M I IL. Al 9MI 3S.I '1 OM .F/M ~IL I 1rT.T-'i i 7 7-7m auTuruuyr kiroluuM 71 1 7 1 V A M G IY1 ! 1. F-) i l7/ 1! V VP11 L i rage i 5IIee r el .gsS.. events and entertainment week of Oct. 9-15 HAPPENINGS film reviews are written by Christopher Pot- ter. all week .Brian de Palma's homage to film"? Or did his producers incarnation of a wealthy busi- sabotage it? We'll probably Alfred Hitchcock's great Verti- never know, but what remains go, involving the seeming re- is an often hypnotic, utterly in- nessman's murdered wife. Any consistent film which, in the film deliberately patterned af- knowledge of what it could have ter a brilliant original runs an been, must stand as one of the extremely high risk of failure most engagingly tragic works COMMERCIAL CINEMA Sex With a Smile - (Fifth Forum) - A poorly-dubbed Italian import consisting of five separate episodes about risque love among the Latins. Parts One and Five are reasonably funny; Parts Two through Four comprise the most deadening series of pseudo-comic grop- ings since John Goldfarb, Please Come Home. Included is a rather sad and revealing seg- ment starring Marty Feldman, in which the bug-eyed come- dian is stripped of all his Mel Brooks endearments and comes across as merely grotesque. ** Fantasia - (State) - For those who don't mind its syn- thesis of the cartoon and clas- sical music cultures, Fantasia remains the ultimate Disney creation and aptly demonstrates the cartoon medium's potential as a legitimate art form. The Rite of Spring and Night on Bald Mountain sequences are like nothing seen on film before or since. **** Barry Lyndon - (Campus)- Stanley Kubrick's film from the Thackeray novel comes across huge, breathtakingly beautiful and absolutely bloodless. Oh, the first hour or so lones along interestingly enough, what with duels, wars and the promise of greater things to come. But as the film sinks ever deeper into stilted, costumed soap on- era and one realizes that noth- ing of further interest is forth- coming, the viewer has no al- ternative other than to settle back and concentrate on the scenery - rather akin to stroll- ing through a gallery of Con- stable paintings, all gorgeous but rather numbing after abot the 400th entry. One can only sneculate on Kubrick's motiva- tions for choosing story and style, but film entertainment obviously was not one of his goals. Good for him-too bad for us. ** A Woman Under the Influ- ence - (Michigan) - John Cassavettes' searing, merciless study of non-communicative marriage, with Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk working the di- rector's improvisational tech- nique to an almost unbearable intensity. Rowlands is simply spectacular, deserving of every award on record including the Oscar she didn't win. **** Alice Doesn't Live Here Any- more - (Michigan) - Martin Scorcesse's now-famous film of a New Mexico housewife who packs up her baggage and her 12-year-old son and strikes out for California following her hus- band's sudden death. Alice has become a sort of artistic meta- phor for women's lib although it would hardly seem in step with that particular banner giv- en its bland, conventional, ev- ery - woman's - dream conclu- sion. In fact, this whole endeav- or seems on the bland side - OK in and of itself, but hardly what one would exect from the man who made Mean Streets and Taxi Driver; contrasting the electric breathlessness of those two epics, Alice just gent- ly pokes along from scene to scene. Ellen Burstyn does well in the title role, buthhardly de- served to beat ot the spectac- ular Rowlands for the Academy Award.** A Matter of Time - (The Mo- vies, Briarwood) - A new ro- mantic comedy by Vincente Mi- nelli, starring daughter Liza and Ingrid Bergman. Seven Beauties - (The Mo- vies, Briarwood) - Lena Wert- muller's flawed but memorable film of an Italian stud dedicat- ed to the sole purpose of sur- vival above all else, even if it means selling his own soul to do it. Wertmuller follows her protagonist from his relatively carefree, woman - chasing days in the late 1930's into the rigors of World War II and the Dore- like visual horrors of a Nazi death camp, eventually allow- ing him to survive only at the cost of any idealistic notions he may have once possessed about his own instincts. The film's not really about the loss of in- nocence but rather the slow, bitter realization that such in- nocence never existed to be- gin with. Seven Beauties' lenuthv plot doesn't all hold together, but Wertmuler's technique is ex- quisite and gloriously enhanced by Giancarlo Gianini's masterly conception of the craven hero- whose final line may somedav rank with Clark Gable's Gone With the Wind utterance in screen immortality. * Obsession - (Fox Village)- but Obsession by and large works excitingly and well. To be reviewed in depth nextI week.***j Logan's Run - (The Movies, Briarwood) - A post-apoca- lypse tale of a 23rd-Century; domed city housing the rem- , nt f himny i nl+h f of all cinema. **% EVENTS Ark - Bob White, folk, 9, $2.50. Guarneri String Quartet - University Musical Society, Rackham Aud., 8:30, works by Beethoven. BA 1c Second Chance - Shooter, The Private Life of rock, 9:30, $1-1.50. Holmes - (Ann Arbor op, Ang. Aud. 9 only) cent Billy Wilder com Mo da y cerning a newly - u Holmes case. EVENTS CINEMA Ark - Hoot Nite, 9, STell Me Where It Hurts ~Othello - Professio (Women's Studies films, MLB 3, tre Program's Guest A 7 only) - Story of a middle- ies opener, Power Ctr aged housewife searching for George Benson-UA recognition as a person. Stars Jazz, Hill Aud., 8 p.m Maureen Stapleton. BARS EVENTS Blind Pig Andy 16th Annual Organ Music friends 9:30 $1 y Conf -- Peter Hurfrdr $1et. Sherlock; has acquired much of the al- r film Co- most magical power left by a - A re- strange race of super-beingsT nedy con- who once occupied the planet, uncovered but who were unaccountably de- stroyed eons ago by an unseent but monstrous force which now 75 cents. threatens to engulf the present nal Thea- visitors. Artist Ser- When it sticks to this central, 8 p.m. theme, Forbidden Planet is ab- C Eclipse sorbing and, for the genre, quite t" literate; but all too often the1 11&film seems to condescend to its Sacks & natural popcorn clientele, pre-j senting us with a folksy auto- Music School/Ctr. Southeast gul in order to make the girl Asian Studies - "South India he loves a star. This is prob- Music and Dance", Rackham ably the most notable "lost Aud., 7:30. film" or recent years - re- Othello - Professional Thea- leased in late 1974, it received tre Program, see Wed. Events. mostly rave reviews from the BARS New York critics, seemed head- Casa Nova - Gwen & Kevin, ed for major success, then sud- C&W, 9, no cover. denly just died (it never reach- Golden Falcon - Silvertones, ed Ann Arbor at all). 'SOs-'60s rock, 9:30, $1. It's too bad because Brian Mr. Flood's Party - Tucker Itde too ad, bscas-oBrial Blue Ban, 930, 5 cets. de Palma's musical - political Blues Band, 9:30, 75 cents, satire provides some macrabre Son 9:3an$-Aft rHou yet interesting views not only of rock, 9:30, $1-1.50. the rock world but of our social value systems so precariously " underpinning the musiculture. It is one of the more stylistical- ly striking films yet produced CINEMA about America in the '70's, and Animation Night - (Cinema deserving of far more than the II, Ang. Aud. A, 7 & 9) - A meagre theatrical distribution variety-spiced cartoon anthol- it has thus far received. ***% ogy involving most of the (non- The Wild Child (Ann Arbor Disney) c h a r a c t e r s See HAPPENINGS, Page 5 we've known and loved (or hat- ed) over the years. nants or umanty, an the e- -. - rM, gr. Flood's Party - Long- mation known as Robby the forts of two individualists to es- Bimbo's - Gaslighters, rag- organist, Hill Aud., 8:30. horn 9:30 75 cents. Robot straight out of - and on cape its stagnant confines. The time, 50 cents after 8. BARS Second Chance - Jedediah, the level with - TV's Lost n first half of the film is exciting Blind Pig - All Directions, Blind Pig - Boogie Woogie rock, 9:30, $1c-1. Spae, ande oft cours saturatin sci-fi: the second half falls flat jazz, 9:30, $1. Red, 9:30, $1. Space, and of course saturating on its face, largely due to a Casa Nova - Gwen & Kevin Golden Falcon - V-II-I, jazz, as wand teesuterimpace horrible performance by the C & W, 9, no cover. 9:30, $1. and plot-regressive outer space no langer talented Peter Usti- Golden Falcon - Melodioso Mr. Flood's Party - Fred th U rsd y romance. It's as if the film's, nov. Too bad the filmmakers Latin jazz, 9:30, $1. Small, 9:30, no cover. creators were fearful that theirc couldn't carry their vision all Mr. Flood's Party - Jaw- Second Chance - Mojo Boo- CINEMA basically superior product sim-1 the way through. *** bone, 9:30, $1.50. gie Band, rock, 9:30, $1-1.50. The Passion of Anna - (Ann ply wouldn't make money with- Pretzel Bell - RFD Boys, ! Arbor Film Co-op, Ang. Aud. A, out throwing in the usual juve-e bluegrass, 10, $1-1.50. 7 & 9) - Ingmar Bergman's nile gimmickry - and, udg- # * I T eMaRubaiyat - Celebration, 9 rep company again encamped ing from the financial success no cover. 7on an isolated island, again of such intellectual endeavors CINEMA Second Chance - Shooter CINEMA caught up in a universe apart of the time as Queen of Outer Butch Cassidy and the Sun- rock, 9:30, $2.-2.50. The Little Foxes - ((Cinema from - and quite possibly be- Snace and Hercules vs. The dance Kid - (Mediatrics, Nat. Guild, Arch. Aud., 7 & 9:05) - yond - the trappings of civiliz- MOonmen, they were probably Sci. And., 7 & 9) - The origi- Lillian Hellman wrote her own ation. This is one of Bergman's right. nal "Sting", but considerably!S jFn a 7 screen adaptation of her fa- most cryptic efforts (even John It took Kubrick's 2001 to more worthy and palpable than mous play about a mendacious Simon didn't understand it), in- break the ground for true ac- Iits huckster successor. George CINEMA Southern family living at the volving a microcosm of tortured cetance of science fiction as Roy Hill's direction is as soul- Valerie and Her Week of turn of the century. Hellman's human relationships presided a legitimate cinematic medium, less and plastic as ever, but! Wonders and Love - (Ann Ar- concern is the perversion of un- over by a mysterious evil force and maybe the current wave of William Goldman's script is bor Film Co-op, MLB 4, Valer- bridled free enterprise, as ex- blanketing the island - de- sci-fi productions will at last agile and literate and the visual ie at 7 and 10:30, Love at 8:45 hibited through the venal ma- stroying animal and forest with- provide genre addicts like mv- atmosphere much less claus- only) - A pair of Eastern chinations of her characters - out detection or apparent pro- self with The Great American trophobic than in Hill's subse- European films, the former most of whom view their blood vocation. Anna is a labyrinthine Snace Film. Until that time, we quent opus. This first-time dealing with the various day- kin not as loved ones but as riddle, the answers to which will just have to make do with matchup of Redford - Newman dreams of a 13-year-old girl, the enemies or victims to be dis- will probably remain locked what virtues exist in sch half- is exciting and funny, whereas 1 latter with the relationship be- sected at the earliest oppor- within the mind of the director, artistic half-commercial schiw- in The Sting they seemed bog- tween a woman and her dying tunity. The Little Foxes subse- but is still a remarkable - if oids as Forbidden Planet. ged down in a stale, used-up mother-in-law. Ann Arbor pre- auently got Hellman into trou- not thoroughly comprehended- Seduntion of Mimi - (Pen- routine. ***% miere of both. ble with the House Un-Ameri- cinematic experience. This was nie's Bicentennial Commission, International House - (Ann North by Northeast - (Ann can Activities Committee, but Bergman's first major feature Nat. Sci. Aud. 7 & 9) - Com- Arbor Film Co-op, MLB 3, 7 & Arbor Film Co-op, Nat. Sci. can be enjoyed perhaps more in color, and he proves so mas- m11nist fatorv worker runs a 10:30) - A little - known W. C. Aud., 7 & 9) - Rich playboy as an inquest into human rela- terful at the medium that one nernetual footrace to avoid the Fields film dealing with - of Cary Grant is mistaken for a tionships than as a political al- wonders why he didn't adopt Ii(ilia Mafia on the one hand, all things for 1933 - televi- government agent by alien sub- legory. **** it years earlier. ****hi andoned wife on the oth- sion. versives, then swiftly sucked That'll Be The Day and Star- Forbidden Planet - (Cinema er. Lena Wertmnller's flat, u- Reefer Madness - (Ann Ar- into pursuit by both the bad dust - (Ann Arbor Film Co-on,= Guild, Arch. Aud., 7 & 9:05) - fnnnr conmedv deliieted most bor Film Co-op, MLB 3, 8:45 guys and the police, who be- Ang. Aud. A, That'll Be The One of the better products of critics, bnt I found it a preten- only) - The original dope-is- lieve he is a murderer. Famous Day at 7, Stardust at 9) - A the brief sci-fi wave of the ear- tiosly offensive bore: Wert- death public service film, re- Hitchcock film replete with the two-part epic dealing with the ly and mid-50's, but like most nuier's camera dwells loving- leased in the 1940's under the famous crop-duster and Mt. rise to fame of a fictional Bri- of the others a very mixed bag. lv and endlessly on the allee- warning title, Tell Your Chil- Rushmore sequences, a n d tish rock group, reportedly This is essentially an intergal- ed hilarities of bloated fat wo- dren. Absolutely hilarious, less though it's not really one of its roughly patterned after The lactic updating of The Tempest men, but it wasn't funny when for its drug campiness than for director's best it's certainly Beatles. Both films were the - a space crew lands on a Fellini induleed in it and it's its unrelentingly sublime cine- one of his most accessible. *** victims of poor distribution in mysterious, unexplored planet, not funny here, either - it matic and thespian incompe- The Mother and the Whore - the U. S. (they've never ap- discovers its sole inhabitants trikes me as grotesque and tence. **' Tge Mother And A W :e- peared in Ann Arbor - or any- are a middle-aged Earth-emi- heartless. ** Am'- -d - (Cinema II, Ang. where else I can remember), grated scientist and his twen- Aud. ' - & 9:15) - Fellini's ?nlY) - A recent French film but have been praised by those ty-ish daughter, who has spent EVENTS most to'wlhing, low-key film in involving the entangling per- who've seen them. her entire life on this world. Ark - An evening concerning sonalities and opinions of the years, which focuses - rather members ofd biarre lo ti 6 EVENTS Prospero - like, the scientist Puerto Rico, 9 p.m. predictibly - on his childhood angle. Three-and-a-halfvhours 16th Annual Organ Mnsic in a small Italian town. Slightt Conf. -Student organists, 4 p on plot but incredibly rich in ln sand reportedl qthuite tay .: Almut Rossler, guest or- atmosphere, Amarcord consists ast, 8:30: Hill Aud. of a series of loosely connected ing experience once the view- Poetry Reading - Rav M events in the town - most er gs Jean-P into it. The picture Bride: Pendleton Arts Informa- comic, some starkly serious, all minus factor in my eyes but tion Ctr., 2nd floor Union, noon. . o affectionately and stunningly a plus to many others. BARS crafted by the director. **** aUmberto D - (Cinema Guild, Golden Falcon - Rout, jazz, The. Philadelphia Story -I Arch. And., 7 & 9:05) - The 9:3M, $1.od (Cinema Guild, Arch. Aud., 7 & movie pick of the week, the Mr. Flood's Party - Gemini, 9:05) - The Hepburn - Grant- month and quite possibly the 9:30, no cover. Stewart classic about roman- semester: Vittorio deSica's Second Chance - Moxy, rock, tic musical chairs among Phil- study of the terrors of old age 9:30, $1-1.50. lv's upper crust. Getting a stands among the most pro-! little shopworn and perhaps a found and moving works of all bit remote after all these years, cinema, and the real tragedy w ednesdav 50c Discount on Admission blt the once-in-a-lifetime cast is that it's been almost totally t tdn still makes it a delight. *** neglected by audiences and CINEMA with Student .D. The Hired Hand - (Ann Ar- distributors over the past twen- All These Women - (Cine- bor Film Co-on, MLB 4, 7 only) tv years. DeSica's everyman ma Guild Arch. Aud. 7 & "Violate Michgan State" - Peter Fonda's rarely - dilemma is embodied by an 9:05) - An honest-to-god com- shown 1971 Western about three elderly apartment dweller sur- edy by Ingmar Bergman, and - drifters searching for their des- rounded by a world gone cold said by critics to be one of h tiny. I've never seen it, but and harsh: Cut off from work, worst efforts. I've never seen some critics who have consider his companions dead, his sur- It.Diary of a Chambermaid - r HOURS: Fri. & Sat. 8 p.m.-2 a.m. it something quite special. roundings strange and uncar- .-WEEKLY HOURS: 9 p.m.-2 a.m. The Last Movie - (Ann Ar- ing, he continues to struggle for Aunn Arbor Flm Co-op, Ang.- bor Film Co-op, MLB 4, 9 on- what little dignity he retains' d. 's only) - Luis sutIU 516 ELiberty -5 lv) - This was to be Dennis what minimal foothold he stillabul'sesex liousasatryE. LJ Honner's triumphant follow-up has on the comforting andfa-' abroutthe exploits of ansaucy, to Easy Rider. His film about I miliar. In Pauline Kael's irreverent maid (Jeanne Mo- Aha0 the corrupting effect of an words, "His alienation has such reau). American Western film com- pride and spirit that he is not - _________-__________-__________ pany on the inhabitants of a unworthy to stand as a sym- small Peruvian village was bol of man's fate." - geared to entrench Hopper's I wept openly when I first saw nosition among the vanguard of Umberto D and would frankly1 the new young filmmakers. So defy anyone else not to; it is what hapnened? The Last Movie not an easy film to take, but I ran briefly in New York and hope potential viewers will not O L. A., got bad reviews and was be out off by this fact. Um- then unceremoniously yanked berto D is worth a hundred from the memory of man - its Butch Cassidies, is as deeply one-night Ann Arbor showing universal as the latter is super- last December seemed to mark ficially slick, and simply not to only the third time it's been bT G Ri **** I m i I U I ANN I [3C1 FILM CCmCP shown in this country.! The Last Movie is probablyj the most maddening film I've ever seen. Long sections of'it are so eood that one feels he is watching a major turning point in cinema: but interspac- ed with these wonderous seg- ments are sequences so incom- orehensible and inspid that one feels Horner simply fell asleen in the editing room, dropped all his footage on the floor, then nicked it up and spliced togeth- er in whatever order it hap- nened to land. Or was Hopper exnressing contemnt for the authoritative "well - made - FIFRI.-SAT. FRONT HALL RECOR BOB Ltg.u EEF De misseu EVENTS G EORG E C UKO R'S 1940 Guarneri String Quartet - Snecial repeat performance, 2:30. Rackham Aud. (UniversityI Sciaket)d'=V HILADE LPHIA STORY MResidential College - Chain ber Music Series, original songs When reporter James Stewart says, "one of the prettiest sights in the for voice, guitar: RC Anud, 8 world is the privileged class enjoying it's privileges." He's talking about 16th Annual Organ Music Katherine Hepburn and her place in high society. She's the center of Conf. - Robert Clark, organist: - attention as a result of her upcoming marriage but exhusband (Gary Hill A Bd., 8:30. Grant) doesn't let that stop him from getting into the act. Phil Barry's S BARS, sparkling script makes it happen. Del Rio - Jazz, S to 9, no cover. SUN: De Sica's UMBERTO D Golden Falcon - Benson and Dralles, jazz quartet, 9:30, $1. Mr. Flood's Party - Gwen TONIGHT AT OLD ARCH. AUD. & Kevin, 9:30, no cover. CINEMA GUILD 7:00 & 9:30 P.M. Admission $1.25 $2.50 4 E L I N 1'S 1974 D'S ,E D'S ~ 3AMARCORD Meet the wonderfully strange characters from Fellini's past. AMAR- CORD gives a visual perspective of Fellini's childhood in Italy of the 1930's. "AMARCORD is full of tales: some romantic, some slapstick,I some eleaiacal. some baudy, some as mysterious as the unexpected I TONIGHT in MLB! W. C. FIELDS and GRACIE ALLEN INTERNATIONAL HOUSE (Edward Sutherland, 1933) 7 & 10:30 W. C. Fields, slightly lost on his way to St. Louis, drops in on the Wuhu Hotel in China in his gyrocopter-automobile. There he sets about procuring all the available liquor and women, as well as engaging in mortal combat with a sub- limely stupid Gracie Allen. Cab Calloway praises marijuana in "THAT REEFER MAN." George Burns, Bela Lugosi and Rudi Vallee. REEFER MADNESS (Leo Gasnier, 1936) 1 8:45 ONLY Originally titled "TELL YOUR CHILDREN." An anti-mari- juana propaganda film now regarded as ridiculously camp. The wed is described as 'the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America!" With THE MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH (JohnEmerson, 1916) the classic "Cocaine Comedy" with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., as detective Coke Ennyday-a parody of Sherlock Holmes. Scenario by Tod Browning, supervised by D. W. Griffith. 'GREAT LOST FILM' NIGHT "Lost Film" night-Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda hit it big in 1969 with EASY RIDER. In 1971 they both directed very personal films which were ignored by critics and savaged by distributors. Here's a chance to see what became of the American "New Wave." Don't make the same mistake the critics made! THE HIRED HAND (Peter Fonda, 1971) 7 ONLY THE HIRED HAND, Peter Fonda's first directoral effort is a lean, poetic and ambitious film about three drifters who have spent seven years trying to reach the dubious El Dorado of California. One of them decides to go home and re-establish his relationship with the wife he left years before. An "existential western" concerned with the questions of respon- sibility and "going back home," THE HIRED HAND has some of the most daring cinematography ever boasted by a western (shot by viimos Zsigmond). "One of the best films of 1971 was THE HIRED HAND . . . a film of great visual beauty and pervasive style."-velvet Light Trap. "THE HIRED HAND . . . is serious and well worth seeing. It's richness is not just a lot of loose syrup that flows off the screen . it contains purpose."-Stanley Kaufman. THE LAST MOVIE (Dennis Hopper, 1971) 9 ONLY Legend has it that Universal sabotaged the distribution of YTS 7 Am 1krnr,',, ,t 4,, .~p*the. n.r,noftmaverickt nro- i tt GET OUT, OF THE BOOKS, i I Vwfli HE FOLK, COUNTRY 1 I I