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PAGE 6—January 23, 1975
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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 AU
C - Condemned
USCC DIVISION FOR FILM AND BROADCASTING
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STAVISKY (Cinemation) ...Director
Alain Resnais’ lush masterpiece about a
charming French scoundrel. Alain Resnais’
STAVISKY combines an expert perception of
history, in this case the history of France in
the depression of the 1930’s, with an
emotionally engaging character study of the
era’s best known and least understood
swindler, Serge Alexandre Stavisky.
Resnais’ choice of subject matter seems
most felicitous for audiences of the Seventies.
The story of Stavisky, a brash petty criminal
who managed to involve almost the whole
government in his ever spiraling and ever more
byzantine schemes, only to see the bubble
burst and a bogus empire collapse, seems
particularly relevant to a world wracked by
Watergate and economic chaos. Resnais is so
adept at creating milieu, at picturing the
stylish life of the idle rich moving in a dream
world based on cruel illusions, and at setting
the stage for scandal, that one comes to see
Stavisky as “the herald of death, the death of
an era.” Resnais’ skill transforms the Stavisky
affair, which is normally treated as a minor
footnote in French history, into a powerful
myth and a moving cautionary tale. He
constantly foregrounds Stavisky’s desperate
plots, his faltering efforts to maintain a
crumbling capitalism, against the arrival in
France of Trotsky and the onset of civil war
in Spain. Considered in broadest symbolic
terms, the destruction of Stavisky mirrors the
collapse of capitalism, and paves the way for
fascism instead of socialism. Stavisky is
Resnais' principal focus, but a sense of the
larger world arena constantly impinging,
forcing the viewer to weigh all the dimensions
of the plot.
What makes the film work so well as myth,
however, is the aura Resnais creates around
his characters. Jean Paul Belmondo, who
plays Stavisky, has never looked more
handsome, nor moved through more opulent
sets than he does in STAVISKY. Resnais
constantly uses soft-focus and diffuse lighting
to make the adventures of his dreamers seem
so much gayer than life, so much more
glamorous. In a coup of casting, Resnais uses
Charles Boyer playing a lovingly decadent and
dissipated Baron as a foil to Stavisky. To
understand Serge, the Baron argues, “you
must dream about him and dream his
dreams.” In essence, the film STAVISKY is
not history, but a dreamer’s view pf history, a
glorious nostalgic homage to a beauty which
ends in tragedy.
Most of the beauty of STAVISKY lies in
stunning visuals. Resnais is a master of color
contrasts, and this film might just as aptly be
titled “the red and the white." Belmondo is
constantly surrounded by deep reds, ranging
from the red carnation he always wears, to
the red drapes of the opera, to the blood of
his mysterious death. His wife Arlette, on the
other hand, played by Anny Duperey, is
always in white-the white of summer dresses,
golf outfits of ermine, and of orchids. Once
he has established these color identifications,
Resnais builds on them, constantly using
color to carry the narrative and to replace
dialogue.
Resnais highlights each of his key scenes by
carefully accentuating them with discordant
music. Resnais worked with Stephen
Sondheim on the score, and it is one of the
year’s most effective. The music is most
noticeable in Resnais’ brilliant montage
sequences. Frequently, Resnais cuts quickly
from scene to scene to suggest the many
human dynamics at work; the music aids the
audience to feeling the melody in this seeming
madness.
Near the end of the film, for example,
there is a lengthy sequence, where the camera
moves from a theater where CORIOLANUS
(an apt text) is playing to an audience that
includes Stavisky with his red flowers and
Arlette in white whom the Baron indicates
“heralds the immaculate winter snows,” to an
arrest at the credit bank, to Stavisky burning
papers and pocketing a pearl handled gun, to
a car in the snow, to a scene of the Empire
theater playing “Deux sous des fleures,” to a
dramatic funeral procession, to Stavisky
wrapped in a shroud, to snowy mountains, to
the Baron in the snow, to jewels being
pawned. Resnais can use such a visual collage
only because the music constantly establishes
the proper mood, and because the color is so
forceful, merging the whiteness of snow,
dresses, pearls, jewels, and shrouds. It is
obvious that Resnais worked closely with
writer Jorge Semprun to create a script that is
visual and lyrical almost to an extreme.
STAVISKY, like ail of Resnais’ works, is
both challenging and rewarding. Audiences
must be willing to accept a good deal of
ambiguity if they are to enjoy STAVISKY.
Often the transformation of history to myth
and fable in STAVISKY obscures the
individual incidents, as does the intercutting
of the Trotsky material. The powerful visuals
and fine cinematic flow make this, however,
one of .the most interesting films of the year,
a work which offers many rewards to the
patient and discerning viewer. (A-III)
BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT (Columbia)
Beginning with that perennial biology lab
favorite, the paramecium, working its way up
through the animal kingdom to cover the
higher mammals, and ending with an ominous
philosophical question for man himself, this
constantly fascinating, occasionally excessive
documentary focuses on how living things
make other living things through the process
of repVoduction. The film is the product of
the estimable Wolper Organization and, as in
THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE, their
collective photographic and editing expertise
is fully realized. But, recalling the little girl’s
observation when asked to offer her book
report on penguins, one might reasonably cry
out that we’ve learned and, especially, seen,
far more of the many animals than we care to.
This is the sort of movie that will doubtless
stir controversy-more likely from parents
than from any children who will see it.
Whatever the case, be warned that the film is
very graphic in depicting how the birds, bees,
and just about everything else “do it.” On
balance, the film is precisely that-a balance of
fascinating and illuminating segments (how a
desert wasp employs a tarantula spider carcass
as host for its young; a unique encounter
between snails) with some that are plainly
embarrassing (the mating of rhinos at a public
zoo; the too-human amours of some upright
apes). For adults and older teens, definitely a
matter of taste. (A-lll)
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE
ROLLING STONES (Dragon Aire) When this
film was first released last summer, in a
special ticket-only series of presentations, the
attendant ballyhoo got in the way of the
movie itself. Now in regular runs around the
country, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN has
emerged as one of the brightest, swiftest, and
least cluttered of the many rock-and-roll
concert films that have come down the pipe
in recent years. The key to its success is
two-fold—first there is the Stones themselves
and their superb hard-driving music, then
there is the way the film was shot and edited,
in a dazzling, straight-documentary fashion.
The result is ail 8-track music (or Quad,
depending on the theater) and swirling image,
with none of the tiresome interviews and
side-trips that so detract from such films.
Mick Jagger and crew are at their slightly
Satanic but self-parodying best, their
performances are driving and irresistible (for
rock fans, that iS) and their movie-directed
by onetime ad man Rollin Binzer—is a savory
concotion indeed. (A-lll)
THAT’LL BE THE DAY (Goodtimes) is
the first part of a two-film project based
loosely on the early formation of the Beatles
rock group. (The second part is Columbia’s
forthcoming STARDUST.) David Essex stars
as a callow young Englishman-aimless,
charming, searching for fame in a direction
not yet determined. Curiously enough, a
co-star in this gritty and generally excellent
film is Ringo Starr, playing a non-musical
casual friend whose example helps Essex
focus on larger goals. The film, written by
Roy Connolly and directed by Claude
Whatham, follows Essex as he prowls the
fringes of the third-rate rock scene in rural
England. His tentative experiences with girls,
his later shallowness, his mistaken marriage to
a loving but empty country girl are major
events in his life. The film ends with his
departure from home and bewildered family
to strike out on his own as a musician,
equipped with a secondhand guitar and grim
determination. The film is raw, often ragged,
but full of feeling and compassion, and it
should interest both rock historians and
people who like unvarnished pictures of
unwashed types. (A-lll)
TV Movies
USCC DIVISION FOR FILM AND BROADCASTING
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 26 — 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) - CHARLY (1968) — Cliff Robertson
plays the title role as a mentally retarded
man, and is quite convincing in a dramatic
part that undergoes the startling changes
demanded by the plot. The rest of the cast is
equally good especially Claire Boom and Lilia
Skala. Ralph Nelson directed the Stirling
Silliphant script adaptation with obvious care,
although his use of split screen devices seems
pointless and unnecessary. It is an above
average film with an intriguing plot which will
please many including those who might
profess publicaliy that they really don’t care
for “sentimental pictures.” (A-lll)
MONDAY, JANUARY 27 — 9:00 p.m.
(ABC) - THE BOSTON STRANGLER (1968)
- Rather seamy, occasionally distasteful and
generally unpleasant quasi-documentary based
on the “fictionalized” book by Gerold Frank.
The subject is Albert DeSalvo, the
seif-cdnfessed “Strangler,” who terrorized
Boston for a number of months in the late
Sixties, mainly by strangling thirteen of its
female inhabitants. The film unfolds as a
gritty terrdr-mystery as the Strangler (Tony
Curtis) stalks victims one after another
(thankfully, they are shown in aftermath) and
the police, headed by detective George
Kennedy and Massachusetts Attorney General
Henry Fonda, concentrate on the
investigation. The film is taut and realistic -
and gruesome enough to make grown men
wince and women faint dead away. (B)
9:00 p.m. (NBC) - PLAY MISTY FOR ME
(1971) - Gore and more gore are the
emphases as Clint Eastwood and Jessica
Walter star in an Eastwood-directed suspenser
tracing a slick California disk jockey’s near
tragic-involvement with a severely disturbed
woman who’s a fan of his. The title comes
from the woman’s nightly telephoned request
for “her” special song - but when the DJ and
the girl meet, she displays unexpected and
VERY dangerous fits of jealousy. The film is
gripping, but it drips with violence. Eastwood
is less wooden than usuaj though still
lethargic, and it is Ms. Walter who adds the
spark of manic menace. (A-IV)
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28 — 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) - THE DAUGHTERS OF JOSHUA
CABE RETURN - Spin-off of an earlier
made-for-TV movie with a plot too insanely
complicated to go into. Suffice it to say that
the scheme here involves a certain amount of
good-natured deception on the part of one
rascal, Joshua Cabe, to set himself up as a
respectable homesteading father of several
comely young ladies. Dan Dailey assays the
role of Cabe, Arthur Hunnicutt is delightful in
a walk-through character role as a miner. Dub
Taylor, Ronne Troup and Kathleen Freeman
add to the puffy fun. A time-waster, but not a
bad one at that.
8:30 p.m. (NBC) - SHADOW IN THE
STREET -- Made-for-television adventure stars
Tony Lo Bianco in the inevitable tough-guy
role. The story involves Lo Bianco as a recent
ex-convict trying to adjust to his new freedom
and still protect himself from recidivism. Ed
Lauder, a fellow ex-con, doesn’t help much
with his special “favor.”
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30 — 9:00 p.m.
(CBS) - THE FAMILY (1973) - Muddled
mobster movie, with Telly Savalas, Charles
Bronson, Jill Ireland. The mob headed by
Savalas makes lonesome hit man Bronson an
offer he’d BETTER NOT refuse.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1 —9:00 p.m.
(NBC) - THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN
(1970) - Henry Fonda and Kirk Douglas star
in an off-balance Western about a
reform-minded prison warden (Fonda) who
rises to the moral challenge offered by
renegade convict Douglas to practice what he
preaches about rehabilitation and trust. The
twist ending has to do with a race to the
death for a secret pile of Spanish gold. Corny
but effective, if occasionally violent, and
Fonda and Douglas ham up their individual
storms. (A-lll)
9:00 p.m. (ABC) - ELECTRA GLIDE IN
BLUE (1973) - This movie was the flop of
the year when it first appeared, and how well
it fares on the small screen is doubtful. It’s an
ironic slice-of-life involving the routine and
frustrating existence of a smalltown
motorcycle cop (Robert Blake) in the
Southwest. Blake simultaneously revels in
such details of his life as his splendid uniform
and rugged equipment, but he yearns for the
“bigger” reputation he might have as a
detective. A short stint with marshall Mitch
Ryan cures him of that, and a botched twist
ending that'reverses the EASY RIDER finale
leaves you with a bad taste. (A-lll)
SINGING FOR SUPPER -
Before each meal, these members
of a university community in
Toronto join in psalm singing and
prayers. This is part of their life
in a residence where young men
are trying to find if they have a
real vocation to the priesthood.
From left are: Father Terry
McCullum, 27, Mike Nasello, 18,
Rick Coles, 22, Father Hank
Simmons, 35, and Rick Turcotte,
19. (NC Photo)
REVIEWED BY
JOSEPH R. THOMAS
(NC News Service)
THE RECOVERY OF THE
SACRED, by James Hitchcock. Seabury
Press, New York. 174 pp. $6.95.
Liturgical reform has not fulfilled the
promises of the liturgists. Even liturgists
agree on that. But to jump from there
to the conclusion that it has been an
unmitigated failure and a principal cause
for a decline in Catholic practice is to
jump a mite too far.
Nevertheless, that is the jump that
James Hitchcock (author of the earlier
“The Decline and Fall of Radical
Catholicism”) seemingly attempts to
make in “The Recovery of the Sacred.”
The term “seemingly” is appropriate for
here and there Hitchcock makes a
grudging concession to the efficacy of
some liturgical reforms. But you have to
be fairly alert to catch them, for not
only are such concessions few and far
between but Hitchcock glosses over
them fairly rapidly as well.
He is more concerned with liturgical
absurdities, footnoting opinion and
practice in a litany of scorn. Scorned
they should be, of course, but to dwell
on them in so unrelenting a fashion
leaves the impression that absurdity has
become the norm in American liturgical
practice.
His assumption is that except for the
failure of reform there would have been
little of the alienation so evident today.
He’s not alone in that opinion, of
course, but that does not make it any
easier to prove. Indeed it must hurdle
the fact that even those churches which
have changed ritual and practice but
slightly or not at all are nevertheless
experiencing a certain amount of
turmoil.
Nevertheless, Hitchcock’s book is not
without a great deal of merit, for
liturgists themselves have come to
recognize many of the problems which
he poses, the main one being the
sundering of the veil of mystery which
surrounded Catholic ritual. The
mystery, of course is still there, but the
aura of mystery is missing, which is why
Hitchcock can write in terms of “the
recovery of the sacred,” the implication
being that the sacred has been lost.
In making his point, Hitchcock
enunciates a set of principles, most of
which have their basis in hindsight and
lead from one hyperbolic statement to
another: The liturgy was
“appropriated” by professionals in their
effort to shift religious focus to the
humanistic. This “was bound to have
disastrous results” and “from the
beginning almost everyone sensed the
inappropriateness of the attempt. ..”
And so it goes. When the editor of
Worship, for instance, expressed a hope
for “extremely free adaptations” of the
Latin Mass text into English, Hitchcock
sees it as justification for saying, “Many
liturgists justified unauthorized
experiments, and obviously came to
regard the Church’s official
pronouncements as at best general
guidelines which could be disregarded.”
Which may really have been so,
although how this can be deduced on
the basis of an editor’s “hopes” it is
difficult to fathom.
At any rate, if the sacred has been
lost, Hitchcock offers a program for
getting it back, starting with the
elimination of the spontaneous and the
contemporary in current practice, and
the restoration of symbolism,
uniformity and traditional practices
(such as breast-beating). A new English
Mass text is needed too and a return to
Friday abstinence would be helpful.
Hitchcock writes extremely well and
he has certainly put his finger on some
of the key problems affecting the
Church. His analysis stimulates thought
and provokes response although his
proclivity for overstatement tends to
weaken his case.
(, V' LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
The Entertainer
I am the entertainer
And I know just where I stand-
Another serenader and another long-haired band.
Today I am your champion,
I may have won your hearts.
But I know the game; you’ll forget my name,
And I won’t be here in another year
If I don’t stay on the charts.
I am the entertainer
And I’ve had to pay the price.
The things I did not know at first
I learned by doing twice.
But still they come to haunt me,
Still they want their say;
So I’ve learned to dance with a hand in my pants,
And I’ve rubbed my neck, and I write them a check
And they go their merry way.
I am the entertainer,
I bring to you my songs.
I’d like to spend a day or two;
I can’t stay that long.
No, I’ve got to meet expenses
I’ve got to stay in line
Got to get those fees to the agencies,
And I’d love to stay but there’s bills to pay
So I just don’t have the time.
A young girl came into my office a short time ago. She was thinking about
leaving home to become a night club singer. Before dropping the idea on her
parents, she felt that she should talk it over with a priest,
This particular girl was convinced that becoming a professional singer was the
way to being fulfilled as a person. Her voice was good, she said. She enjoyed
performing before crowds. And obviously the financial return was more lucrative
than other ways of life. She noted that the future is especially bright for the
talented performer in the modern world.
There is, of course, no answer to the question of what vocation a person
should choose. There is, however, a more basic consideration: what will make
this unique person feel fulfilled and happy? How can she achieve the happiness
which is her real goal?
Billy Joel’s new song, “The Entertainer,” offers an interesting comment on
the vocation of the performer. His lyrics point to how hard the life of the
creative artist can be. In fact, the song raises a serious question about whether
that life is really glorious and fulfilling in the end.
Billy Joel describes the entertainer as the bright idol of our age - there are the
large audiences which give standing ovations, the wonderful feeling that
everyone is buying his record or humming her tunes, the great income.
But Billy Joel emphasizes that the performer has had to pay a price. On the
other side of every performer’s life there are facts that are hard to take. In order
to make money, it is necessary to pay out a good amount to the agencies. In
order to write a hit song, the composer has to spend the best of his years and
then suffer the indignity of having his work cut down to fit a time slot of
“thiee-o-five.” In order to be sold, you can’t go cold or linger too long.
I am the entertainer;
I’ve come to do my show.
You heard my latest record,
It’s been on the radio.
It took me years to write it.
It was the best years of my life.
It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long,
And if you’re gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit
So they cut it down to three-o-five.
I am the entertainer,
The idol of my age.
I make all kinds of money
When I go on the stage.
You see me in the papers,
I’ve been in the magazines.
But if I go cold I won’t get sold
I get put in the back in the discount rack by Billy Joel
Like another can of peas. ( (c) 1974 CBS, Inc.)
Billy Joel’s song is an interesting commentary on the idol of our age. The
performer chooses to live in a world where the great glory comes when people
buy his product, and he suffers with the constant tension of staying ahead of
those who consume what he creates. “I won’t be here in another year if I don’t
stay on the charts.” “But if I go cold I won’t get sold. I get put in the back of
the discount rack like another can of peas.”
“The Entertainer” offers the statement that there is no cheap way to glory
and success. In a way, there is even a little irony in the song, for it makes one
wonder if there is real and lasting fulfillment for the entertainer, at least for the
one in this song.
Billy Joel gives a key in the first verse when he talks about winning the hearts
of people. It seems to me that the question for myself, the girl who visited me,
and for every person is whether, through that vocation, each of us ultimately
will have won our own hearts.
(All correspondence should be directed to: The Dameans, P.O. Box 2108, Baton Rouge,
La. 90821.)
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