'Greensboro:
A Requiem'

'Murder At 1600'

Rated R

be the lover of the president's son
(Tate Donovan) and maybe the
ith all the focus on crime president, too.
and conspiracy surround-
Because of the publicity such
ing the White House, it's a crime would generate, investi-
no surprise that Holly- gations are conducted by both lo-
wood has pandered to the public cal police detective Harlan Regis
paranoia for the purpose of draw- (Wesley Snipes) and Secret Ser-
ing a crowd.
vice persons Nina Jennings (Di-
For the second time this year, ane Lane) and Dick Spikings
Hollywood has released a film (Daniel Benzali).
predicated upon the proposition
Sticking his nose where it
that sex and violence can
doesn't belong, Snipes imme-
be a deadly mix when
diately smells conspiracy
the U.S. president is in-
MOVIES
but is uncertain as to the
volved.
origin of the aroma. He's
Absolute Power overcame an soon dodging bullets, eluding as-
implausible premise with some sassins and finding unlikely al-
interesting character studies and lies, all the while attempting to
interpersonal dynamics. Murder avoid eviction from his apartment
at 1600 offers neither a plausible because of some government nas-
plot nor intriguing characters. In- ties.
stead, it delivers more jerky
Over the course of the film, dif-
twists than an Etch-a-Sketch por- ferent conspiracy angles emerge
trait and more filler than a 50- and, whenever nothing else is go-
cent sausage.
ing on, the characters chase each
For the sake of brevity, I will
not attempt to regurgitate exact-
ly what goes on in this film, but
— Surprise! — the plot centers
on a murder at 1600 Pennsylva-
nia Avenue, the address of be-
leaguered President Jack Neil
(Ronny Cox). The victim is a
comely young woman alleged to

W

Emily Mann's play Greensboro: A Requiem is brought to life by the Theatre
Company.

T

oward the end of Greens- trials in which the Klan was ac-
boro: A Requiem, a rev- cused of collusion with FBI and
erend asks the audience, local police in bringing death to
which stands in for his five protesters.
congregation, "We're all gonna
"Yes," Mike Nathan's widow,
die; why not live for something?" Marty, says, "we made mis-
That question, a logical ex- takes" by carrying signs at the
tension of the material in this rally proclaiming "Death to the
docu-drama by Emily
Klan."
Mann, reverberates emo-
But the Klan mem-
THEATER
tionally in the McAuley
bers, represented dra-
Theatre of the University
matically by Dawson, a
of Detroit-Mercy.
violent man who was a paid FBI
Early in the play — cleverly and police informant and who
constructed of interlocking may also have fermented the ac-
scenes from the past and the tual violence in 1979, do them-
present — widow Marty Nathan selves in without any mea culpa
says, "And that's when Mike by the victims.
was shot in the head." A Jewish
Dawson, in the play's present,
pediatrician, Mike Nathan was is being interviewed about those
one of five killed and eight 1979 events, and he is frankly
wounded in Greensboro, N.C., appalling and brutally honest in
on Nov. 3, 1979, when the Ku his dogmatism, and convincing
Klux Klan and self-styled Nazis in his incrimination of the peo-
confronted protesters and shot ple in power.
to kill.
But, for Jews, the play's mes-
Among the group was anoth- sage is more personal. As the
er Jewish physician — the son target of hate groups, are we to
of a Holocaust survivor — and hide behind assimilation and
his spouse, Paul and Sally say it doesn't touch us? Martin
Bermanzohn. They had joined Luther King Jr.'s line about the
with others in North Carolina moral arc of the universe being
who shared a belief in racial and long is quoted in Greensboro.
social justice, working with Has that arc become a flat line
union members, comrades and for Jews? Have we given up so-
Communist Party members to cial consciousness like bread for
challenge racist and racial is- matzah at Passover?
sues. They were living for some-
The first step in "living for
thing.
something' may be seeing a per-
Greensboro is drawn from ac- formance of Greensboro.
tual, verbatim statements of wit-
nesses and the three subsequent

Michael Margolin writes about

the arts.

43. 1/2
— Richard Halprin

Bagel Barometer

Richard Halprin is a proud new

papa.

Outstanding

Very Good

Good

Fair

No Bagels

4® 1/2

— Michael Margolin

other with acrobatic aplomb and
guns ablating. Taking more head
blows than Rocky Balboa, Snipes
manages to maintain his wit and
good looks, emerging from the
morass relatively unscathed.
Benzali, who was so compelling
on television's "Murder One," gets
to do little more than seethe in
the shadows, and Lane, who be-
comes Snipes' sidekick, just
spouts throwaway lines like,
"You're insane," and "You're out
of your mind." The script doesn't
get much snappier than that and
draws Alan Alda's character so
broadly that his performance bor-
ders on camp.
To be fair, Murder at 1600 pro-
vides some basic entertainment
in the form of dumb fun, but to be
honest, the ratio is 5 to 1 in favor
of dumb.

Wesley Snipes and Diane Lane in the White House th riller murder at 1600.

Awful