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PAGE 6—October 11,1973
TV Movies
SUNDAY, October 14 - 8:30 p.m. (ABC) --
JOHN AND MARY (1969) -- Here’s a real
dud of a flick, focusing on the “morning
after" relationship between two people who
make the New York “swinging singles” scene
and spend the night together. The idea was to
take this then-titilating subject, cast the lead
roles with two very hot young stars Dustin
(The Graduate) Hoffman and Mia
(Rosemary’s Baby) Farrow, and then sit back
and watch the money roll in. The film could
have been interesting, with the seemingly
blase young people actually wary of each
other's demands for commitment and respect.
But director Peter Yates has put too much
emphasis on old-fashioned Hollywood
slickness and a whole slew of mod-melodrama
elements. (B)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 15 - 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) - WITH SIX YOU GET EGGROLL
(1968) -- Doris Day plays a widow in coveralls
with three sons and Brian Keith is a widower
with one daughter. The result is a “clean”
joke of the sly, nudging variety based on the
problems of keeping the courtship “secret” to
avoid the accusing eyes of the children, and of
bringing harmony to the new marriage. In
case four children are not cute enough for
popular appeal, director Howard Morris (of
Sid Caesar TV fame) also features a shaggy
dog, hippies, and model homes. Slapstick
rounds out the formula. This is the sort of
entertainment film that give “family” pictures
a bad name. (A-ll)
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16 - 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) - THIRD GIRL FROM THE LEFT -
Tony Curtis and Kim Novak play a
comfortable, unmarried-but-long-involved
couple whose steadiness is threatened by the
arrival on the scene of young ipver Michael
Brandon. The title of this made-for-television
pseudodrama refers to Ms. Novak’s position in
a high-kicking chorus line.
9:30 p.m. (CBS) -- VIVA MAX! (1969) - It
is very difficult to expand a single gag into a
feature length film, and director Jerry Paris
simply misses the mark. Peter Ustinov plays a
bumbling Mexican general who invades Texas
with a hundred equally bumbling soldiers and
recaptures The Alamo in order to win the
respect of his plump girl friend back across
the border. Jonathan Winters as a National
Guard general has a couple of humorous lines
but seems hampered by a witless script. There
are, in fact, quite a few actors of quality in
this film those talents are simply stifled by
the material they have to work with. (A-l)
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17 - 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) - THE MAN WHO COULD TALK TO
KIDS — Made-for-television feature studies the
relationship between a sensitive, withdrawn
adolescent boy (Scott Jacoby) and the one
adult he allows to enter his tightly drawn
little world, a family counselor played by
Peter Boyle. Both are fine actors, and they lift
this routine drama above the ordinary.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18- 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) - JOY IN THE MORNING (1965) -
Here’s the kind of film people say they don’t
make anymore—and when you see it, you’ll
know exactly why. If the suds don’t get you,
the molasses will. Story is about a
ha’penny-poor but penny-bright young
married couple trying to get him (Richard
Chamberlain) through law school. When he’s
not hitting the books, he’s on duty at one of
the several part-tiirie jobs he has to pay the
book bills. When she (Yvette Mimieux) isn’t
brushing her golden tresses, she’s garnering
tips for better living from the friendly florist
next door, or auditing English Lit by literally
kneeling with ear to the classroom door
keyhole. When both have a spare moment or
two, it’s-boing!-into the sack. This sort of
thing results in a movie both childish and
“mature.” (A-l11)
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20 - 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) - THE GREAT NORTH FI ELD
MINNESOTA RAID (1972) - This is a
love-it-or-leave-it type of film, a
“Northwestern” based on the last great raid
by the Cole Younger-Jesse James gang, on a
northern Minnesota boomtown bank in 1876.
Cliff Robertson is a befuddled, kindhearted,
but businesslike Cole Younger, and Robert
Duvall is a blood-thirsty, psychotic and
treacherous Jesse James. The result of their
collaboration is disaster, mostly for the
picturesque town of Northfield and Mr.
Younger. The real point of the film, however,
is a dark and brooding theme about the end
of the frontier (and the rough-and-ready life
goes with it), in the face of creeping
modernism and industrialization in America.
The film is violent and bitter at times, but it
has a real bite if you stick with it, especially
in the acting of Robertson, Duvall, and an
excellent supporting cast of character actors.
The best line is Robertson’s, when he sees his
first steam roller. (A-lII)
oooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Film Classifications
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
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THE PYX (Cinerama) - G.K. Chesterton
once said that the major symbols of the 20th
century were Christian symbols turned inside
out THE PYX, based on John Buell’s novel
that for years was a kind of Catholic
underground classic, inverts so many
traditional symbols (but without really
desecrating them) that the average viewer may
think the film is a liturgy for a black Mass. A
black Mass indeed forms the climax, and it is
as hideous as one would expect. But THE
PYX is a strangely moral film-not especially
original in its treatment of diabolism-but
nonetheless direct in its examination of the
dark underside of religion where good blurs
into evil. A hooker with two symbolically
Christian names, Elizabeth Lucy (Karen
Black), falls to her death from a Montreal
high rise, clutching a pyx and wearing an
inverted cross around her neck. The paradox
is evident at the beginning: what is a hooker
doing with a pyx, and why is the cross hung
upside down on the chain? These questions
lead police detective Henderson (Christopher
Plummer) into a strange demimonde where
drugs, prostitution and religious perversion go
hand in hand, and, in fact, often become
synonymous.
, The plot unfolds through a series of
flashcuts that are arranged as glosses on the
present action, often functioning as bridges
between two seemingly unrelated events. The
result may be initially confusing, but at the
end the past and present conjoin as the last
pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
Director Harvey Hart (a Hollywood TV
director whose previous film credit was
FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES), does not
really make much use of Montreal, a
considerably more charming city than
represented here, and his supporting cast of
French Canadians sound as if they had just
graduated from the local Berlitz. For those
who enjoy that reedy, disembodied tone of an
untrained voice, the soundtrack features
Karen Black singing some of her own musical
settings of some verses from the Song of
Solomon plus a few other ditties. They are
not particularly distinguished, although Ms.
Black's performance as the anguished
prostitute is intermittently effective.
The major flaw of the film, however, is its
uneasy mixture of two rather disparate movie
forms, the hard-bitten detective thriller and
the occult horror movie. THE PYX focuses
essentially on Plummer’s attempt to solve a
murder mystery, charting the rather
pedestrian techniques of the police
investigation; neither this emphasis of the plot
nor, apparently, the director’s understanding
of how to go about creating a convincing
picture of the practices of modern-day
satanism, makes for much of a frightening
horror film. This, plus a ridiculous climax in
which a diabolic priest confronts poor
Plummer with some totally unexplained
incidents from his past life, completely
unravels the pseudo-mysteries of THE PYX.
Such aesthetic issues aside, and the film’s
moral climax notwithstanding, casual
moviegoers will find the film’s use of religious
symbols disturbing and at times repulsive.
(A-l V)
THE LONG GOODBYE (United Artists) -
Elliott Gould stars in the Philip Marlowe role
in this odd combination of offbeat detective
story and exercise in anachronistic nostalgia.
The source is a Raymond Chandler novel of
the 1930's, in which shabby-elegant private
eye Marlowe becomes embroiled in a complex
murder-doublecross plot involving a best
friend. Set in today’s Hollywood, but nodding
respectfully to the Thirties and Forties (by
way of props, antique cars, impromptu
impersonations of period stars, decor, etc.),
the story is fascinating as Marlowe goes about
sorting the bits and pieces of a mystery that
has gotten him into hot water with the police.
He knows he is being used-but by whom? His
friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton), whom he
drove late one night across the Mexican
border? Lennox’s classy neighbor lady (Nina
Van Pallandt), whose Papa-Hemingway-type
husband (Sterling Hayden) is an apparent
suicide? A menacing mobster (Mark Rydell)?
The answer comes in the very last scenses,
providing sharp but not very satisfying
punctuation to director Robert Altman’s
strange film. For fans of the genre, for fans of
novelist Raymond Chandler, the film is
always interesting, but its ambiguities and
self-consciousness are occasionally jarring. For
casual movie-goers, the constantly rough
language and occasional gratuitous nudity
may well prove offensive. (A-IV)
DOCTOR DEATH: SEEKER OF SOULS
(Cinerama) - The most frightening thing
about DOCTOR DEATH is that its producers
tell us it is “the first in a projected series of
modern horror movies.” Directed by Eddie
Saeta from a screenplay by Sal Ponti, DEATH
is more frequently funny than horrifying, an
unintentional effect caused despite the film’s
liberal introduction of elements of the
sadistic, the macabre, and the diabolic. John
Considine, (whose previous “medical”
experience was as a physician on the TV soap
opera “Bright Promise”) plays the dastardly
doctor who specializes in “soul transplants,”
giving, as the saying goes, a new lease on life
to the ailing by finding a body into which his
client can be liberated. The process can work
both ways, so when a grieving husband (Barry
Coe) enters, the doctor agrees, for a fee, to
find a soul to take up residence in the body of
Mr. Coe’s recently departed wife. The
complications here may be metaphysical, but
director Saeta keeps his eye right on the
money as the good doctor slays one
over-sexed young lady after another in his
search for a soul willing to make the transfer.
Needless to say there is a defect in the
doctor's method. DOCTOR DEATH is the
kind of film that is so witless in plot and
execution that its bloody excesses become,
ultimately, more a matter of aesthetics than
morality. One can only hope its producers
will have second thoughts about a sequel.
(A-l 11)
FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS’
BASIL E. FRANKWEILER (Cinema 5) -
concerns two youngsters who run away from
their pretty suburban New Jersey home and
set up house in New York City’s Metropolitan
Museum of Art, where the older of the two, a
girl, can live out fantasies of Guinevere that
her work-a-day father has forbidden her to do
at home. During their midnight wanderings
about the Museum they come upon a recent
acquisition, a statue of an angel donated by a
wealthy recluse, which fascinates the girl. The
children’s search for the secret of the angel’s
origins leads them to the recluse’s mansion
where, in the mixed up files of Mrs.
Frankweiler, the girl discovers the truth, not
only about the sculpture, but about the
sources of human integrity. The film, directed
by Fielder Cook, is professedly a general
audience entertainment and its message of “to
thine own self be true” is delivered with
humor and pathos by Ingrid Bergman as the
eccentric old lady who is softened in spite of
herself by the precocious youngsters (played
by Sally Prager and Johnny Doran).
Unfortunately, few other things in the film
work. Mr. Cook’s direction is particularly
awkward in the hackneyed presentation of
the harried parents and in his seeming
inability to bring any intrigue or sense of
youthful exhilaration to the marvelous
potential of the Museum sequences. Younger
audiences may respond to this
well-intentioned film; adults will find the
production, a first effort by a new
independent production company working,
apparently, on a limited budget, a nostalgic
but otherwise disappointing vehicle for the
talents of Ms. Bergman. (A-l)
SCUBA! (Caribbean Prod.) - No
feature-length film about undersea life off the
coral reefs in the Caribbean is totally without
interest, and, indeed, this documentary on the
experiences of six young people who wanted
“to capture the beauty, of the Caribbean”
provides some quite engaging underwater
photography of sea life on the ocean floor.
Narrated by Lloyd Bridges and directed by
Ambrose Gaines, a TV commericial director,
“Scuba!” is best when It follows its
photogenic diving enthusiasts as they search
for buried treasure, feed fish, and visit the
decaying hulks of ancient wrecks. But a
Cousteau documentary this isn’t. Trips ashore
to Haiti, Kingston and the Grand Cayman
Islands as well as the “antics” of the
untutored actors are embarrassingly
amateurish, with the result that one soon gets
the uncomfortable impression that, for all Mr.
Bridges* sincere enthusiasm for the sport, we
are watching merely an extended commercial
for diving equipment. This may not bother
the kiddies, but adults will come away with
nothing more than the knowledge that scuba
is an acronym for “self-contained underwater
breathing apparatus.” (A-l)
ECUMENICAL EFFORT -- The opening of the Right of Life, Inc.
office in South Bend, Ind., was an ecumenical effort. Cutting the ribbon
are, from left: Auxiliary Bishop Joseph R. Crowley of Fort Wayne-South
Bend, Raymond Black and Mrs. Robert Hunt, vice president and president
of the organization, Episcopal Father William C. Hibbert of the Church of
the Holy Trinity and Bishop James T. Shipley of the Church of Latter
Day Saints. The office will be state headquarters of the non-partisan,
non-sectarian group. (NC Photo)
BOOK REVIEWS
SO FAR FROM HEAVEN, By
Richard Bradford, J.B. Lippincott,
(Philadelphia) 1973.
REVIEWED BY MOISES SANDOVAL
(NC News Service)
The title of this new novel about New
Mexico is a description of their state
with which many New Mexicans will
disagree. For New Mexico is still the
closest place to heaven for many of us
Hispanos.
I’ve heard many a returning exile talk
about the urge to stop the car and kiss
the ground when he crosses the border.
It is the only state which the Hispano
by any stretch of hope can call his own.
It is the one place in the world where a
Chicano who has been bruised and
kicked around can return to and bask in
easy tolerance and friendship.
The author takes his title from a line
attributed to the last Mexican governor
before New Mexico was annexed to the
U.S. in 1846: “Poor New Mexico! So
far from heaven; so close to Texas.”
Hispanos heartily agree with the last
part of the statement. Our haven has
always been threatened by Texas.
Shorly after becoming a republic, Texas
tried to conquer New Mexico. It failed,
but New Mexicans have always feared
that Texas money, arrogance and
prejudice will destroy the
“enchantment” whereby three peoples
- Indians, Hispanos and Anglos -- have
lived in peace and mutual respect for a
long time. Many Texans have moved to
New Mexico and Erna Ferguson in her
book about the state writes about the
need to convert the Texans to New
Mexico’s traditional values. Luckily, this
has happened in many cases. But the
struggle continues.
Bradford’s engrossing novel deals
with modern-day New Mexico and the
machinations of rich Texans who use
Chicano militants to do their dirty work
in gaining control or prize ranches. The
scheme is foiled with the help of a
young Texan who knows the ways of
the exploiters and has come to love New
Mexico and its people.
Bradford writes with warmth and
humor and without passing judgment on
human foible. In his Hispano hero - a
rich physician-rancher - he manages to
capture the basic Christianity of
Hispanos, their live-and-let-live spirit,
their willingness to forgive past
injustices when dealing with individuals
open to friendship or in need of help.
Yet, he fails to show the same
understanding of the poor. Here he
tends to lapse into the stereotypes of
the Hispanos - easily fooled, not quite
upright morally, somewhat on the
stupid side. Bradford’s tale has a
counterpart of a Reis Tijerina, agitating
for the return of the land grants to their
original owners. But he gives him little
intelligence; his speeches are written by
the rich Hispano’s daughter.
“So Far from Heaven” is an unlikely
story in other ways. The rich rancher is
named Cruz Tafoya y Evans and he is
oniy half-Chicano since his mother was
Anglo. His brother is governor. Now,
New Mexico has had many lieutenant
governors with a Spanish surname but it
has been a long time since one has
been elected governor. In the real world
it is likely that a Tafoya y Evans would
long ago have dropped the Tafoya from
his name.
In one respect, however, the alliance
of the reformed wheeler dealer from
Texas and the Rich Chicano rancher
which foils the speculators does seem
consistent with present-day realities in
New Mexico. It is always easy for the
rich to relate with their peers. And it is
easy for writers to portray those people
who are most like themselves.
Bradford writes an enjoyable tale, but
it is no deep probe of the character and
traditions of the Hispanic people. Carey
McWilliams says it is through these poor
peasants, the men of the country, that
Spanish-Mexican influences have
survived in New Mexico. They, not the
rich, are the real New Mexicans.
Bradford does not do them justice. He is
drawn, as so many people in society
today, to power, money and influence. I
personally liked “Red Sky in the
Morning,” his first novel, much better.
(Sandoval is managing editor of
Maryknoll magazine.)
LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Come take this badge off of me
I can’t use it any more
It’s getting too dark to see
Feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door.
Gonna put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them any more
That long black cloud is cornin’ down
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door.
-- Bob Dylan
(c) 1973 CBS, Inc.
It’s good to see a Bob Dylan song on the charts again. Many articles which
analyze the music of the last ten years have cited Dylan as the most influential
song writer of the past decade. The following quote is from THE GREENING
OF AMERICA by Charles Reich.
“Another highly personal view of the world, but one close to the experiences
of young listeners, is that of Bob Dylan. Dylan has gone through the whole cycle
of experience, from folk music to social protest and commentary, next to folk
rock, then to the extraordinary personal world of the “Sad-Eyed Lady of the
Lowlands,” and finally to the serene, but achieved, innocence of the country
music of the album, “Nashville Skyline.” Perhaps more than any other individual
in the field of music, Dylan has been, from the very beginning, a true prophet of
the new consciousness.”
The song “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” comes from the movie PAT
GARRETT and BILLY THE KID and although at first glance it appears as a
typical cowboy song, Dylan does open the door for some pertinent
contemporary questions. No doubt we live in an age which seems to explain
away many traditions and beliefs and we are a people who are certainly less
limited than ever before.
Thus the first question which may arise comes from a word used in the title of
the song. Who in our society really believes in a “heaven?” There seems to be not
only an uncomfortableness but also a dumb feeling within many circles to talk
about a life after death. John Lennon in the very popular song “Imagine”
projects as an ideal that there be no heaven or hell. What does this say about the
thinking of people today? Are we so involved in the here and now of our lives
that we simply do not have the time or the energy to worry about an after life?
Do we consider it so much of an escape that we just don’t think or talk about it
at all? Do we shy away from such an issue because there are no obvious
“proofs?” Maybe we simply just don’t care about it.
Whatever the reason might be, the only surety is the fact that we are all going
to die one day. Each individual will meet that moment when the “long black
cloud is cornin’ down,” and the way we face that moment will depend greatly
upon our present thinking and way of life. Uf course this does not mean that a
person be a morbid individual or get hung up on death, but it does call for us to
be realistic and not kid themselves.
One approach to death comes from Christ and he certainly doesn’t force
anyone to accept it. He had made a promise of eternal life to the believer and
has offered a life style which would lead to that unending life. Christ taught and
lived the love of the Father and that all creation came from that love. If so, it
seems to follow that everything will find its fulfillment and completion in God’s
love.
Thus it is no surprise that as a guide for our lives Christ’s command is that we
return to God’s love by putting him first in our lives. Next is that we work
toward developing ourselves to our full potential as persons and that we share
this self by loving and caring for others. A very basic approach-love--to a very
basic reality-life and death. How do we face life? What will happen to us when
it’s “too dark to see?”
(All correspondence should be addressed to: The Dameans, St. Joseph Church, 216
Patton St., P.O. Box 5188, Shreveport, La. 71105)