COMPETITION

Old favourite

Jaspistos .

In Competition No. 1446 you were in- vited to write a poem in honour of a film star of a bygone era.

The only good poem on the old cinema that I can call to mind is Drummond Allison's '0 Sheriffs' (to be found in The Oxford Book of Short Poems), with its nostalgic opening:

0 sheriffs hung with long pearlhandled guns Showing your stars, coachditching dark road- agents, O Pony Express on Sioux-surrounded plains . . .

Among the immortal sheriffs you chose to celebrate only John Wayne and Alan Ladd, but there was remarkably little duplication of subject. I was delighted to read tributes to Johnny Weissmuller, Mar- garet Dumont, Pearl White and Fay Wray (the blonde, remember, held so gently in King Kong's huge palm), though I was disappointed that no one picked any of my own peculiar early favourites — Claudette Colbert (how could I?), Esther Williams (unbelievable, eh?), William Bendix (yes, I'm serious) and Peter Lorre (of course). Several of you legitimately wrote about animal actors, but I drew the line at cartoon figures. Among the best losers (who include Joan Van Poznak, Paul Grif- fin, Michael Brereton, 0. Banfield, John Hamill and Katie Mallett) John Flood gave me special pleasure by his evocation of Bogart, 'Strolling through shadows/ As if they were wet,/ Leaving behind/ No wake, only the dead waves', and so did I. K. Miller with his quatrain on the unknown bit-player:

I was only there to help the plot, I'm the man you soon forgot, I'm the man that George Raft threatened, I'm the man that Cagney shot.

The prize-winners printed below get £12 each, and the bonus Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations goes to Basil Ransome-Davies, whose lines seem to me nicely appropriate in style to the era concerned.

Montgomery Clift My wallboard image shows A crisp, expressive scene In a palm-invaded bar, Where you sip away the pain.

Your eyes coast through the air Like far-gone satellites. One thin hand lightly traps A pack of cigarettes.

Touching, though never anchored, You used to haunt the screen With that soft-eyed face Transparent to the bone.

Unlike Wayne or Gable You inhabited a space Where feeling was more real Than muscular prowess.

(Basil Ransome-Davies) Mae West The avatar of sexual undertone, Her good was earthy, but her bad was best; The queen of innuendo, she was known For the naughty situations she'd suggest; We loved to see her chewing on a grin, Holding her hip in a gesture of reproach.

How well she made a virtue out of sin As she hugged her mink or kissed her diamond brooch! She'd linger on those lines that caused delight 'Peel ine a grape,' she'd drawl and roll her eyes; She had the power to silence or excite The leading men her smile would mesmerise. By now, perhaps, she's won her final trick With a cool 'Come up and see me sometime, Nick!' (Frank McDonald) 0 rare Lon Chaney Junior, your father frightened mine,

And often in my tender years I paid my one-and-nine

To shun the wholesome sunshine of a summer afternoon And hear Lon Chaney Junior, out baying at the moon.

I see you now, your lupine hair in jerky time-lapse growing; The bloodied claws, the mirrored face, the agony of knowing

Your only hope a silver bullet by a virgin Shot — Ah, brave Lon Chaney Junior, that's what I call a plot.

Alas, Lon Chaney Junior, I hope you found relief.

It's harder when one's older to suspend one's disbelief, But at full moon, when forced to rise to quench a raging thirst, I see Lon Chaney Junior, and switch the light on first.

(Noel Petty) John Wayne Hard to imagine him ever running

(Though he did once in Rio Bravo,

To derisive undergraduate cheers); Hard to believe he no longer stalks Those mythic frontier towns, or rides Tall with no unmanly swerving or doubt Along arid trails that always seem Somehow to lead to Monument Valley; Harder still to resist that imperious `Put an amen to it, Reverend!' His gun Spoke with the same terseness and conviction.

Life's not so crude or simple, I want to shout, But can't stifle my hunger for the heroic.

(Watson Weeks)