34 X Friday, August 31, 1984 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS MOVIES LOSE WEIGHT NOW ASK ME NOW /DID 1E11 Where Everything is Discounted Every Me natural product with herbs 100% guaranteed Call HILDA RASKIN - 569-5288 DISCOUNT OFFICE EQUIPMENT 1111 COOUDGE • DEWEY itrzsPAA0A4Zzetd6, 548-6900 outstanding business opportunities available training . . . sales . . . management The 'Sports 100' with so much dash, so much style that Seiko's done it twice: for him, for her. While you're admiring the racy look, note the step second hand, day/date function, and — very important — water-resistance to 100 meters. Next year's design news now from Seiko Quartz. IVEINIVAU173 JEWELERS Sunset Strip 29536 Northwestern Highway Southfield, Michigan 48034 (313) 357.4000 HOURS Mon.-Fri. — 10am-6pm Thursday — 10am-8pm Saturday — 10am-5pm FLOWERS 16264306 Announces It's Opening Floral Arrangements For All Occasions • Weddings • Bar Mitzvahs • Showers • Bat Mitzvahs • Gift Items FREE PARTY CONSULTATION • Balloons • Sweet 16s • Etc. • Fruit baskets Ask About Our Special Occasion Club. Rena and Tom Himes Barbara Miral-Kitten Mastercard and Visa Accepted Orchard Mall • 6389 Orchard Lake Rd. and Mapie Rd. Arkin, Falk in 'Big Trouble' BY HERBERT LUFT Big Trouble is a screen comedy with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, teaming up for the second time. John Cassavetes, normally a film director of more serious note, guides the farce writ- ten by Andrew Bergman, with Beverly D'Angelo, Charles Durning and Robert Stack in key sup- porting roles. Arkin, por- traying a hard-working in- surance salesman, eager to send his three sons to Yale, becomes involved in a bizarre plot to collect on an obscure claim. With Falk as his partner, the two could be aptly de- scribed as the quintessen- tial mismatched pair. As in the previous hit comedy, The In-Laws, Arkin and Falk portray a reluctant couple whose every act of inventive fancy results in greater unity. The crazier the plot becomes, the closer they get. Leonard Hoffman, the character essayed by Arkin, encapsulates the pent-up frustrations of a company man who suddenly must face the fact that only he has missed out on the proverbial pot of gold, but if he doesn't do something drastic, his children will as well. How he handles the transition from model insurance salesman to reluctant crim- inal transpires with his comic aplomb. Since his acting career began with Chicago's Sec- ond City improvisational revue, Brooklyn-born Arkin has emphasized laughter on stage and screen. His Broadway debut in Carl Reiner's Enter Laughing won him a Tony Award and led to such pictures as Catch 221, Hearts of the West, Popi, The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Luv, Freebie and the bean, and The Rus- sians Are Coming, The Rus- sians Are Coming, the latter netting him his first Oscar nomination for his por- trayal of a simple-minded Soviet sailor. His second Academy nomination was awared for his dramatic performance in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. As a stage director, he excelled with the Broad- way ptoduction of Neil Si- mon's The Sunshine Boys. He won the Obie and Outer Circle Critic Award for the off-Broadway production of Little Murders, which put Dustin Hoffman on the map. On television, Arkin rendered a haunting per- formance in the title role of The Defection of Simas Kudirka. Peter Falk, as a con man in Big Trouble, adds an- other notch to his list of peculiar screen ' per- sonalities who would per- haps be less strange if there were no such things as laws and 'rules in our society. In this picture, as he did in The In-Laws, Falk embroils an unwitting and innocent character portrayed by Arkin in a hair-brained scheme to rob the rich in order to benefit the poor — in this case themselves. Eccentric and outrageous are labels that are attached to the performer who has created such distinct char- acters as television's sleuth, Columbo, a study in con- tradictions. Even before be- coming an actor, he was noted for a deceptive casu- alness, as management ex- pert for the state of Connec- ticut and earlier still when studying for his B.A. degree in political science from New York's School for So- cial Research and making his way to a master's degree from Syracuse University. When he decided to take up acting, he found himself first portraying a bartender in the off-Broadway produc- tion of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. He has starred on Broad- way in Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue and made such low- budgeted but powerful films with John Cassavetes as Husbands and A Woman Under the Influence. After portraying a private eye in Murder by Death and The Cheap Dectective, Falk turned to the other side of the law in The Brinks Job, depicting a blundering crook. Andrew Bergman, the writer of Big Trouble and previously of The In-Laws, both original stories he de- veloped with Arkin and Falk in mind, is the son of long-time New York Daily News radio and television columnist Rudy Bergman. After graduating magna cum laude from the Univer- sity of Wisconsin, Andrew took a cockeyed aim at the doctoral subject, Arherican history, when writing Blaz- ing Saddles, which became a Mel Brooks picture. In addition to screenplays and directing So Fine a sc- reen comedy set in the New York garment district, Bergman has written two novels, Hollywood and LeVine and The Big Kiss- Off of 1944. He also authored a scholarly work about American films dur- ing the depression period, We're in the Money, which is used as a textbook in film courses. Copyright 1984, JTA, Inc. Conservatives hope to allay tensions on w inter holiday New York (JTA) — Con- cerned by the possibility of "heightened tension" be- tween Jews and Christians in the coming Christmas holiday season, stemming from the Supreme Court de- cision upholding the right of officials of Pawtucket, R.I. to create creche displays on public property, the Rabbin- ical Assembly, the associa- tion of Conservative rabbis, has asked its 1,200 mem- bers to explain to Christians and municipal officials the Jewish objection to such displays on public property during the Yule period. , Rabbi Alexander Shapiro of South Orange, N.J., RA president, predicted possi- ble "communal disputes" in many American cities, add- irfg that "this coming holi- day season could be turned into one of anger and ten- sion rather than one of hap- piness and celebration.” Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, RA executive vice president, said the request to the Con- servative rabbis was the first in the RA's history, stressing that it involved the strategy of rabbis ap- proaching -local Christians and municipal officials on an individual basis and that the appeal was not one from the RA itself. The request to the RA members was contained in a communication from the „ RA Social Action Commit- tee, headed by Rabbi Myron Fenster of Rosyln, N.Y. Fenster said he believed that by holding advance discussions and providing the views of the synagogue and Jewish organizations well ahead of time, "we will help to fotestall exacerbat- ing misundrstandings." He suggested that churches and synagogues be encouraged to erect holiday displays on church and synagogue property. Israel, Soviet tennis match date disputed Jerusalem (JTA) — Edu- cation Minister Zevulun Hammer has asked the Is- rael Tennis Association to postpone the tennis match between Israel and the Soviet Union because the match is scheduled for Sept. 28,th the day of Rosh Hashanah. The match is to take place in Switzerland, as part of the regional finals of the Davis Cup tournament. Hammer said it was un- heard of that Israeli tennis players would play on the holiday. The Israel Tennis. Aeso- ciation has already re- quested postponement.