Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—November 14, 1974
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Film Classifications
A - Section l - 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
USCC DIVISION FOR FILM AND BROADCASTING
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AND NOW FOR SOMETHING
COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (Columbia) - If
you have ever seen the zany mixture of
live-action skits and cartoon mayhem featured
on the Marty Feldman television show, you
have a good idea of what is in store for the
patrons of this film. Basically social satire
ridiculing British institutions and traditions,
it’s the kind of humor some people call
“black comedy” and other refer to as “sick
jokes.” If the idea of a gang of little old ladies
snatching husbands instead of babies or four
men fumbling around trying to blow their
brains out to win the annual Upper Class Twit
Award strikes you as funny, it’s your type of
humor. Deriving as it does from a weekly
British TV show, one would have expected
the film to provide a higher consistency of
good material than it actually does. The only
concession to the movie form is the inclusion
of some sexual laughs (most notably at the
expense of homosexuals) that would have
been blue-penciled for broadcast. Under their
television director, Ian MacNaughton, the
young cast (who also create their own
material) come over as a quite likeable group
of performers (which helps when jokes fall
flat). Best of all, however, are Terry Gilliam’s
animated pieces linking the skits but also
standing on their own as excellent examples
of contemporary graphic humor. (A-IV)
THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE (Campbell
Devon Prods.) - And so is George C. Scott,
writer, producer, and star of this tangled
melodrama about a shipwrecked family that
decides on incest as the ultimate solution to
their problems of survival. Scott and his
real-life wife Trish Van Devere play the
troubled parents of a young boy (played by
Lee H. Montgomery as a little fellow, then
by John David Carson as a mooning
adolescent) with strange mating urges. A
growing rivalry between pop and the kid
develops over the years, with mother literally
caught in the middle. The subject itself is
unusual as the main theme for a film, and
even if it had been handled with complete
sensitivity and control it would have made for
a forbidding film experience for many people.
But in Scott’s clumsy and heavy hands, the
message, particularly with its morally
unsupportable resolution, is way out of
bounds. This is one “family” film that should
be avoided by all. (C)
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO
THREE (United Artists) As every subway
rider in New York knows, you pay your
token and you take your chances. But here is
the ultimate in the straphanger’s nightmare:
the hijacking of the IRT Lexington Avenue
local, with the passengers held hostage until
the city coughs up a cool $1 million in
ransom. This taut, gritty action-suspense flick
takes us deep within the innards of the city’s
temperamental, delicate subway system for a
fast and fascinating look at how trains are
dispatched and kept track of, how signals and
communications work — and how the entire
system is disrupted when the unexpected (and
in this case, outlandish) occurs Robert Shaw
is suitably ice-cold as the menacing leader of
the gang that grabs the train, and Walter
Matthau is tough and cynical as the
acid-witted cop who tries to meet the ransom
deadline and save both passengers and money.
The movie, directed by Joseph Sargent from a
recent best-seller by John Godey, is a fantasy
full of thritl-a-minute tension and action. Its
language unfortunately, is too realistically
foul to let the kiddies enjoy being scared out
of their wits. (A-111)
THE GREAT BATTLE (Columbia) This is
a poorly made, abominably dubbed war epic
based on the dramatic seige of the Russian
city of Kursk by the Germans in 1943. Tanks,
planes, huge cannons - all boom and blast
away, but to no avail -- the movie is too big
and bloated for its own good and for our
enjoyment. Its point of view is ludicrously
partisan, making it more propaganda than
history. (A-ll)
LAW AND DISORDER (Columbia) is a
broad, at times VERY broad, satire about the
frustrations and survival techniques of living
in New York City in the Seventies. The movie
stars Carroll O’Connor and Ernest Borgnine
as, respectively, a taxi driver and a hairdresser
who form a number of their neighbors on the
Lower East Side into an auxiliary police force
to put a stop to the muggers, the thieves, the
exhibitionists, et al., who are turning their
little corner of “Co-op City” into two hostile
camps. Ivan Passer’s second American film has
more on its mind than the frequently
uproariously funny sequences that
“document” the work of the perpetrators and
the shenanigans of paunchy middle-aged men
ogling themselves in police uniforms that
offer the illusion if not the reality of power.
Passer’s feel for setting up the perfect rip-off,
for instance, a TV set in a high-rise while the
owner is making a sandwich in the kitchen, is
priceless, but the film’s small moments of
pathos, the spectacle of two aging adolescents
able neither to cope with, much less
understand, the sources of urban decay, are
genuinely moving. Unfortunately, Passer can’t
manage the delicate balance between comic
fantasy and the grim reality of wasted lives,
and the jarring tragedy of his film’s
resolution, a tragedy that shocks but not in
the way the film maker intended, will leave
many viewers with the feeling that they were
had. This, coupled with a thorough excess of
street language and a number of embarrassing
sexual references makes DISORDER itself a
somewhat schizophrenic exercise in
frustration. (A-IV)
11 HARROWHQUSE (Fox) The all-star cast
in 11 HARROWHOUSE does not disguise the
fact that this is a caper movie, a one ploy
routine adventure story where the focus is
on trappings and not on substance. Given the
limitations of genre, however, 11
HARROWHOUSE is a minor gem, a ruby or
sapphire if not a diamond. Director Aram
Avakian makes the most of his London
setting and especially the metallic glint of the
sophisticated detection devices in the
basement of the diamond exchange. From
stuffy conference room to palatial baronial
hall, the small touches are right. Candice
Bergen is, however, all wrong; her
interpretation of spoiled little rich girl never
quite comes off, and the minor lesbian
subplot is pathetically inept rather than
funny. One constantly has the feeling that the
whole voice-over sound track, which distances
the audience from the action and re-interprets
the attitudes of the male protagonist, Charles
Grodin, was a last minute and rather wise
addition. Bergen and Grodin are so deadpan
throughout that without some voice over, the
audience wouldn't know what they were
doing let alone what their emotions were.
They would have been industrial diamonds in
a platinum setting. The device used to remove
the diamonds has a clever appeal, but the film
seems to run out of steam once the burglary is
complete. The unmotivated chase sequences
are bizarre rather than funny, and the final
wedding sequence seems little more than a
modest bow to convention. Audiences, the
ending suggests, can love successful thieves,
but not unmarried lovers. (A-ll)
RECENT FILM CLASSIFICATIONS
Crazy World of Julius Vrooder, The (Fox)
- A-ll I
Floch (A. Plaine) -- A-lll
Great Battle, The (Columbia -- A-ll
Life, Loves, and Music of Giuseppe Verdi
(Opera Present) -- A-l
TV Movies
USCC DIVISION FOR FILM AND BROADCASTING
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17 — 9:00 p.m.
(ABC) -- THE HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER
(1973) -- Clint Eastwood’s film in which he
stars and directs is at best a pretentious and at
worst a perverse, continuation of his
ideological commitment to the concept of
sadistic vengeance applied outside the law by
the individual. Eastwood here tells a pompous
tale of how a stranger with no name destroys
a town whose cowardly populace willingly
collaborated in the murder-by-whipping of a
high-minded marshal who opposed the local
mining company’s infringement of federal
property. Eastwood’s ludicrous juxtaposition
of cliched metaphor — the stranger
materializes out of the heat haze of the
desert, appoints a midget as town mayor and
sheriff, insists that >the town be painted
inferno red, administers justice with a
builwhip against a fiery background - and the
conventional realistic plot devices of the
Western would be utterly dismissible if it were
not for the film’s repeated visual brutalities
and its sexist attitudes toward women.
Eastwood’s general debauching of the town
includes the quaint male fantasy that women
(here Mariana Hill and Verna Bloom) cannot,
after all, fail to respond to rape when
instigated by the likes of Clint Eastwood. In
short, an utterly despicable film. (B)
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18 — 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) ~ THE GODFATHER, Part II (1972) -
Continuation of the sensational blockbuster
detailing life in the Mafia underworld, as
overseen by aging Don Vito Corleone (Marlon
Brando). In this concluding part, the old Don
retires and dies (in one of the film’s most
effective and moving scenes), following the
machine-gun murder of his hotheaded son
Sonny (James Caan). The family fortunes
solidify under the tightening grip of the
by-now cynical and ruthless Michael (Al
Pacino). For adults. Part I aired Saturday,
November 16. (A-lll)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 — 8:30 p.m.
(NBC) - THE VIRGINIA HILL STORY -
Dynamic Dyan Cannon takes aim at a role
casting her as a rags-to-riches playgirlfriend of
mobsters Bugsy Siegel and others, during
organized crime’s public heyday in the 20's
and 30’s. Raunchy, and a matter of taste for
diehard TV addicts. Allen Garfield saves the
day with nifty character acting.
8:30 p.m. (ABC) - IT COULDN’T
HAPPEN TO A NICER GUY - Here’s one to
test your credulousness and level of taste in
accepting TV light entertainment. Paul
Sorvino, a fine actor who deserves (and
should know) better, plays a mild-mannered
middle-aged man who is “forced” to have
relations with a beautiful woman who gives
him a lift and then puts him out of her car
without his clothes. It takes some explaining
to get anyone to believe his story, especially
his wife (Michael Learned) - and it should
take more than this kind of TV movie to get
you to invest two hours of your evening. In
dubious taste, at best.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20 — 8:30
p.m. (ABC) - PANIC ON THE 5:22 -- No,
commuters, this isn’t a documentary about
your daily ride homeward. Rather, it’s a
hoked-up action melodrama about the
invasion of a private luxury railroad car by a
band of thieves who are not above killing
people who don’t cooperate with their
nefarious plans. Why not skip this and go out
to the “real” movies to see THE TAKING OF
PELHAM ONE TWO THREE? Laurence
Luckinbill and Ina Balin are among the
passengers, and James Sloyan plays a bandit
with an itchy trigger finger.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21 —9:30 p.m.
(CBS) - THE AMBASSADOR - Bicentennial
special is the first in what promises to be a
spirited series of biographical dramas about
Ben Franklin. This one takes us to France
with Franklin during the Revolutionary War
years, as he attempts to solidify French
support and, if he can, an alliance with the
French government. As distractions, there are
all those saucy Frenchwomen who think the
funny rotund man in the little granny glasses
is TRES CUTE! Eddie Albert as the sly, witty
and at times naughty Ben gives a sparkling
performance. Here’s a chance for viewers to
enjoy American history for a change.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22 — 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) - C.C. AND COMPANY (1970) - This
is Grade-Z trash starring Joe Namath and
Ann-Margret in a ludicrous motorcycle
melodrama. The big question is supposed to
be, Can sweaty bike C.C. Ryder (Namath)
find true happiness with high-class Ann
McCalley (Ms. A-M). Who cares? The REAL
question is which gives the worse performance
in a cut-out role. Smirking constantly,
Namath appears to be filling time between
knee operations, and Ann-Margret simply acts
bored with Joe and the whole project. No
wonder. And you won’t see the offensive sex
scenes that gave the film its only distinction —
thanks to the remaining public standards the
networks set for themselves. (C)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23 — 9:00 p.m.
(NBC) - ZEPPELIN (1971) - Remember the
punch line about the lead zeppelin - well,
here’s the rest of the joke. While the Kaiser’s
dirigibles bomb London from heights out of
range of early biplanes, British intelligence
agents decide to slip a spy into the Zeppelin
works. On a test flight of the latest model an
agent learns it is to be used in a secret mission
that will destroy British morale decisively. As
the plot situation suggests, it is all derring-do
of the most romantic sort with no pretentions
at being anything but an entertainment.
Michael York, Elke Sommer, Alexandra
Stewart, and the rest of the cast are pleasantly
relaxed as they go through their paces.
Director Etienne Perrier has paced his action
with humor, suspense, and some quite good
special effects work. (A-l)
TABLES ARE TURNED - A
little girl turns the tables on
Paulist Father Edward Wrobleski
and interviews him. Usually the
priest is interviewing children for
the Franciscans’ “teleSPOTS,”
sometimes called “commercials
for God.” Father Wrobleski, a
native of Rochester, N.Y., said
that the teleSPOTS’ theme is love.
“It is really a campaign for God.
He is love. We have to discover
God, who is love, in each other.”
(NC Photo)
BOOK REVIEWS
THE LEGACY OF COLONIALISM
AND NATIONALISM, By Fred R. von
der Mehden, W.W. Norton and
Company, New York, 144 p.p., $7.95.
Reviewed by Father Gerald Shekleton
(NC News Service)
World War II gave the American
public many lessons in geography as the
whole vast expanse of the Pacific and
the Orient opened up, spelling out
names and places mostly foreign to the
American mind.
When the war ended and the forces of
nationalism began appearing in the
colonial empires of the Far East, the
lands of mystery, literally unknown to
the Western nations, suddenly took on
new importance on the world scene.
How the nations of Western Europe
got entrenched in the Far East, how
they found fared and how they lost
their colonial footholds, is the subject
of this all-too-small book by a political
professor at Rice University in Texas.
Southeast Asia covers many cultures.
It must be seen, however, as a
geographic expression, incorporating
dissimilar historical, cultural, economic
and political units. Much research has
gone into this work and it becomes
more obvious as the story unfolds.
It is not easy to understand the
complexity of Southeast Asia. A
knowledge of the past is a great asset.
For centuries countries preyed upon
others for survival and expansion.
Superimposed on this polyglot region
were European colonial empires. In
droves, the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch,
British, French and even Americans
came.
Only Thailand was able to remain
independent.
The impact of the West on these
traditional societies changed people and
family life immensely.
At first, the Westerners allowed the
local rulers to stay, except in the
Philippines and parts of India. But over
the years Westerners consolidated their
power over the independent regions of
the area. Burma fell to the British in
1886. Next Indo-China became a
French colonial state.
The Westerners were helped in their
colonialist drive by the great
technological advances of the West.
Communal ownership broke down.
Village norms were bypassed as the
massive migration of peoples began to
take place.
New health standards boosted the
area population by unprecedented
numbers. In 50 years the population of
the Philippines jumped by 250 percent.
It was even greater in Malaysia.
Movement of people to the cities made
new demands.
Religion played an important part in
this great transformation. The European
ruler was of a different faith from his
subjects. So religion became a rallying
point for religious nationalists. Buddhist
monks decried the decline of morality
under the British. Moslems rallied
against the Dutch. Both objected to the
expansion of Christianity.
New economic and social orders were
emerging. Many wealthy European
families moved into the colonies, this
establishing two classes of people. Some
political autonomy was allowed, but not
much.
This did not, however, prevent the
rise of nationalism. Only World War II
blunted it. But the war damaged
colonial rule beyond recovery.
The Japanese invasion of Southeast
Asia during the war spelled disaster for
the colonial powers.
The United States and Great Britain
leaned toward independence for the
Philippines and India. The Dutch and
French had other ideas, and met the
opposition with force, as in Indo-China.
Despite the inherited Western
democratic values most of the countries
adopted their own forms of
government. Socialism emerged in
Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam, Singapore
and Thailand. Capitalism was equated
with imperialism. Only in Singapore has
democracy remained untouched.
Socialism now remains only in four
states. There is none in Thailand, Laos,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia and
South Vietnam.
In our time all, except Burma and
North Vietnam, deal with the former
colonial powers.
Regional wars are still being fought.
Unrest and dissident groups abound.
The most important work now in the
entire area is to consolidate the will of
the people. In the beginning they
modeled their political institutions after
the countries from which they gained
independence. In too many cases the
party structures were weak. Rule by
decree became necessary. Eventually
they rejected the Western legacy.
The turning point came in 1958 when
the armed forces took over many of the
countries. In 1963 President Diem was
murdered and South Vietnam came
under the military. Constitutional
government was eroding. It was a facade
for the decaying political structures.
Today eight Southeast nations have
changed their political makeup, again
Singapore and Malaysia being the
exceptions.
What the former colonial states didn’t
reject was the social legacy brought to
them by the West. Access to an
industrial society brought many things:
a new elite, a chance for wealth, better
education and health standards, all
features of the good life. Unfortunately,
disparities between rural and urban
areas remain.
While Mr. von der Mehden has given
us the benefit of his excellent research, I
wish more space had been alloted to
discussing in detail how the Western
European nations became so heavily
involved in Southeast Asia. It would
have helped greatly in appreciating more
what is an excellent review of Southeast
Asia from 1930 to 1970.
(Father Shekleton is editor of The
Witness, Dubuque archdiocesan
newspaper.)
LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
CAT’S IN THE CRADLE
by Harry and Sandy Chapin
A child arrived just the other day, he came into the world in the usual way. But
there were planes to catch and bills to pay. He learned to walk while I was away
and he was talking before I knew it and as he grew he’d say, I’m going to be like
you, Dad, you know I’m going to be like you.
CHORUS:
And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in
the moon. When you coming home, Dad? I don know when, but we’ll get
together then, you know we’ll have a good time then.
My son turned ten just the other day, he said thanks for the ball, Dad, come on
let’s play. Can you teach me to throw? I said, not today - I got a lot to do. He
said, that’s O.K. And then he walked away but his smile never did. It said, I’m
going to be like him, yeah, you know I’m going to be like him.
Well he came from college just the other day, so much like a man I just had to
say, Son, I’m proud of you, can you sit for awhile? He shook his head and he
said with a smile, what I’d really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys; see you
later, can I have them, please? '
CHORUS:
I’ve long since retired, my son’s moved away. I called him up just the other day.
I said, I’d like to see you if you don’t mind. He said, I’d love to, Dad, if I can
find the time. You see my new job’s a hassle and the kid’s with the flu, but it’s
sure nice talking to you, Dad, it’s been sure nice talking to you.
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me he’d grown up just like me, My
boy was just like me.
CHORUS: Story Songs, Ltd. ASCAP
I remember when I was little - in the days when I spent a lot of time on the
screen porch and talked to the mailman and waved to the mechanic across the
street. I remember listening for the sound of the trolley in the late afternoon,
straining for the first glimpse of the familiar figure with the hat and the briefcase
as he returned home to me and Mom after a long day.
He was tired, sure, but every once in awhile (not too often because special
moments are best when they’re surprises) he’d grab me up and we’d go out
looking for the choo-choos. Boy, what a treat! Just him and me riding around,
down to the tracks by the levee, back by the old gambling house, or anywhere
we two adventurers hoped to find an old locomotive chugging a load and
bringing cheers and waves from a kid with his dad. And if the engineer or the
man in the caboose waved back, Mom would hear about it for days.
Then there were the Sunday mornings. Sissy was along by then and he would
take us down by the river where we would pick up pieces of driftwood or climb
the tide marker. Sometimes we’d watch the old black preacher who went around
dressed all in white and mumbling to himself something about the coming of the
kingdom. And sometimes we’d just sit and listen to the water.
There were lots of times like these. I guess I could go on and on about the
things he used to do with us - things which didn’t make sense in the adult world
of all work. He sure knew how to play, and the funny thing is that he looked
like he enjoyed every minute of it.
I know I’m lucky, Dad, especially when I hear Harry Chapin sing of regrets
and broken nursery rhymes. It wasn’t that way with us and it won’t be. Sorry I
had to be out of town for your birthday this year. This is a present from one
who loves you and hopes he can love as you showed him how.
(Copyright 1974 by NC News Service)