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PAGE 6 - November 23,1972
LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
DIALOGUE
I. Are you optimistic about the way that things are going?
II. No, I never, ever think of it at all.
I. Don’t you ever worry when you see what’s going down?
II. Well, I try to mind my business that is no business at all.
I. When it’s time to function as a feeling human being will your
Bachelor of Arts help you get by?
II. I want to study further, a few more years or so, I also hope
to keep a steady high.
I. Will you try to change things; is the power that you have,
the power of a million new ideas?
II. What is this power you speak of and the need for things to
change? I always thought that everything was fine; everything is fine.
I. Don’t you feel repression, they close you in around.
II. Oh, the campus here is very, very free.
I. Don’t it make you angry where war is dragging on?
II. Well, I hope the President knows what he’s into, I don’t know,
I just don’t know.
I. Don’t you see starvation in the city where you live, all the
needless hunger all the needless pain.
II. Oh, I haven’t been thru lately, the country is so fine. My
neighbors don’t seem hungry ’cause they haven’t got the time,
haven’t got the time.
I. Thank you for the talk, you know you really eased my mind, I
was troubled by the shape of things to come.
II. Well, if you had my outlook, your feelings would be dull,
you’d always think that everything was fine, everything was
fine.
All: We can make it better ...
We can change the world now . ..
We can save the children ...
We can make it happen . ..
We can save the children . . .
We can make it happen .. .
We can make it hap—. by R. Lamm
(c C.B.S. Inc.)
Maybe it’s the excitement of the election campaigning or maybe it’s just a
fresh look around but something has changed the view and the mood of
“Chicago.” The light-heartedness and frivolity of their last hit “Saturday in the
Park” has given way to some slightly depressing social commentary in
“Dialogue.” Their approach is new with a question and answer exchange. Their
topic is new, as well, since it deals, not with the problems themselves but with
people who face them, or do not face them as in this song.
Not too many years ago college campuses were the heartbeat of American
idealism and the country’s moral conscience. “Chicago” seems to imply that the
campus idealists have sold out on their enthusiasm and have been swallowed up
by what they were fighting. Problems aren’t a problem anymore since they
“never, ever think of it at all.”
As persons they have sold out since their closest resemblance to a “feeling
human being” is to “keep a steady high.” Their personal goals are also lost since
instead of a degree they simply “want to study further, a few more years or so,”
a thing to do to pass the time.
There is no sense of mission among those the song depicts because they see no
“power in a million new ideas.” In the midst of all the confusion they can look
around to see only that “everything is fine.”
The war poses no threat because the President has the total responsibility for
that. “I hope the President knows what he’s into, I don’t know.”
m*m y
A VARIETY OF PUBLICATIONS is represented by signs on chairs in the press section left the area. Wire services, national magazines, daily newspapers, Catholic newspapers
of the hall in which the U.S. bishops met last week. Reporter Gerard A. Perseghin and other publications covered the meeting. (NC Photo)
of the Catholic Review in Baltimore, Md., checks his notes after other newsmen have
Majority in Anglican Synod Favor Ordination of Women
BY ERNEST OSTRO
LONDON (NC) - Women should be
qualified for ordination as Anglican
priests, a majority of the Church of
England synod meeting here has
indicated.
The synod - consisting of some 30
Anglican bishops meeting together with
200 of its priests and elected
representatives of the laity - voted to ask
the British Parliament to give it the power
to order its own doctrines and
worshippers.
Ever since the early 1500s, when
Henry VIII broke with Rome, Parliament
has had the final say on Anglican liturgy.
really a God-given justification for this
discrimination, and Archbishop Donald
Goggan of York.
Archbishop Coggan gently rebuked
those who quoted biblical texts and
ignored the difference between the world
of the first century in the Middle East
and the world of the 20th century in
which they live. They had avoided the
issue long enough, he said.
O.H.W. Clark of Southwark, London,
said that for women to be priests is
unsuitable because God chose to be born
a man.
But the ordination of women is
without question the synod’s major - and
most difficult - issue. The sessions have
been punctuated with numerous calls for
calm discussion of this question and pleas
not to confuse women’s ordination with
women’s lib.
Although a majority of the synod
appears to favor ordination of women the
issue is a sharply controversial one.
Prebendary (honoary canon) Henry
Cooper said that the ministry was Christ’s
gift to the Church and he certainly chose
no woman. “I could not serve . . .in the
province of Canterbury,” he said, “if the
archbishop started to ordain women,
which I am sure he will not. I should have
to resign my holy orders.”
Bishop Leslie Brown of St.
Edmundsbury and Ipswich became the
first of many in favor of opening the
doors to women. He emphasized that the
reason for ordaining must be theological
- because the synod members believe that
God is giving them insights into the
meaning of the new humanity in Christ.
It would be wrong and insulting to ordain
women only because they could not get
enough men, he said.
Mrs. U. Spencer Ellis of Carlisle was
one of two women to speak against the
idea of priests of her own sex. She said
she thinks it blasphemous to suggest that
Jesus, if born in a different age, would
have acted differently.
The synod held back, however, from
asking for total control over the church’s
patterns of worship. It proposed leaving
Parliament with residual control over the
venerable Book of Common Prayer which
dates from 1662.
Film Classifications
The lack of concern that the song describes goes beyond personal ideals and
has its effect on others as well. What does it matter that there is “starvation in
the city where you live.” “The neighbors don’t seem hungry ’cause they haven’t
got the time.”
All of this apathy may not be true for all young people but it certainly is
evident in some. What is the real tragedy is that it is contagious. “Thank you for
the talk, you know you really eased my mind.” Easing minds by saying
“everything is fine” is hardly to face the issue. With that “outlook” the feeling of
being fine will end just as abruptly as the song. Apathy “can make it hap—.”
(All correspondence should be directed to: The Dameans, St. Joseph’s Church, 216
Patton Avenue, Post Office Box 5188, Shreveport, Louisiana 71105)
The Church of England has recently
become more anxious for greater
independence and self-government. An
official commission proposed in 1970
that Parliament’s control over the church
be sharply curtailed, while at the same
time preserving the historic relationship
between the Church of England and the
English monarchy.
Supporting the claim of women in the
priesthood were: Bishop A.J. Trillo of
Chelmsford, Mrs. Betty Ridley of
London, who questioned whether there is
‘Must Sometimes Say No to Science
BY JAMES BREIG
ALBANY, N.Y. (NC) - Moral
theologians must say ‘no’ to some
scientific research, Father Charles Curran
told students at Siena College here.
Father Curran, a moral theologian at
the Catholic University of America,
Washington, D.C., warned that people “so
often get lulled to sleep” by reports of
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26 - 9:00 p.m.
(ABC) -- ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE
WEST (1969) -- Any movie with as plainly
mythic a title as that can’t be all bad. And
this one, starring Henry Fonda, Claudia
Cardinale, and Jason Robards really isn’t. The
plot of the Sergio Leone “pasta” Western is
mighty thin, but the foolish action involving
outlaw Fonda’s pursuit of another outlaw is
full of hokum and played for campy laughs.
Fair adult entertainment. (A-ill)
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27 - 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) -- THE PRIVATE NAVY OF SGT.
O’FARRELL (1968) -- Patchy Bob Hope -
Phyllis Diller comedy set on a Pacific island
during World War II. As O’Farrell, Hope
manages to forget his old romance with Maria
(Gina Lollobrigida) while raising morale on an
Army-Navy base. He locates a lost cargo of
beer and makes friends with a stray Nisei
soldier (Mako), but his plan to provide
feminine atmosphere goes awry when
incoming nurses turn to be all male but for
Miss Diller. Japanese subtitles on an enemy
submarine sequence and a parody of the
Lancaster-Kerr beach embrace in From Here
to Eternity (Gina turns up in time to play
Deborah) highlight an otherwise so-so
production that is obviously part beer
commercial. (A-ll)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 - 8:30 p.m.
(NBC) -- HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS -
Original 90-minute TV feature about a man
who is convinced that his wife is poisoning
him by slow degrees. And whom does he have
for help? Only his four estranged daughters.
Hmmm. Walter Brennan is dear old dying dad,
Julie Harris is the lethal cuisiniere, and Sally
Field, Jessica Waiter, Eleanor Parker, and Jill
Haworth are his not-quite-devoted daughters,
although they’re all darling in this routine TV
chiller.
9:30 p.m. (CBS) - PRETTY POISON
(1968) - An “interesting failure” of a
psychological-terror flick that probably will
be less interesting on the small home tube
than it was in the original screen presentation.
The story, one of mad-youth run murderously
amok, is of routine interest, but the subtle
and chilling characterizations by Anthony
Perkins as a crazed killer and Tuesday Weld as
the perverse teen-age numph who “inspires
him, are quite remarkable. (A-lll)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29 - 8:30
p.m. (ABC) -- THE HEIST -- Original TV
feature does what the title sez, as bankroll -
carrying armored truck guard Christopher
George gets himself implicated in a complex
scientific research that the results could
be “horrendous.”
Reflecting on genetic research in
particular, Father Curran, who is also a
research scholar at the Kennedy Institute
for Bio-Ethics in Washington, said there
are serious questions to be asked of
science by moral theologians. Central
payroll robbery scheme and then -- surprise! --
has a tough time explaining his innocence.
Howard Duff is good in a role he can do in his
sleep, that of a tough investigating cop.
8:30 p.m. (NBC) - THE MAN WHO CAME
TO DINNER -- A fine tapped-drama greeting
from the Hallmark Hall of Fame. This is an
engaging if not quite superb adaptation of the
Kaufman-Hart stage comedy, starring Orson
Welles, Lee Remick, Joan Collins. The plot,
such as it is, has Welles as a pompous culture
maven-author taking a tumble on the steps of
your average middle-class American home and
then insisting that the family take him in until
he recovers. Those were the days before
instant lawsuits, and what fun they were!
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30 - 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) -- BANDOLERO! (1968) - Uneven
Western starring Jimmy Stewart and Dean
Martin as brothers going through life on the
shady side after a dirt poor start, finally
redeeming, themselves in a battle against
Mexican cutthroats. First part is the best, in
which Stewart poses as the hangman who was
to execute brother Dee and his gang, helps
them escape, robs a bank and joins their dash
for the border. Racquel Welch is Maria,
another loser who winds up with the sturdy
sheriff (George Kennedy), and Andrew Prine
is very good as his deputy. Interesting
characters, some sly anti-hanging humor and
refreshing attention to the proper treatment
of women are among the high points, but
questionable language and an excess of
violence toward the finale place the film off
limits for a wider audience. (A-lll)
FRI DAY, DECEMBER 1 - 9:00 p.m. (CBS)
-- THE CHAIRMAN (1969) - Gregory Peck
stars in a targe-scaled dramatic
“entertainment” drawing its gasps from the
star’s involvement in the Cold War via a
mysterious association with the Red Chinese.
With State Department approval, Peck accepts
a Chinese offer to visit China on a
scientific-cultural mission, but is first trained
and even "bugged” (a pill-size radio and
recording device is implanted in his skull, no
less) to gather scientific data from his
“unsuspecting” hosts (heh, heh). Pretty good
entertainment for interested adults. (A-lll)
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 - 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) -- THE JUDGE AND JAKE WYLER -
Two-hour TV detective melodrama requires
absolute suspension of your disbelief as Bette
Davis, a retired judge (!), opens a detective
agency and gets embroiled in her first murder
case. Utterly preposterous timewaster.
among them was whether “we should
ever say no to science and technology.”
“I affirm very firmly,” he stated, “that
we must say no in some cases because the
scientific perspective is not as broad as
the human perspective.”
While not attacking all scientific
research, Father Curran charged that
“some scientists are too utopian, thinking
that science will solve all our problems.
They forget the limits and sinfulness of
man, which no science can overcome.”
That sinfulness, the theologian implied,
calls into question man’s ability to govern
his evolutionary future through genetic
engineering.
“Is man wise enough to direct his own
future?” he asked, adding that experience
indicates he is not. “There have been
horrendous mistakes in the past, such as
urban planning and the use of the
environment.
Projecting such possibilities as test-tube
babies, Father Curran questioned
science’s attitude toward man.
“Science considers man as a maker
who can discard what he does not use,”
he explained. “Ethics sees other
considerations. Science is sometimes
totally utilitarian and manipulates people.
Some scientists believe we give
importance to people only insofar as
what they do, make or accomplish. But
the dignity of the individual is
independent of these considerations. We
have the duty to respect the equal dignity
of all men.”
This ethical view, he said, challenges
science with such questions as “what do
we do with the mistakes in genetic
research?” and “what right to we have to
experiment on humans?”
To meet these problems, Father Curran
suggested that moral theology and
Christian ethics should “not be tied to
the past nor merely baptize the present,
but should be critical.” He also urged that
moral theology come to grips with the
problem of the individual versus the
community.
TV Movies
A — Section I — Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage
A — Section II — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Adolescents
A — Section III — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults
A — Section IV — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Reservations
B — Morally Objectionable in Part for All
C — Condemned
WEDNESDAY’S CHILD (Cinema 5) ...
Haunting, intense examination of mental
breakdown. Director Ken Loach’s third film
continues his theme of the soul-shattering
forms of repression English society is capable
of imposing upon the young within the
British working class. In POOR COW (1968)
Loach concerned himself with the plight of a
lower-class girl who marries too young as an
escape, and the disasters that befall her as the
result of her involvements with several young
men who turn to petty thievery to survive.
KES (1970), an eminently more successful
film, dealt with a rural youngster in a
Yorkshire mining town who finds his present
and future hemmed in by a school system and
a job market that offer no possibilities for a
choice or fulfillment, a life counterpointed
beautifully by the boy’s relation with a pet
falcon he refuses to tame. Loach’s most
ambitious film to date, WEDNESDAY’S
CHILD, focuses upon the gradual psychic
destruction of a young woman by her
repressive working-class parents and by the
behaviorists’ theories practiced on her in a
government-run mental hospital.
In what is essentially a socio-psychological
study of the family today and a government
hospital system, one simply cannot accept the
film’s premises regarding the forces that
shaped this girl’s life, the blanket approval of
the permissive group therapist’s approach (as
developed by R.D. Laing), the stern
indictment of any form of electro-shock
therapy in the treatment of schizophrenia, or,
for that matter, the almost categorical naivete
displayed by the director of a psychiatric
hospital who can accept without question the
diagnosis two obviously erratic parents offer
in explanation of their daughter’s state. And
to the extend that WEDNESDAY’S CHILD
suggests that madness is indeed a form of
sanity in our society which itself is mad,
Loach’s film poses questions considerably
beyond its ability to handle.
Putting aside these admittedly basic issues,
one must recognize that Loach has
nonetheless made a thoroughly gripping film
which continually strikes painful sparks of
recognition in the viewer. As the parents, Bill
Dean and Grace Cave (an untrained London
housewife) inhabit their roles with a verity
that twists the initial humor of their
idiosyncrasies — their prejudices, dogmatism,
assumed gentility, puritanical sexual attitudes,
class conformity - into a terrible absolutism
which visibly crushes their daughter. In the
role of Janice, newcomer Sandy Ratcliff
eerily recreates the gradual descent into
catatonia of a young woman totally unable to
cope with her surroundings. The events of the
film are all shatteringly believable episodes in
the process of psychic deterioration.
Ken Loach is undeniably one of England’s
most gifted craftsmen of the
semi-documentary form. His notable ability
to recreate a complex series of family
relationships and a total environment in
which all these influences interact to form a
full-dimensional whole is again evident in
WEDNESDAY’S CHILD. What is perhaps
most interesting here is that Loach’s theme,
the effect of environment upon the formation
of personality and upon psychic health,
emerges beautifully from the form as well as
the content of his film. The result, on the
immediate human level, is a plea for respect
for the individuality of the person that is a
powerfully moving, incontrovertible
statement. (A-lll)
THE DEADLY TRAP (National
General) . . . Faye Dunaway in a
fair-to-middling French psycho-suspense flick.
Rene Clement has a solid record of
achievement both in France and in the U.S. in
the genre of the suspense drama. From
PURPLE NOON (1961) up through RIDER
ON THE RAIN (1970) -- a number of his
films have never been released here -- Clement
has displayed a remarkable ability to integrate
mood, character and incident into a single
whole designed to create that elusive emotion
of fearful, delicious anticipation which is at
the core of the murder suspense film. At their
best Clement’s films suggest a complexity of
character and motive which; except in the
case of Chabrol, one has no right to expect of
this genre. Of this entire group of Clement’s
films THE DEADLY TRAP is certainly the
least successful. Whatever the reasons, the
result is that most disappointing of failures,
an unsuspenseful suspense melodrama.
Frank Langella and Faye Dunaway are a
married couple living in Paris where he works
as a mathematician for an industrial
engineering firm, and she spends her time,
when not looking after their two precocious
youngsters, is sessions at the analyst’s. Faye
keeps forgetting things - appointments, keys
in the front door, pills left within reach of the
children — and we wonder, naturally, whether
perhaps her uneasy marital relations are not
indicative of some serious psychic
disturbance. When the children suddenly
disappear practically from within sight of
their mother, the police suggest that Faye
may be responsible, supposing her jelousy at
what MAY be a case of a husband’s
philandering. What is, of course, behind the
disappearance we know from the outset:
Langella, tapped once in the past by “The
Organization” for secret engineering data, has
been made another “offer” which he refuses
even when the safety of his family is
threatened.
Any film that begins by spilling the beans is
in serious trouble. The effect in TRAP is
simply to dispel any likely potential for
suspense. The difficulty is further
compounded by Clement’s portrayal of the
children, two bratty youngsters who are
allowed such license as covering their
mother’s eyes while she drives down a Parisian
boulevard or rolling a hoop across a busy city
intersection. Much turns on the viewer’s
sympathetic identification with the plight of
poor Faye — is she mad or simply put upon by
the children and that girl downstairs (Barbara
Parkins) who may be employed by the mob?
Unfortunately, such silly characterizations
and incidents lead one to begin questioning
the film’s premises; if Faye is not a little mad,
she should be.
With such basic inconsistencies and
pointless red herrings, THE DEADLY TRAP
retains little to recommend it. Paris, as
always, provides a beautiful setting and Faye
Dunaway, at another time in a better film,
should make an extraordinarily convincing
schizophrenic. (A-ll)
SAVAGE MESSIAH (MGM) Flamboyant
British film director Ken Russell strikes near
the middle ground in this immensely flawed
but very intriguing “biography” of a young
Anglo-French sculptor. The main burden of
the film lies in delineating the young man’s
platonic love for an older woman who not
only loves him in return but manages to keep
his excessive spirit in check in order that he
develop his artistic skills Performances by
Scott Anthony and Dorothy Tutin are
excellent, but a vulgar nightclub scene and
one involving a naked, Reubenesque model
mar the production in typical Russell style.
(A-l V)
THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS
(Columbia) After scoring two years ago with
FIVE EASY PIECES, director Bob Rafelson
comes down hard with his latest film — a
grossly pretentious allegory about two lost
(and long-lost) brothers stuck in wintry
Atlantic City, N.J., with a message in
bold-face capital letters that shout “Life is a
Big Monopoly Game.” Jack Nicholson and
Bruce Dern are the brothers, the one a
late-night radio monologist and the other a
two-bit Boardwalk hustler. Neither seems to
know what he’s doing in life -- or doing in the
movie, for that matter. Ellen Burstyn as one
of Dern’s current girlfriends is the film’s only
bright spot, and even her role is a thankless
one. The net result is a gloomy, depressing
and banal exercise in hollow film
manufacturing. (A-IV)
CRESCENDO (Warners) A horror
melodrama with a contemporary setting, this
1969 Hammer production directed by Alan
Gibson and starring Stefanie Powers and
James Olson has its moments but is, on the
whole, pretty much a wasted effort. Graduate
student Powers is invited by the widow
(Margaretta Scott) of a world-famous
composer to visit her estate while writing her
thesis on the musician. Miss Powers soon
discovers herself in the middle of some very
kinky goings-on that seem to involve at first
the widow’s attempt to match her up with
invalid son Olson. Between fantasy dreams of
a past love affair with a woman much
resembling Miss Powers, Olson is into heavy
drugs administered by sexy maid Jane
Lapotairie. Miss Powers’ midnight ramblings
about the house turn up (a) a mysterious
presence who gives candlelight concerts of the
maestro's music and (b) a mutilated
mannequin that looks like — you guessed it —
that dream woman. Unfortunately Gibson
never manages to master the crescendo of the
title in his climax -- mostly due to the fact
that his screenplay (by James Sangster and
Alfred Shaughnessy) simply hits too many
false notes -- not the least of which is a
pervasive offbeat emphasis on his characters’
sexual involvements. (A-lll)
LADY SINGS THE BLUES (Paramount) is
allegedly based on the autobiography of Bllie
Holiday, but from the movie you could never
tell why Lady Day sang the blues with all that
pain in her voice. Billie lived hard, and she
certainly got back her lumps - and at least the
film admits THAT much. But it does not say
anything straight. Rather, it reduces Billie
Holiday’s tragic life to a lamentable series of
cliches, stereotypes and cheap
movie-biography soap operatics. Director
Sidney J. Furie does not help much by
indulging in a variety of styles that range from
the Amos ‘n’ Andy level on up (or down) to
Super Fly. The result is an ill-conceived
musical “tragedy” that comes off as a sort of
Rhapsody in Chocolate. Yet LADY is worth
seeing because it offers, in spite of itself, a
performance that is truly and unexpectedly
remarkable and fine. As Billie, Diana Ross
(formerly leader of the Supremes soul-singing
group) not only manages to keep up with
Furie’s wildly erratic shifting of styles, but
she succeeds in rising above the production to
create her own vehicle, full of subtlety,
genuine emotion, and daring interpretation.
Her impressions (never impersonations) of the
many Billie Holiday standards are superb, and
she makes the surrounding context of rough
language and seamy situations almost
bearable. (A-IV)
RECENT FILM CLASSIFICATIONS
The Great Waltz (MGM) - A-ll
Escape to the Sun (Cinevision) -- A-lll
The Valachi Papers (Columbia) -- A-IV
Female Response (AIP) - C