm DEDICATED!
Q-Duke baby, their wallpaper is pure carbon.
A-Oh la! I can smell the printer's ink already! Let's AWAY!
Q-My arm?
A-You know it!
16
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Les Arts
gai
by DAVID LAYNE
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is still an enigma. The movie is a great multiadventure story with much to commend it for general interest; but for those who want to understand the man T. E. Lawrence and for REVIEW readers the film lacks substance. Seen in isolation from other biographies or Lawrence's own PILLARS OF WISDOM, Sam Spiegel's production offers only limited (albeit several) explanations of T. E. Lawrence's character. Matter'a fact, the problem isn't really presented. Little is asked, little need be stated.
Material is present to indicate that he was (1)disappointed in his inability to "become" an Arabian, (2) angry at British colonial policy, (3), obcessed with delusions (?) of grandeur, (4) an exhibitionist (with the slightest of tendencies toward transvestism), (5) a shy fellow who backed into unsought fame, (6) sadistic, (7) masochistic, (8) a “bit daft." Choose any or several, and the intelligent but uninformed film-goer will walk out shrugging, "so what?"
1
ROSS, last year's play titled after the name T. E. chose seeking obscurity, stated the total problem and gave a solution. Briefly; Lawrence, a minor officer in the Near East during the 1st W. W., based all on the strength of his naked will to conquer fear, force and fatigue. His goal was to unify the tribes of of Arabia against Turkey (and Germany). He led attacks that made military history and made him a major; nothing could stop him, but something did. He was tortured by a sadistic Turkish commander, returned to England as soon as possible (by now a colonel), and disappeared-re-enlisting as "Aircraftman Ross." Terence Rattigan, author of ROSS, described the torture: rape and suggests that when T. E. was forced to see his own deeply repressed homosexuality, he ran into an enemy he could not conquer. Not that his homosexuality destroyed him, but that the conflict resulting from its repression did!
In the current film, the Turkish Bey (Jose Ferrer) is sadistic and lustful, even dropping a hint to Lawrence: "You don't know what I'm talking about; that would be too lucky." But there is no indication that Lawrence was sexually molested or that the experience shook him any more deeply than several other traumatic ones. (Including the necessity of shooting his dearest Arabian servant boy to prevent his torture. ROSS intimates and Lawrence's own book states that his two servant boys were lovers.) Thus (Continued on page 20) 171