Pages Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Friday, March 24, 1972
Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY
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Rock Around
the Clock
Cinema Guild
When this film was released
in 1956, audiences in England
and Norway rioted because, as
one bopper put it, "The music
sends us up the wall." It was
banned in Belgium and in a
couple of cities here, not that
surprising when 'you combine
the jungle rhythms of Bill Haley
and the Comets with the Plat-
ters, Freddie Bell and His Bell-
boys, the Ernie Freeman Com-
bo, and the revolutionary Third
World consciousness of Tony
Martinez and His Orchestra, all
under the sway of Alan Freed,
the tin Piao of Rock and Roll.
The story is a simple one of
a small band's rise to fame.
Simple, yes, but then so were
Hour of the Wolf, Seventh Seal,
and Together. Sure it's not'the
greatest existentialist movie, but
then Fred I. Sears isn't Godard,
Bill Haley isn't Mersault, and
Bryicreemi sn't Vitalis. (Friday).
-Peter Munsing
End of Summer
CINEMA GUILD
Yasujiro Ozu made films for
over thirty years, from 1927 u-
til his death in 1963 yet only
three or four have been released
in this country. The recent U.S.
release of Tokyo Story, however,
has brought with it renewed in-
terest in the Japanese director's
contemplative, lyrical, humane,
and moving style. End of Sum-
Ter, one of Ozu's last works, is
a reputedly excellent depiction
of the loves of various members
of a Tokyo family. Roger Green-
spun described the experience of
seeing the movie as, ".... a priv-.
ileged introduction to the full-
ness of life." Not viewed at
press time. (Sat. and Sun.)
-Richard Glatzer
The Passions
of Anna
Cinema H
Contrary to what the title
may indicate, this is not an-
other Together. The original
was A Passion, but even this is
somewhat misleading. The film
does not only deal with Anna's
shrill idealism, but with An-
dreas' "cancer of the soul," and
their interaction. The tension
in Passion of Anna is a result
of our lack of knowledge of the
backgrounds of the characters,
of why they are neurotic at the
outset.
The film centers around An-
dreas Winkleman (Max von
Sydow), a hermit on an island;
why he is there is unclear. He
meets an Architect and his wife
Eva (Erland Josephson and Liv
Ullmann), and Anna (Bibi An-
derson), a guest of theirs who
Is recovering from the death of
her husband and child. Andreas
has a one biter with Eva, and
then takes up .with Anna - or
vice versa - they're not really
in love, yet it isn't a sexual re-
lationship. Eventually Andreas
turns on Anna with an axe but
misses, and she leaves.
Bergman delineates an empti-
ness that drives these people to-
gether and the inner tensions
that keep them apart. The film
is a very careful examination of
the way they communicate. Be-
cause we only know that all is
not well with the characters
every action is loaded with
meaning, by that I don't mean
the metaphysical symbolism of
the Bergman stereotype. At four
points in the film Bergman in-
terrupts the plot for interviews
with the four actors; it doesn't
detract from the film but I don't
think it adds much either. It's a
fine film, one of Bergman's
best. (Fri.'and Sat.)
-Peter Munsing
Thief of Baghdad
Cinema II
In this 1924 rendition of the
fairy tale, director Raoul Walsh
has handed the film to Douglas
Fairbanks Jr., giving him ample
opportunity to swashbuckle his
way into the moviegoer's heart.
It is the story of a Baghdad
pickpocket who has to pass a
series of tests to win the beauti-
ful daughter of the Sultan, re-
plete with dragons, enchanted
forests, etc. They don't make
'em like they used to.
-Bruce Shlain
Whatever
Happened to
Baby Jane
The Conspiracy
The Conspiracy has actually.
made the Alley alias Canterbury
House a really comfortable pace
to see a movie. The small room
is no longer overcrowded - now
there are cozy groupings of
tables and chairs - there is a
new sound system and the dol-
lar admission entitles you to a
drink of your choice.
Whatever Happened to Baby
Jane, being shown Friday, was
the first of many films in which
old stars make up forinadequate
acting by playing off their lost
beauty and proudly displaying
their present ugliness. Jane
(Bette Davis) and Blanche
(Joan Crawford), sisters and ex-
actresses, huff about and look
grotesque. Baby Jane is dull and
silly, more a two-hour freak
show than a horror film. (Fri.),
-Richard Glatzer
Goin' down
the Road
The Conspiracy
Goin' Down the Road was
voted the Best Canadian Film
at the 1970 Toronto Film Fes-
tival. It is a realistic, touching
slice of life about two born los-
ers and how they fail, or so some
it a dull movie about dull people.
critics say. Others have called
At any rate, Doug McGrath and
Paul Brady, as the two Nova
Scotia boys who drive to the
big city (Toronto) in search of
jobs and women, are supposed
to be excellent. (Sat. and Sun.).
Not viewed at press time.
-Richard Glatzer
Comedy Weekend
Nat. Sdi. Aud.
Duck Soup-the Marx Broth-
ers, The Boat - Buster Keaton,
Sparring Partner - Charlie
Chaplin, plus a Roadrunner car-
toon. (7:00).
Monkey Business - the Marx
Brothers, Money Muddlers -
Abbott and Costello, Big Busi-
ness - Laurel and Hardy, plus
two Road Runner cartoons.
(9:15).
Such Good Friends
State
Such Good Friends, for much
of its 100 minute length, is Pe-
trionius Arbiter come to New
York. Like other recent films,
SGC satirizes the upper middle,
class this time by depicting an
affluent artist and children's
book author (Lawrence Luckin-
bill), his wife (Dyan Cannon),
and the friends and institutions
that surround them.
But what makes Preminger's
movie superior to stuff like
Diary of a Mad Housewife is its
unusual comic tone - hard,
black, and bizarre. This tone oc-
casionally falters, more occa-
sionally once Luckinbill enters a
hospital to have a minor oper-
ation and .byan begins to real-
ize how perverse her life is, but
the screenplay (written by
Elaine May under a pseudo-
nym), is full of funny, macabre
bits, and the fine cast help
snake this the best of the urban
life lampoons I've seen.
-Richard Glatzer
The Godfather
Michigan
Where has the best American
actor been for the last fifteen
years? How did the Stanley Ko-
walsk of Streetcar Named De-
sire get involved in an endless
string of celluloid stink bombs
after it was acknowledged that
he was ihdeed a "dofinant
force" in the cinema? .Because
he likes bombs? It isn ot the
job of this reviewer to psycho-
analyze Brando, but it would
appear that, in his portrayal of
the "Godfather", he has once
again found his vehicle.
Billed as the Gone With the
Wind of gangster movies, Direc-
tor Francis Coppola's screen
version of the Mario Puzo novel
has received as much advance
publicity as imaginable. And,
judging from the initial acrit-
ical reactions, it promises to get
a lot more. Not viewed at press
time.
-Bruce Shlain
Summer of '42
Campus
The all-pervasive mood of
Summer of '42 can be magically
summoned by humming a few
bars of Michel Legrand's title
theme. Like the movie, it is
wistfully soft, lyrical, and tinged
with a measure of nostalgic sad-
ness. One can almost see young
Hermie running around anxious-
ly on the island, trying to ig-
nore his taunting friends, get-
ting a fleeting glimpse here
and there of the beautiful maid-
en. played by Jennifer O'Neill.
The only possible criticism
one could muster against this
movie would entail donning a
black hat, and growling Bah!
Sentimentalism! Humbug! But
director Robert Mulligan avoids
this pitfall by keeping his
tongue, for the most part, firm-
ly lodged in his cheek, concen-
trating on making several parts
of the film very funny in their
tense, innocent charm, as when
Hermie goeA into the drugstore
to buy cotrace6ptives.
WhatHermie encounters at
the ageo 14 is rare. While his
eager buddies are still preoccu-
pied with feverishly delving into
books to find pictures of couples
"doin' it", he has drifted away
to a distant plateau.In that
summer.he does moe than just
"get his end in": he learns
something about the potential
for unifying sex and emotion
into a whole. And he learns it
in a way that sets him apart
forever from the old "Hermie",
as well as his friends.
-Bruce Shlain
Klute
Campus
While Klute bills itself as a
hookers love story, I found it
better as a murder flick. A man
disappears, his family and cor-
poration hire a friend, John
Klute (Donald Southerland), to
find his whereabouts. The last
person he is known to have seen
is a prostitute, cheesily named
Bree (Jane Fonda); they fall in
love, find a murderer, and in
the last scene are about to set
off for Tuscaurora, Pennsyl-
vania, where the whole thing
started.
This raises the ovious ques-
tions, ho did a basically nice
girl like this get into the pro-
fession and why does she leave
her big apple pimp for a small
town boy like Klute, all of which
would make for an interesting
film. The trouble is that the
film tries to answer these ques
tions with a couple of scenes in
her psychiatrist's office, which
tells us little. As a result the
film falls back on the murder
part of the plot which works
out well as the characterization
is there to create the tension.
-Peter Munsing
Hospital
Fox Village
Whatever may happen to you
on the streets of our cities in
these troubled times, there is
always the chance that you'll
survive with hospitalization -
the last resort. Hospital com-
pletes the cynical circle with a
hospital, that kills its patients
in a bureaucratic quagmire, a
world where "It is axiomatic
that nursing home doctors are
wrong."
The film describes the mur-
ders of five medical personnel
and their solution by the medi-
cal director of the hospital
(George C. Scott), alternating
between black comedy and good
potboiler. However the events
are all plausible, and the plot
moves quickly enough so that
it never degenerates into a soap
ooera - there are too many
things going wrong to have long
stretches of unadulterated angst.
The tone is cynical but not de-
snairingly so - life may be a
shitsanwich. but if you keep on
chewing you'll eventually finish.
At least you won't starve.
-Peter Munsing
Greetings
Hi Mom
Fifth Forum
Greetings is basically an un-
derground movie, with the dis-
advantages of the genre. At
times it's very funny, but the
humor is either overextended or
buried under a ton of verbiage,
over-use of cross-cutting, and
cinema verite camera work. The
story is about Jon, Rubin's at-
tempts to evade the draft with
the help of some friends. Un-
fortunately, they fail.
In Hi, Mom! Jon has returned
from Vietnam. He tries unsuc-
cessfully to make a moie for
the pornographer in. Greetings,
fails, joins a guearrilla theatre,
enters the bourgeois life, and
blows up Washington Square
South. The film is tied together
by the N.I.T. Journal (National
Intellectual Television), and
thus has more overall coherence
than Greetings. It's generally a
better film, as It.~ has superb
black humor in greater amouts
and of better quality than
Greetings, without any of the
boring monologues of the latter.
So if you're going to get your
grape and popcorn, get them
during Greetings.
--Peter Munsing
Joe
Fifth Forum
Now that Archie Bunkerisms
have been firmly entrenched in
the folklore of the 70's, perhaps
around for Bunker's dramatic
it would be of interest to look
origins. In movies, the way was
well-paved by Peter Boyle's
portrayal of the "lovable bigot"
in Joe. Boyles' brusque yet sen-
sitive treatment of the role cre-
ated, out of an emotional void,
a new empathy for the silent
majority faction.
The character "Joe" typifies,
as well as any character, the
modern predicament of indecis-
iveness. He is trapped forlornly
in between the "untouchable"
wealthy of corporate America
and the "mysterious" hippie
phenomenon. Throughout the
movie he desperately tries to
hold onto his simple categoriza-
tions ("42 per cent of all liberals
are queer") during the inevit-
able "confrontation of ideol-
ogies."
-Bruce Shlain
La Strada
Fifth Forum
La Strada, an Academy Award
winner for Best Foreign Film of
1956, is a simple allegory of cir-
cus life. Giulietta Masina plays
a puppy-soulful, naive girl who
travels with strongman An-
thony Quinn and eventually
meets The Fool, Richard Base-
hart. While the film's lack of
complex characterization makes
it inferior to Fellini's later work,
La Strada is nevertheless pleas-
ingly romantic, well-made, and
very touching.
--Richard Glatzer
'
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"HONKY"
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JOHN NIELSON
R
NIGHTLY AT 7:05 AND 10:35
LEE VAN CLEEF & JIM BROWN
r
il -1. h-" kbibr
BOX OFFICE OPEN 6:30
SHOW STARTS at 7:00
M I
"EL CONDOR"
8:35
R
FRI.-SAT.-SUN.
p
A
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An Epic Drama of Adventure and Exploration
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
-PLUS-
"HOW THE WEST WAS WON"
One Complete Showing Each Night
"WEST" 7:00 "ODYSSEY" 10:00
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OF THE YEAR!" - .
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COLOR A SIGMA III 1K RELEASE
"HI MOM" - 7 P.M.
"GREETINGS" -8:30 P.M.
&
--coming-
to
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conspiracy
nonprofit cooperative
coffeehouse-theater
I
KAFKA AND HERZL IN AN INSANE ASYLUM!
"IT TURNS"
A Play by JOSEPH MUNDI
BANNED IN PARIS
Running Now in Israel
AMERICAN PREMIERE
this Saturday & Sunday, March 25-26-8 p.m.
MAOR Theatre 1429 Hill Street 75c
a
9
Vanessa Redgrove
in
LOVES OF
ISADORA
I
a
Friday & Saturday Only-Don't Miss!
FRI. "SUPERB"-N.Y. Times
& SAT. b0000000000000000000
MARCH 0 Juilliard Repertory C
24-25 oooooooooooooooooooo
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:ompany
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$
} u j
Thursday and Friday
ROCK AROUND,
THE CLOCK
Dir. FRED T. SEARS, 1956
WITH:
BILL HALEY and the COMETS
THE PLATTERS
FREDDIE BELL and HIS BELLBOYS
ALAN FREED
ERNIE FREEMAN COMBO
TONY MARTINEZ and His Orchestra
with the greatest rock n roll music by the biggest rock
n' roll groups in the hippest rock n' roll movie this side
ABSOLUTELY THE SCARIEST
SHOW EVER ! BEYOND HORROR !
SHOWN INTACT! NOTHING CUT!
TONITE and SATURDAY ONLY 10:30 p.m.
I
"WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN"
by Thomas Middleton
The celebrated dramatic classic.
T rd by Mkh.,lKahn,. Aa.',,lDircator of the
"INTERVIEW"
by jeao-Clawde .an a. llaie
(Author of 'America Hurrah"')>
y "THE INDIAN WANTS
THE BRONX"
by Israel HorowitA
1 major contemparafy plays
and 8 P.M. SATURDAY
8 P.M. FRIDAY
k' I I
WHOML UI
i
THOUSAND DAYS
"GREAT MO VIE MAKING!"
N YTMES
diary of a mad
housewife
a frank perry film ® E
A UNIVERSAL PICTURE . TECHNICOLOR'
UAC-DAYSTAR
Presents the final concert of
semester on day classes end
April 21 Fri.
1.50-3.00-4.50
reserved seats on sale now
Mon.-Fri. 12-6 p.m. Michigan
Union. Also at Salvation Rec-
ords on Maynard St....
You know you'll want to make
this concert, so get a killer
seat early.
ALSO
.. H. P. LOVECRAFT'S5
uEUM EU CLASSIC TALE OF
TERROR AND THE
1 el \h_ -~ ~' - ry SUPERNATURAL!
with
Carrie Snodgrass
Richard Benjamin
Frank Langelia
I
i
-- ~ .