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With Slc\e Warren
The new pictures offer u
much variety in content as in
quality.
M-G-M has enough surefire
material in their vaults for a
dozen That's Entertainment and
That’s Entertainment, Part 2
makes me eager to see the next
ten.
Following an old Hollywood
axiom that the harder it is to
screw up a movie, the harder
they try, the makers of Part 2
have added an intrusive
narration that often covers up
the opening lines of songs. It’s
okay for Fred Astaire and Gene
Kelly to show that they can still
sing and dance; but their special
lyrics to the title song are as
inane as their dialogue, which is
as bad as the tripe the presenters
say at the Academy Awards.
Parker Stevenson (1.) and Sam Elliott In"LIFEGUARD”.
>*aRy(c.
1945) In “Anchors A weigh”
from “That's Entertainment,,
Part 2”
But that’s the bitter that
must be endured with the sweet
two hours of clips from old M-G-
M films. They’re mostly
musicals, but other types are
sampled, too. Tracy and
Hepburn encore scenes from
their M-G-M efforts, together
and apart; the Marx Brothers are
seen in the classic “stateroom
scene” from A Night at the
Opera: and there are favorite
lines too.
Buffs ranging from Rhett’s
Oeparturc in Gone with the Wind
to what Marie Dressier told 3 ean
Harlow in Dinner at Eight•
That's Entertainment, Part 2
is a movie magic. Us flaw is
tragic, but not ftet.
The other new musical, The
Blue Bird, if it should have
existed at all, should have been a
ballet. In this disjointed fairy
tale, Elizabeth Taylor sends two
children (Todd Lookinland and
Patsy Kensit) in search of the
Blue Bird of Happiness.
Ji
GAME
mi 3m Vafcfct In “END OF THE
Lisa Lemole and BIDy MiUiken in ”Drive-In”
turmoil never shows; as a result,
we don’t care what happens to
him. He’s not a rebel and he
doesn’t stand for anything; he’s
just one person doing what he
wants to do.
The beefcake aspects of the
picture will attract more people
than the plot. Elliott is on the
screen most of the time, usually
in a bathing suit. For those of us
who prefer them younger and
smoother, Parker Stevenson [A
Separate Peace] plays his
assistant.
If your turn-on is a man in a
uniform, Midway offers a
screenful of them. It’s the story
of the WWII battle in which the
U.S. regained naval superiorty in
the Pacific, after the setback of
Pearl Harbor.
The semi-documentary style
emphasizes the coincidences and
mistakes on both sides that led to
the American victory. But to
keep things from being too
text bookish, there’s a story
involving Charlton Heston as a
captain who’s on friendly terms
with everyone in the
Navy...except his son, Edward
Albert, who is in love with an
American-born Japanese girl.
It’s typical screenwriting-by
computer stuff.
Most of the battle scenes use
authenic footage to save money,
but they’re enhanced aurally by
Sensurround, the process
developed for Earthquake. This
time you hear the sound as well
as feel it, and it’s not as
Ava Gardner takes Todd
Lookinland for a ride in
“THE BLUEBIRD.”
The best episodes that follow
features Ava Gardner as
“Luxury”, tempting young Todd
to the hedonistic life. The
Leningrad-Kirov Ballet furnishes
some of the world’s most
effeminate-looking/ male
dancers. As one of them cuts in
on the waltzing Todd and Ava,
there’s a panicky moment before
we’re sure which one he wants to
dance with. (It’s Ava...the
movie’s rated G.)
Director George Cukor gets
most of the blame for The Blue
Bird, which is for children of no
ages.
I hate to reveal a plot twist,
but there’T no way to discuss
“Ode To Billie Joe"
in a gay publication without
bringing out the key point:
“Billy Joe McAllister jumped off
the Tallahatchie Bridge”
because he had a sexual
experience with a man!
It’s not quite clear whether
he enjoyed the experience, or
was merely “taken advantage
of’ while he was drunk. Neither
is it dear whether the movie
condones the resolution or offers
it purely as a portrait of the
attitudes that existed in rural
Mississippi in 1953.
Robby Benson plays Billy
,Joe, with Glynnis CT Connor as
the object of his affection prior to
his new self-awareness. They’ve
appeared together
before(Jeremy], and always
make an appealing couple.
Ode to BIDy Joe, though not
as good a movie as the song is a
song, is entertaining most of the
way. Your response to the
conclusion will have to be your
own, since it’s not programmed
for you; and I guess that’s as it
should be, if the story has to end
this way.
You’ll probably react less
emotionally to Lifeguard. For a
drama about a man faced with a
crucial decision concerning his
lifestyle, it’s surprisingly
easygoing and non-involving.
Hunky Sam Elliott plays the
title role. At 32, he’s been a
lifeguard for 8 years. His family
and peers, unable to understand
how a grown man can enjoy what
he does for a living, urge him to
get into something more
stable...like selling cars. Re
meeting his high school
sweetheart (Anne Archer) he
faces pressure from her to enter
a more stable relationship than
he cares to get into.
Elliott has such a natural,
low-key style that his emotional
Kris Krlstoffenon as "THE SAILOR WHO FELL FROM
GRACE WITH THE SEA".
effective. I prefer to get my
headaches from rock concerts.
Ike Missouri Breaks has a lot
to recommend it, but Marlon
Brando’s incredibly hammy
performance is enough to negate
all the picture’s positive aspects.
It’s the same plot as last
year’s Rancho Deluxe, by the
same writer, Thomas McGuane,
about a man (Brando) hired to
stop a gang of rustlers(led by
Jack Nicholson). The rustlers
are the heroes, and the quasi-
lawman is a pain in the ass.
Brando assumes an Irish
accent and any number of
unmotivated disguises,
including drag, in an attempt to
make his character as colorful as
possible. The result is something
only the color-blind will love.
End of the Game is an
intriguing puzzler that’s good to
see when you’re in the mood to
use your brain at a movie.
It concerns a wager
between Robert Shaw and
Martin Ritt that Shaw could get
away with murder. 30 years
later, Ritt is still trying to bring
him to justice.
By this time, Shaw is rich and
powerful, Ritt a plodding,
middle-class police inspector.
Jon Voight is Ritt’s assistant;
Jaqueline Bisset the mistress of
Shaw, among others.
After seeing End of the
Game, you may want to refer to
Friedrich Duerrenmatt’s novel,
the Judge and His Hangman, to
understand it.
Mother’s Jugs and Speed is
easier to comprehend. It’s purely
a commercial black comedy
about ambulance drivers...
specifically the three of the title:
Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch and
Harvey Keitel, respectively.
Welch gives one of her better
performances, which is not
exactly high praise; Cosby and
Keitel, both fine actors, manage
to look like they’re not
slumming.
I don’t mean to put Mother,
Jugs and Speed down the way it
sounds, because it aims to
entertain and it succeeds.
I'VE SAVED MY TWO
FAVORITES FOR LAST.
Drive-In is for everyone
who loved American Graffiti,
plus those who were too young to
relate to it.
It’s set in the present day in a
small Texas town, and takes
place in a single afternoon and
evening. With a no-star cast,
dozens of characters are created
and set to interact in situations
which come to a head that night
at the drive-in movie.
There’s the girl(Lisa Lemole)
who leaves gang leader Billy
Milliken in favor of shy Glenn
Morshowcr. There are two inept
crooks( Trey Wilson and Gordon
Hurst) who plan to rob the
theater. And there’s the guy
(Kent Perkins) who’s trying to
get engaged to the sheriffs
daughterfAshley Cox). That’s
just for starters.
On screen at the drive-in, the
film-within-a-film. Disaster '76,
takes off on several recent
pictures.
Drive-In is as much fun as
you’ll have all year at the
movies.
Hie Sailor Who FeD from
Grace with the Sea is no fun at
all, but it had a hypnotic effect
on me and left me high.
It's a horror story on the
order of Lord of the Flies, about
the evil lurking within precocious
boys; but this aspect does’nt
become clear until the finale. In
the meantime, it’s a love story
between sailor Kris
Kristofferson and widow Sarah
Miles.
The change of mood at the
end will turn a lot of people off;
but there’s no better way this
story could have been told. So go
with it and you’ll find it a
fascinating experience.
in Key West, it’s...
218 DUVAL ST. (294-3717)
An exciting disco with everything
you're looking for.
And once you find that special person, qet to know each
other at the New Street Bar.