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PAGE 6-April 19,1973
LIFE IN MUSIC
By The Dameans
TIE A YELLOW RIBBON
ROUND THE OLE OAK TREE
I’m coming home I’ve done my time
Now I’ve got to know what is and isn’t mine
If you received my letter telling you I’d soon be free
Then you’ll know just what to do if you still want me.
CHORUS: Tie a yellow ribbon round the ole oak tree
It’s been three long years do you still want me?
If I don’t see a ribbon round the ole oak tree
I’ll stay on the bus, forget about us, put the blame on me
If I don’t see a yellow ribbon round the ole oak tree.
Bus driver please look for me cause I couldn’t bear to see what I might see
I’m really still in prison and my love she holds the key
A simple yellow ribbon’s what I need to set me free.
I wrote and told her please.
CHORUS: Now the whole damn bus is cheering and I can’t believe I see
A hundred yellow ribbons, round the ole oak tree,
I’m coming home.
By Irwin Levine and Russell Brown
(c) Perception Records, Inc.)
Dawn and Tony Orlando’s latest hit is a light tune about a prisoner who
returns home after three years of separation from his girl. He is unsure whether
she still wants him and asks for the single yellow ribbon as a sign. She has waited
patiently and welcomes her love home with a tree full of yellow ribbons.
Probably the first situation “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Ole Oak Tree”
suggests is the recent release of the captive American P.O.W.’s. Who couldn’t
help being overwhelmed and thankful as our returning men were re-introduced
to us one by one on nationwide T.V.? Our prayers had been answered right
before our eyes.
There is another situation which this timely tune suggests, one which is less
glamorous than the reutrn of heroes from war. It is rather the story of a former
convict returning home after a three-year prison term and sources indicate that
this is the original meaning of the song.
Not only does the song now lose its glamorous appeal but it even begins to
make us feel a little uncomfortable as we sense something unreal about it. This is
no Johnny-come-marching home hero but a man convicted of a crime and how
many former convicts could really come home to a song like this? All of a
sudden the song comes off a little flat.
When you look around it doesn’t take long to realize the sad state of many
prisons across the country. Far from being centers of rehabilitation for men and
women, they tend at times to become breeders of hardened hearts and schools
for more efficient criminal methods. This is not to blame prison wardens and
their staffs but to point a finger where it belongs, at ourselves, for together we
have neglected this segment of our society.
I try to avoid the blame by saying most of them belong locked up, but then
some of them are held only because they can’t come up with bond money and
they wait months, side by side with the convicted, to come to trial. Then I say
they’re nothing but animals, but if you subject a man long enough to sub-human
living conditions should you be surprised at all if he acts like what you’ve treated
him? Finally I convince myself that some will never be able to return to society
but then Jesus says I’ve even got to visit them.
I guess of all the things Jesus said, that troubles me the most. I can love an
enemy quicker than I can bring myself to face a prisoner whose very life accuses
me of not caring as I should.
It’s easier to get caught up in the excitement of the returning P.O.W.’s than to
confront such a touchy issue which is with us every day. We couldn’t do
anything about the P.O.W.’s except to pray and to wear bracelets as signs of our
support and prayers. It’s easier to pray for someone far away than to spend a
little effort for those in prison.
If “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” reminds you of the joy of the returning prisoners of
war, that’s OK. But if you flee the more tragic issue of other prisoners, that’s
bad. Personally I’d rather be the prisoner of an enemy than the prisoner of a
society that refused to care. I don’t look forward to Jesus numbering me among
the goats becuase I refused to recognize him in the least of his brethren.
TV Movies
MONDAY, APRIL 23 —9:00 p.m. (ABC)
- THE BLISS OF MRS. BLOSSOM (1968) -
Shirley MacLaine plays housewife with a
devoted husband (Richard Attenborough)
while keeping a male admirer (James Booth)
in the attic. This may or may not be the
romantic daydream of all housewives but it is
a gimmick that has a lot of comic possibility.
Though broadly exaggerated in treatment
which keeps the questionable shenanigans
within the bounds of adult good taste, the
basic material will not appeal to everyone.
(A-lll)
9:00 p.m. (NBC) - THE LOVES OF
ISADORA (1969), Part I -- Spectacular and
strangely poignant “biography" of Isadora
Duncan, one of modern dance’s most daring
pioneers and free spirits. Emphasis is on the
colorful (and ultimately tragic) career of the
woman, with special focus on her vigorous and
unorthodox romantic life. Vanessa Redgrave
is in the title role, and her dancing is
surprisingly graceful and appealing. Be
prepared for some frank dialogue and visuals,
although much has undoubtedly been
trimmed for TV presentation. Part II will be
shown Tuesday, April 24, at 8:00 p.m. (A-lll)
TUESDAY, APRIL 24 — 8:00 p.m. (NBC)
-- THE LOVES OF ISADORA (1969), Part II
-- (See description for Monday, April 23.)
SATURDAY, APRIL 28 — 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) -- THE GROUP (1966) - The popular,
semi-sensational novel by Mary McCarthy is
brought pantingly to the screen as the private
lives of eight Vassar girls are revealed before
your very eyes! Seriously the film capitalizes
on the comeliness of its principals,
particularly Candice Bergen, Elizabeth
Hartman and Joanna Pettet, to the detriment
of real dramatic interest and human values.
Emphasis is on the young ladies’ sexual
proclivities as they pursue husbands and
careers in the Thirties. (B)
Of Special Interest
Network Television Programs of special
interest (Week of April 22-28) are:
EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 22 — 8:00
p.m. (ABC) -- PORTRAIT: A MAN WHOSE
NAME WAS JOHN -- Raymond Burr stars in a
special dramatic presentation based on a true
incident in the life of Angelo Roncalli, the
man who later became Pope John XXIII. The
incident occurred in 1942, during the height
of World War II, when then-Cardinal Roncalli
was Papal Nuncio to Turkey, at the time a
neutral nation. A ship full of Jewish refugee
children arrived in a Turkish port, and
Roncalli was drawn into the intense human
drama focusing on the children’s fate. The
German ambassador to Turkey demanded
that the ship be turned over to the Axis
powers. Roncalli intervened on behalf of the
children, and his ingenious, courageous action
is credited with saving their lives. The drama
is full of tension and deep human feeling —
and Burr is at his best in a thoughtful,
revealing portrait of A MAN WHOSE NAME
WAS JOHN.
TUESDAY, APRIL 24 — 8:30 p.m. (ABC)
- THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY - Here
is Edward Everett Hale’s classic moral tale
about a young American Army officer who
renounced his country and lived a lifetime of
regret because of it, with Cliff Robertson in
the title role as Philip Nolan. In the fictional
account of a highly believed incident set not
long after the Revolutionary War, Nolan is
tried by a court martial for conspiracy in
Aaron Burr’s plot in 1805. Out of frustration
Nolan damns the United States, saying, “I
hope never to hear the name the United
States again" -- and thereby creating the terms
of his own sentence following the guilty
verdict. Noland spends the rest of his life on
U.S. naval ships, being transferred from one
to another for sixty years, never even entering
U.S. territorial waters, much less glimpsing
the land he came so painfully to love above all
else. The TV adaptation injects several
all-too-contemporary references, and some of
the acting (by Cliff Robertson, surprisingly,
and Beau Bridges as a young officer who
befriends him) is not quite up to snuff. But
the drama and its theme of deep patriotism
are striking and quite moving, making THE
MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY worth your
time. Recommended for parents and older
school children.
9:30 p.m. (CBS) - THE LIE - This is a
major event for film buffs in general and for
those who have followed the occasionally
mystifying course director-writer Inmar
Bergman’s creative work has taken. THE LIE,
a drama about an affluent suburban couple
undergoing a crisis in their lives together, is
Bergman’s first entry into television via his
own tele-script (Alex Segal directs). The play
stars George Segal and is sub-titled “A Tragic
Comedy about Banality” -- which is about all
the information we have on this Playhouse/90
presentation at press time. For discriminating
adults THE LIE might pay off with 90
minutes of sophisticated television, but the
casual TV viewer should probably be on
guard.
Lenten Series-Justice in the World
“ ‘THE POOR YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE WITH YOU.’ Jesus said it,
so it must be true. All too often, this quotation comes to mind,
subconsciously justifying poverty in our midst.” Clothespoles, reminiscent
of crosses, line the yards of a poor neighborhood in Washington, D.C. (NC
Photo courtesy Office of Economic Opportunity)
BY JAMES R. JENNINGS
Associate Director
USCC Division
of Justice and Peace
“The poor you will always have with
you.” Jesus said it, so it must be true.
All too often, this quotation comes to
mind, subconsciously justifying poverty
in our midst.
In acknowledging the persistence of
poverty, Jesus was merely paraphrasing
the Hebrews’ view of reality, reflected
in their ancient Law books. The
Hebrews realized that, in the normal
course of human affairs, some persons
fared better than others. Deuteronomy
15, repeated in Exodus, suggests a
certain inevitability about the resultant
imbalance.
Acknowledging that the human
condition is flawed by sin, the Hebrews
believed that it was possible, through
God’s liberating action, for persons to
know a better life, dependent ultimately
upon the coming of the Messiah. The
Jews, therefore, were commanded, IN
JUSTICE, to rebalance the scale every
seven years. A kind of amnesty for
debtors was declared: creditors were to
excuse debtors; slaveholders free their
slaves and give them generous
emancipation bonuses; landowners
make their holdings available to those
who were propertyless.
This idealistic Hebrew legislation
reflected their memory of ancient Israel,
a Third World perspective of a people
once oppressed in slave camps,
exploited and dominated. The Lord,
their God, repeatedly reminded them
that “you too were once slaves in the
land of Egypt and your God ransomed
you.” This response to the poor was a
demand in and for justice. To be born in
Pharoah’s slave camp was an accident of
birth, not a matter of choice.
At the 1971 Roman Synod, the
Bishops spoke about the great number
of “marginal” persons today-ill-fed,
inhumanly housed, illiterate and
deprived of political power-not unlike
the poor of ancient Israel. Today’s
appalling conditions demand a response
characterized and shaped by a sense of
justice.
But who will declare a seventh-year
amnesty? Where shall we look for a
Messiah? Several current developments
give direction for American Catholics to
take unconventional, but realistic, steps
to right the wrongs of our sinful times:
-The World Council of Churches, in
1970, began disbursing funds to
organizations struggling for racial justice
in various parts of the world. According
to Fund headquarters at 475 Riverside
Drive in New York City, funds are
directed to “those places where the
struggle is most intensive and where a
grant might make a substantial
contribution to the process of
liberation.”
Among the agencies receiving funds
are an Australian group defending the
rights of aborigines, a politically active
Japanese group dedicated to protecting
minority rights of Korean and Chinese
immigrants to Japan; and
anti-racist-colonialist movements in
South Africa and Mozambique. Despite
some reactionary charges, (for example,
that it is communist-infiltrated), the
program receives increasing financial
support from Christians around the
world, including some American
Catholics.
-A group of U.S. missioners in Chile
recently addressed a public letter “to
the Leadership of the Christian Church
in the United States.” The letter reflects
the Third Worlders’ perspective that
Latin America’s development and
liberation is dependent upon decisions
made by the United States and other
First World nations. The missioners call
upon American Christians to re-examine
the nature of their commitment to the
“missions.”
Many of the U.S. funds sent to
missionary fields, the missioners claim,
are counterproductive because they
perpetuate dependency and often
reenforce a repressive status quo in the
Third World. They propose that some of
the funds raised in the United States for
the so-called “missions,” be allocated
for strategic actions-education for
liberation AMONG U.S. CHRISTIANS.
Reallocating funds in this way does
not deny the needs in the mission fields.
Rather, it affirms that many of the
problems of oppressed peoples can be
attributed to certain unjust policies in
the mission-sending nations, particularly
U.S. overseas investment policies.
Money used to effect changes in these
policies is, then, money well spent.
-The use of stock proxies to effect
justice is gaining increasing support
among churchgoers. In his encyclical,
“The Development of Peoples,” Pope
Paul VI expressed concern that private
overseas investors do not act as socially
responsible in Third World nations as
they do in First World countreis.
Persons or institutions owning stock in
major corporations with overseas
investments are encouraged to exercise
the right-responsibility implicit in stock
ownership to change unjust corporate
practices. Details of this form of
Christian response in justice can be
obtained from the Corporate
Information Center in New York City.
Charity is an appropriate response to
such calamities as floods or
earthquakes-disasters we ascribe as
“acts of God.” However, it is
inappropriate, no matter how
well-intentioned, as a response to the
extraordinarily imbalanced distribution
of power and wealth. The de-human
consequences of unjust systems and
structures are primarily the acts of man,
and their right-ing awaits man’s just
actions.
Film Classifications
A — Section I — Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage
A — Section 0 — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Adolescents
A — Section M — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults
A — Section IV — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Reservations
B — Morally Objectionable in Part for All
C — Condemned
BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON
(Paramount) ... St. Francis story done up as
romantic youth film. — Movies about saints
have rarely tried to be anything more than
inspirational entertainments. Those few which
have attempted realistic rather than idealized
pictures of saintliness (Carl Dreyer’s JOAN
OF ARC as contrasted with Victor Fleming’s
JOAN) have made the road to perfection
seem rather difficult and somewhat less than
appealing. The exception to this is the film
Roberto Rossellini made on Francis of Assisi,
showing his joyful innocence and simplicity
to be as attractive as it was arduous.
Rossellini’s film captured the essential
paradox of Franciscan spirituality: the
richness of voluntary poverty and the wisdom
of being foolish in the eyes of men.
Franco Zeffirelli has taken a different tack
by avoiding the supernatural and treating
Francis as a secular saint and a social heretic.
In presenting this picture of Francis, there is a
very conscious parallel drawn between his age
and our own. His concept of Francis is
inspired by the social rebellion of today’s
young people who, in rejecting the
materialistic values of their elders, choose to
live on the land in communes as an alternative
to an impersonal technological civilization.
Francis’ conversion is to seeing the good in
the natural order rather than the supernatural,
and the key to Zeffirelli’s approach is in the
remark of Innocent III (played by Alec
Guinness in a very lush cameo appearance)
that the Church, obsessed with original sin,
has forgetten about “original innocence."
The strength of the film lies in Zeffirelli’s
camera. He has found some lovely locations,
untouched by the improvements of progress,
conveying the natural beauties of the
Umbrian hills and the Romanesque
architecture of medieval Assisi. The best parts
of the film are the truly striking photographic
essays on the glories of God’s creation. The
songs and music by pop singer Donovan are
refreshingly simple and seem almost based on
Gregorian chant melodies. Zeffirelli’s
background as stage and opera director are
clearly apparent in his colorful crowd scenes,
the lavish set designs and exaggerated
costuming, and actions designed more to
catch the eye than to convey an idea. The two
young actors, Graham Faulkner and Judi
Bowker, who play Brother Francis and Sister
Clare, are overwhelmed by the film’s pictorial
opulence and are unable to emerge as
individuals.
The richness of the film in its visuals should
be more than enough to satisfy most
filmgoers’ desire for inspiring, if not inspired,
entertainment. Yet, some viewers may find
the film's lavish production - it’s concern with
the external rather than the internal - to be
somewhat subversive to the very idea of
Franciscan simplicity. Others may object to
its romanticism of poverty and self-sacrifice as
a return to the unrealistic escapist films of the
past that have little value in suggesting real
alternatives to present problems. In spite of
such reservations BROTHER SUN is a
pictorially beautiful film which succeeds quite
well in celebrating nature and the quest for
finding more to life than accumulating
material goods. (A-11)
TOM SAWYER (United Artists) This time
around the Mark Twain classic is treated
musically, with a weil-scrubed cast (headed by
Johnny Whitaker as Tom, Jeff East as Huck
Finn, Warren Oates as Muff Potter, and
Celeste Holm as Aunt Polly) and a
note-very-sleepy looking Hannibal, Mo. But
the film is irresistible, especially for the
youngsters who are familiar with the grand
“adventure of the Tom Sawyer tale. All the
excitement is there -- Tom’s hookey with
Huck, their midnight prowls, the murder of
Doc Robinson in the cemetery, the trial of
Muff Potter, Tom and Huck’s wild runaway
down the Mississippi River, their return to
break in on their own funeral, the chase of
Tom and Becky by Injun Joe in those spooky
caverns. If you are looking for family
entertainment, TOM SAWYER just might be
the right ticket, even with the unnecessary
music. (A-l)
5 FINGERS OF DEATH (Warners) is
impossible to discuss seriously. An export
item from the Hong Kong movie factory,
FIVE FINGERS is 104 minutes of the
“marital arts” of Kung-Fu, Karate, and Judo
which, doubtless, bears no relation
whatsoever to real-life skills of self-defense.
The very thin, rather irrelevant plot concerns
the exploits of a virtuous young man (Lo
Lieh) who leaves his ladylove (Wang Ping) and
enters a Kung-Fu school with the intention of
becoming All-China champion. Naturally, he
encounters opposition from the evil members
of a rival school which even imports three
Japanese samurai to do its dirty work. FIVE
FINGERS is non-stop acrobatics with the
hero up against impossible odds but aided by
several off-screen trampolines from which he
is regularly catapulted skyward to slash, kick
and butt his opponents in mid-air. The
English dubbing is hilarious and the entire
effort is at first terrifically funny but then
collapses from the weight of its own gore. As
an example of a typical Far East mass
entertainment movie, one can only be
thankful that until now the West has largely
been spared. Somewhere in all of this, the
inspiration, self-discipline and spirituality of
the Orient which is at the core of King-Fu has
been lost. (A-lll).
LOST HORIZON (Columbia) Remember
that great opening line from LOVE STORY -
“What can you say about a 25-year -old girl
who died?” Well, just imagine the challenge in
describing this recap of a 36-year-old movie
about strangers in paradise that never had
much life to begin with. The present effort is
Ross Hunter's mammoth, impossibly lavish,
virtually line-by-line remake of the 1937
Frank Capra production of the James Hilton
novel LOST HORIZON. The only
distinguishing characteristic of the new
version lies in the dubious addition of a slew
of forgettable Burt Bacharach-Hal David tunes
and THEIR only distinction is their contrast
threat to reprise “Raindrops Keep Failin’ On
My Head”. No wonder visitors Peter Finch,
Sally Kellerman, and George Kennedy look so
befuddled as they are led into Shangri-La by a
starchy John Gielgud, and no wonder that
Michael York and Olivia Hussey opt for
escape into the cruel Himalayas rather than
tarry for — oh — another hundred years.
Actually, Ms. Hussey has been a Shangri-La
citizen-of-moderate-ways for eighty years,
poor thing, when 150 minutes is more than
enough for most of us. There are some
breathtaking moments, to be sure — Salley
Kellerman’s dancing alone provides several, in
fact, as does the singing of a dubbed Finch
and a thoroughly Hollywooden Liv Ullman,
another happy resident. Charles Boyer as the
ancient High Lama (a former priest!) wisely
croaks midway. (A-l)
THEATRE OF BLOOD (United Artists)
has its genuinely amusing moments as
Vincent Price, playing a B-grade
Shakespearean actor spurned throughout his
career by a deliciously fulsome circle of
London critics, sets up his revenge. Each
execution is conducted through a
reenactment of the murder scene from one of
the Bard’s tragedies in which Price appeared
and was lambasted by one of the critics.
Director Douglas Hickox stages the action
with a distinct flair and Price hams up his way
beautifully through the various horrific
excerpts from TITUS ADRONICUS, THE
MERCHANT OF VENICE, KING JOHN,
HENRY II and LEAR. The cast of name
British character actors is marvelous, with
Robert Morley as an effeminate reviewer
whose two French poodles are served up in
the TITUS ADRONICUS segment, and Milo
O’Shea as the befuddled police
inspector-neophyte Shakespearean scholar
deserving of special mention. The gore
becomes a bit tacky at times but adults who
enjoy this sort of thing will find it all first
rate. (A-lll)
MAN OF THE YEAR (Universal) lacks the
one necessary ingredient that makes that
ancient genre of the sex farce amusing adult
entertainment: wit. A thin story of a poor
Sicilian (Lando Buzzanca) with a genital
deformity which, we are told, leaves him
irresistible to the womanfolk, comes to the
big city to find his fortune and ends up the
prize display item of local society matron
Rosanna Podesta, who employs him
ostensibly as her valet. Produced, directed and
scripted by one Marco Vicario, MAN OF THE
YEAR is a tired one-joke movie that never
rises above the level of adolescent sex fantasy,
relying as it does on such hilarious cliches as
the voyeuristic husband who spies on his
wife’s affairs and Herculean sexual escapades
that result in heart attacks. Distinguished only
by a coy Fifties approach to the handling of
its sex scenes, this pinch-penny
English-dubbed atrocity will leave the voyeur
trade gnashing their teeth and discriminating
moviegoers wondering whatever happened to
basdy, lighthearted Italian comedy. (C)