Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—October 25,1973
V LIFE
IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GEORGIA
L.A. proved too much for the man,
so he’s leaving the life he’s come to know.
He said he’s going back to find
what’s left of his world;
the world he left behind not so long ago.
Chorus:
He’s leaving on that midnight train to Georgia.
He said he’s going back to find a simpler place and time.
And I’ll be with him on that
midnight train to Georgia.
I’d rather live in his world,
than live without him in mine.
He kept dreaming that someday he’d be a star;
but he sure found out the hard way,
that dreams don’t always come true.
So he turned on his hopes
and he even sold his old car,
and bought a one-way ticket back
to the life he once knew.
Sung by: Gladys Knight and the Pips
Written by: J. Weatherly
(c) Keca Music Inc./Buddah Records Inc., ASCAP, 1973)
This song does funny things to your feelings. You’re not sure whether you
should smile or cry by the time it’s over. Maybe the only complete response
would be to do both.
There is a lot to cry about here, not only from what is described about “the
man” in the song, but also about anyone who has ever dreamed or hoped.
There’s hardly a person alive who has not dreamed of what he might become,
what he might accomplish or how he might be loved. If it weren’t for dreaming
probably few great things would ever be attempted.
But dreams bring a risk. Anyone who’s ever hoped “that someday he’d be a
star” knows that. The risk is “finding out the hard way that dreams don’t always
come true.” It’s always painful to make plans for your world only to have your
world change your plans; or to hit you with what it had in mind.
The pain usually comes because the dreams give meaning to your life and your
future. When that goes it’s mighty hard to put your world back together without
that meaning.
Actually, though, when dreams fail, meaning is not destroyed. It simply
means it wasn’t the right meaning and the new one is waiting to be discovered;
one that can really hold the dreams that were meant for you. The pain is in the
waiting.
It’s here, in the waiting, that this song also allows you to smile, because you
can already detect where the new hope will come from. It is based on the
unselfish love of the person who is singing the story. What she offers to his
broken dreams is the promise to “be with him.” She stands to lose a lot as well,
since she will have to leave her world. But her response is not self-pity. It is to go
beyond herself in giving life and hope to someone else.
As upsetting as shattered dreams are, new life can come from them. Jesus
understood that well. But he also understood that life comes from them not by
wallowing in self-pity and crying over what might have been but by gathering the
life that is there and sharing it outside yourself. Life and love can only really
grow when shared. In going beyond yourself your new hopes can be discovered.
(All correspondence should be addressed to: The Dameans, St. Joseph Church, 216
Patton St., P.O. Box 5188, Shreveport, LA 71105)
AGENT FOR CHANGE - THE
STORY OF HARVEY (PABLO)
STEELE, as told to Gary MacEoin,
Orbis Brooks (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1973),
175 pp., $4.50.
Review by Sister Caridad Inda
(NC News Service)
of the theology of liberation. His work
is an example of the praxis that
transforms the world, his the kind of
denunciation of injustice and
announcement of the Kingdom which
come from a man true to his prophetic
vocation.
“Agent for Change” is an inspiring
book. It is a book about hardships and
cooperation, about generosity and
myopic vision, about dedication and
discouragement and triumph; it is a
book about Christianity in the 20th
century.
(Sister Caridad Inda, an expert in
Latin America affairs, teaches at
American University in Washington,
D.C. She is coeditor and cotranslator for
the English edition of Gustavo
Gutierrez’ “A Theology of Liberation,”
which appeared recently.)
Throughout his life, Pablo Steele has
been the leaven of the communities into
which he has entered or which he has
formed, thus the label “Agent for
Change” is a particularly apt one for the
man who first in the China missions of
the Scarboro Fathers and then in
various Latin American countries,
especially the Dominican Republic and
Panama, spread the good news of the
cooperative movement which he learned
in his native Nova Scotia.
Sometimes he found the going rough
-- traditions, both ecclesiastical and
temporal, are formidable obstacles -
and after the Second Vatican Council he
shared the disappointment of many
Catholics at the lack of changes in
institutional practice that would
correspond to changes in declared
principles.
The story of Father Harvey (Pablo)
Steele is that of a prophet and in Gary
MacEoin’s account it flows easily and
calmly, mirroring the serenity of the
protagonist and his matter-of-fact
approach to a full Christian life. The
charm of the account owes a great deal
more to what was left unsaid than to
the succession of chronological events
which add up to Pablo Steele’s life. By
recounting the facts without
editorializing, MacEoin retains the
autobiographical flavor which gives
depth and weight to a man’s adventure
among the living.
Nevertheless, a strong and honest
optimism emerges as the all-pervasive
tone of Father Steele’s life. His insight
into the humanizing mission of the
Church allowed him to take full
advantage of conflict situations,
developing skills not always regarded as
compatible with a priestly career by
more tradition-bound colleagues and
superiors. For Latin Americans, the
Inter-American Cooperative Institute
has provided not only skills in the
management of credit unions and other
economic processes, but also, and more
importantly, a training ground for “the
formation of men and women who
believe in themselves and in their ability
to create their own future.”
The Steele story is not dramatic in
the Hollywood sense. There are no
lengthy theological debates over
weighty points of doctrine elaborated in
abstruse jargon; no mighty exploits such
as give rise to mythical tales; no exalted
visions or mysterious voices. Instead,
Pablo Steele has done something very
difficult: he has practiced the principles
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE - A musical fantasy of love,
separation and comic intrigue based on an ancient
Chinese opera style will be the first presentation on the
CBS Festival of Lively Arts for Young People
Saturday, Oct. 27. From left Lu Yu, Alan Chow and
Eddie Chen play the principals in the production, the
Return of the Phoenix.” (NC Photo from CBS)
TV Movies
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28 — 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) - THE ORGANIZATION (1971) -
This third outing of Sidney Poitier as
Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs of the homicide squad
does not compare with his original role in the
1967 film, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT.
This one is simply a thriller with no attempt
at characetrization and little mystery of
involve the audience in its fast-paced
proceedings. The title refers to an
international dope ring which has agents every
where including, apparently, the police
department. Dedicated to destroying the
ring’s nefarious traffic in heroin stand a group
of street people whose nearest and/or dearest
have been killed by drugs. Because they are
operating outside the law, Poitier is torn by
his oath as a policeman and by his desire to
apprehend the drug peddlers. James Webb’s
rather mechanical script concentrates on the
various chases with little in between to
occupy the mind and without any attempt to
address the question of the police using
extra-legal methods in law enforcement. Don
Medford’s direction of all this is direct and
vigorous but quite undistinguished. There is
enough violence, both physical and
psychological, for parents to think twice
about letting youngsters see it. (A-lll)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 29 — 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) -- CACTUS FLOWER (1969) - Deft
conversion of the Broadway hit makes for a
film that has the vitality and sustained comic
appeal to keep its weak story afloat. The plot,
such as it is, involves a romantic triangle of
the classic ilk: a prosperous Manhattan dentist
(Walter Matthau), his dizzy young hippie-type
girlfriend (Goldie Hawn, in the movie's
surprise performance), and his hardboiled and
apparently staid receptionist (Ingrid
Bergman). Any bets as to who gets the guy?
(A-lll)
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30 — 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) -• ORDEAL - We’ve no record of this
one, and the network doesn’t indicate that it
was made for TV. It’s about a man (Arthur
Hill) left to die in the desert by his wife and
her lover (Diana Muldaur and Michael
Ansara), and his fight for survival.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31 —8:30 p.m.
(ABC) -- GUESS WHO’S SLEEPING IN MY
BED? -• Bedroom brinksmanship is put to the
test in this frothy, sophomorically “adult”
look at the havoc caused an attractive
divorcee (Barbara Eden) when her ex-hubby
(Dean Jones! comes for an unexpected visit ~
bringing along his new wife, baby, and
assorted pets. Ha! Ha!
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1 — 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) -- BULLITT (1968) - Steve McQueen
joins the top echelon of screen detectives in
this fast-paced and highly entertaining film.
Lt. Frank Bullitt is assigned to guard an
underworld hoodlum who has turned state’s
evidence. Despite precautionary efforts, his
charge is shot. Robert Vaughn as a
particularly obnoxious big-shot politician
makes Bullitt’s job extremely difficult. The
story takes place in beautiful, San Francisco
which serves as the background for two of the
most exciting chase sequences in recent
Hollywood films, an extended, hair-raising
automobile race and a menacing
cat-and-mouse hunt through International
Airport's terminal. The film displays a
convincing realism thanks to the heavy
concentration on details, the tight-lipped
performance by McQueen, and the excellent
direction by Peter Yates. Attention should be
called to the very casual relationship between
McQueen and Jacqueline Bisset (whose minor
role was apparently added just to give the
story a romantic angle), and some of the more
vivid details of violence included primarily for
their shock value. (A-lll)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3 —9:00 p.m.
(ABC) - LINDA - Made-for-TV feature. Two
California couples apparently share more than
just the beach house they’re renting, and the
results prove murderous. If that doesn’t
satisfy you, there’s an element of betrayal via
framing for murder, plus a couple of twists at
the end. Stella Stevens, John Saxon, Ed
Nelson, and Mary Robin Redd star as the
crazy, mixed-up foursome.
9:00 p.m. (NBC) - THE BRIDGE AT
REMAGEN (1969) - The bridge in question
was the last bridge left over the Rhine as the
Allies closed in on Germany in 1945. The
drama centers around its destruction ordered
by Hitler and the German
officer-in-command’s reluctance to carry it
out because blowing up the bridge would
leave 50,000 German troops stranded. Peter
Van Eyck and Robert Vaughn play the
German officers saddled with the dilemma . . .
And in the meantime, an American
detachment led by George Segal and Ben
Gazzara is racing toward the bridge. The
film’s gutsy resolution involves a recognition
by both sides of the horrible human toll of
war. This is a forceful film, full of action with
the bite of reality and compassion. (A-lll)
WHAT? (Avoc-Embassy) .. .Farcical sex
romp should ask Why? Just trying to begin a
discussion of WHAT? is difficult enough, and
well might result in a slight revision of the old
Abbot and Costello Who’s on first routine: I
just saw the darndest movie.” “What?”
“Right! How’d you know?” “How’d I know
what?” “Yes, WHAT’S it’s name.” “What?”
“Right." “Huh?” In any case, WHAT? is the
name of the movie, a new one directed and
co-written by Roman Polanski, the aging boy
wonder director from Poland who came to
prominence with KNIFE IN THE WATER
(1962), produced a series of fascinating
failures in the mid-Sixties, scored at the
boxoffice in a big way with the sensational
ROSEMARY’S BABY, (1968), and went over
the edge in the interesting but ultimately
self-defeating MACBETH (1972).
Polanski’s new film is an absurdist satire, a
combination of “Alice in Wonderland” in
mod array and the sexy-innocent comic strip
from PLAYBOY magazine, "Little Annie
Fanny.” Indeed, the film is apt to prompt
many in the audience to remark in the same
way Alice did after she’d first read
"Jabberwocky” - that she didn’t quite know
what any of it actually meant, but that it
filled her head with all manner of ideas
nonetheless. One suspects that WHAT? is on£
of those knowing satires that becomes so
involved with the subject of its attack that it
succumbs to a fascination with the thing
itself, unable finally to distinguish between
the target and the agent of the satire.
There is not so much a story as a series of
experiences that sweep over, past, and
occasionally through a dewy, wide-eyed
young innocent, an American tourist in Italy
who flees a near-rape on a highway to descend
via cable-life to a mysterious villa peopled by
a job-lot of psychos, perverts, and other
whacked-out characters. Unable to get
anyone’s attention other than as a sex-object,
the girl very quickly is stripped of her clothes
along with her identity and diary, spending
the rest of the film in various stages of
dishabille. An endless series of hallways and
rooms furnished in a bizarre fashion, the villa
itself leads the heroine from one senseless
encounter to the next.
Whatever its possibilities and its inability
to realize them. Polanski’s film must be
credited with being an attempt to deal in
cinematic terms with something having to do
with attitudes and ideas. Yet there is enough
sheer grossness and gratuitious nudity in the
film, enhanced by some violently scabrous
language, to make WHAT? almost
unavoidably offensive. The nudity itself is
cause for some consternation, for while it is
doubtful that the explicitness in WHAT?
amounts to outright pornography, it is so
casually excessive as to gainsay many of the
industry’s legitimate concern about the recent
Supreme Court rulings on the subject. What
the motion picture industry, with its massive
public relations problems, seems to need least
today are films like WHAT? (C)
LE GRAND BOUFFE (ABKCO) - Four
puffy gourmands shut themselves up in a Paris
townhouse with the intention of eating
themselves to death. Three prostitutes and an
overweight schoolteacher (Andrea Perreol)
join them for dinner, the tarts leaving in
disgust but the teacher staying on to share
their meals and help them die happily. This
film about bourgeois decadence is itself a
disgusting monument to excess both of body
and spirit. More a curiosity piece than a film,
this misdirected effort by Marco Ferreri seems
to bring to a weary close the era of Italian
black comedies that began so brilliantly with
DIVORCE, ITALIAN STYLE. But whatever
the sense of desecration felt by the gourmet,
film lovers will feel a genuine sadness at
watching the once lively talents of Marcello
Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Philippe Noiret,
and Michel Piccoli dissipated into
self-caricature and middle-aged listlessness.
(C)
THE SLAMS (MGM) — Jim Brown flexes
more of his bulging muscles and unleashes
more of his dead-eyed sneers in this, his
thirteenth film. Alas, he shows no sign of ever
breaking out of his familiar role as the
super-bad, super-cool super dude. This time
around, he’s in the pen for ripping off $1.5
million in Mafia drug money, which is safely
stashed away against the moment of his
planned break-out, and of which, naturally,
all sorts of friendly folks would like to relieve
him. Amidst a hail of racial, sexual, and just
plain mean insults and episodes, Brown
remains invincible against the white mobs, the
black militants, the corrupt guards and the
prison officials who try to break his resolve in
keeping the loot to himself. Along the way,
the brutal and sadistic action is as relentless
and explicit as the prison language, and the
only time things relax a bit, in fact, is when
Brown excapes to join girl-friend Judy Pace
with the stash in the Carribbean. Aren’t
people getting a bit tired of this sort of thing?
But perhaps it is only fitting that in its movie
swansong, MGM offers this low note. (C)
THE PAPER CHASE (Fox) Campus life -
this time, at Harvard Law - gets the movie
treatment in this upsy-downsy melodrama
starring Lindsay Wagner (sic, all you New
Yorkers), Timothy Bottoms, and John
Houseman. Ms. Wagner provides romantic
sustenance for law student Bottoms, while her
professor father Houseman beats his brow
with test after impossible test. The romantic
side, along with the cliched look at campus
life, is mushy but Houseman’s finely-wrought
performance as the implacable professor is
absolutely stunning. Thus, a mixed bag, for
adults. (A-lll)
THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR
(United Artists) Watching this corrosive black
fantasy-adventure is like being drawn and
quartered -- the film yanks hard in all
directions, and the result, unfortunately or
fortunately (depending on your viewpoint), is
a cancelling out of all the.forces at work.
Will/ / / / /
nOOOOQOOOOOOOQQOOOOOOOOOOO
Film Classifications
A. - Section I — Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage
A - Section I! — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Adolescents
A - Section HI - Morally Unobjectionable for Adults
A - Section IV - Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Reservations
B — Morally Objectionable in Part for All
C — Condemned
nnoooooooooooooooo
//v//////.//111 nWYx'
Adapted by Sam Greenlee and Melvin Clay
from Greenlee’s pulp novel of the Sixties, and
directed by Ivan Dixon, SPOOK is
anachronisticalty inept enough at first to pass
as a wry comedy, then turns vicious halfway
through when you realize it is taking its
message of violent revolution seriously, and
winds up wallowing in pathos where tragedy
was presumably the intent. The story follows
a black CIA agent (the only one in the
agency’s history, we are told) through five
years of Uncle-Tomism to a return to the
Chicago streets of his origin, where he raises
and trains a street army aimed first at turning
the ghetto into a riot zone and then taking
over the city, the state, the nation, the world!
As the agent-turned-agent-provocateur,
Lawrence Cook radiates simmering black
hate, keeping only control until his minions
are ready for total war and then turning them
loose. Besides raising serious questions about
the effect of such a film on its intended
young, black audience, one is obliged to
question the film maker’s judgment in
trotting out a veritable litany of racial cliches
and stereotypes-one white man even reminds
us how much “natural rhythm those black
recruits have!” How’s that for relevance?
(A-lll)
and with THE WAY WE WERE, things seem
to have taken that wrong turn. There is the
added complication of. showcasing the stars -
who spend much of tk>eir time jockeying for
ravishing close-ups -- in a now-funny,
now-serious story sweeping from Ivy-League
days in the late Thirties into the war of the
early Forties, and on to Hollywood in its
heyday of the late Forties and its shameful
era of blacklisting in the early Fifties. There is
just too much material there for anyone to
put into a coherent shape, and aside from
letting his stars (particularly Ms. Streisand and
the magnificent left side of her beautiful face)
dominate every frame, director Sidney
Pollack succumbs to the temptation of
trivializing eras and events in favor of the
sheer glamour of it all. Thus, this year’s
super-starred love story bolts down to an
example of Hollywood at its slickest •• and
shallowest — which in itself will provide many
adults with an evening’s diversion. (A-lll)
RECENT
FILM
CLASSIFICATIONS
THE WAY WE WERE (Columbia) is rather
a campaign that failed. The attempt to strike
magic with the unusual topline combination
of Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand as
ill-matched lovers represents a daring risk—but
with all risks, there is the possiblity of failure.
Five on the Black Hand Side (U.A.) A-lll
Tales That Witness Madness (Paramount)
A-lll