[BOUT "Bound for Glory"-biograp Guthrie, reviewe The brutality…]

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BOUT "Bound for Glory"-biograp Guthrie, reviewe The brutality of the employers and their hired thugs in breaking up the attempts of workers to organise and form unions could but the struggles depicted in "Bound for Glory" are of the fruit pickers in California in the 1930s.

The backdrop to their fight is the Depression in America. They were forced to abandon their homes in Texas and Oklahoma, which slump and dust storms had laid waste, and travel west in search of the "promised land"

But this is not really a film of despair and misery. It does show the determination of these workers not to be beaten.

The refusal to be ground down is generally personified in singer Woody Guthrie, the subject of the film. hical film of folk singer Woody d by Dettie Gormley.

But it also comes through clearly for example, in the man who urges Woody not to compromise on the content of his radio show.

His face is badly swollen from the beating he received on the picket line.

Guthrie's songs particularly the rousing "I'm Stickin' to the Union" convey more clearly than words the fighting spirit of that generation of workers.

The wonder and beauty of America are breath-takingly photographed as we see Woody thumbing lifts and jumping trains on his way West.

It contrasts starkly with the dust bowl conditions of small town ruin in Texas or the squalid camps where the pickers live.

The, song "This Land is my Land" portrays in a populist way the idea of everyone, regardless of class differences, having the freedom to own the cc untry.

So it is easy to see why liberal Americans can enjoy this film and adopt patronising attitude towards it.

Woody, for all that he exhorts workers to "organise" is a complete individualist.

He rambles from place to place with his guitar for company. He does not himself get involved in the day to day problems of the workers but moves on after each beating up, having done the more 'glamorous' job.

Although he takes a principled stand and refuses to compromise with the radio sponsors, he has no clear idea of what he considers important.

He says he just "the people"

The film is clearly influenced by Stalinist popular front type conceptions.

This is also shown by the crude depiction of-employers as nasty ogres and workers as downtrodden though at times prepared to struggle-they are idealised rather than dealing with actual situations.

Somewhat more sensitively shown is the relationship between Woody and his wife.

He makes no attempt to draw her into his trade union organising and cannot explain to her why it is important, (largely because he cannot explain it to himself.

She is left worrying about whether he will "foolishly" loose his job and urges him always to compromise.

She remains isolated at home with the children and eventually leaves him.

Once again an extremely important period is the history of the American workers' movement has been inadequately dealt with and the real lessons obscured.

Nonetheless this is a moving film with music to please Gul hrie devotees. unions there is not the slightest danger of anyone using the Press to push their political views.

P.S. If NUJ members haven't got the drift of Levin's remarks, Bower is just about worth voting for and the others should not be touched with a ballot box.

if there is one thing more important than keeping the Labour government in power and Phase 3 alive, it is the vexing question of who Prince Charles is going to marry • Among all the rubbishy specu lation one word of truth emerged in the sunday Mirror.

"A medical specialist close to the Royal Family told me frankly: I wouldn't like to be in Price Charles's shoes today'."

Smile please and click. Yes it is the smiling policewoman in the pages of the Daily Mirror struggling against the pickets at Grunwick's and still managing to look cheerful for the cameras. Even a girl can do it.

With this picture the Mirror managed not only to be anti-worker and pro-police but also sexist with it. Personally we have decided not to discriminate between male and female police. We think they should hateontad suantly tha coma

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rage

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have been set in present-day Grunwicks or in the Spanish countryside.