To the Editor:

Manny Farber in “Underground Films” (November) attempts to establish himself as a Mickey Spillane of movie criticism by exalting the action film with its “twelve-year-old’s adventure story plot and endless palpitating movement” as the most significant contribution to cinematic art in modern times. He shuns, as a good Neanderthal critic should, the “polishing, hypocrisy, bragging, fake educating that goes on in serious art” and disdains “films that bear the label of ART in every inch of their reelage.” Thus, the impression is successfully conveyed that no red-blooded American should ever be guilty of associating with ART—that undefined evil.

Farber’s postured hard-boiled views seem strangely out of place in a soft-boiled magazine like COMMENTARY. That art has anything to do with the deepest and most intense efforts of men to deal with the meaning and significance of human experience seems beyond the ken of Mr. Farber. We may leave him with his addiction for action films with their “outward appearance of junk jewelry,” filled with “pan-fried domestic sights” and peopled with “brassy cheapsters.” Those who understand will know better. No photographic tricks or surface pseudo-realism can atone for the intellectual, spiritual, and emotional vacuum of these films.

Harvey Einbinder
New York City

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