Pages Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Friday, March 24, 1972 Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY 00 QQ Q l 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 ' TV & Stereo Rentals $10.00 per month NO DEPOSIT FREE DELIVERY, PICK UP AND SERVICE CALL: NEJAC TV RENTALS 662-5671 ENDS TONIGHT "AN OVERGROUND SEX-PROTEST FILM!" - New York Post. ? Gr eetins I BRENDA SYKES "HONKY" .... " c 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 I 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 4 ":.,:. Ciftl OAL CIktMA COOOORA110111 .; .. , ", ...:":,,.. Persons Under 18 Not Admitted ALSO 2nd HIT! "ONE OF THE FUNNIEST, HIPPEST, COMEDIES OF THE YEAR!" - . "UPROARIOUS!" C.M.E".,. "WILHMO!" COLOR A SIGMA III 1K RELEASE "HI MOM" - 7 P.M. "GREETINGS" -8:30 P.M. & --coming- to I 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 ~0000000000 :ompany S000000000 $ } 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 -- ~ .