Toil & Trouble

In Paris, Hollywood Producer Walter Wanger ran into an old French custom. Speaking before the American Club, Wanger rapped U.S. film critics as "immature and incompetent," singled out Critic Art Buchwald of the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune, who had panned the Wanger-produced Joan of Arc. Forthwith, Critic Buchwald challenged Wanger to a duel. Sending no seconds, Wanger retorted: "A cheap gag."

Even Russian Communists have sticky little bourgeois problems, it appeared from the autobiography of Oksana Kasenkina, the schoolteacher who escaped last year from the U.S.S.R.'s New York consulate by jumping out of a third-floor window. In her Leap to Freedom, Mrs. Kasenkina tells how the wife of Soviet Diplomat Andrei Gromyko appealed for her help in vetoing a romance between Gromyko's adolescent son Anatoli and pretty young Klava, who, after all, was only the daughter of a lowly embassy chauffeur.

Cinemactress Bette Davis, 41, went into hiding after asking for a divorce from her third husband, William Grant Sherry, 34. Bette's suit charged that Sherry, an ex-pugilist turned artist, had threatened her with "bodily harm." Said Sherry: "That girl and I were made for each other . . . It's just a matter of controlling my awful temper, but I know we can patch this thing up if we can just see each other again."

Novelist Russell (Miracle of the Bells) Janney, juror No. 2 in the nine-month federal trial of eleven Communist leaders, went home after the trial ended, found a notice calling him to appear for jury duty.

Thoughts & Afterthoughts

Safely back in Hollywood after flooring a glamor girl who wanted his panda doll in a Manhattan nightclub (TIME, Oct. 10), Tough Guy Humphrey Bogart reminisced a bit. The judge who dismissed the girl's suit, he thought, was "a nice guy--the Frank Morgan type." But Bogart decided that the real hero of the incident was Bogart, who had "wised some people up about the notion that they can push celebrities around." He added: "I'd say it compared to the Dreyfus case. You might report that I struck a blow for freedom, not to mention the pursuit of happiness."

Taking aim all the way from San Francisco, touring Soprano Lily Pons let fly: "New York City is a crowded, dirty madhouse." French-born Lily also knocked Paris fashions. "Zut," she sputtered, "first they are too long, now they are too short. I think the American women wear them best. Me, I'm too petite, always in the middle."

After a six-week visit to the U.S., including a look at Texas, French Fashion Creator Jacques Path sailed for home. He opined that U.S. women have "a grand sense of elegance," but sometimes overdress. This, he added quickly, does not apply to Texas women, who not only dress simply but are also beautiful.

Novelist Lloyd C. Douglas, 72, told a Boston interviewer that he was staunchly opposed to change and that he tried to get that idea across in books like The Robe and The Big Fisherman. "I have only one theme," he said. "All authors have only one theme, though few will admit it. My theme, it happens, people like, because they long to stay put."

Fair & Warmer

After 30 years with the circus, famed Clown Emmett Kelly signed a movie contract with David O. Selznick, just as a cycle of circus films hove into sight. The agreement also gives Selznick control of his services in the circus and TV.

Having signed him up for 20 more years (TIME, Oct. 17), 20th Century-Fox set high store on Production Boss Darryl F. Zanuck. The studio took out a $750,000 insurance policy on Zanuck's life.

It was a busy week of honors for the Lewis Douglases. The U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James's received an honorary degree (Doctor of Laws) from Winston Churchill, chancellor of Bristol University. Mrs. Douglas went to Coventry to unveil Sculptor Sir William Reid Dick's statue of Lady Godiva.

Up & coming Cinemactor Montgomery Clift, escorting up & coming Cinemactress Elizabeth Taylor to a klieg-lighted Hollywood premiere, paid her an unusual tribute. He rented a dinner jacket for the occasion. Explained Clift: "I never bothered to acquire one."

Benny Goodman, accepting a scroll from a group of Manhattan models as their favorite orchestra leader, politely expressed his surprise to the young lady who presented it. "It was a surprise to me, too," she said, "I voted for Vaughn Monroe."

Duke University won an unusual distinction: a two-day visit from an absentee trustee of the university endowment, continent-hopping Heiress Doris Duke, who showed up in cap & gown for the inauguration (TIME, Oct. 24) of Dr. Arthur Hollis Edens as the new president.

Maine's Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith claimed the title of the Senate's least talkative member. She reported that her only major speech thus far took all of 75 seconds.

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