Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—June 6,1974
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Entertainment
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Film Classifications
A - Section I - Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage
A - Section II - 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
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WEDDING IN BLOOD (New Line Cinema)
is the most recent example of French director
Claude Chabrol’s fascination with the
unspeakable crimes of passion commited by
outwardly placid and respectable provincial
bourgeois folk. Chabrol is a master at creating
the right touch of horror and morbidity to
make for a thoroughly chilling movie, but this
time around he seems to be mining old
territory -- there is no new twist to distinguish
WEDDING from earlier Chabrol works such
as LE BOUCHER. Set in a quaint provincial
village, the film observes the secret life of
illicit lovers Michel Piccoli and Stephane
Audran. He is a minor official in the Mayor's
office; she is the wife of the town’s Deputy
Mayor. Piccoli has long been married to a
woman whose constant illnesses mask her
aversion for any meaningful marriage
relationship; Ms. Audran’s husband is totally
immersed in the busy-busy of his mayoral
duties. Hence, it is no surprise that the two
lovers fill their time with a mutual incendiary
passion. What makes them unusual is the
casual way they dispatch their respective
mates. But we all know how the wages of sin
pay off, and there are no new insights here.
For adults familiar with Chabrol’s themes and
style, this will be an enjoyable if familiar
viewing experience. (A-lll)
THE BEAST MUST DIE (Cinerama)
Werewolf movies enter the electronic age in
this gamy try to inject some afterlife into the
genre. Calvin Lockhart plays a rather obsessed
millionaire who assembles a collection of
guests at his remote (and remote-controlled)
country estate. Every room, every acre of the
grounds - all is wired for sight and sound as
Lockhart prepares to hunt down the beast
into which one of his guests will transform
during the full-moon weekend. Among the
querulous guests are Peter Cushing as a
scholar on werewolf lore, Tom Chadbon as an
artist with an unsavory past, and Michael
Gambon as a pianist whose recitals have
usually ended with a few missing from the
audience. The ungracious host’s little game
quickly turns to bloody mayhem as the beast
gets underway with the throat tearing. What
with the zinging silver bullets and tainted
neck-biting, it is soon apparent that perhaps
two of the five guests will survive the ordeal.
As a turn of the werewolf’s tale, this one
offers some novelty and more than a fair
share of trumped-up horror and gore.
Refreshingly it also has fairly decent acting
and camerawork. Adults accustomed to
spending time in such a movie never-nevertand
may find BEAST an interesting diversion.
(A-lll)
BLACK EYE (Warners) Fred Williamson, in
yet another ex-cop black private eye role,
does his predictable thing in and around the
Los Angeles area as he searches out the
whereabouts of (a) an antique cane stuffed
with (of all things!) heroin, which belonged to
a departed silent screen star, and (b) a missing
girl who just may be a member of a commune
of Jesus freaks. Jack Arnold’s direction is fast-
paced, but cluttered — the result one assumes,
of a dense if thoroughly sterotyped
screenplay by Mark Haggard and Jim Martin
from the Jeff Jack novel MURDER ON THE
WILD SIDE. Muddying the waters still further
is a sub-subplot involving a bisexual
relationship between our hero, girlfriend
Teresa Graves and girl’s girlfriend Rosemary
Forsyth. A segment about porno maker Bret
Morrison is not without its own unwitting
charm. The usual violence is standard. Note
the PG rating. (A-IV)
BENJI (Mulberry Square Prods.) At 100
minutes, this shaggy dog story wags on a bit
too long, but its pleasantly refreshing
approach to “family entertainment” is more
than enough to sustain it for the weekend
matinee trade. The story of a little dog who
“toughs it out,” the film is unabashedly
reminiscent of Disney’s LADY AND THE
TRAMP - without the animation, but with
enough tension and false leads to keep
children on the edge of their seats. Everything
is viewed from curb level, as the tough little
mongrel named Benji maintains his
independence (he begs food only from people
who attach no strings) and ultimately
becomes the hero of the day. The begging
parts, in which we follow the pooch on a
seemingly endless circuit of the friendliest
places in the little Texas town of McKinney,
take up way too much time - but they do
show how resourceful the little critter is. The
heroism comes in the form of Benji's
intellectual superiority over mere humans in
solving a potentially nasty kidnaping. BENJI
is the first feature of Joe Camp, a man who
believes in both (a) the need for more
children-family films and (b) the track record
established by the Disney studio. Camp has
enough talent to try something original, and
we hope he goes on to more creative
entertainments; on its own, his film is a light,
wholesome start in the right direction. (A-l)
TV Movies
SUNDAY, JUNE 9 — 8:30 p.m. (ABC) -
THE ITALIAN JOB (1969) - Michael Caine
comes alive in this tongue-in-cheek spoof of
grand larceny thrillers. Left the plans of a
fool-proof heist by a recently deceased
master-mind, Caine organizes the job under
the aegis of Noel Coward, head of a crime
syndicate operating from a London prison.
The plan calls for staging the world’s most
spectacular traffic jam in Turin, Italy, while a
$4,000,000 shipment of gold is being
transferred from airport to bank. Filmed with
the aid of the Fiat motor works, the film
climaxes with a maniacal, hair-raising auto
chase through backyards and over roof-tops
and ends like an old-fashioned cliff-hanger.
The color, the tempo, and the fine action by
the entire cast make up for some loose ends in
the plot and on the whole combine to make a
generally enjoyable film. Director Peter
Collinson has a fine eye for visual satire and
shows a deft hand for working in this genre.
(All)
MONDAY, JUNE 10 — 9:00 p.m. (ABC) -
THE MAGUS (1968) - The Magus deals with
a young self-indulgent British secondary
school teacher, Nicholas Urfe (Michael Caine),
who comes to a Greek island in order to
escape the marital demands of his French
mistress (Anna Karina). There he stumbles
upon an out-of-the-way but extraordinarily
picturesque villa inhabited by a mysterious
figure, Maurice Conchis (Anthony Quinn),
whom the natives claim died during the
German occupation. A practitioner of the
occult, Conchis challenges Nicholas to an
experiment in self-knowledge. What follows
will be more than adequately confusing for
most audiences. Nicholas becomes involved
with one of the ’doctor's’ patients, Candice
Bergen, and the young man’s tendency
toward sexual self-indulgence is quite
explicitly -- and unnecessarily -- documented.
(C)
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 — 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) - PIONEER WOMAN ~ Rebroadcast
of frontier drama concerns a woman (Joanna
Pettit) who stays on her prairie homestead
after her husband (William Shatner) is killed
in a farming accident in the Wyoming
Territory, circa 1867. Predictably, life is
rough (although Miss Pettit remains radiant
throughout all the hardship). Neighbors never
were too friendly (the family entered a feud
their first day homesteading); the sod is tough
to break, etc., etc.. But a local cattle baron
(David Jannsen) helps out the pretty widder
woman, you bet!
9:00 p.m. (NBC) - MARRIED AND
SINGLE — Three pilots try their luck at
garnering enough viewer interest to warrant
their return next Fall as full fledged sit-coms.
LILY stars vivacious Brenda Vaccaro as a
bubbly secretary in a big-city mayor’s office,
a bachelor girl is she! Eileen Heckart adds wry
humor as Lily’s wise-warm mother.
SHAKESPEARE LOVES REMBRANDT,
besides the catchy title, offers Jo An Pflug
and Bert Conby as a young married couple
trying to make their version of the American
Dream come true -- by slaving away at writing
greeting card copy in order to buy a house in
California’s Big Sur. That’s a lot of doggerel.
PATSY stars Pat Cooper as a young man
about town who'd like to become a bigtime
restaurateur but runs afoul of his folksy
uncle’s own little scheme. Pot luck.
THURSDAY, JUNE 13 —9:00 p.m. (CBS)
~ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
(1966) - Controversial (then, at least) film
based on the Edward Albee play amounting
to a high-then-low-level encounter group
session involving two college-faculty couples
who thrash out their bitterness and
frustrations during a semi-drunken evening.
The couples are Richard Burton and Elizabeth
Taylor, George Segal and Sandy Dennis, with
the main focus on Burton and Taylor as
George and Martha, the empty couple of the
year. As the two (and then FOUR) go at each
other’s throats, verbally, the air turns rather
blue. It is difficult to imagine what kind of
language problems will carry over to the TV
presentation, but the very nature of the film -
presenting as it does an unsavory slice of
married life and human relationships - is one
that needs an adult's perceptions for full
understanding and appreciation. Even then,
this WOOLF bites, and it's not for the casual
viewer. (A-IV)
FRIDAY, JUNE 14 — 9:00 p.m. (NBC) «
THE GROUNDSTAR CONSPIRACY (1972)
- George Peppard, who someday just might
land a good role, is as long on snarls and
tough-as-nails gestures as this movie itself is
on plot twists and peekaboo complications.
The story centers on a sabotage plot to
destroy an important government nuclear
research center, with the main focus being on
Peppard’s ruthless, amoral methods of
flushing out the fat cat - a U.S. Senator, an
Air Force General, and a top space agency
official are the three candidates - responsible
for the treason. As chief of security Tuxan,
Peppard’s operating philosophy is that greater
love hath no man than to be prepared to lay
down the life of his family for the flag. Not
his own life, necessarily, but his family’s. As
Peppard’s “bait," in finding the traitor,
Michael Sarrazin, a supposedly reconstructed
near-corpse caught in the initial explosion of
the research center, spends his time either
trying to remember who he is or
concentrating on making love to earthy
divorcee Christine Betford. Because of this
element, and because of the film’s hazy
philosophical-political attitudes,
GROUNDSTAR should be approached by
only the mature, and cautiously at that.
(A-lll)
9:00 p.m. (CBS) - THE LOOKING GLASS
WAR (1969) -- Punk adaptation of John Le
Carre’s story of Leiser (Christopher Jones), a
Pole who jumps ship in Britain and is
promised asylum by a group of British
Intelligence agents (Ralph Richardson, Paul
Rogers and Robert Urquhart) cynically
longing for the good old World War II
freewheeling espionage days, if he will
ascertain whether the Russians are providing
East Germany with missiles. Apart from
forcing a conflict never intended in the
author’s original concept, the film takes a
series of incidents only barely credible in the
novel -- Leiser’s relations with an English girl,
his training as an intelligence agent, his trip on
foot through the center of East German
installations, his affair (unmotivated plot- or
character-wise) with a young German girl (Pia
Degermark) - and manages to dispel any
interest or suspense that existed in Le Carre’s
book about the spy who was a victim of his
own side. (A-lll)
SATURDAY, JUNE 15 — 8:30 p.m. (ABC)
- TROUBLE COMES TO TOWN - Repeat of
a TV f ilium stars Lloyd Bridges, Janet
McLachlan, Pat Hingle, and Larry Rhodes in a
drama about racial tensions stirred up in a
sleepy Southern town when the white Sheriff
(Bridges) becomes instant stepfather to a
tough ghetto kid (Rhodes) from Chicago, the
son of an old Army buddy. You can imagine
what happens -- and you can be sure the
movie milks it for all it’s worth.
9:00 p.m. (NBC) - HOW TO SUCCEED IN
BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
(1967) -- This film adaptation of Shepherd
Mead’s Broadway musical gleefully satirizes
the foibles of big business from mail room to
executive suite. David Swift’s direction does
not have to be too inventive to carry
the colorful production numbers. The comic
business and Frank Loesser’s songs come over
well. Robert Morse as the ambitious young
man is the best part of the whole show with
his inspired caricature of a “dedicated”
employee. Rudy Vallee as the dullard who
runs the company makes the perfect foil for
Morse’s chicanery. (A-ll)
THE WET-HEAD ISN’T DEAD
~ The wet-head may not be dead,
but he’s certainly soaked at the
first annual Field Day at Blessed
Sacrament School in Albany, N.Y.
Teacher Michael Dillon (right)
volunteered as a target for eager
sponge throwers in order to raise
funds for an upcoming bazaar at
the school. The booth was one of
the most popular at the Field Day,
which also included races and
carnival skill games. (NC Photos
by Barbara Oliver)
Book Reviews
THE GREAT MAN: WINSTON
CHURCHILL, by Robert Payne, N.Y.,
Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, $10.95
Reviewed by Father C. Stephen Mann
(NC News Service)
This century has proved that
“revisionism” is not confined to Marxist
politics, and historians are constantly
being confronted by reappraisals of
previously held positions on men and
events. At the same time, structuralism
in literature has provided us with the
supposed possibility of discovering
psychological motivation whenever men
and women are rash enough to commit
themselves to print.
It is difficult to say what particular
category provides accommodation to
the book under review. It is well
written, yet at the same time abounds in
error and mis-statement. For example,
prime ministers are consistently
described as “ruling” - or, in the case of
Sir Winston Churchill, desiring to “rule”
the country. For a native of the United
Kingdom this is more than careless, and
at worst is a gross misunderstanding of
parliamentary government. Equally, a
firmer grasp of Tudor and post-Tudor
English history might have saved the
author his occasional confusions
between the aristocracy and the landed
gentry in a structured British society of
the past 200 years.
Ample quotations from, and
references to, Winston Churchill’s
solitary excursion into fiction -
“Savrola” - provide. Payne with his
foundation for this “revisionist”
estimate of Churchill. Yet in order to
establish his case, the author would have
to be far more convincing than he is in
persuading us that Churchill was
consistently aware - consciously or
subconsciously - of the “savior motif”
written into “Savrola.”
That Payne is baffled by the complex
character which was Churchill emerges
clearly enough in his treatment of the
ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. The author
cannot make up his mind who was
primarily to blame for the disaster,
repeats the old, old canards about
Churchill’s impetuosity over the
campaign, while at the same time
allowing that the conception was not
Churchill’s alone, and that responsibility
for failure rested with Lord Kitchener in
the final analysis.
If the author appears to execute a
“danse macabre” from time to time
over the sepultured remains of the
British Empire, and faults Churchill
(both as colonial secretary and later) for
not presiding over the obsequies much
earlier, then we are entitled to ask (in
the face of the present chaos of
ex-colonial Africa) how far Payne
approves of that vacuum which nature is
said to abhor.
To be wise after the event is a solace
in which we all indulge, and it is fatally
easy at this remove to forget that vast
numbers of both the British and
American peoples were initially
prepared to approve of both Hitler and
Mussolini as offering some solution to
economic chaos - Churchill was not
alone in that, as Payne appears to imply.
What does not emerge from this book
is the comparative celerity with which
Churchill was driven to change his mind
about both men, and in that change was
for so long almost alone in Britain. The
author’s attempt to ignore the conceit
and snobbery inherent in Neville
Chamberlain’s dealings with both the
country and his cabinet must be
reckoned a serious flaw.
The author reverts time and again to
the meaning of the word “great” as
applied by Churchill to the promised
self when a schoolboy, and as reflected
upon by the mature Churchill in later
life. The real problem with Payne’s
essay into this concept of what
constitutes “greatness” is that we are
not sure at the end of the book what
stone of Sisyphus the author is
attempting to push uphill. It is all rather
like a schoolboy faced with the
necessity of translating “insignis” and
carefully dodging the issue by rendering
the word “outstanding.” It is simply not
enough to let us know that Winston
Church admired Cromwell (surely one
of the most despicable characters in
English history), and despised Ghandi,
unless at the same time we are told what
- in the author’s view - constitutes that
elusive quality called “greatness.”
There is nothing new in this work,
from the accounts of a syphilitic father
to Churchill’s bitter resentment of
Viscount Alanbrooke’s memoirs
appearing in print. What is left wholly
without answer is any assessment of
what the state of Europe might
presently be had Church not provided,
in 1940-41, a leadership admittedly
based on driving ambition and a quest
for power. Perhaps after all Churchill’s
claim to greatness is that he never
crowed “I told you so!” in 1939.
(Father G. Stephen Mann, a native of
England, is dean of the Ecumenical Institute
at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and
co-author of the “St. Matthew" volume of the
Anchor Bible.)
BY THE DAMEANS
I Won’t Last a Day Without You
Day after day, I must face a world of strangers
where I don’t belong, I’m not that strong.
It’s nice to know there’s someone I can turn to
who will always care, you’re always there.
So many times when the city seems to be without a
friendly face, it’s a lonely place.
It’s nice to know that you’ll be there if I need you and
you’ll always smile, it’s all worthwhile.
When there’s no getting over that rainbow,
When my smallest of dreams won’t come true,
I can take all the madness the world has to give,
But I won’t last a day without you.
Touch me and I end up singing, troubles seem to
up and disappear.
You touch me with the love you’re bringing
I can’t really lose when you’re near,
When you’re near, my love.
If all my friends have forgotten half their promises
They’re not unkind, just hard to find.
One look at you and I know that I could learn to live
without the rest, I’ve found the best.
(c) 20th Century Records
Paul Williams - Roger Nichols
In picking out songs to comment upon, often you pick one that you
especially like, but it never makes it very high on the popularity charts. Several
months ago I wrote about “I Won’t Last a Day Without You,” which at that
time was released by an artist other than the Carpenters, and I was disappointed
(and teased a bit) when it flopped. But the tables have turned. The song has been
re-released and this time it is really moving, thus a reissue of the article seems
appropriate since the song is fresh in the minds of many.
“I Won’t Last a Day Without You” is a song of friendship and can certainly
bring out different emotions depending on the quality of friendships we have
shared. If we have known a person who resembles the one this song talks about,
then the feeling of thankfulness and appreciation can swell up within us. If we
are lonely and have never had a friend who fulfills those needs within us, then
our reaction could be one of longing or even a slight tinge of unreality that such
a person could ever exist for us.
I’m sure you’ve heard the cliche “you can know a person by the friends that
he or she has.” Whether or not we buy this saying completely, we do have to
admit that our friends in some way complement or complete our personalities or
needs.
Let’s look at some of the qualities of a friend. One important aspect of a
friend is that of inspiration so that whenever they “touch me . . . I end up
singing.” This is the person who truly transforms us to the extent that when we
are with them we feel an uplift which tells us that life is worth it. Also a friend is
the type of individual who can help us in time of difficulty and worry, and
because of their presence our “troubles seem to up and disappear.” This doesn’t
mean that they are there to solve our problems. Sometimes just listening,
understanding, and caring can help ease the pain of suffering and anxiety.
A third quality of a friend (and this one is tremendously important) is that
the person brings out the best in us and because of this, gives us the confidence
that “I can’t really lose when you’re near.” We have all been around people who
drag us down and even make us feel like we have no dignity as an individual.
With these people, we end up with a bad attitude about life, about ourselves and
about others and thus real growth is impaired. On the other hand the right type
of people can be vehicles for personal growth, freeing us to be who we can be.
We have primarily talked about receiving friendship but we must also think
about whether we fulfill these qualities of friendship to others. In “Song for
Judith,” Judy Collins has the thought, “I’d like to be as good a friend to you as
you are to me,” and this should certainly be our approach to those who offer
their love to us.
If we can make these qualities of friendship a reality, then life can take on real
purpose and meaning. We will be able to “face that world of strangers” and all
the “madness the world has to give” with someone who cares and makes it “all
worthwhile.”
(All correspondence should be directed to: The Dameans, St. Joseph’s Church, 216
Patton Ave., P.O. Box 5188, Shreveport, La. 71105.)