BED CANOPY HARDWARE

You've got to hand it to Burt Lancaster; that boy will try anything! In the last four years and eight pictures, he has played a swashy shade of Robin Hood, a romantic Treasury Department agent, a Mr. Chips sort of buckaroo, a world-famous American Indian athlete, a light-hearted Foreign Legionnaire, a gay buccaneer, a middle-aged rum-pot and an Army sergeant straight from James Jones. And now, in his latest Warner picture, which came to the Paramount yesterday, he is playing an American go-getter in the South Pacific, circa 1870.

"His Majesty O'Keefe," though loosely patterned on the highly adventurous career of a real South Sea islands freebooter, is straight motion-picture make-believe, as lush as a hula-hula romance and as wild as a Mack Sennett farce. And although it was filmed for the most part on the Fijian island of Viti Levu, with natives of that and other regions taking part in its gaudy rituals, its anthropological derivations are as varied as those of the United Nations. Theatrically it is limited less by geography than by genre.

That is the way it was written by Borden Chase and James Hill, on the stated "suggestion" of a novel by Lawrence Kingman and Jerald Green. Virtually everything in the South Seas locker has been generously tossed its way, excepting a sacred volcano and a rip-roaring hurricane. And that is the way it is acted by the free-wheeling Mr. Lancaster, tanned to the color of a walnut and wearing a mop of sun-bleached hair.

As a rugged American trader, who is determined that the natives of Yap shall deliver the millions of dollars worth of copra on their island to him, he strides through the film like a Colossus, slugging recalcitrant chiefs, shooting down swarms of puny spear-throwers and ogling the nut-colored girls.

To win the respect of the natives, he shows them the use of gunpowder to blast their sacred objects out of a distant island's rock. And then, in the characteristic fashion of a bumptious American abroad, he burns when a faction of the natives show a preference for quarrying in their own way. In the end, at the behest of a prim half-caste, whom he manfully and properly weds, he gives over trying to drive the natives and settles down to a life in the shade.

But before he achieves that serenity, Mr. Lancaster and the whole picture move with the plunging dynamism of the Empire State Express. From a snarling set-to with mutinous sailors to a battle with natives on a beach, the big boy is constantly tearing through one or another scrape. Time-out is occasionally taken for a big shuffle-dance or carouse, and a wild wedding trip to Hong Kong punctuates the South Seas escapades. But these are entirely in the pattern of the picture's formless flow. The story is sprawling and spontaneous. But what there is of it moves.

Tagging along in the onrush is a vastly assorted troupe of willing but wearied actors who come up occasionally for air. Joan Rice as the lady-like half-caste, Andre Morell as a German resident and Abraham Sofaer as a native Machiavelli are more conspicuous in their roles. But Lloyd Berrell and Archie Savage are more active as contending chiefs. And Tessa Pendergast looks mighty fetching as a speechless but eloquent native girl.

Filmed as it was in the South Seas—in Technicolor, of course—the whole thing has a spacious and paradisaical look. The palm trees rustle in the trade winds, the long surf rolls upon the reefs. And the actors move crisply under the direction of Byron Haskin, with a scorcher to make and a schedule to meet.

HIS MAJESTY O'KEEFE, screen play by Borden Chase and James Hill, from a novel by Lawrence Kingman and Gerald Green; directed by Byron Haskin; produced by Harold Hecht for Warner Brothers. At the Parmount.

Capt. David O'Keefe . . . . . Burt Lancaster
Dalabo . . . . . Joan Rice
Alfred Tetins . . . . . Andre Morell
Fatumak . . . . . Abraham Sofaer
Boogulroo . . . . . Archie Savage
Mr. Chou . . . . . Benson Fong
Kakofel . . . . . Tessa Prendergast
Inifel . . . . . Lloyd Berrell
Bully Hayes . . . . . Charles Horvath
Sien Tang . . . . . Phillip Ahn
Weber . . . . . Guy Doleman
Lieutenant Brenner . . . . . Grant Taylor
Harris . . . . . Alexander Archdale
Friendlander . . . . . Harvey Adams

BOSLEY CROWTHER New York Times 6 February 1954

THE CEDAR WAXWING
The beautiful Cedar Waxwing is identified by its pronounced delicate robe of contrasting colors and silky texture. Cedar Waxwings are intensive foragers and have been reported to devour an entire fruit crop of red cedars over a two day period. Such feats have earned them their name and led to the belief that these birds are an important disperser of red cedar. After the mating season ends (late Summer), Cedar Waxwings will travel in flocks of 40 or more birds. They are gregarious, sociable creatures who eat lots of berries and insects.

Identification
Identified as a trim crested bird at 6 1/2 to 8" long. The adult is grayish-brown and crested with a black mask and chin, yellow belly, white undertail coverts and a yellow band across the tip of its tail. The red appendages or vibrant "sealing wax" at the end of its secondary wings give this bird its name.

Range and Habitat
Summer range is Canada and the Central U.S., generally Wintering in the Southern half of the U.S. They are a year round resident of the Pacific Northwest, Central and Northeast U.S.

The Cedar Waxwing prefers forest edges or open woodlands as a general habitat. They also enjoy orchards, gardens and parks with shade trees and live in areas where maples, alders and dogwoods grow. They prefer to nest in maple or cedar trees. In abundance where berry producing trees and shrubs are found and watercourses such as rivers and streams flow.

Feeding Preferences
The Cedar Waxwing is a voracious eater. The Cedar Waxwing's primary diet consists of berries, flower petals and insects. During the Summer they dine on elm leaf beetles, weevils, carpenter ants, sawfly larvae, flies, cicadas, scale insects, and caterpillars. Ripe berries provide food in the Fall and Winter. Cedar Waxwings have been known to sit in a row on a berry bush and pass a berry or insect between one another!

You can attract these beautiful birds to your backyard by:

Creating a forest edge or open woodland with trees. Plant trees they like such as alders, maples and dogwoods, or their favorite nesting trees: cedar and maple.
Offer chopped or sliced apples, raisins or currants on a platform feeder. They are difficult to entice to a feeder, but once they notice it they will consume large quantities!
Try offering an apple on a special fruit feeder!
Make sure you have a bird bath or water source. Like most fruit eating birds, they get quite thirsty.
Plant berry producing trees and shrubs such as juniper, European mountain ash, pyracantha, cotoneaster, dogwood, mistletoe, apple, hawthorn, California peppertree, grapes, strawberries, mulberry, cherry, privet, yew, toyon, hackberry and choke cherry.
In the spring, during nesting season, they will readily use wool, string, hair or other nesting materials set out by humans. Offer these nesting materials in the bark of a tree or a suet cage.