Friday, January 19, 1973 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three Friday, January 19, 1973 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three A Tale of Two Cities Cinema Guild Fri. Tale of Two Cities (1935) was David Selznick's last production under his contract with MGM and it seems to follow his, and that studio's, penchant for doing movies in the grand manner-a style the New York Times de- scribes as "a most lavish and careful mood," i.e. an elaborate historical costume drama. If you are prone to these Hollywood spectacles (and I am), then Tale of Two Cities may be just the sort of escape you are looking for. The screen adaptation sticks very closely to Dickens' original novel with the exception that in the book the two men resemble each other enough to be the same person and in the movie the two actors do not really look very much alike because MGM wanted to avoid having one man play both roles. The reason? So as not to confuse the viewers' sym- pathies-which, of course, should all be for poor Sydney Carton as he steps up to the guillotine to do his far, far better thing. -WILLIAM MITCHELL Don't Knock the Rock Cinema Guild Sat. Don't Knock the Rock is a par- ticularly unfortunate combination of moronic script, dismal music, and the most repulsive collection of human beings ever gathered together, to my knowledge, on one wide screen. The cast is in- competent to the man. The only tv. tonight 6:00 2 4 7 News 9 Courtship of Eddie's Father 50 Flintstones 56 Bridge with Jean Cox 6:30 2 CBS News 4 NBC News 7 ABC News 9 I Dream of Jeannie 50 Gilligan's Island 56 Book Beat 7:00 2 Truth or Consequences 4 News 7 To Tell the Truth 9 Beverly Hillbillies 50 I Love Lucy 56 World Press 7:30 2 What's My Line? 4 Hollywood squares possible relief from almost 90 minutes of greasy smiles, wild dancing and pathetic dialog is a character out of Balzac's Droll Stories: Little Richard. Little Richard is a Rock & Roll type musician and he is crazy. But at least he is bearable. The plot of this dreary ordeal revolves around the efforts of heavily made-up casting office leftovers impersonating teenagers to convince a group of authorities that Rock & Roll is fit for human consumption. The case is not proved. -DAVID KESSEL Michigan Daily February 21, 1957 The Thirty-Nine Steps Cinema Guild Sunday In The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935) Alfred Hitchcock revealed the brilliant 'cinematic craftsman- ship that has made him one of the leading film innovaters for over 40 years. All of the action in this film focuses around an at- tempt to discover the meaning of the "39 Steps." Hitchcock uses this puzzle, which he terms a "McGuffin," as the focal point for a series of chases across England and Scotland. Hitchcock uses his control of sound, editing and storytelling technique to rush us on to the film's climax. He throws the hero, Robert Donat, into a wild variety of settings in his journey: scenes on moving trains, a chase for the hero in the fog, a Scottish farm, a vaudeville theater and a political gathering. Hitchcock 7 Wait Till Your Father Gets Home 9 Lassie 50 Hogan's Heroes 8:00 2 Mission: Impossible 4 Sanford and Son 7 Brady Bunch 9 Woods and Wheels 56 Washington Week in Review 50 Dragnet 8:30 4 Little People 7 Partridge Family 9 Amazing World of Kreskin 50 Merv Griffin 56 Off The Record 9:00 2 Movie "Can-Can" (60) 4 Circle of Fear 7 Room 222 9 News 56 FinesArt of Goofing Off 9:30 7 Odd Couple 9 Sports Scene 56 Poetry in Black 10:00 4 Bobby Darin 7 Love, American Style 9 Tommy Hunter 50 Perry Mason 56 ,High School Basketball 11:00 4 7 News 9 CBC News 50 One Step Beyond 11:15:2 News 11:20 9 News 11:30 4 Johnny Carson 7 In Concert-Variety 50 Movie "San Antonio" (45) 11:45 2 Movie "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (58) 12:00 9 Movie "Face of Fear" (English, 190) 1:00 4 News 7 Movie "Shadow in the Sky" (51) 1:45 2 Movie "Man Bait" (English 1951) 3:0 News 3:15 2 News moves from one to the next in rapid-fire succession, demonstrat- ing his genius at welding tech- nique with content. One of the most delightful scenes is one in which a landlady walks into a room, discovers a corpse, and is about to scream. What we hear, however, is the sound of a train whistle-and Hitchcock then cuts to a shot of the train (upon which, incidently, our protagon- ist is riding). Anyone who has seen and en- joyed any of Hitchcock's more recent masterworks owes it to himself to see this early classic of visual story-telling. -JEFF SORENSON It Happened One Night Cinema II Fri. Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) is classic De- pression mythology. What Capra did was to take several American symbols of the thirties-hitch- hiking, night bus rides, the then new American phenomenon of the motel-and redefine them in this truly classic granddaddy of all screwball comedy. And the film hasn't aged a bit; the expertise of Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, Robert Riskin's sharp screenplay, Frank Capra's ace direction, all contribute to mak- ing this tale of a spoiled heiress fleeing her domineering father a funny, sharp, sexy, thoroughly entertaining film. Curiously enough, neither the film's creators nor its critics had any conception back in 1934 of what an explosive commodity they had on their hands. Frank Capra had gotten the idea for the film from an innocuous short story, "Night Bus," that he'd read in a 1933 issue of Cosmopoli- tan while sitting in a Palm Springs barber shop. So, after having tried unsuccessfully to cop an Academy Award by mak- ing more serious films (American Madness, Bitter Tea of General Yen, Lady for a Day), Capra de- cided to make a simple little comedy, a bus movie. No one was particularly enthusiastic about the enterprise. Actors wanted nothing to do with it; Claudette Colbert had to be brib- ed to play in the film (she re- ceived twice her normal salary), and Clark Gable was assigned to the movie by Louis Mayer as a sort of punishment for his ego- tism. And the finished film left people equally unimpressed. Col- bert is supposed to have told a friend that she'd just been in "the worst picturein the world." The movie played for just one week in its world premiere en- gagement at Radio City Music Hall. And the critics gave it a reception that ranged from luke- warm acknowledgment to down- right pans (The New Yorker called the movie, "dreary . . pretty much nonsense"). Yet within a year, IHON had won the five most important Academy Awards-Best Director, Actor, Actress, Film, and Screen- play-a feat still unparalleled in Academy history. Critics were giving the film careful, much more flattering reconsiderations. The movie was booked into a theater "retrospective" usually reserved for Chaplin. Capra, Col- bert, and Gable had become celebrities overnight. And the public was returning to the film for third and fourth viewings. All of which proves, I guess, that consciously trying to be artsy- craftsy doesn't always work, and that you can never tell what you'll find in a Palm Springs barbershop. It Happened One Night is, by the way, a good preview of what's forthcoming in Cinema Guild's February Capra Festival, a ten movie retrospective of the director's films that will be capped by Mr. Capra's personal appearance and a public screen- ing of his personal print of Lady for a Day. -RICHARD GLATZER Tristana Cinema II Sat. & Sun. I suppose the reason I find unglamorous performance by Deneuve, but the movie seems to me to be lacking in a pretty important quality-a basic sense of humanity. RICHARD GLATZER The Devils New Morning Fri. & Sat. The true story of how, in 1634, Sister Jeanne of the Angels' sexual hysteria brought about the execution of liberal thinking Father Grandier is potent enough stuff as it exists in the history books (most notably a work on the incident by Alduous Huxley). But Ken Russell, rather than analyze or realistically depict this 17th Century insanity, de- cided to cinematically compound it. His clanging, flamboyant, sur- realistic film is filled with dis- cordant music, contemporary- Gothic sets, and allusions to the Modern Day, just in case you aren't led naturally to draw 20th century parallels. It's all quite macabre, very explicit, and thoroughly empty. -RICHARD GLATZER cinema weekend ber of interviews with people who, 25 years earlier, were French and British parliamen- tarians, French resistance work- ers, German soldiers and French citizens. They recount their ex- periences, their fears, humilia- tions and efforts to survive, and with the aid of the time distance try to understand why these were needless or necessary. Edited in with the interviews are docu- mentary scenes of the war and takes from German propaganda films, which serve to emphasize or counter what is being said. The film is one to be watched and listened to attentively. It is remarkably rich in anecdotes, in- formation and emotion, though overall it seems to be under- stated. For one who is not fa- miliar with the events of this time it may be a bit difficult to follow. Nevertheless it should be seen, as it is an important event in itself; such a large-scale docu- mentary is rarely undertaken, let alone given such wide commer- cial distribution even when as superbly realized as this one. And also it is a film which treats its audience as an intel- ligent, concerned, compassionate group of people-certainly differ- ent from many recent fiction films. -DAVID GRUBER Savage Messiah Fifth Forum Savage Messiah is Ken Rus- sell's most recent contribution to that ever-growing school of cin- ema (ever-growing because Mr. Russell is ever-making new movies), the cinema of hysteria. The film is the story of Henri Gaudier Brzeska (Scott Anthony), a Parisian artist who worked during the years preceding World War I. Or, as Russell puts it (more or less), it is, "T h e story of a young French art stu- dent and the lonely Polish woman (Sophie Brzeska) he met just be- fore the first World War." The two first encounter each other at a Paris library. And in the tra- dition of screwball comedy gone psychotic, Sophie (Dorothy Tutin) shows herself to be Henri's kind of person by forcing a library patron to vacate a seat she just so happens to have taken a liking for. Soon after, Henri proves that he too is one of the club by climbing all over an outdoor statue and spouting pithy platitudes about the state of Life, Love, and Things in General ("Art is Sex and Art is Revolu- tion."). Obviously, these two are a per- fectly matched pair. They dub each other "brother" and "sis- ter." She calls him, "Boy." He calls her, "Mamalooshka." And the happy couple (or rather, not so happy couple-he wants sex; she's about twice his age and frigid) cahort about Paris, being loud, bizarre, Bohemian, and shocking-in short, just being themselves and just being Artists. All of which one might like to construe as a comment on the Decadent and Symbolist move- ments of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But alas, Henri is no ordinary kook; he is, as a friend tells him, "a treacherous savage," a, "Messiah,"-in short, a Savage Messiah. And, as every- thing else Ken Russell manages to get his hands on, SM becomes not a depiction of confusion and chaos, but confused and chaotic itself. Actually I shouldn't be that harsh on the film; Dorothy Tutin turns in a really decent per- See MORE, Page 8 CULOUR ALINIAR. MUSIC-The University Chamber Choir performs Stravin- sky's Les Noces at Hill tonight at 8. DANCE-An international folk dance at Barbour Gym to- night from 8-11 (teaching 8-9). DRAMA-The Ann Arbor Civic Theatre's production of The Lion in Winter tonight at 8 at Lydia Mendelssohn. WEEKEND BARS AND MUSIC-Ark, U. Utah Smith (Fri., Sat.) admission; Bimbo's on the Hill, Cricket Smith (Fri., Sat.) cover; Odyssey, Locomobile (formerly Bad Luck and Trouble-Fri., Sat.) cover; Mr. Flood's party, Brooklyn Blues Band (Fri., Sat.) cover; Mackinac Jack's, New Heavenly Blue (Fri., Sat., Sun.) cover;- Golden Falcon, All Rights Reserved (Fri., Sat.) cover; Blind Pig, Brooklyn Bluesbusters (Fri., Sat.) cover, Classical Music (Sun.) no cover; Pretzel Bell, RFD Boys (Fri., Sat.) cover; Rubaiyat, Iris Bell Adventure (Fri., Sat., Sun.) no cover; Del Rio, Armando's Jazz Group (Sun.) no cover; Bimbo's, Gas- lighters (Fri., Sat., Sun.) cover. Barto'k Quartet: Magnificent Bunuel's exercises in perversity so dull is primarily the director's great interest in exploiting the oddities of his characters rather than in enabling us to under- stand them. I have a mental image of Bunuel, an old man who, like the boy in The World of Apu, enjoys dangling a dead bird in front of an old woman (for Bunuel, the Bourgeois Catho- lic), delighting as she runs away horrified. Tristana, for instance, is in- volved with typical Bunuel con- cerns-an old man attracted to his young, beautiful ward, an innocent woman gradually ac- quiring a cynical awareness of her own sexuality, and a fair selection of handicapped charac- ters and other assorted grotes- ques. And typically, Bunuel fails to communicate his characters' states of mind through anything other than crude, ofttimes silly symbolism. Tristana (Catherine Deneuve) is sexually repressed. How do we know? She dreams she sees her guardian's decapi- tated head as the clapper inside a church bell. She sexually mounts an icon inside a church. She dips a slender, phallic sliver of bread inside a soft-boiled egg and bites off the tip. And, as we follow Tristana through hergvarious adventures with her guardian (Fernando Rey) and a young artist (Franco Nero), her motives become, if anything, more cloudy. By the time she undrapes her mutilated body for a deaf mute to peruse, the film has become little more than a freak show. Tristana is very well put together, and it features an uncharacteristically if... Mediatrics Fri. & Sat. During most of Lindsay Ander- son's If . . ., one has the feeling that he is watching what appears to be a clinical expose of the repressive and sadistic attitudes inflicted on English boys in a fancy prep school. In the grand satiric tradition of Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct, the adults in If . . . are por- trayed as grotesque and/or mind- less penguins, while a few of the students (most notably Malcolm MacDowell) are inflated to heroic proportions. All of this merely sets the scene, of course, for the revolutionary catharsis built up in reaction to the unrelenting coldness of the academic atmo- sphere, a coldness made all the more evocative by the inter- spersal of black-and-white scenes with the color shots. With each homoerotic flogging administered by headmaster Roundtree, the students' revolu- tionary spirit gains momentum. When at last the shots finally ring out, the machine-gun's re- torts fall upon the ear like a divine and inevitable cadence. A good film to catch if you can't can't make it to Washington. -BRUCE SHLAIN The Sorrow and the Pity Campus The Sorrow and the Pity is an epic history of the German oc- cupation of France during World War II, related by those who suf- fered under it and those who brought it about. In 1969, director Marcel Ophuls compiled a num- By DONALD SOSIN Bartok Quartet; Peter Komlos, Sandor Devich, violins; Geza Nemeth, viola; Karoly Bot- vay, cello. Wednesday, January 17, 8:30 p.m. Rackham Audi- torium. Chamber Arts Series of University Musical Society. Haydn Quartet in D major, Op. 76, No. S Bartok-Quartet No. 2, Op. 17 (1917) Schumann- Quartet in A major, Op. 41, No. 3. For Bartok lovers, Rackham Auditorium was the place to be Wednesday night, as the Bartok Quartet gave a magnificent per- formance of the Quartet No. 2. The foursome was awarded i t s name as an honor, and I can think of no group more deserv- ing. It was evident that these musicians are completely at home with this music, in a way that other quartets who have won reknown for their Bartok (the Juilliard comes to mind) cannot approach. It would be too simple to say that the music is in their blood, yet how else to explain their extraordinary control over tempo changes, tone color, and expressivity? These areas were most clear- ly noticeable in the demonic se- cond movement, marked "Alle- gro molto capriccioso." But it was capriciousness with an in- tensity that I had not imagined possible. The driving ostinato that makes up much of the movement was incredibly fast, the gypsy tune set against it played with a fervor that approached hysteria. To achieve such a frenzied at- mosphere is one thing, to get in and out of it convincingly, as is required in the score, is another. The Bartok Quartet managed it with finesse, winding down the tempo by slow degrees, to a tran- quil, offbeat section before re- turning to the opening tempo. There was no hint of following notes; they were breathing this music into existence with every flick of their bows. The final slow movement, and to a lesser extent the opening slow movement, were studies in tone color, and in expressivity. The changes in mood, frequent interruptions of the line are, again, difficult to make convinc- ing; indeed, I was not prepared for much emotional depth, bas- ed on recordings I had thought good. But the Bartok Quartet made this music profoundly mov- ing. The Schumann quartet which made up the second half of the program was new to me, and while I was not much taken with it, I found with his other quar- tets that they become quite ac- cessible upon repeated hearings, and thus I can offer little in the way of an opinion here. I was intrigued by the 1 a s t movement, though. Schumann shares with Bartok a penchant for latching onto a rhythmic fig- ure and milking it dry. Too often there seems to be little variety in these rhythms, but in this instance my attention was caught by three different places where, shifting an accent, or otherwise altering the monoton- ous flow of things, the music quickly acquired a great deal more interest. The playing was not of the extremely high level attained in the Bartok, especially with re- gard to the difficult unisons, but there was, happily, the s a m e careful attention to little Ifluctua- tions of dynamics that brought the notes to life. The Haydn quartet that opened the concert was played q u i t e romantically, not a currently po- pular (in America) way of treat- ing Haydn's music. The f i r s t movement suffered the most, I thought, while the Largo was en- hanced by the lushness of t h e perfectly matched sound. The Finale, an example of Haydn's witty eccentricity, opened with an ending, a pause, another ending, and then a naive theme with even simpler accompaniment - re- peated fifths - frolicking through a number of keys to a curiously banal conclusion. The choice of a Mozart Menu- etto (from K. 421) as an encore was added proof of the group's taste and expertise at rubato in just the right places, and re- ceived a vigorous round of ap- plause from the near-capacity Rackham audience. Saturday N*ight Special . SAT., JAN. 20, '73 50c OFF ON ANY LARGE PIZZA (WITH COUPON BELOW) * U IName ____- ____ *. , Telephone :Address~____ _______ ______ Domino's Ann Street Shop FREE FAST HOT DELIVERY U_ IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT Dir. FRANK CAPRA. With CLARK GABLE and JEAN HARLOW Maybe Capra's best film FRIDAY 7-9 TRISTANA Dir. LUIS BUNUEL. With CATHERINE DENEUVE SATURDAY & SUNDAY 7-9 one dollar aud a, angel) hall All tickets on sale at 6 p.m. Winter schedules at all shows ---l ONE SHOW ONLY TONIGHT AT 7 P.M. Cinema 5 presents The Sorrow and The Pity Directed by Marcel Oph'uls Due to overwhelming response ,1hh b6 r #u4ic )7tav't 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 h rnin rind drums. MIDWESTERN PREMIERE NEW WORLD FILM CO-OP PRESENTS "RAGA" -FEATURING- RAVI SHANKAR Premieres Monday, January 22 Modern Languages Bldg., Aud. I11 (corner of E. Washington & N. Thayer) 7:30 P.M. & 9:30 P.M. ADMISSION $1.50 the in lVinter R-nn PM