David Work Griffith, 73, wonder man of the early cinema, received an interviewer in his Hollywood hotel room and spoke frankly. "I thought I was a great genius," he recalled wryly. "That was a lot of baloney. . . . There has been no improvement in movies since the old days. . . . They have not improved in stories. I don't know that they've improved in anything. What the modern movie lacks is beauty . . . they have forgotten movement in the moving picture--it's all still and stale."

Novelist Alec Waugh, balding elder brother of Novelist Evelyn, explained to a Manhattan interviewer how the Waughs kept from tripping over each other. "We made a compact," recalled Alec, "that we wouldn't go to the same countries. . . . He took the Catholic countries--he's Catholic, you know. I took the cricket countries. I like cricket and football." Henry L Mencken, keg-shaped sage of Baltimore, received the press on the occasion of a new supplement to The American Language. He reported that the Baltimore Sun had invited him to report both political conventions this year. "I'm an old reporter and I can't stand by ... I'll probably end up by going," he forecast, "and blowing up and coming home on a shutter. Oh, well. It's a heroic death."

Call It a Day

Walter Damrosch, 86, leonine founding father of the New York Symphony, resigned as president of the august American Academy of Arts & Letters, which had elected him to the job seven times. "I think I have arrived at an age," said he, "when the position . . . should be filled by a younger man."

Hiram Johnson 3rd, 34, Navy-veteran grandson of the late California Senator, resigned as a candidate for Congress, explained: "In view of the international situation . . . reserve officers in my status will not have time to be elected, much less serve. . . ."

Actress Judith Anderson and the producers of the Broadway hit, Medea, resigned from each other, refused to tell anybody what it was all about. Business was fine; breast-beating Star Anderson had been a critical and popular sensation. But now everything was off after May, including next season's road tour. "They thought they knew everything and I knew nothing," was all the star would say.

Beryl Scott resigned from Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller. He had already divorced her in Nevada and married again (his fourth), but she divorced him in California for good measure, and got it pressed down and overflowing: custody of the three children, their $50,000 home, car, jewelry and a minimum of $1,000 a month.

Sporting Life

Lady Astor, who at 68 still delights in teeing off on all & sundry, tried nine country-club holes in Atlanta, turned in a creditable 46.

In the Swiss Alps the hardy younger set of The Netherlands' royal family staged an intramural snowball battle; no score was kept, but preserved for the ages were some unforgettable calisthenics by Crown Princess Juliana.

Rumania's Michael, visiting sportsman-flyer and speed enthusiast, found life accelerating a little on his U.S. visit. Washington followed Manhattan; next came Dayton, Detroit, then on to Cleveland, Texas, Toledo and Manhattan again. The Governor of Michigan himself flew the ex-king over Detroit ("to show His Majesty this arsenal of democracy"). There were also less hospitable elements. Pro-and anti-Michaelites scuffled briefly in Detroit, and the State Department said it was "taking measures" in recognition of "reports of rumors of a plot."

Late-Blooming Posies

The U.S.S.R. made major note of a minor mishap to the late Maxim Gorky. The weekly Literary Gazette recalled that in 1906 Traveler Gorky was thrown out of a Manhattan hotel when the Imperial Russian Embassy announced that his woman companion was not his wife. Furthermore, the Gazette snarled, his watch was stolen.

The U.S. Congress made minor amends for the major court-martial of the late General William ("Billy") Mitchell. Twenty-two years after the pioneer plugger of air power resigned from the Army, a special posthumous medal was presented to son William Jr.

Philadelphia gave minor recognition to some major authors. James T. Farrells Studs Lonigan (published in three volumes, 1932, '34, '35), Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road (1932), William Faulkner's Wild Palms (1939) and the late Ross Lockridge's Raintree County (1948) were among some 5,000 books seized by the police, who explained that they had had complaints from "parents, teachers, and ministers that these obscene books were coming into the hands of schoolchildren."

Plus & Minus

Left, by the late Hit Producer-Director Antoinette Perry (Harvey, Strictly Dishonorable): $73,442 in assets, $376,265 in debts.

Given away, by earnest Artist Rockwell Kent: his dairy business (estimated at $10,000) and milk route (but not his cows) in Ausable Forks, N.Y. Since he started campaigning for Henry Wallace a month ago, explained Kent, he had lost about 100 of his 300 customers and two of his four hired hands. So he handed his business and "whatever good will may remain" to the two remaining hands.

Picked up at the County Clerk's office, by lackadaisical Cinemactress Lauren Bacall, who had taken 2 1/2 years getting around to the errand: $2,300 in U.S. bonds being held for her there. "It's an exhausting trip into downtown Los Angeles," she explained, "and I was so tired."

Called for: a $10,000 grant from the American Cancer Society to Paris' Radium Institute; by French Journalist Eve Curie, daughter of radium discoverers Pierre and Marie. Daughter Eve was invited to pick up the grant at the society's banquet in Philadelphia this week. Available in the U.S. but not invited: Eve's fellow-traveling sister Irene, a director of the institute's physics laboratories.

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