Thursday, January 25, 1973

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Page Three

Thursday, January 25, 1973 THE MICHIGAN DAILY


CIJL'WRE CALENDAR
FILM-AA Film Co-op shows The Private Life of Sherlock
Holmes in Aud. A at 7 and 9. Cinema Guild screens
Fleming's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at 7 and 9:05 in Arch.
Aud. New World Film Co-op shows Raga in MLB at 7:30
and 9:30. Seth Quad Films screens The Boston Strangler
in D.R. 2 at 7 and 9:30.
MUSIC-The Bach Club sponsors a benefit concert featuring
Juan Serrano, the flamenco guitarist, in Hill at 8.

to

toni ght
6:00 2 4 7 News
9 Courtship of Eddie's Father
50 Flintstones
56 sewing Skills
6:30 2 CBS News
4 NBC News
7 ABC News
9 I Dream of Jeannie
50 Gilligan's Island
56 Secretarial Techniques
and Office Procedures
7:00 2 Truth or Consequences
4 News
7 To Tell the Truth
THURS./FRI.
DR. JEKYLL
& MR. HYDE
Dir. Victor Fleming, 1942.
Robert Louis Stevenson's
frightening tale of the
good and evil in one man,
in an extraordinarily pol-
ished, Hollywood produc-
tion. Mixed with a bit of
Freud and a lot of hor-
ror a Ia Grand Guignol.
With Spencer Tracy, In-
grid Bergman, Ian Hunt-
er, Lana Turner.
SAT.
LENNY BRUCE AT
BASIN ST; WEST
ARCH ITECTURE
AUDITORIUM
7 &9:05 $1

9 Beverly Hillbillies
50 I Love Lucy
56 Course of Our Times
7:30 2 What's MyLine?
4 Circus
7 Half the George Kirby Comedy
Hour
9 Movie
50 NHL Hockey
56 Behind the Lines
8:00 2 The Waltons
4 Flip Wilson
7 Mod Squad
56 Advocates
9:00 2 Movie
9 Adieu Alouette
50 Perry Mason
56 Masterpiece Theatre
10:30 9 Countrytime
11:00 4 7 News
9 CBC News
50 One Step Beyond
11:20 9 News
11:30 2 News
4 Johnny Carson
7 Dick Cavett
50 Movie
"Task Force" (49)
12:00 2 Movie
"Murder Once Removed" (71)
9 Movie
"The Tin star" (57)
1:00 4 7 News
1:30 2 Movie
"The Lost Missile" (58)
3:00 2 News
'Ir

By RICH GLATZER
It seems to be customary that,
before beginning any sort of year
end best list, movie critics must
apologize for their self-indulgence
in attempting the endeavor in the
first place. Self-indulgence it
may well be, yet I personally see
no great need for apology. I
enjoy reading critics' best lists,
no matter how incomprehensible
I may find them, and I know of
many other screwballs who share
my curious tendency. Further-
more, it does not strike me as
being any more conceited or pre-
tentious an act to express one's
opinions on a year in film than
to express one's opinion on any
given single movie, and as I've
already committed the latter of-
fense, I may as well go right
ahead and commit the former.
But before I do, one further
justification for the writing of
this. Ann Arbor is hardly t h e
commercial movie capital of the
world. Perhaps this year more
than any other, the first run film
openings here have been at a
stagnant minimum. Granted, we
all make trips to the Big Cities
from time to time; some of us
even catch a movie or two there
way in advance of the Ann Ar-
bor premiere. Still, for people
who, like myself, are tied here
for most of the year, legitimate
big time, critics' best lists are
more often reminders of what
we'll probably never see than ar-
ticles Ann Arborites can intelli-
gently (or not so intelligently)
get involved in and argue with.
Here, then, is an Ann Arbor best
list; only films that have had
their Ann Arbor premieres dur-
ing the course of 1972, at eith-
er the Campus, Fifth Forum, Fox
Village, Michigan, State, or Way-
side Theatres, or at campus film
organizations, are eligible. And
as for The Last Tango in Paris
or Two English Girls or Cries
and Whispers or Sleuth or what
have you, maybe some fellow yo-
kel critic here will have t h e
chance to discuss these movies in
his year end list in a decade or
two.
If any trend is to be found in
the Ann Arbor cinema of 1972
it would seem to be a very not-
iceable lack of what trendspot-
ters three years ago were calling,
"The New American -Cinema.",
As far as Ann Arbor is concern-

ed, the flood of personal, serious
commercial films that we saw
several seasons ago (Easy Rid-
er, The Graduate, Alice's Res-
taurant, M.A.S.H., Five Easy
Pieces, etc.) has diminished to a
trickle ranging in quality from
the uneven (Bad Company) to
the disastrous (Parades). Why?
Partially because not as many of
these sorts of films are being
produced at a time when motion
picture companies are willing to
finance only what they think will
be sure-fire crowd pleasers. Al-
so partially because the N e w
York critics chose to dump on
their heros of yesteryear - and
Ann Arbor theatre managers are
understandably not particularly
1. . . the flood of personal,
serious commercial films that
we saw several seasons ago-..-.
has diminished to a trickle rang-
ing in quality from the uneven
('Bad Company') to the disas-
trous ('Parades')."
eager to book poorly reviewed
artsy stuff. Robert Altman's lat-
est, Images, was pretty much ig-
nored critically, and Bob Rafel-
son found his The King of Mar-
vin Gardens panned mercilessly.
At any rate, there are no bright,
novel examples of a New Amer-
ican Cinema on my list; in fact,
two of the films here are by none
other than two honored Holly-
wood masters.
FRENZY's success might have
been predicted by those familiar
with scenarist Anthony Shaffer's
talent for writing mysteries. And
Shaffer's script is, to be sure,
a very fine one. But even so, who
could have known that, after hav-
ing churned out a decade or so of
cheezy nonsense, Hitchcock could
have created as impeccably well-
directed and satisfying a film as
Frenzy? The director'-s sense of
timing has never been more fine-
ly tuned (the final scene, for in-
stance, is an excellent example
of perfect editing). Almost every
scene is handled with care and

Top six films of 1972: what
happened to the other four?

imagination. And Anna Massey
and Alec McCowen turn in what
are probably the best perform-
ances in a Hitchcock film since
North-by-Northwest.
Indeed, in several scenes (most
particularly, the already famous
potato truck episode), Hitchcock
actually seems to build suspense
on our expectation that his once
fallible taste may again fail us.
But it never does. Frenzy may
not be Hitchcock at his most hu-
mane or most intense. Still, it is
an exceptionally entertaining,
beautifully crafted, clever and
relaxed surprise from a director
I had begun to think no longer
capable of making such a film.
FAT CITY, the work of J o h n
Huston, another Hollywood di-
rector whose talents had seem-
ed to be on the decline, was, for
me, again a surprise. It is a very
small and unassuming film (and
therefore probably the least of
the movies on this list). Never-
theless, Fat City is a work that
deals with the lonely, colorless
lives of poor drifters - in this
case two low-level boxers and the
barfly one of them picks up -
and does so without any trace of
an inappropriate Schlesingeres-
que flashy technical sheen. The
print I saw of the film was so
convincingly drab that I remem-
ber thinking at first I was watch-
ing not the feature, but a short-
possibly a documentary on slum
life or a blues singer. The movie
further deserves recognition for
establishing a slow, leisurely
tempo without ever becoming
dull. The theatricality of some
of the acting has been criticized,
probably rightfully so. Y e t ,
Jeff Bridges is perfectly convinc-
ing as a very average American
nobody, and if Susan Tyrell's out-
rageous portrayal of a very uni-
que drunk is not the utmost in
realism, it is nevertheless thor-
oughly funny and flamboyantly
entertaining.
Paralleling the reassertion of
Hollywood masters, young film-
makers this year decided to pay
homage to, imitate, and build on
their film heritage. Critics have

been quick to dub this move-
ment, "Neo-Classical," a term
that is actually appropriate to the
work of only one or two of these
directors. And just as the "New
American Cinema" was com-
prised of all sorts of films, the
term, "Neo-Classical Cinema"
carries with it no evaluative sign-
ificance. The phrase has, on the
one hand, been applied to Pet-
er Bogdanovich's last two films,
both of which I find pretty dull.
Most filmmakers use movies to
get at life; Bogdanovich u s e s
movies to get at (and repro-
duce) the only thing he seems to
have knowledge of - movies.
True, his aesthetic is a totally
populist, commercial one, and he
does seem, as he intends, to be
pleasing a large number of peo-
ple. But I still feel his movies
are simply imitations of the gen-
uine items, and, to the Platon-
ic mind, that much further re-
moved from Truth, and all that.
The Last Picture Show was, at
least, an imitation of the styles
of a conglomerate of directors,
and, while I don't really think it
ever knew what it was- doing
(other than imitating old mov-
ies), it was well put together,
and it did feature a host of fine
portrayals of stock Hollywood
types. What's Up, Doc? com-
pletely misunderstood what mak-
es decent screwball comedy, and,
for all its franticness, managed
to supply the levity of a ten-
year old's funeral. Bogdanovich's
latest film - a western - should
be released soon, but his notion
of reincarnating his favorite Hol-
lywood stars, directors, and films
leaves me absolutely cold. Who
wants What's Up, Doc? when
prints still exist of Bringing Up

Baby (or better yet, It Happened
One Night)?
That's one side of movie "Neo-
Classicism." Francis Ford Cop-
pola represents the other. Un-
like Bogdanovich, Coppola has
in the past tried to make two
artsy, personal films, both fail-
ures. For a director who tends
to produce impenetrable, overly
self-indulgent work, the restric-
tions faced in working on a more
traditional, genre film can pro-
vide the very discipline that di-
rector may be in need of. Ac-
cording to most critics, this was
not the case with Coppolla's mus-
ical, Finian's Rainbow (I've nev-
er seen the movie). But it defin-
itely was the case when Coppola
tried his hand at the gangster
film.
THE GODFATHER is there-
fore "Neo-Classical" in the very
best sense. Coppola demonstrat-
es a great understanding of the
past on which it is built, yet the
director is not content to merely
mimic his Hollywood predeces-
sors. Much has been written on
what Coppola and Puzo have con-
tributed to the gangster tradition.
Much more will, I'm sure, be
written in the future. With my
spotty knowledge of the movie's
genre, I'll simply say that if The
Godfather is self-consciously am-
bitious in drawing its parallels
between the corporate structure
and organized crime, in depicting
the relationship between the per-
sonal side of gangsterdom and
the "business" side, it neverthe-
less refuses to allow its more
abstract preoccupations to inter-
fere with its strong narrative
drive and its brilliance as pure
entertainment.
DIRTY HARRY also plays with
genres, though much more freely
than The Godfather. What direc-
tor Don Siegel has done is to take
the notion of cowboy hero com-
ing to the city to track down a
fugitive (an idea Siegelnused so
well in Coogan's Bluff) and here
incorporated it strictly as meta-

THURSDAY
JAN. 25

ARTS
Aliman Anthology:
A senseless album

phor. By restaging classic wes-
tern situations in a modern day,
urban detective tale, Siegel has
drawn astutely upon the tradi-
tion of the western to enrich
Harry (Clint Eastwood), h i s
symbol of the American individ-
ual struggling against the forces
of social regulation and bureau-
cratization. People have called
the movie fascist, but no adjec-
tive could be less appropriate;
Dirty Harry is a liberal's eulogy
on the death of the sort of in-
stinctive, mythically capable and
self-sufficient figure whom we
"'Dirty Harry' is a liberal's
eulogy on the death of the sort
of instinctive, mythically cap-
able and self-sufficient figure
whom we like to think of as sym-
bolic of the breed of men who
founded and tamed this nation."
like to think of as symbolic of
the breed of men who founded
and tamed this nation. Harry, by
the way, is an incredibly harrow-
ing and an incredibly powerful
film; how the man who made
such a movie (and others that
match its power) can be almost
completely overlooked by this
country's critics and intelligent-
sia, I'll never know.
THE BUTCHER (Le Boucher)
is one of the only two non-Amer-
ican films on this list in what
was an especially disappointing
year here for foreign films. The
movie played a two week run
at the Campus this summer, and
if commercial theatre managers
are still looking for good rerun
double bills, they might consid-
er showing this with Fat City.
Chabrol's film is very much in
keeping with his other post-'66
work; the characteristic themes
of two people constantly misun-
d'erstanding each other, of a wo-
man's inability to perceive the
depth of a man's love for her
until it is too late, are reworked
here poignantly and elegantly.
The Butcher is also an anthro-
pological look at human societies
and evolution. Not to mention
that it gives a very acute sense
of the sorts of pressures that
can drive lonely, unbalanced peo-
ple to commit senseless murder.
Jean Yanne and Stephan Aud-
ran are fine as always, and no
discusion of the movie should
neglect to mention the jovial,
immense village woman whose
unexplained glee in a town shop
sequence (she just seemed to be
enjoying being in the movie)
was incredibly infectious.
TOKYO STORY, Yasujiro Ozus
1953 legendary masterpiece fin-
ally came here (again courtesy
of Cinema Guild) and-as is the
case with all legendary master-
pieces - the movie was not as
thoroughly astounding as some
critics had led me to believe.
But a film ca be extraordinar-
ily fine without being a master-
piece; Tokyo*Story does exhibit
a rare, profound, expansive
sense of human existence and its
cycles, a sense that I had prev-
iously thought only Satyajit Ray
and Jean Renoir capable of. The
film, documenting an old coup-
le's trip to Tokyo to visit their
children, is very distinctly the
vision of an older artist, and as
such it did not always involve
me totally. But there are per-
formances here, particularly
those of Chisu Ryu, Setsuko
Hara, and Chiyeko Higashiyama
that are perhaps unparallelled in
fullness and sensitivity. And
there are scenes - the old wo-
man talking to her young grand-
son on a hillside, the woman and
her husband sitting motionlessly
on a wall facing the sea - that
are of such powerful filmic beau-
ty and human depth, that seeing
Tokyo Story, for me, gradually

became a very moving and vital
experience.
Those were the Ann Arbor
films that struck me, in 1972, as
being something special. In
case you hadn't already noticed,
they aren't listed in any par-
ticular order of merit; how do
you compare The Godfather with
Tokyo Story? And, obviously, I
haven't seen everything t h a t
played here during the year. My
apologies if I missed some un-
touted masterpiece that played
the Wayside for one week and
left.
-G
Have a flair for
artistic writing?
If you are interest-
ed in reviewing
poetry, and music,
or writing feature
stories a b o u t the
arts: Contact Arta
Editor, c/o The
drama, dance, film,
Michigan Daiy.
, ~ i y

George
Pedersen
and
Tod Kabza
original songs
old timey
ragtime
9 P.M.
ONLY $1.00
14S1 Hill STRET
1 tgsA

OPEN 12:45 SHOWS AT
1, 3, 5, 7,9 P M
OmE CAT...
W HO PAY
AN ARMY!

Due to overwhelming responseE
will be conducting new
GROUP LESSONS IN GUITAR
Beginning January 29th
Rental instrument kits are available at a
nominal charge applicable toward purchase
of the instrument. Private and group les-
sons are also available in guitar, flute, re-
corder, banjo, and drums.

NEXT
"THE MECHANIC"
He does body work. When he
fixes someone, they never work
again.

By HERB BOWIE
Duane Allman/An Anthology
(Capricorn 2CP 0108) is a much-
deserved tribute to a great gui-
tarist. Unfortunately, it's also
an album that was beat before it
ever left the gate.
Greatest Hits Albums are bad
enough: they always include
songsyou already haveor songs
you don't like, or lack songs
you've simply got to have. Great-.
est Hits Albums, though, are at
leastgwell-intentioned. Making
one great album out of a lot of
good ones sounds like a nice
idea, anyway.
An Anthology, though, is a
different thing. The very word
sounds suspicious, as if you
mightbe expected to take a test
on Duane Allman after hearing
the album. Tony Glover's notes
include no quiz, but the selection
of cuts almost makes the omis-
sion seem an oversight. Capri-
corn records' primary intent ob-
viously was, not to skim the

i4nn 4pbop #tujic Mart

cream off the top of Duane's re-
cording career, but to take a
representative cross - section of
his work, including at least one
cut by nearly everybody Duane
ever worked with.
The perverse motives for such
a method of selection I won't
even try to guess at, but the re-
sult is that such distinguished
artists as Johnny Jenkins and
Cowboy are represented on the
album. More talented perform-
ers are present, but out of the
ten cuts included here that Du-
ane played on as a studio mu-
sician, only Boz Scaggs' "Loan
Me a Dime" is really commen-
surate with Duane's talents.
Of the remaining cuts, four are
released here for the first time.
The first is a B.B. King medley
by the Hourglass, an old group
that included Greg as well as
Duane Allman. It's a pretty good
imitation of King, but no more
than that. The second, "Goin'
Down Slow," was recorded for
an aborted solo album by Duane
back in '69, and is really hot
stuff, 8:45 of burning blues gui-
tar and a really good vocal by
Duane himself. The third is
"Mean Old World," a Little Wal-
ter song with just Duane and
Eric Clapton playing acoustic
guitars, so thoroughly unspec-
tacular it's amazing. Finally
there's "Don't Keep Me Won-
dering" - recorded live at, the
Fillmore East by the Allman
Brothers - which was left off
the group's previous LPs for
obvious reasons.
The other cuts left to mention
are "Layla" and four more by
the Allman Brothers, all of
which are acceptable.
When you add all this up what
you get is a pretty uneven al-
bum. If you really want to hear
Duane Allman at his best, get
Layla and Assorted Love Songs
or any of the Allman Brothers
albums. And, if you really want
to hear Johnny Jenkins, you can
probably find his album in a
bargin bin somewhere for about
fifty cents.

- 4
w' -

1

The most remarkable film
I have seen this year.
-Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Sat., Sun. and
Wed. at
1 P.M. and
7:10 P.M.
Promptly


Il