Newspaper Page Text
I
f
I
t
PAGE 6-March 9,1972
SPRING SCENE: A balloon and warm sunshine in the park are signs of Spring. Perhaps this photo is a harbinger of warmer days
to come. NC PHOTO by Lou Panarale.
i Film Classifications |
I I
| A — Section I — Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage |
| A — Section U — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults Adolescents )
I A — Section M — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults I
A — Section IV — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Reservations
I B — Morally Objectionable in Part for AH J
i C — Condemned t
CABARET (Allied Artists) Liza Minnelli in a
lively, adutt musical. The early Thirties was a
period in Germany’s recent past that most
Germans today, quite understandably, prefer
not to recall. It was a time of tension - agitation
for a liberal democratic society on the one
hand, for a strong centralized government on
the other; unemployment, rampant poverty,
violence, undisguised decadence among the
affluent, the rise of Nazism with its initially
covert anti-Semitism which played on the
people’s willingness to find a scapegoat for their
social and political frustrations.
In a way the Broadway musical and the
previous movie version (I AM A CAMERA,
starring Julie Harris) derived from Christopher
Isherwood’s “Berlin Stories’* did not, this
CABARET convincingly recreates the ambience
of a tragic moment in Western European
history. At the same time, the Kit Kat Klub
where the struggling American girl Sally Bowles
(Liza Minnelli), her fellow dancers (both the
girls and the female impersonators), perform
under the control of the perverted Master of
Ceremonies (Joel Grey), is a parody, a sick
comment upon the larger society. And the
actions of the principals carry out and enforce
the foreground-background setting: Sally's
cheap romanticized affair with a semi-repressed
homosexual (Michael York) that ends in an
abortion, the liaison each has with the wealthy
bisexual baron (Helmut Griem, in a role
screenwriter Jay Allen added to the Broadway
original), the fateful marriage between the
foolish Jewish heiress (Marisa Berenson) and
the gigolo (Fritz Wepper) brought reluctantly
to reveal his own Jewish parentage.
Bob Fosse, who both directed and
choreographed the film, manages the difficult
feat of maintaining a multileveled perspective
upon his characters and their actions. As Sally
Bowles, Liza Minnelli captures marvelously the
tragic-comic dimensions of a character at once
meand and magnanimous, a fey yet
promiscuous romantic dreaming of a move
career for which she is willing to exploit and be
exploited. The music and dance routines with
their forced, perverse light-heartedness, which
are handled so effectively by Miss Minnelli and
Joel Grey, are creatively intercut with, for
instance, an ironic series of brutal acts that
serve both to open up the action and to
comment upon its significance. This same
perspective affects the rest of the cast, and it is
evident that beyond the excellence of the
performances and the production values,
authentic costumes, make-up and settings,
Fosse’s directorial control has given his film a
complex integrity which is a remarkable
achievement.
As a result CABARET requires a mature
sensibility to appreciate its difficult subject
matter and story. This is no musical in the
ordinary sense: the song and dance routines are
restricted to the stage of the Kit Kat Klub, and
as a result the film’s actual emphasis is on its
serious dramatic material and not its musical
score. For adult audiences whose expectations
of the movie musical extend beyond an
evening's carefree entertainment, this
CABARET will provide an enjoyable,
worthwhile experience. (A-lll)
BARTLEBY (Maron) Updated, slow-moving
Herman Melville story. One of the enduring
curiosity pieces in the tortured literature of
Herman Melville is a short novella, or a long
story (if you prefer not to use the term
novella), entitled “Bartleby the Scrivner.” The
story concerns a pallid clerk named Bartleby,
Whose entire history seems to consist only of
the fact that he was once employed in the dead
letter section of the Post Office and who comes
to work as a clerk in the narrator’s
law-accounting office. The result is an unreal
moral and emotional tug of war in which the
narrator finds himself unable either to get
Bartleby to work (“I would prefer not to”) or
to give him the sack, even when he discovers
that Bartleby is actually living in the office.
Melville probed the mysteries of the
relationship from the point of view of the
perplexed narrator, whose ultimate inability to
deal forcefully with Bartleby led him,
preposterously but plausibly, to move the
office out from under the balky clerk. And
even then, Bartleby continued to haunt the
narrator’s mind, forcing comfortless
rationalization, examination, and
re-examination. Finally Bartleby simply expired
as if the removal of the office had caused a slow
lead in his lifeblood.
Melville’s story fascinates because of its
psychological power rather than for anything
that happens in it. Indeed, nothing does
happen, and even Bartleby’s death by slow
wasting is subtle and imperceptible. What is
important is the effect of the struggle on the
narrator's mind. Over and over again, as
Bartleby with politeness offers only his blasted
“I would perfer not to,” the narrator finds
himself blaming himself for whatever it is that
is bothering the little man, whatever is was that
defeated him. Even after his death, Bartleby
haunts his employer much in the manner of the
Ancient Mariner's albatross.
The spirit, if not the flavor, of Melville’s
story abides in Anthony Friedmann’s austere
film, Bartleby, which was adapted by Rodney
Carr-Smith, and which stars John McEnery as
the clerk and Paul Scofield as his employer.
Unfortunately, the film makers have chosen to
update the story, presumably to add emphasis
to the “dropout” aspect, and the result is a
work of the sort politely labeled an "interesting
failure.” Were it not for the talents of McEnery
(seen recently as Kerensky in NICHOLAS AND
ALEXANDRA) and particularly Paul Scofield,
Bartleby would be plainly abortive. They, at
least, add subtlety and surprisingly frequent
humor and pathos to what is essentially a
non-visual source. Even without the narrator's
interior flood of analyses and self-accusations
and defensive reactions, Scofield's Accountant
expresses the maddening frustrations and
idiocies of the situation. And as for the title
character, McEnery captures the look and feel
of a man of deadened spirit waiting only for his
body to catch up. Given the circumstances, the
acting is brilliant, but due to the circumstances,
the film is hardly satisfying. (A-ll)
X Y & ZEE (Columbia) Elizabeth Taylor and
Michael Caine are an unhappily married couple
whose bruised relationship is further
blackened-blued by the arrival on the cocktail
scene of youngish widow Susannah York.
Caine, an habitual adulterer, finds solace in Miss
York’s company, but finds only increased rages
and tantrums at home. Miss Taylor in turn uses
every female trick, including attempted suicide,
to get back at Caine while getting him back.
But everything fails -- until, that is, she grabs
the girl for herself. Using the shrillest and most
grating of means to demonstrate how rotten
people like this are, X Y & ZEE wallows in the
very evils it ostensibly exposes. Thankfully, at
least, it keeps its visual offenses at a minimum,
but there are plenty of other ways to make you
wince. (B)
WELCOME HOME, SOLDIER BOYS (20th
Century Fox) The cycle of
returned-Vietnam-veteran movies is, alas
(because of the treatment, not the worthiness
of subject), in full bloom. WELCOME HOME
drips its ironies all the way across America’s
South as it follows four vets wending their way
to Californ-eye-ay in an old Cadillac funeral
limousine. All tuey find, of course, is apathy,
hostility, or dishonesty (and an orgy or two),
and what they wind up doing is making a fatal
stand in the hapless little town of Hope, New
Mexico. Forget this one -- it is cynical — and
hope for a new one that will say something
both valid and valuable about the problems vets
face upon returning to a country that is weary
of their war. (B)
NO DRUMS, NO BUGLES (Cinerama)
Martin Sheen is a fine actor in a difficult role --
playing a Civil War-era draft dodger in what
amounts to a one-character movie. As a West
Virginia mountaineer, Sheen takes to the
backwoods for the duration, living close to
nature and observing her alternately beautiful
harsh, cyclical ways. The film is quiet,
unpretentious, sobering, and probably won’t do
much at the box-office because of these virtues.
Although refusal to participate in a war is its
occasion, NO DRUMS is really a film about the
dear price one must pay for adhering to one’s
principles. In this, it speaks to us all. (A-lll)
DEALING, OR THE BERKELEY-BOSTON
FORTY-BRICK LOST-BAG BLUES (Warner
Bros.) Long of title, short of insight, this
young-man-turned-drug-dealer flick exploits the
worst elements of the genre: numbskulled kids,
corrupt narcotics dicks, murderous gangsters,
super-sexed nymphets, raw language - you
name it. Robert F. Lyons herein stars as an
impoverished Harvard student “forced” into
dealing in order to get his playmate of the
month from Berkeley to Boston, the better to
form a meaningful interpersonal relationship.
Naturally, the narco cops bust the deal and
make off with the forty bricks (one-kilogram
packs) of marijuana, for recycling via the
underworld. And just as naturally, the kids have
to take lawlessness into their own hands. Here
is a film that respects no one, likes no one -
including those in the audience, who are
expected to believe in everything as “comedy”
with a bite. (C)
TOMORROW (Filmgroup Prod.) Based on a
vignette in a longer William Faulkner work, this
little film depicts the relationship of a lonely
delta man with a pregnant girl whose husband
has abandoned her. As warmth gradually enters
their lives, the first time for either, the two
(Robert Duvall and Olga Beilin) look toward
expanded horizons. But then death claims the
woman in childbirth, and her adoptive spouse is
left more desolated than before. A sensitive
film, tastefully drawn. TOMORROW requires a
patient audience. (A-ll)
THE RA EXPEDITIONS (Interwest Film
Corp.) Anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl provides
excitement for the public as he pursues his
scientific theories regarding ancient man's
intercontinental migrations. His famous
Kon-Tiki expedition “proved” the possibility of
early raft migration across the Pacific from
South America. The Ra expeditions, captured
in this absorbing film, trace the connection
between ancient Egyptian explorers and the
Western Hemisphere, via two papyrus rafts
name RA (the first one got soggy in mid-ocean,
because Heyerdahl ignored a significant design
aspect depicted in an original Egyptian
drawing). The best aspect of the film, especially
for younger viewers, is its “you are there”
quality. One of its ironic sidelights is the
discovery of vast floating pockets of
ocean-going pollution. Recommended film fare
for the whole family. (A-l)
RECENT FILM CLASSIFICATIONS
The RA Expeditions (Interwest Film Corp.)
« A-l
Without Apparent Motive (Fox) — A-lll
NAL Hits Emphasis On Schools
PHILADELPHIA (NC) - The National
Association of Laity (NAL) has called
upon the American Church to equalize
religious education opportunities and
dollars for all Catholics instead of
concentrating on parochial schools.
The independent lay association’s
“First Annual Report on Catholic
Schools” - released simultaneously here
and in 24 cities with NAL affiliates -
contends that 96 percent of church
education revenues go to the 4.4 million
of the nation’s Catholic children who are
in parochial schools.
The remaining 4 percent of the
revenues finance religious instructions
classes for some of the 7.6 million
Catholic children who attend public
schools, NAL said.
According to the report, 2.1 million
Catholic children in grades one through
12 are receiving no formal religious
instruction, meaning that they attend
neither Catholic schools nor
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
(CCD) classes.
NAL officials at a Feb. 25 news
conference here offered a Laity
Association counter plan -- a voucher
system for the religious instruction of
parochial school students, public School
students and adults.
Parish expenditures for all forms of
religious education should be added up
and combined to determine a
diocesan-wide total for education, the
NAL suggested, and the number of
Catholic children in a diocese should be
determined.
Diocesan educational resources should
be divided by the number of Catholic
children to establish a per-child
expenditure for religious education under
the NAL idea, a diocese would then issue
vouchers to Catholic parents -- equivalent
to that per-child expenditure -- and the
parents would present the vouchers to
their own parish or catechetical center.
The NAL said this would mean equal
resources would be allocated to a child’s
religious education, whether he w8a>«^
attending a Catholic school or a CCD
program, and whether he lived in a high
or low income parish. It recommended
that a similar plan be put into effect for
adult religious education.
NAL attorney Leo Jordan said the aim
of the voucher program would be “to
provide basic religious instruction for all
and then, if revenues allow, to permit the
luxury of Catholic schools.”
A spokesman for the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB)
in Washington said there had been no
chance to study the NAL report and th^t
the voucher plan seemed “overly*"*
simplistic.”
Fresno Says
Figures Wrong
FRESNO, Calif. (NC) - A charge that
the diocese of Fresno leads the nation in
neglecting the religious education of
Catholic children was labeled false by a
diocesan spokesman here.
The National Association of Laity’s
“First Annual Report on Catholic
Schools” accused the Fresno diocese of
not reaching some 66 percent of the
children through either parochial schools
or Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
(CCD) programs. The NAL report said
90,139 children from grades 1 through 12
are uninstructed Catholics in the diocese.
Not so, said Gerard E. Sherry,
managing editor of the Central California
Register, diocesan weekly newspaper, in a
statement issued for the chancery office.
entry on page 307 of the directory.
“Actually,” the diocesan spokesman
said, “figures given me by the diocesan
CCD office show that some 33 percent of
the Catholic children in the area are
uninstructed. While these figures are still
not as low as we would wish them to be,
they are half of what the NAL alleged
they were.”
“It’s a pity that such organizations do
not make their reports through checking
the local chancery offices, in order that
accuracy and truth can be fostered in the
dialogue within the Church,” Sherry
added. “Alas, the NAL seems hell-bent
for headlines at the expense of truth and
justice. What a way to run a dialogue.”
Using the 1971 Official Catholic
Directory and U.S. Census Bureau
statistics, the NAL report listed those
U.S. dioceses which it calculated have the,/*' 1
highest estimated percentage of children
not receiving religious instruction.
The top of the list, NAL said, is the
diocese of Fresno, Calif., with an
estimated 66 percent of Catholic children
receiving no religious instruction. A
Fresno diocesan spokesman denied the
charge, saying that the NAL estimate «$s
based on a typographical error whereby'"*
the Catholic Director listed the Catholic
population of the Fresno diocese at twice
its actual size.
Other dioceses rating low in the NAL
school report were Anchorage, Alaska,
with an estimated 63.1 percent ofy/
Catholic children receiving no religious
instruction; Brownsville, Tex. (53.2
percent); Miami, Fla. (52.5 percent);
Newark, N.J. (44.4 percent); and San
Francisco (43 percent).
He said the NAL used erroneous
figures from the general summary chart in
Kennedy’s Official Catholic Directory for
1971.
The summary contains a typographical
error in the diocesan statistics, showing a
Catholic population of 529,408 - almost
300,000 more than the correct figure of
259,408, Sherry said. He said the correct
figure appears in the Fresno diocesan
Rosemary Crist of Pittsburgh, Pa.,
NAL information officer, said the
Kennedy Directory is a “standard
resource book.” If the Catholic
population figure was a typographical
error, she said, “It’s up to Kennedy and
Fresno to straighten it out.”
“As a CCD teacher,” she added, “I’m
delighted that the percentage of
uninstructed children is not that high.”
RATING ADMINISTRATION CRITICIZED
T. Joseph O’Donoghue, a former priest
of the Washington archdiocese and NMj
executive director, termed the present**-*,
allocation of education funds “very
clearly discriminatory against the child
not attending Catholic school.”
The NAL did not indicate whether its
computations on children without^
religious instruction took into account'
parents who don’t bother to send
children to CCD classes, or children who
are enrolled but habitually absent.
Says Film Industry
Unable To Communicate
NEW YORK (NC) - The U.S. Catholic
Conference’s film and broadcasting office
here has described the American Film
industry as a communications entity with
no ability to communicate.
In the Feb. 29 issue of its Catholic
Film Newsletter, it criticized the Rating
Administration of the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA), which is
responsible for rating motion pictures
with letter-designated categories.
The categories are: G - General
audiences, all ages admitted; PG - Parental
guidance suggested; R - Restricted for
anyone under 17 unless accompanied by
an adult; and X - No one under 17
admitted.
The USCC Division for Film and
Broadcasting insisted that one of the
problems of the MPAA rating system is
the general public’s inability to
understand the meaning of it.
“One can legitimately ask, for
example, why several changes introduced
by the MPAA during the past nine
months in an effort to improve the
program and to create greater public
acceptance have been kept almost a
privileged secret limited only to narrow
channels of the trade press,” the division
threatened motion picture industry in the
United States.”
Without continued cooperation by the
National Association of Theatre Owners
(NATO) and the International Film
Importers and Film Distributors of
America (IFIDA), the MPAA is helpless,
it said.
The newsletter suggested that a special
board of directors be established for the
MPAA Rating Administration, and that
membership include not only
representatives from MPAA but also from
NATO and IFIDA.
“This board would be charged with
setting policy for the Rating
Administration and reviewing periodically
its performance. How else can the Rating
Program achieve credibility?”
“ .. .If at this late date the MPAA has
decided to speak directly to the public in
a clear and informative manner, it must
be willing to respond positively to the
serious problems that still remain a part
of the system,” the letter concluded.
A MISSIONARY SISTER FOR SO ,
YEARS: Sister Frances Bott, SSpS has,/’
spent 50 years as a missionary in New
Guinea. Photo was taken last year when
she celebrated her golden jubilee as a
religious. In referring to her long stay in
New Guinea, the 86-year old Missionary
said, “The people of New Guinea are my
people . . .Here I’ve lived and here I want
to die.” NC Photo.
T. V. MOVIES
said in its newsletter.
“Underlying the name game of the
symbols is obviously a much more
substantive issue - that of the meaning of
ratings themselves,” the newsletter said.
“It is self-defeating to assert that the
objective of this system is to furnish
parents with rating symbols for making
decisions about their children’s film fare
if the meaning of these symbols is not
determined upon and publicized.”
Unless the MPAA is able to “effect a
radical turnabout” in the workings of the
rating system, says the newsletter, the
question must be asked whether the
MPAA can do the job.
“Are, in fact, economic concerns, and
not a sense of social responsibility, the
sole motivating forces at work in the
rating system?” the newsletter asked.
“The crux of the problem may well be
the inability of the MPAA to represent
the fragmented and economically
SUNDAY, MARCH 12, and MONDAY,
MARCH 13, 9:00 p.m. (ABC) - LORD JIM
(1965) — Richard Brooks' screen adaptation of
Joseph Conrad novel makes its way into your
home in two parts on successive evenings.
Although falling short of being a great film, this
motion picture about a young man whose
compulsive drive to redeem himself in his own
eyes ends in failure is considerably worthwhile
from many standpoints. The adventure
elements of the film will be irresistible for most
viewers. The first part of the story is one of the
sea and it is filmed with feeling and beauty. The
last part is concerned with a native uprising
against a warlord and this provides exciting
heroics and imaginativy deeds of daring in the
Far East. The location shots add greatly to the
effective atmosphere. The film is made on a
grand scale and its color and large screen are
well adapted for such material. One of its joys
is the acting. Peter O’Toole cuts an
appropriately handsome figure although his
brand of underpaying tends toward monotony.
Paul Lukas cat.'ies well the burden of
motivating the last half of the film and brings
much distinction to his fatherly role as the
trader who tries to help Jim. Akim Tamiroff is
irrepressible as the sly, disreputable hotel
keeper. Daliah Lavi is beautiful as “The Girl”
but has little chance to display any other
talents. Acting honors must go to James Mason
in his brief but perfectly-realized role as
Gentleman Brown, a sadistic, Bible-reading,
professional cut-throat. Mason knows well how
to create and maintain the arresting image of an
incredible character that remains in the
memory long after much else of the moive is
forgotten. (A-ll)
TUESDAY, MARCH 14, and WEDNESDAY,
MARCH 15, 8:00-8:30 p.m. (NBC) - WEST
SIDE STORY (1961) - Another big two-parter, y
this one the rousing Jerome Robbins’ musical
with music by Leonard Bernstein. The story is a
contemporary, inner-city adaptation of the
classic Romeo and Juliet theme, with Richard
Beymer and Natalie Wood ad Tony and Maria,
the star-crossed lovers, set apart ethnically and
by their opposing street gang backgrounds. Set
in New York’s upper West Side, the film
captures the grit of life in the city's lower
depths, with glimmers of hope and elements of
tragedy in a delicate balance. The songs and the
dance numbers, of course, are the selling card,
and in terms of its energy and verve, tbe movTSK..^
is among the very best. Rita Moreno is the
standout here, and won an Academy Award for
her performance (one of ten Oscars given the
film). Some of the social issues, relationships,
and street language, however, require a fairly
mature sensibility on the part of the viewer.
(A-lll)
THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 9:00 p.m. (CBS)
- RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE (1961) --
This further saga of life and love in a small Ne
England town stars Carol Lynley, Jeff
Chandler, Eleanor Parker, and Mary Astor. The
initial plot device is the publication of a book
that reveals the secrets of leading citizens of the
town. Jose Ferrer (better known for his work as
an actor) was director of this sudsy sequel.
(A-lll)
SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 8:30 p.m. (A6C)
-- SUDDENLY SINGLE - Repeat of a pallid
made-for-television feature, starring Hat
Holbrook, Barbara Rush, Margot Kidder, and
Agnes Moorehead. The movie's theme deals
with a middleaged businessman’s uneasy
adjustment after his divorce. The distasteful
question asked is, will he or won’t he join the
“swinging singles” scene? Do you really care?