Friday, September 14, 1975 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Five Friday, September 1 ~, 1975 THE MICHIGAN DAILY cinema weekend . . }7 ,: ' , . mot,. c f+R , ^ ' , , :: r _v F f i t , r a . Ft w_ .. $ , 4 h. Pick of the week: Night Moves The Movies, Briarwood One might have expected that the national release of director Arthur Penn's first film since' Little Big Man five years ago would have been one of the cinema events of 1975. Not so. Night Moves finally sneaks into town this week, over three months after its initial pre- miere, as the lower half of a double bill headlined by the machismo classic Deliverance. Some critics have suggested that this lackluster release scheme represents an effort by distributor Warner Brothers to "bury" quietly what turned out to be a rather unpleasant film. I don't entirely think so. Sim- ply put, Night Moves just does- n't quite make it as movies go: it never achieves the sense of unified theme that distinguish- ed Penn's earlier efforts. Gene Hackman portrays Har- ry Moseby. a private investiga- tor struggling to find an iden- tity for himself among threads of a confused past - while at the same time pursuing, in style true to the Raymond Chandler genre, a complex missing per- son case. In mood and in psyche, the Moseby character somewhat re- sembles the troubled wiretap- per Hackman played in Fran- cis Ford Coppola's The Conver- sation. But Alan Sharp's crowd- ed screenplay contains too much action and too little room for adequate development. Night Moves could have been a good film. But Penn, like Rob- ert Altman in Nashville, has too much to say and not enough time to say it. -David Blomquist * * *E ::" . i 1; j } :O " i ' C , ^= R C ;* >.: i :ti; i s. :; + ;: r,: : ; ",;: 3xi : :"?.; : .$' ; i .' $; '".. :; ; i ;:;'r,: {" i4.. What's playing this Cinema Weekend An especially wide-ranging collection of directors and styles highlights this Cinema Weekend. On Sunday, UAC Mediatrics showcases Modern Times, one of Charles Chap- lin's outstanding silent features. Contemporary great Mike Nichols has a new entry, The Fortune, playing the matinee circuit out at The Movies, Briarwood. Closer to home, Mel Brooks's comic genius shines bril- liantly in The Producers, part of Ann Arbor Co-op's Gene Wilder night at the Modern Languages Building on Friday. And Phillipe delroca's perennial favorite, King of Hearts, returns for aniother session at MLB on Sunday. This Cinema Weekend in detail: Friday-Smiles of a Summer Night, Cinema Guild, Arch. Aud., 7, 9:05; The Producers, Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB, 7, 10:30; Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin in the Bronx, Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB, 8:45; Seven Days In May, Cinema II, Aud. A, 7, 9:05; Jitterbugs, Matrix, 7; Ani- mal Crackers, Matrix, 9. Saturday-Flash Gordon, Cinema Guild, Arch. Aud., 7; Deliverance, Mediatrics, Nat. Sci. Aud., 7:30, 9:30; King of Hearts, Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB, 7, 9; Patton, Cine- ma II, 7, 10; W. C. Fields Festival, Matrix, 7; Animal Crackers, Matrix, 9. Sunday - Lola Montez, Cinema Guild, Arch. Aud., 7, 9:05; Modern Times, Mediatrics, Nat. Sci. Aud., 7, 8:45, 10:30; How I Won the War, Cinema II, Aud. A, 7, 9; W. C. Fields Festival, Matrix, 7; Animal Crackers, Matrix, 9. = ' : :, ..; '7iti : M ti t ' :{ . .ti;: } :4 . :ii' 'YT Y :t fN. iV :.4 fF i f: : '.'le' k' a :":+."'.'"S': t .lr'M P":+: i.V..@:k~ '.Yi" 't ..SS4 * a: >?rI.Sas.4.ntwrs .. ..:'...v. ..*...... .. : Billy Jack The Movies, Briarwood Tom Laughlin, the man be- hind the legend of Billy Jack, will go to any extreme to en-. rage the noble ranks of film critics. At the present time he is promoting a new film, The Master Gunfighter, with an ex- travagant anti-critic ad cam- pign sure to hit home with thse that have known all along' that film critics are perverts.1 But the films that truly made Laughlin a millionaire, and a symbol of sorts, are Billy Jack and The Trial of. Both films are distinguished by the grossest sentimentality imaginable - sentimentality aimed not at weepy-eyed housewives, but at starry-eyed teen-age idealists with no place else on which to vent their enraged concern. And Laughlin has spared nothing in his films. Cute little girls sings ballads of flower power - cute big girls tell lecherous rednecks to kiss off; Billy Jack himself fights vio- lence with violence, but is in- credibly righteous in doing so.1 Pauline Kael finds a curious7 charm in Billy Jack - where: she's looking, I don't know. The film is funny at times, but only because of its own outrinht in-. anity. And when one thinks that Laughlin is serious abot what! he's doing, one can't help feel- ing nauseous. Cinematically, the films are overly lone, tedious, poorly edit- ed, episodic, and basically in- coherent. Still Laughlin must be credited with touching the American nerve - Billy Jack is making millions and is nrovid-a ing him with an easy outlet for E his hysteric nolitical ideology. -Chris Kohmansk ** * Smiles of a Summer Night Cinema Guild, Arch. Aud. Fri., 7, 9:059 The sophisticated souffle that1 is Ingmar Bergman's Smiles oft a Summer Night was made im- mediately before his grim classic. The Second Seal: that is, before his most profound (some say boring) films, with Man In Search Of God as theme. Instead, Smiles is man and u woman in search of love and lust in turn-of-the-century Cwe- den. The smiles are those be- stowed upon three kinds of lov- Day Color Print ServiceI SUGN PHOTO Ann Arbor's largest processing lab. ers - the very young, the cyn- ical middle aged ,and some rather idyllic rustics.a Bergman uses an entertain- ing game of musical lovers to satirize now only romantic foi- bles but also the pretentious- ness of the upper class. The basis for the Broadway musical A Little Night Music, Smiles won a deserved special commendation at the 1956 Can- nes Film Festival. It is worth seeing if only to contrast Gun- nar Bjorstrand's deft Frederick Egerman with his wrenching portrayal of the bitter minis- ter in Bergman's Winter Light.I -Cynthia Cheski The Producers Ann Arbor Film Co-op, MLB Fri., 7, 10:30 Everyone who has seen a Mel Brooks movie knows its basic ingredients: zamness, an ab- surd plot, a bizarre conglomer- ation of actors, and a lot of silly but hilarious one-liners. The Producers, an early Brooks film, stars the incom- parable Zero Mostel as a Broadway producer desperate for money. Working with a neu- rotic accountant (played by Gene Wilder), he produces a show so terrible that it seems certain to bomb - thus earning him a fortune in investment tax credits. , Wilder and Mostel's product is a musical entitled Springtime for Hitler, lavishly staged with booming cannons and dancing human swastikas. People al- ways say the Springtime se- quence alone is worth seeingi the movie for, and they're right. Wilder stands out in the pic- ture, although Mostel is excel- lent as well, and they're en- lightened by a cast of weirdos- But don't try to get something profound out of The Producers. The best thing about it is the' fast-paced nuttiness, seasoned! with that special Mel Brooks touch. -Mary Jo Peer ' The Fortune ; The Movies, Briarwood The release of The Fortune is easily the most melancholy event of the cinema year-la- mentable because it drops di- rector Mike Nichols into that saddest of all artistic categor- ies: inconsequentiality. It is hard to believe that the man who made The Graduate and Carnal Knowledge could have created this sour, incred- ibly threadbare comedy about two con men who attempt to bilk a young heiress out of her fortune first through mar- riage, then through attempted murder (yuk). As the con artists, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson work frantically to wring some laughs out of the prevailing un- pleasantness but just don't pos- sess the chemistry to play off each other a la Newman-Red- ford. They receive no assist- ance in these endeavors from newcomer Stockard Channing, an actual former debutante who lends experience, but no discernible talent, to her role. The Fortune could easily be written off as a regrettable tri- viality were it not for its direc- tor - a man who probably did more than anyone else to change the face of American film in the last decade. Nich- ols now seems hell-bent on un- doing all that he accomplished, and that is a tragedy not only for him but for everyone who loves film. -Kim Potter * * * Warhol duo Campus If its pure high art you're' searching for, then your time has come. Never before has such a double bill unleashed such a continuum of entertain- ment without being the least bit redeeming. Combining Andy Warhol's name with Paul Mor- rissey's talent (a debatable point),' Bryanston Films have combined the warped visions of Frankenstein and Dracula on the same screen for the same price. The films, which were both made during the summer of 1974, are an undefinable cross between the original novels and Gray's Anatomy. Directed with a flair for eliciting the abso- lute worst performances ever recorded on film, the films fea- ture the same actor, the unfor- getable Udo Kier, in both title roles. Frankenstein, which was or- iginally released in 3-D as the ultimate gimmick, is far more graphic than its counterpart, but Dracula more than makes up for the visuals lost with ter- rific cameos by Roman Polan- ski and Victorio deSica. And the mere sight of the Count, drained of life by a lack of "Virgin" blood, stands as a few of the great moments in unmemorable cinema. --James Valk Deliverance The Movies, Briarwood and Mediatrics, Sat. Deliverance is about the week- end that the guys didn't play golf. They should have. Instead of testing their survival in- stincts on the river and its na- tives, they maybe should have remained on the links and then maybe bowled a couple of games. Jon Voight, as the good-na- tured young modern father- big but gentle (could have play- ed guard in some small college conference), and hairy Burt Reynolds, as the gladiator ma- cho - prince, star as two of the four suburbanites trying to recover, or synthesize, their faded masculinity, but instead lose two lives, one leg, one vir- ginity, a few arrows, a canoe, and any imagined connection with the elements. Taken from the novel by James Dickey (who plays a country sheriff), the film is highly entertaining with lovely shots of the river, Reynolds' mangled leg, Voight looking re- flective, and of course the ro- deo scene in which the natives play squeal with one of the de- liverees. If not an accurate portrayal of modern man's divorce from the rhythms of the earth, the film offers at least a subtle ad- vertisement for playing golf, or for joining the Sierra Club. -James Levin King of Hearts Sat., 7, 9 Saying you like Phillipe de Broca's King of Hearts is like saying you like a song on AM radio: you're not supposed to like it, because "everybody" likes it. The main argument behind this statement is that King of Hearts is, supposedly, simplis- tic. During World War I, a sol- dier comes across a town that is deserted, except for the oc- cupants of an insane asylum I who roam the streets and have a good time, unaware that the war is going on. The film, made in 1967, is typical of that time with its "message" that the by Kids for Kids ,USSR USA crazy people aren't as crazy as the sane people. But so what if films like Morgan, Petulia, and even A Hard Day's Night "say" the same thing? Each film comes to this conclusion in a different way, and I think we owe much of the creativity in films today to the innovations that were first experimented with during the anti-war movement years of 1964-1969. Each minor character in King of Hearts portrays a dif- ferent aspect of 1967 protest philosophy. For example, the woman who tries to spread love by running a whorehouse ques- tions existing attitudes toward sex. I'm not sure why King of Hearts is more popular now than it was in 1967. It could be that Alan Bates, as the soldier, and Genevieve Bujold, as the "crazy" girl he falls in love with, are better known than they were then. Bates is al- ways able to make a character likable. If King of Hearts were as simplistic as it is accused of be- ing, it wouldn't appeal to so many different people. -Joan Ruhela If you are interest- ed in reviewing poetry, and music or writing feature stories a b o u t the drama, dance, film arts Contact Arts Michigan Daily. I- 'f i F i 1 f S S { l ft f September 2 -28 Union Gallery tues 4h o in cooperation with the sat. sun126 Ann Arbor Public Schools Bursley Hall Enterprises presents PAPER MOON at BURSLEY HALL WEST CAFETERIA SAT., SEPT. 20-8:30 Student ID's required Admission $1.00 ;i --TONIGHT GENE WILDER NIGHT in MLB, AUD.3 THE PRODUCERS (Mel Brooks, 1968) 7 & 10:30 p.m. The first and best film by the director of Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. This outrageous force stars Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder as a producer and an accountant teamed up to produce a Broadway flop-a musical entitled "Springtime for Hitler." Dick Shawn is purposefully miscast as the well-known dictator. Hilarious. QUACKSER FORTUNE HAS A COUSIN IN THE BRONX (1970) at 8:45 only A rare treat for Wilder fans. This melancholy and romantic comedy stars Wilder as an