ge Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY MAGAZINE February 6, 1977 February 6, 1977 THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY MAGAZINE _.., _. w hiapjpnings . . events and entertainment week of Feb. 6 -12 Ernie Vick: The alartn Flappenings film reviews are written Christopher Potter, all week COMMERCIAL CINEMA ietwork-(State) [he Pink Panther Strikes Again (The vies, Briarwood) king Kong-(Michigan) Cocky-(Fifth Forum) Iugsy Malone-(Campus) he Seven Per Cent Solution - (The vies, Briarwood) Sn day CINEMA )arling-(Cinema II, Ang. Aud. A, 7 -Julie Christie gave her first-anL ' best-full-length performance in this S film about a footloose London model o wants to be both artist and lover, whose intellectual limitations and otional vacuity continually thwart her. 'ector John Schlesinger's disecting eye lows his heroine's progressive bed- )ping from a gloomy working-class riage into an eventual fairy-princess ion complete with prince and palace, of which only leave her as lonely and strated as when she began. Darling 't about a Dietrich-type man-killer; it a poignant though unrelenting study a victim who doesn't have the slight- clue to her own psyche. Thristie is brilliantly believable as the happy protagonist as is Dirk Bogarde an intellectual journalist who sees ough her yet can't resist her. Darling s in the forefront of the new wave of i ish cinema which burst loose in the 's but has waned badly in the '70's. krthur Rubenstein-Love of Life-(Ann bor Film Co-op, MLB 4, 7 only) - A 8 documentary on the multi-talented tuoso (and yes, his name is not Artur, itrary to popular mystique). You don't ve to be a classical music lover to absorbed in this Oscar-winning study an unextinguishably joyous life. 'ainters Painting-(Ann Arbor Film -op, MLB 4, 9 only)-A much acclaim- feature film on Modern American inting, including features on Pollock, Kooning, Motherwell and other con- nporary trend-setters. 1 Posto-(Cinema Guild, Arch Au'd., 7 9:05)-The blurb says this is about a Lng worker and his life on an Italian lustrial farm. And tha 's all I know (ut it. EVENTS Faculty Recital-Rackham Aud., 4 p.m. Iajko (UMS) - Hungarian entertain- mt-Power Center, 8 p.m. ITiOR d CINEMA 9othing scheduled. EVENTS krt Worlds Photo Show-Ten Michigan tists-Feb. 7-Mar. 11. CINEMA Bonnie and Clyde - (Cinema Guild, ch. Aud., 7 & 9:05) - Simply, the most portant motion picture of the last three cades; with the impact of an electric pck, it efficiently torpedoed and sank ever the Hollywood concep of "the l-made film"., and crippled along with the whole Shirley Temple-Mickey Roo- y mystique through which movie stu- dios straightjacketed and spoon-fed in- tellectual and emotional pablum to numbed audiences for years. They'll nev- er get away with it aga'n, for which we all owe profound thanks to director Ar- thur Penn and everyone else involved in this brilliant, socially shattering film, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick-(Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB 4, 7 only)-A recent product of the sup- posed German film renaissance, this work deals with the paranoic existence of an ex-soccer goalie who may or may not be s'alked by murderers. The Lost Honor pf Katharina Blum - (Ann Arbor Film Co-op, Ang. Aud. A, 9 only)-A crude and artless film about a young West German whose boyfriend is the subject of a sensation-saturated po- lice hunt due to his political terrorism. Technically innocent of wrongdoing her- self, Katharina is badgered and ques- tioned by scapegoat-seeking police, while endlessly hounded throughout by a sa- tanic reporter from a daily scandal sheet. Driven to desperation by the on- slaught of public humiliation, she finally shoots the reporter dead, then is hauled off to prison while her tormentor is eulo- gized as a noble vicim of the enemies of the press. A printed postscript at film's end says Katharina is a true story and implies that the atrocities of the fictitious scandal sheet's real-life coun- terpart served as the picture's raison d'etre. And that's the drawback-Katharina Blum is so regionalized that it carries not a speck of the universality that flows through a French film of comparable subject, The Clockmaker. Artistically, Blum is about at the level of American made-for-TV features, lacking any inno- vation technically or thematically. If this drab work is representative of the so-called "rebirth" of the German Film, then I think we had best restrict our cross-cultural joys to Volkswagens. * wednesday CINEMA Even Dwarfs Started Small and Signs of Life-(Ann Arbor Film Co-op, Ang. Aud. A, Dwarfs at 7 & 10:30, Signs of Life at 8:45 only)-The New German reprospective continues with this double bill. Even Dwarfs Started Small is des- cribed as depicting 27 prisoners at a "deformatory for dwarfs", who stage a mad riot that swiftly turns order into apocalypse (wow). Signs of Life deals with the singular freak-out of a German soldier left to solitarily guard an ammu- nition dump near the end of WW II. Good luck, audience. Sullivan's Travels and Hail the Con- quering Hero. - (Cinema Guild, Arch. Aud., (Sullivan's Travels at 7, Hail the Conquering Hero at 9:05)-A pair of re- ported gems from comedy director of the '40's, Pres on Sturges. Frustratingly, my only contact with S t u r g e's was some years back when I turned on the second half of a Sturges film called Unfaith- fully Yours on the late show. Within five minutes I was rolling on the floor in comic convulsions, where I remained the rest of the film. I've never seen either of 'he films shown tonight. but if they're even a tenth as funny, then they're worth the admission price. thuarsday CINEMA Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex-(People's Bicentennial Commission, Nat. Sci. Aud., 7, 8:45, 10) -Woody Allen's extremely mixed-bag comedy is less a satire on Dr. Ruben's book than it is on various movie genres ( he horror film, the sci-fi film, etc.). Generally speaking, the Allen-starring segments are wonderful, the non-Allen segments dreadful. * * 2 Flesh and Women in Revolt-(Ann Ar- bor Film Co-op, Ang. Aud. A, Flesh at 7, Women in Revolt at 9)-A pair of in- tended atrocities from Andy Warhol. Flesh first established and defined the torpid joys of s ud-zombie Joe Dallesan- dro; Women in Revolt deals (quite obli- quely) with Women's Lib. Promised Lands-(Cinema Guild, Arch Aud., 7 & 9:05)-Susan Sontag wrote and directed this documentary on the Yom Kippur War with a presumed ideological slant, but in which.direction I don't know. EVENTS Leningrad Symphony-Hill Aud., 8:30 p.m. CINEMA The Big Sleep-(Cinema Guild, Arch. Aud., 7 & 9:05)-Phillip Marlowe is hired to investigate a suspected scandal in an aristorcratic family, predictably uncov- ers perplexing complications. The per- plexedness of this 1946 film wasn't con- fined to the characters alone; co-scrip- ters Howard Hawks and William Faulk- ner reportedly grew so bewildered over the tangled machinations of the Ray- mond Chander-based plot that they fin- ally had to call in Chandler himself to explain just what was going on-and apparently even he couldn't figure out exactly what was happening. But it's amazing how little one minds these ob- scurities w h i l e watching the picture: Hawks' directing is so tinglingly right, Humphrey Bogart's and Marlowe's man- ner so perfectly synonymous that some- how you simply know the film is uniin- peachable, even if it's not always, making sense. * * * %4 La Salamandre-(Cinema II, Ang. Aud. A, 7 & 9)-A film by recently-acclaimed Swiss director Alain Tanner about the life and loves of a non-repressed young woman, I haven't seen the film, but those who have love it. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum-(Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB 4, 7 only)-A reasonably funny film version of the Broadway musical, but crippled by a grevious misjudgement: Somewhere amidst the difficult process of transposing stage to screen, director Richard Lester decided to eliminate about two-thirds of show's musical num- bers. Such artistie- moves have proved beneficial when the artists were faced with the trenchant immobility of Sound of Music-ish goo; unfortunately, when Lester d e t e r m i n e d to emasculate Forum's Stephen Sondheim score, he sacrificed one of the most verbally in- spired and musically accessible crea- tions ever to grace an audience. What is left is a kind of bare-bones comedy which comes on as flat as often as it does funny, minus the supreme wit of most of Sondheim's musical barbs. One result is that the actors seem to be trying, to overcompensate for the com- poser's faded presence by perennially overemoting. Indeed, star Zero Mostel comes on so galvanically strong that he seems constantly in danger of lurching right out of the screen. * * 1/ How I Won the War-(Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB 4, 9 only)-Richard Lester's blistering 1967 satire on World War II was loved by New Republic critic Stanley Kauffmann and loathed by just about everyone else. It hasn't seen much cir- culation since then, but is probably worth a look-I can't imagine a Lester film devoid of any interest. Seventh Annual Ann Arbor 8mm Film Festival (7 & 9, Schorling Aud., School of Education) - 8mm filmmakers com- pete nationwide in this two-day competi- tion of various short works. Four sets of different films will be shown tonight and Saturday, with a special winners' show set for Sunday night. EVENTS Peter Kubelka, filmmaker--Nat. c.. Aud., 8 p.m. saturday CINEMA Putney Swope-(Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB 3. 7, 8:45, 10)-A black junior ex- ecutive is accidentally voted into the chairmanship of a top Madisbn Avenue ad agency, soon starts triggering cul- tural shockwaves throughout the indus try and the country. Robert Downey's nihilistic fantasy-satire was embraced as the ultimate "in" film by aesthetic hipsters upon release, then just as swift- ly fell into disrepute and scorn. Unearth- ed and viewed again after a seven-year breathing spell, Putney inspires neither of the aforementioned extremes but sim- ply exists as a very funny (if undis- clinined) movie. * * Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother -- (Mediatries, Nat. Sci. Aud., 7, 8:45, 10:30)-Gene Wilder wrote, directed and stars in this supersleuth farce, and front what I've heard bit off a bit more than his talents could chew. Jack Johnson-(Ann Arbor Film Co- op, MLB 4, 8:45 only)-Film documen- tarv of the first black heavyweight cham- pion and one of the great individualists of the century. Mingus-(Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB 4, 7 & 10:30)-A reportedly no holns- barred documentary made in 1966 on the jazz bassist (and sometimes pianis- tic) genis, depicting in harrowing in- timacy the economically and emotionally slendor-thread existence often led by even the greatest jazzmen. This one's almost surely worth seeing. The Missouri Breaks-(Cinema Guild, Arch. And., 7 & 9:15)-The superstar pairing of Jack Nicholson as a noble outlaw and Marlon Brando as a psy- chotic killer hired to track him down is about the only thing this muddled, mean- dering Western has going for it, and it's not enough. Director Arthur Penn pre- sents us with a series of stunningly gor- geous visuals and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing with them; the film just rambles along, often incoherently and never compellingly - a pastiche that's one third Altman, one third Pec- kinpah and three thirds tedium. Brando's determinedly weird portrayal of the brilliant, half-mad "regulator provides some sparks of life to the still- born proceedings, but his characteriza- tion certainly hashlittle to do with the general tone of the film, and while it's ironically more entertaining than any- thing else in the picture it's still little more than an exercise in self-indulgence; and the script provides precious few scenes for Brando and Nicholson to play off.each other. Saddest of all is the bor- derline hack job turned in by Arthur Penn--once considered the brightest and most original of American directors, but now seemingly host and wandering in an artistic wilderness not even his own. * 12 McCabe and Mrs. Miller-(Cinema II, Ang. Aud. A, 7 & 9)-Robert Altman's overrated film about big-time corruption of small-time free enterprise in the West. Loaded with atmosphere and wonderful supporting performances, but dragged down by a plodding pace and by the usual undefinable but ever-present qual- ity of deadness that permeates almost all of Altman's films. * * '! Seventh Annual Ann Arbor 8mm Film Festival-(7 & 9, Schorling Aud., School of Education)-See Friday Cinema. A/I-American foo thall sto By SUSAN ADES Pho/os by PAULINE LUBENS ERNIE VICK AND I exchanged few words all last summer and fall, since I and ,seven friends moved in next door on Hamilton. But h i s meticulously cultivated sunflowers appeared like magic on our dining-room table weekly, and our homemade "health bread," as he called it in a grandfatherly way, was delivered, still warm, to his doorstep every now and then. Be- sides that cherished c o n t a c t, I watched him from my window as he tended to his garden, and fed the flock of grey pigeons that sea- sonally made his yard their home instead of going South. I thought I knew a lot about Ernie Vick. I was wrong. Fifty-six years ago, a Saturday back in the fall of 1921, the Mich- igan Wolverines broke huddle and before some 20,000 fans on Ferry Field, moved into' formation. Stooped over the ball at center was a man destined for all-American honors. "His passing was accurate to the half-inch and his timing was perfect," his coach Fielding Yost would later say of the star. That was Henry "Ernie" Vick in his prime. Today, at 76, he has the dis- tinction of being the oldest living 50 years of memories months of silent comraderie, I felt I was in a time warp. The house it- self, stands modestly in the old part of town where telephone nooks and window seats live on and you find n o t h i n g but wood-moulded doorways and 'gracefully yellowed, flowered wallpaper. The student houses in the a r e a, in contrast, have been re-modeled again and again over the decades and have sadly lost their charm in the tran- sition. Now, the man himself looks as- tonishingly youthful for his age- his laughing eyes, a radiant blue and his cotton-white hair almost thicker than it was the day he graduated. Sitting tall in a hard- backed chair in his study, arms crossed over his massive chest, Mr. Vick sddenly looked every bit the football player I had never known him to be. At the same time though, he had the congenial man- ner of a Captain Kangaroo and a voice made to tell stories, Henry "Ernie" (nicknamed for his father) Vick's story began in To- ledo, Ohio although he has called Ann Arbor his home since his col- lege days. "I graduated from Scott High School in Toledo in June of 1918." ("And oh yes," he later adds, "I played football for Scott in 1916 and 1917.) "I didn't know where I was going to college because in those days you didn't get any scholarships or anything like that." So Vick decided, whimsically, to head to Ann Arbor just because a bunch of his friends happened to be driving that way. Vick looked for no better reason. About the only t h i n g he carried with him when he left Toledo, he says, were four ambitions. And as history re- veals, not one of those ambitions dared vex an aggressive, outgoing Vick-every one materialized. "I had some ambitions when I was a boy: one of them was to be an all-American and another to be on a World Series team. Oh yes, I had all those ambitions! They- turned out. Then, I had third and fourth ambitions which have work- ed out too-to have a happy mar- riage and be financially settled. "I've been retired since 1955 and I've been leading a very leisurely life." VICK EARNED his right to leisure early on. Not only did he play college football and baseball but he weathered a pre-med program and footed the $125 out-of-state tuition bill, room and board too, by waiting tables and stoking furnaces, and eventually, opening a concession stand at the football field. "I was the first one who started the concession stand here," Vick says, proud to have established a tradition. "Well, I got smart. I had the in and one of my good friends, Cushing, who had a drugstore, he furnished the financial end of it. So that was two years I got through school that way. Now you can see what the concession stand has be- come today compared to when I started it. "Oh, I'll never forget, I think we made $1500 apiece in 1919. That was real good money back then." But even with $1500 under his mattress, he recalls, "I had a rough time, I'll tell you that. In those days you practiced in the same suits you played your game in on Saturday. If they were dirty, you went into the game with the only uniform that you had." Even the uniforms weren't much, compared ounce - to - ounce to the Santa Claus padding of the uni- forms today. And thf nothing but soft leat never sustained an enough to keep him In fact, Ernie Vick r minute of play in his a Wolverine. "Every minute I minute." he said in characteristic b o a s even mentioned in Ri it or Not) once on s played for sixty : game and was never "But you see, foo fairly scientific and cialized," the veterar fully. "When we played, about thirty men. o ever you want to call squad and we nlayec had to play both of fense." A TRIBUTE by Fiel 1933 Minnesota See ERNIE,]l University of Michigan all-Ameri- can football player. Vick claims he was never quite good enough for the pros. Maybe not pro football, but with two var- sity letters in baseball, he got him- self a job with the St. Louis Cardi- nals and 'wore the uniform for four years as a catcher. By 1926, lie had achieved a .232 batting av- erage over 57 games. And in that year, the Cardinals met the -New York Yankees in the World Series; B a b e R u t h was performing his magic back-then. Though St. Louis was a hands-down underdog, hav- ing risen up from nowhere, the day the series ended - October 10 - Ernie Vick found himself a mem- ber of the championship: team. THE FIRST TIME I stood in my n e i g h b o r' s house after six, Susan Ades is the Daily's Sunday Magazine co-editor. Memories of Ernie Vick's athletic past dot his study, but today he enjoys a more leisure gardening, bowling, reading and relaxing in the of-the house he has lived in for over 30 years.