Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—December 19,1974
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PRALINE COOKIES
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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
USCC DIVISION FOR FILM AND BROADCASTING
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THE FRONT PAGE (Universal)...
Matthau, Lemmon, Billy Wilder re-create a
raunchy Broadway favorite. Just how long the
national nostalgia binge will last is anybody’s
guess. But if one thing is sure, it is that there
is still plenty of time for movie makers to
cash in on the phenomenon. American
audiences are still ready to believe that the
post-World War I era offered the magic of true
romance (THE GREAT GATSBY), that the
Great Depression is proof of harder times
than any current recession (THE STING), and
that the Fifties were more innocent and more
fun than anything our permissive society can
devise (AMERICAN GRAFFITI).
And now comes THE FRONT PAGE in its
latest edition, a Billy Wilder-I.A.L. Diamond
adaptation of the 1928 Broadway hit play by
Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (a movie
version with Pat O’Brien and Adolph Menjou
appeared in 1931, and another, entitled HIS
GAL FRIDAY, with Roz Russell and Cary
Grant, opened in 1940), that seems to remind
us that newspapers were more fun 50 years
ago, too. For one thing, there were more of
them (the movie boasts a City Court
pressroom jammed with seven reporters for
seven different Chicago dailies) and they were
shirtsleeves-and-whiskey back-room boys, not
a journalism degree or Brooks Brothers suit
among them. They drank and plagiarized each
other's scoops, made bad jokes and used foul
language and spent more time playing poker
than getting the story.
The exact time in this Wilder celebration is
the summer of 1929, on the execution eve of
an anarchist convicted of kiliing a policeman.
It is also the moment chosen by the story’s
focal character, Hildy Johnson (Jack
Lemmon), to take his leave as ace reporter for
the city’s most aggressive paper, the
CHICAGO EXAMINER. His managing editor,
Walter Burns (Walter Matthau), cannot believe
that Hildy is actually leaving him, much less
to settle down in marital bliss with an organ
player from Philadelphia. But Hildy’s
determination is hard as cement, and it is thus
up to Burns and, of course, fate, to foil the
escape.
What follows is basically a one-set
newspaper comedy-melodrama that co-writers
Wilder and Diamond and director. Wilder
expand just enough to give their top-notch
cast plenty of room to thrash around in.
Matthau and Lemmon have worked together
nicely in past films (THE FORTUNE
COOKIE, THE ODD COUPLE) and they
continue their boisterously complementing
ways in THE FRONT PAGE. Both are
nervous, loud actors with plenty of swagger,
but their respective energy and noise add up
to a larger total rather than cancel each other
out. The rest include Carol Burnett (also
energetic and very loud) who is simply
miscast as Mollie Malloy, the Division Street
hooker whose heart is gold, but broken;
Vincent Gardenia as a scene- stealing Cook
County sheriff who also steals from the
public; Susan Sarandon as Hildy’s main girl
from the Main Line; and David Wayne, Allen
Garfield, Charles Durning, Herb Edelman,
Lou Frizzell and Dick O'Neill as Hildy’s
fellow fourth-estaters. Austin Pendleton is
near-perfect as the anarchist Earl Williams,
frail, scared, and totally befuddled as the
object of all the controversy. Together, they
overrun the screen with sharp, fast comedy.
Wilder, Diamond and Lemmon were
involved in an earlier effort, SOME LIKE IT
HOT, that infused the Twenties with a
reckless sense of derring-do and yvild
excitement, for all its surface grubbiness of
circumstance, and they manage to re-create
the same feeling for time and place here.
Their achievement is one of artistry over
reality, for they never really try to convince
anyone that what they are doing is anything
but running through a solidly entertaining
play on a carefully crafted but nevertheless
obviously fake sound stage. Wilder does add
masterful touches - in such background
details as having pigeons on the window sill
outside the pressroom, or an opaque stained
glass window in a lavatory that gets used once
during the course of the film.
Of course, there’s the bedrock substance of
the Hecht-MacArthur original, which has had
a life of its own (playing to packed houses in
a recent Broadway and road-show revival),
and which richly deserves much of the credit
for Wilder’s present success. In fact, the play
was much better off without the constant
stream of pressroom oaths that Wilder and
Diamond felt obliged to add, perhaps as a nod
to the uninhibited speech of many in the
audience. But the basic elements are there:
the uneasy camaraderie of the reporters, the
effluvium of corruption about the officials,
the scramble of Williams’ jailbreak and Hildy’s
subsequent protectorship of the convict, the
running gags involving Hildy’s futile attempts
to break away from Burns, and the pair’s
periodic efforts to get the lead paragraph
straight for the morning edition’s front page.
The ending is happy and sappy, with a
marvelous Wilder touch that many people will
miss, by getting up and leaving before the
final credits flash on or by blocking the view
of those wise enough to stay and pay
attention to them.
Wilder’s film is entertaining in its
heavy-handed way, with the rapid-fire timing
of, say, his ONE, TWO, THREE, and the same
splashy vulgarity that often marks and mars
his films. There’s hardly space for an audience
to breathe during the entire 105 minutes, and
most adults will emerge from the experience
in a happy sort of daze -- there is so much
raucous comedy flying about that everyone
gets hit with it in some way. Unfortunately,
the verbal vulgarisms are flying about
constantly, and everyone will get hit with
some of that, too. (A-lll)
ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD
(Walt Disney/B.V.) Based on, but taking
liberties with, the novel THE LOST ONES by
Ian Cameron, this Walt Disney live-adventure
epic had real possibilities to be a larger-
than-life adventure-fantasy of the Jules Verne
ilk. But burdened by all the too-familir
“cute” Disney touches, a ragged screenplay,
some lackluster special effects and a slew of
atrocious performances, ISLAND just about
stays afloat as general family entertainment.
David Hartman, familiar to TV watchers as
LUCAS TANNER, is an archaeologist hired
by British adventurer Donald Sinden to travel
with him to France where they board Jacques
Marin’s infernal flying machine, a gas-filled
blimp, for a wild journey through the skies to
the Arctic wastes in order to rescue Sinden’s
lost wasterel of a son, David Gwillim. The
plot, despite its extensive itinerary, is as gassy
as the blimp, and things heat up only slightly
when the expedition discovers a long-lost,
long-dreaded (by the local Eskimos) veritable
tropical island atop the polar ice cap. The
place, all cloud-shrouded and spooky, is a
mountainous region, as they say, inhabited
only by descendants of the bold Vikings of
old, who have clung tenaciously to both their
splendid real estate and their superstitious
way of life. Hence, outsiders are hardly
welcome in their misty midst -- and the
expedition members, like the British
bankroller’s son, are treated as prisoners. A
series of hairbreadth escapes, aided and
abetted by lovely Viking lass Agneta Eckemyr
(who is fond of Gwillim), results in
restoration of the family and - surprise!! --
establishment of a new romantic alliance,
Disney style. Harmless fun, but it could have
been so good. (A-l)
TV Movies
USCC DIVISION FOR FILM AND BROADCASTING
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22 — 9:00 p.m.
(ABC) - STAR! (1968) - Lovely, lively
musical based on the life of stage star
Gertrude Lawrence, with Julie Andrews in the
lead role. Her characterization and her singing
(along with the singing of the rest of the cast)
are excellent, but the film really shines in
re-creating the national atmosphere circa
World War I through World War II. This
perspective is both interesting and
illuminating, with the added touch of a
“documentary” film-within-the-film in black
and white. As for Miss Lawrence, one of the
great stage legends of our time, she is
portrayed as a very nice, very talented, very
ambitious and very tough lady -- she had what
it takes. (A ll)
MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 — 8:00 p.m.
(NBC) - SCROOGE (1970) -- Marvelous
screen version of the Dickens’ classic tale, A
CHRISTMAS CAROL, with Albert Finney in
a crafty turn as the old miser Ebenezer
Scrooge. Finney is a thoroughly craven
humbug whose disagreeableness is never really
believable and is thereby all the more fun to
watch. His singing of “I Hate People” is very
funny, and joins a spirited dance number in
the film as the movie’s best moments. Scrooge
is a neat Christmas package - light, intelligent,
very amusing, and with a nice little moral at
the end. (A-l)
8:30 p.m. (CBS) - I HEARD THE OWL
CALL MY NAME -- Oh, well, if the networks
insist on offering repeats as Christmas
“specials” it might as well be this fine and
moving film about a Protestant minister’s last
assignment. Knowing that a young priest
(Tom Courtenay) is dying even though the
priest himself is not yet aware of it, a
Canadian Bishop (Dean Jagger) assigns him as
minister to a remote community of Indian
fishermen in Vancouver. Living close to
nature as the Indians do, and sharing with
them a respect and awe for their < ruggedly
beautiful surroundings, the priest comes to
know and accept the meaning of his own
early death - and in exchange leaves a
spiritual legacy to his parish.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24 — 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) -- UNWED FATHER - Rebroadcast of
a so-so production dealing with a fairly
controversial subject -- teen-age parenthood.
A young student (Joe Bottoms) wants to keep
his pregnant girlfriend’s baby rather than put
it up for adoption. Kay Lenz is the girl, in this
unfocused and forgettable melodrama.
8:30 p.m. (NBC) -- PARK RANGERS --
This was the pilot film for the forgettable
(and, indeed, FORGOTTEN - now that it’s
been cancelled) network adventure series
SIERRA. It is a typical, unimaginative Jack
Webb Productions programmer - merely a
collection of vaguely connected and
thoroughly phony little episodes involving
park rangers going about their (highly
imaginary) work - taming a raging grizzly,
finding a lost camping party, fighting heavy
snows, etc. Skip it.
CHRISTMAS DAY (Wed.), DECEMBER
25 — Nothing worth watching - unplug your
TV set for the day.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26 — 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) - WILD ROVERS (1971) - William
Holden and Ryan O’Neal are quite effective in
this flawed but engagingly bitter-sweet
exploration of ordinary cowpokes gone bad
due to hard times. The movie unfolds in a
slow-ballad fashion, with Holden and O’Neal
gradually turning into bank robbers when
their honest employment falls apart during a
dry spell. The characterizations are the film’s
strong points; its plot is rather shaky; and the
resolution a downer. There’s some violence to
make one wince, but a gratuitous bordello
scene will be trimmed for TV presentation,
we assume. (A-lll)
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27 — 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) - THE LAST RUN (1971) - George C.
Scott, after nine years of going straight, is
reactivated as a professional getaway driver to
help spring a young convict. Scott handles the
required ambushes, chases, and double-crosses
with precision and, although the film itself
remains unbelievable, it is nonetheless
involving. Tony Musante plays the young
convict (Paul), and Trish Van Devere is the
girl Paul’s brother passes on to him. The love
theme, using Trish further as a pawn to assure
Scott’s loyalty, never really develops because
Scott knows and so does the audience that it
won't work. What does work is Scott; he
measures out his Cagney, Hemingway and
Bogart in just the right proportions to stay
within the characterization. An action film
done in the spirit of the genre which will
entertain the viewer even if it does not absorb
him fully, and Scott fans may go all the way.
(AIM)
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28 —9:00 p.m.
(NBC) -- MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS (1971) -
Historical drama details the downfall of Mary,
Queen of Scots in a 16th-century power
struggle that makes the 1972 presidential
campaign look like a game of checkers.
Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson, as
Queen Mary of Scotland (a Stuart) and
Elizabeth of England (a Tudor), respectively,
slug it out dramatically and politically in a
contest of the wits and wills between two
utterly egotistical but otherwise completely
opposite personalities. All sorts of political
shenanigans and “dirty tricks” come into
play, perhaps setting the example (and
repeating some, no doubt) for things to come.
Fascinating costume drama and intrigue, ij
afflicted by a slight case of overacting on the
part of Ms’s Jackson and Redgrave, who tend
to cancel each other out with too-strong stuff.
(A-lll) *
THE COOK’S
NOOK
3/4 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
1 egg
2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
11/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 (16-ounce) package
butterscotch-flavored morsels
Pecan halves
BY THE CHEF
Mrs. Wylie B. Kitchens sent so many delicious recipes to the Cook’s Nook that the
Chef has decided to use six of them in this issue preceding Christmas.
EASY PLUM CAKE
Cream together shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add molasses and egg;
mix well. Sift in dry ingredients; mix thoroughly. Stir in butterscotch morsels. Chill in
refrigerator 2 hours. Form into about 1-inch balls; roll in granulated sugar. Place on
greased baking sheets. Top each with a pecan half. Bake in a 375 degree oven 10 to 12
minutes. Yield: about 5 dozen cookies.
EGGPLANT CASSEROLE
2 cups sugar
2 sm. jars plum dessert (baby food)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup chopped nuts
3 eggs
2 cups self-rising flour
1 tsp. cloves
1 cup Butter or Oleo (melted)
1 eggplant, pared and cut in cubes
6 med. tomatoes, sliced
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 Irg. onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. oregano
Mix ingredients together and beat for 4 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees F. for one
hour (do not open door while baking).
HAWAIIAN PIE
Combine 2 cups graham cracker crumbs, 1/2 stick melted margarine and 3
tablespoons of sugar. Press in bottom of large casserole dish. Slice 3 to 5 bananas on
cracker crumbs. Mix 1 can sweetened condensed milk and 1/2 cup bottled lemon juice,
and pour over bananas. Next add one No. 2 can crushed drained pineapple. Add a
layer of whipped cream topping. Then sprinkle with a cup' of coconut. Top with
maraschino cherries. Refrigerate.
SEAFOOD CASSEROLE
Brown all ingredients except tomatoes in oil. Stir in seasoning. Alternate egglant
mixture with tomatoes in IV2 quart casserole. Bake 40 minutes at 400 degrees.
1 cup green pepper
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup crab meat
1 cup small boiled shrimp, more if desired
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup Mayonnaise
1 small can water chestnuts, chopped
Mix together all ingredients. Place in an oiled casserole. Sprinkle top with buttered
bread crumbs. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
APPLESAUCE CAKE
1/4 teaspoon salt
IV2 teaspoons soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup raisins
1 cup butter
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (16V2-ounce) can applesauce
3 cups all-purpose flour
Cream butter, eggs, and sugar together. Add vanilla and applesauce; beat well. Sift
dry ingredients together and add to applesauce mixture. Mix together and add pecans
and raisins. Mix well. Bake in 3 greased and floured 9-inch round cakepans at 275
degrees for 30 to 35 minutes or until done. Yield: three 9-inch layers.
ABOUT CHRISTMAS
Aren’t we glad to know there’ll always be a
Christmas?
And to feel that though our problems may
not cease,
There’s a time of year where joy will reign
triumphant
While hearts are filled with faith and hope
and peace ...”
(Author Unknown)
Merry Christmas to All!!!
BOOK REVIEWS
LOVE MUST NOT BE WASTED:
WHEN SORROW COMES, TAKE IT
GENTLY BY THE HAND by Isabella
Taves. Thomas Y. Crowell Company,
New York. pp. 214, $6.95.
REVIEWED BY ROBERT NOWELL
(NC News Service)
Don’t be put off by the title. The
gooey sentimentality it promises is
fortunately not to be found in the
book.
What you will find is a practical and
down-to-earth guide to coping with grief
that also underlines the vital lesson that
grief is something we must accept. If we
try to evade or suppress it, the results
can be disastrous.
In our society there has been a
marked tendency to try to ignore the
fact of death. Partly it is the good old
Anglo-Saxon stiff upper lip tradition.
Partly it is the fact that death has
become remote - something that
happens in hospital, not at home.
(There is a paradox to be explored here
because that can apply to birth too.)
Ultimately, I suppose, it is because in an
age when everything is increasingly
subjected to man’s dominion death is
the one event totally beyond his
control.
But this tendency has, I think, come
to an end. The evidence is provided by a
book like this. Death is now something
we can talk about again, which does not
simply mean a fatalistic attitude of
acceptance. In coming to terms with it,
we have to recognize that we resent it
when it removes from us family and
friends.
Ms.< Tavesf starting point is the death
nine years ago of her husband, Dan
Mich of Look magazine. The advice she
offers is rooted in her own experience.
Or perhaps “advice” is the wrong word.
“Description” might be a better way of
putting it, for what she is saying is,
look, this is how it is, this is the kind of
difficulty you run up against, this is the
kind of decision you have to make.
What gives her book its especial
strength is this foundation of experience
- not only her own, for she is able to
draw on that of others, encountered
when writing her book “Women Alone”
and subsequently her column of the
same title. She recognizes fully the
ambiguity and ambivalence of our
feelings toward those who are dying or
who have died - particularly when it is
the loss of a parent we are mourning,
since the child-parent relationship is
more mixed up than most - and the
need to face up to this ambiguity and
ambivalence.
Running through the book is a tone
of sober wisdom that is all the stronger
for not being based on conventional
religious belief. It is, if you like, the
lesson of experience uncontaminated by
the data of revelation and the
expectations that revelation gives rise
to. Yet the message that comes through
is one which one hopes is being
preached and lived by Christians and by
the churches. If it is not, it is vital that
it should be.
(Robert Nowell is London correspondent
of The Catholic Review, Baltimore
archdiocesan newspaper, and author of “What
a Modern Catholic Believes About Death,"
Chicago. Thomas More Press. 1972.)
* LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
Mandy
, ■ 1
I remember all my life,
Raining down as cold as ice,
shadows of a man; a face through a window,
crying in the night, the night goes into morning;
just another day, happy people pass my way.
Looking in their eyes, I see your memory,
I never realized how happy you made me.
CHORUS
Oh Mandy, well you came and you gave
without taking, but I sent you away.
Oh Mandy, well you kissed me
and stopped me from shaking, y '
and I need you today, Oh Mandy.
I’m standing on the edge of time,
I’ve walked away when love was mine,
Caught up in a world of uphill climbing
the tears are in my eyes
and nothing is rhyming
Yesterday’s a dream; I face the morning
crying on a breeze, the pain is calling.
Sung by: Barry Manilow
(Scott English & Richard Kerr; Wren Music, Inc., BMI, 1974)
You probably have never heard of Barry Manilow, the singer of this song,
until now. But you have heard him before. His voice stirred your taste buds as he
sang the MacDonald’s commercial, “You deserve a break today.” His piano
played behind Bette Midler on the “Divine Miss M.” album. He also arranged
that album and co-produced it, as well as offering the warm-up for Miss Midler
on tour.
Music has been his life with a background that includes the Julliard School of
Music. He has written and directed music for CBS Television and some specials
for Ed Sullivan. After all of that he decided to do his own album in 1973.
Though the critics liked it, the market didn’t. It didn’t sell. Perhaps most people
would take a blow like that and return to what they had done in the past. For
Barry, that would mean working behind the scenes. I’m sure that at the point of
failure a decision has to be made. He had to ask himself if it might be
worthwhile to try again. Barry’s decision to take another chance resulted in
producing “Mandy,” a single release from the second effort. It is a mellow hit!
What happened in Barry’s life seems to come through in this song which he
does well. The focus of the lyrics is remembering both good and bad times. But
what he remembers most at the moment is “how happy you made me.”
Something that he had was good even though he didn’t realize it until it was
gone. Now that the “pain is calling” and “nothing is rhyming” he looks back to
the past.
Remembering is a strong support when you are “caught up in a world of
uphill climb.” It can soften some of the pain with a little sweetness of what has
been. But remembering is really most helpful in making a decision for now.
The man in this song is “standing on the edge of time.” While he recalls what
Mandy gave in the past, he also admits that “I need you today. His point of
failure is a point of decision about the future. Either he can brood over what was
lost or he can decide to risk again for the future. It doesn’t really matter so
much whether he seeks Mandy out again or channels his love toward someone
else. What does matter is that he decides to risk again. If he doesn’t, he has not
really used his remembering well. He has learned little from the past. He has
really forgotten his ability to love.
Barry Manilow took a second chance. Maybe his own success is the kind of
push we all need to make our remembering an active force for now.
(All correspondence should be directed to: The Dameans, P. 0. Box 2108;
Baton Rouge, La. 90821.)
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