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September 1976. THE BARB 8
GAT-IN© Y€ THE MG VIES
Willi Stm e W arren
It basnet been a month
for big movies; so here are
little reviews of a dozen small
ones that have opened, listed
alphabetically:
The Bingo Long
Traveling All-Stars and
Motor Kings is as long on fun
as its title is on words. It’s
about black baseball players
who, in the 30’s, left the
organized “Negro Leagues”
to form their own team.
James Earl Jones and
Richard Pryor lead a cast that
includes several honest-to-
God ballplayers. At the
other end of the spectrum is
Billy Dee Williams, who
models a baseball suit but
looks as much like a player as
Tommy Tune looks like a
jockey!
James Earl Jones and
Bill Dee Williams in
“The Bingo Long
Traveling All-Stars and
Motor Kings”
If Mandingo was trash
(Do I hear any arguments?)
Dram is super-trash. It takes
us back to Falconhurst
plantation, where everybody
nicks everybody but a strict
social code limits the liaisons
they can talk about. John
Colicos, one of the world’s
worst actors, plays a French
faggot who starts a lot of the
trouble because slave Ken
Norton kicks him out of bed.
You can't possibly take this
County Seat...the place to
swing with an old iriend or
with someone new.
Karl Sylwan and Liv Ullmann in “Face to Face”
one seriously, but you might
enjoy it.
Face to Face is the year’s
heaviest drama, and its
realism will be too much for
most people to handle. Liv
Ullmann gives one of the all-
time great female star
performances as a
psychiatrist who’s losing her
mind. The story has in
cidental gay angles, too, but
the focus is on Ullmann.
From Noon Till Three
tries to turn Charles Bronson
and his wife, Jill Ireland, into
Clark Gable and Carole
Lombard—or at least Rock
Hudson and Doris Day.
Instead, it turns an audience
into a restless mob, as it
wastes an hour before
getting into the real plot. By
that time, it’s too late; we
don’t care whether the
widow gets back together
with the bank robber she
thought was dead when she
wrote their memoirs.
Go For It was going to be
Endless Summer ’76; but
because they either didn’t
have enough surfing footage
or didn’t think it could hold
an audience, they’ve added a
lot of skateboarding and a
little bit of sk iing, mountain
climbing and hang-gliding.
There’s no pattern to it, but
most of it is good to look at-
especially since the par
ticipants look like they were
hired from ooe of the better
excort services; or do all
Southern California boys look
like that? And if so, where
do they hide when I’m out
there?
The.Gumball Rally is for
people who like stupid
movies. It’s not for people
who like Michael Sarrazin,
because all we see of him is
his foot on the gas pedal as
he races from New York to
Long Beach against Tim
Mclntire, Raul Julia, Susan
Flannery and other actors
who couldn’t get good jobs.
The director, Chuck Bail,
also guided the stunts for
Freebie and the Bean. His
idea of entertainment is to
see cars racing and crashing.
If you agree, see the
Gumball Rally.
Harry and Walter Go to
New York is lighthearted fun
for the summer. James Caan
and Elliott Gould don’t
exactly click like Newman
and Redford, but they’re
acceptable as minor
vaudevilians who challenge
major criminal Michael
Caine for the contents of New
England’s most burglarproof
bank. Diane Keaton is the
anarchis newspaperwoman
all three men show an in
terest in.
The Man Who Fell to
Earth is David Bowie’s Erst
movie, but it fits him so
perfectly that we feel like
we’ve seen it before. He
COUNTY SEAT
County Seat...cruise in our
park. County Seat...pool and
pinball and games you’ll dig
in the Penny Arcade.
County Seat...tops in Disco c , ,
County Seat...popular-priced dancing and the best in S w l
beverages available in the shows and entertainment in V ou miaht win ni t § ^ C ’
Saloon. the Music Hall. you m.ght win out.
County Seat...1886 Cheshire Bridge Road Phone 874-7753
plays a visitor from a
drought-stricken planet who
has come to Earth for water.
With an armload of advanced
technology, he incorporates
and corners several markets.
Then he goes into seclusion
in New Mexico with Candy
Clark (Remember her from
American Graffiti?),
becomes an alcoholic and
loses everything to some
vague political-financial
coup. The whole picture is
vague, because director
Nicolas Roeg is more con
cerned with blowing your
mind than feeding your
head. There are some good
scenes, and Bowie fans will
be interested in seeing him
act (?); but I prefer substance
to technique, if a picture’s
going to make me choose
between them.
St. Ives’ casts Charles
Bronson as Humphrey
Bogart-well, as a character
patterned closely after
Bogart’s portrayals of Sam
Spade (The Maltese Falcon)
and Philip Marlowe (The Big
Sleep). It doesn’t work,
although Jacqueline Bisset is
a good substitute for Lauren
Bacall. The mystery, im
possible to follow, is kinda
fun; but Bronson, who’s
asked to carry the picture,
sinks under the weight that’s
placed on his shoulders.
Survive holds no sur
prises for anyone who knows
what it’s about. It’s about a
rugby team whose plane
crashed in the Andes in 1972.
The survivors had to eat the
non-survivors to live until
help came. (Sorry. I didn’t
realize you were eating!)
That’s all the story there is.
No character development,
just plastic snow and real
flesh.
Swashbuckler recalls the
pirate movies of old, the ones
that starred Douglas Fair
banks, Errol Flynn or Burt
Lancaster—depending on
how far back you go.
Chances are, you don’t go far
enough back to have seen
any of them, except on
television; if so, don’t judge
them all by Swashbuckler. It
tries so hard not to make fun
of the genre that it turns out
not to be much fun at all. It
stars Robert Shaw, who acts
like he’s trying to prove he
can be as convivial as
anybody; but he can’t. The
versatile James Earl Jones
looks as much at home on a
ship as in Harlem (Claudine)
Mark Baker tortures Bean Bridget la “Swath-
buckler”
James Caan and Elliott Gould in “Harry and
Walter Go to New York”
or on a baseball diamond
(Bingo Long). Genevieve
Bujold manages to be totally
feminine while dueling (and
sometimes winning) with
swords. Peter Boyle is okay
as the villain, and of interest
mainly because of his im
plied relationship with “The
Lute Player” (Mark Baker,
Broadway’s Candide), a
kinky little sadist.
The Tenant is one of
those good movies that will
probably be gone before you
read about it. Roman
Polanski directed and stars
as a paranoid man who rents
an apartment after the
woman who lived in it
commits suicide. He begins
changing into the woman and
suspecting his neighbors of
persecuting him; the ending
is inevitable. It’s strange
stuff, and too subtle for
people who like The Exorcist
and The Omen; but The
Tenant is a real horror
movie.
I’d like to offer some
encouragement, but
everyone in the business
says we can’t expect much at
the movies before Christmas.
icaa/ulb
HAIR STYLES FOR MEN
2716 Wesley Chapel Road
(Just South of-1«20)
Decatur, Georgia
Telephone 284-6679
Musical Cabaret,
an alternative in
evening entertainment.
Three different
shows nightly
Tues. through Sat.
8:30,10:30 and 12:30
Order dinner or drinks
from your table phone.
2359 Fteachtree Road
P’tree Battle Shopping Ctr.
231-0160