There has been of late a great deal of significant talk about James MacArthur, our vice president, and filmland’s most widely heralded newcomer in several decades. We have been deluged with thousands of letters from all of you congratulating Jim on his tremendous role in RKO’s The Young Stranger. It is obvious to all our readers that it is an impossibility to answer every letter personally in such a short time as Jim would like to do. So, we are turning a part of the Publisher’s Report over to Jim this issue so that he may say a few words of appreciation to you.

Dear Friends,

One of the more disquieting aspects of filmdom is the unalterable fact covering the mail situation. No one can answer the many, many letters which come in each day as soon as he should. It is not humanly possible. Therefore, I should like to write to all of you personally and express my gratitude for your kind words of encouragement. Accept my thanks now, and my pledge, that I shall do my utmost to justify your feelings by continuing to do my very best in my career.

In a recent trip I made to Washington to appear on College News Conference with several other college students, my conviction that young America today is very much alive to the world around them, was strengthened by the incisive and interesting questions they asked. In our offices here at Teenage Review we receive a continuous barrage of letters to further cement my belief that teenagers today are active partcipants in every important field of our national life.

My ‘fan’ mail since the release of The Young Stranger has been additional reaffirmation of this point of view. Not merely letters of congratulations, many of them contained thoughtful and intelligent critical discussions of the film and my role in it. Some of the discussion was not always jolly for me either, but even so it was always constructive and helpful. In other words mature, and that is the very essense of young people today.

As a young person myself, it is really great to hear of the many other young people who are making a mark in our society. For instance, a young man at Yale College, Edwin Daley of Marshall, Illinois, has had his first novel published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Now twenty, Edwin wrote the book mostly at the age of sixteen. Some Must Watch is the novel’s title. Yale has honored the author by placing the original manuscript on display in the Yale Library. There are many others who are doing like things.

In closing I should like to thank you for your warm and sincere comments on The Young Stranger and Teenage Review. It has always been my personal conviction that in truth there is strength. Said conviction was the heart of my first film, and is the very basis of this publishing venture.

Cordially,
James Gordon MacArthur