Friday, aoy 24, 1974

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Page Five

cinema weekend

Pick of the week:
Three Musketeers
Fifth Forum
When we last saw director
Dick Lestes five years ago,he
was quickly fading out of the
film scene with a series of Eng-
lish pseudo-surrealistic. movies
after a sudden success as the
director of the Beatles' pictures.
He had stepped out of his area
of strength - comedy - and the
lackluster nature of his films
showed it.
Then last year the former
Philadelphia TV writer who left
in the early 'S0s for England
and the Goon Show managed to
drum up financial support from
producer Ilya Salkind and some
Panamianian interests for ano-
ther Richard Lester comedy.
The product, The Three Muske-
teers, is hilarious.
Lester hasn't ironed out all
of the problems that plagued
him in his Hard Day's Night
era - Musketeers is plagued
by some dreary pacing in spots.
But his subtle, witty touches are
just magnificent.
Michael York stars as D'Ar-
tagnan, the apprentice Muske-
teer, and turns in a fine per-
formance. Simon Ward, Raquel
Welch, and Geraldine Chaplin
round out the cast (and, by the
way, Raquel can act).
-David Blomquist
What's Up, Doc?
Campus
Peter Bogdanovich takes no
chances when it comes to mak-
ing a comedy. The ingredients
for his slap-happy and slightly
hysterical What's Up, Doc? in-
clude filming a partial remake
of Howard Hawks' screwball
Bringing Up Baby (1938), en-
listing the penmanship talents of
not only Buck Henry (who did
the screenplay for Mike Nich-
ols's smash The Graduate) but
David Newman and Robert Ben-
ton as well (they wrote Ar-
thur Penn's celebrated Bonnie
and Clyde), and finally, assemb-
ling a cast with spectacular
stars like Barbra Striesand, Ry-
an O'Neal, Madeline Kahn, and
Kenneth Mars.
Having realized what appears
to be the ultimate in comedy
production, Bogdanovich then
hired every out-of-work Holly-
wood stuntman he could find to
make his dream come true.
The result is sheer physical
chaos from start to finish. I

guarantee the Iasght because
nobody makes good smash-em-
up comedies anymore, and
young Bogdanovich seems to
compensate for this gap all by
himself doring the course of one
picture. What's Up, Doc? may
not be very funny, but it at
least brings meaning to the
word zany again. Many feel
Streisand and O'Neal are mere
puppets and hinder the film.
Believe me - nothing could hin-
der What's Up Doc?
-Michael Wilson
* * *
The Fixer
Cinema It, Aud. A
Fri., 7:30, 9:45
Alan Bates' portrayal of Yok-
ov Bok, the main character
in The Fixer, was good enough
to earn him his first Academy
Award nomination. Needless to
say, he is excellent. His per-
formance is filled with pathos
and understanding.
Bok .is a Jew is Tsarist Rus-
sia of the 19th century wrong-
ly convicted of murder. He is
subJected to torture, and hu-
miliation because he is a Jew.
However, the film's theme is
not persecution ner se. Rather,
it is a man's ability to persevere
in the face of ignorance and
brutality. Bok is a man who
does not lose faith in himself,
and this is the key to his sur-
vival.
John Frankenhiemer's direc-
tion is good, but the film is poor-
lv timed in places. The other
characters besides Bok are not
fully developed, and this 5s due
to Frankhiemer. As a result all
characters other than Bok seem
two-dimensional.
This film is adapted f r o m
Bernard Malam'sd's novel of
the same name. The film is a
true and accurate account of
the novel, fill of the humanity
that is in Malamud's book.
-David Warren
* *
The Go-Between
Friends of Newsreel
MLB 4, 7:30, 9:30
Harold Pinter is a brilliant
British playwright who has
scripted such beauties as The
Pumpkin Eater (1964) and Ac-
cident (1966). The Go-Between
(1971) is his beautiful failure,
an overstated romantic general-
ization about the inevitable
doom surrounding upper a n d
lower class love in the form of

Julie Christie (upper) and Alan
Bates (lowest).
The problem seems to be in
the direction - Joseph Losey
has a habit of forcing things
instead of letting tis all see
them. He's the kind of director
who'd like to have subtitles on
all his movies for the purpose of
plot analysis rather than dia-
logue description, like little
"she loves him" phrases under-
neath all the whirring swirl-
ing sensuality.
Nevertheless, the Go-Between
contains a marvelous Michael
Redgrave performance in a sup-
porting role and also features

Still, there are souse g r e aIt
momeots - including the classic
"viaduct" routine.
-David Blomquist
La Collectioneuse
Cinema It, Aud. A
Sat., 7:30, 9:05, 10:40
Eric Rohmer is a former
French film critic who turned
moviemaker and scored a big
success with his "moral tales"
- Claire's Knee (1971), My
Night at Maud's (1969), and so
on. La Collectioneuse (1967) is
an early Rohmer film concern-
ing two men and one woman

Michigan Daily
Arts

the superb talents of Margret
Leighton in an almost cameo
appearance. If you like over-
simplified and murky melo-
drama, don't miss this one. Ore
last word of caution: the mu-
sical overtones integrated with-
in this tragic love story are
more apt to produce migranes
than tears.
-Michael Wilson
Cocoanuts
Cinema Guild, Arch. Aud.
Fri., 7:30, 9:30
Adolph Zukor, then head of
Paramount Studios, approached
the Marx Brothers in 1929 and
asked them to make a film from
their hit Broadway play Cocoa-
nuts. Minnie's boys consented,
and moved out to the Para-
mount facilities on Long Island
to make the motion picture that
started the string of some of
the greatest comedies the screen
has ever seen.
Cocoanuts is not one of the
great Marx Brothers films, how-
ever, for several reasons. Then
as now, plays proved impossible
still, they tried anyway. Sound
to transfer to film intact -
in movies was only a year or
so old; consequently some of
the lines are almost impossible
to understand.

during a season at St. Tropez
in fashionable France. The men
are competing with each other
for the woman's hand but she
will have no part of either se-
duction.
The plot sounds dull but the
film is quite alive, and there is
some very subtle photography
combining the French Rivera
sod lively adult European males.
Once in a while it's always
good to see's Rohmer film, and
La Collectioneuse is the per-
fect one to start with.
Haydee Politoff, Daniel Pom-
mereulle and Patrick Bauchau
are featured in this fine and
fascinating film.
-Michael Wilson
Thunderbolt and
Lightfoot
The Movies, Briarwood
Just what we all needed to
get through the summer - ano-
ther dull, predictable, and tot-
ally absurd police - bad guys
melodrama. Breaking wind-
shields, fist fights, pulp-novel-
quality dialogue, and wailing
sirens abount in this latest in a
string of completely forgettable
nothings from United Artists.
Clint Eastwood and G e o r g e
Kennedy head up the cast, but

who really cares? After all, how
watchable can a police film be
when the plot calls for the bank
robbers ts use a caisson to break
into the vault?
-David Blomquist
Gate of Hell
Cinema Guild,- Arch. Aud. ,
Sat., 7:30, 9:30
Teinosuke Kinugasa directed
this brilliant Japanese motion
picture, which walked away
with just about every award pos-
sible in 1954: the Grand Prize
at Cannes, Best Foreign Film
award from the New York crit-
ics, Best Foreign Film and Best
Color Photography Oscars, and
on and on.
if yost haven's seen Gate -
and the plot, set in 12th century
Japan is fascinating in itself -
it's well worth the trip this
weekend.
-David Blomquist
The Day of
the Dolphin
The Movies, Briarwood
Mike Nichols must "-3\,e been
sleeping when he dircted Day
of the Dolphin. Either that us
he was drugged, because it's
just inconceivable that he would
go for this kind of Saturday-af-
ternoon-rainy-day-popcorn-jiuven-
ile-fantasy about a brilliant
scientist who teaches a dolphin
to talk.
I guarantee you'll get itchy,
then restless, then bored, then
finally fedt up. I almost walked
out, but I wanted to see the
final credits to make sure it was
the right Mike Nichols.
-Michael Wilson
Zardoz
The Movies, Briarwood
To give credit where credit is
due, Zardoz had potential. Too
bad it didn't live up to it. At
least there's good stuff on TV
this weekend.
You wouldn't believe a plot
synopsis, so the vivisection will
begin with the technical side of
this pile of celluloid. The cam-
era work is great, the editing
unobtrusive, the costumes and
sets delightful, and the special
effects ranged from adequate
to hokey.
Unfortunately, no combina-
tion of these could have salvag-
ed this turkey.
Nor can unfavorable criti-
(Continued on Page s)

Roxy: Original sound of the 70's?

By RON LANGDON
Although virtually unheard of in this
country until quite recently, the English-
based group Roxy Music has been mak-
ing their own way now for three years
on the other side of the Atlantic with
several top selling LP's and singles.
Now, with. the release and promotion in
America of its third album, Stranded
(ATCO SD7045), and a current concert
tour, including an appearance in Detroit
Saturday evening, the group is attempt-
ing to stablish its reputation in this
country.
Whether or not they can actually man-
age to do that remains to be seen.
The album Stranded, is a strange col-
lection of music at first hearing. Techni-
cally and materially, it is without fault.
It is obvious that these five guys are
not hyped up glitter rockers, but real
musicians who have developed their tal-
ents, both individually and as a group. It
is a fact that three of the five, Bryan
Ferry, Andrew Mackay, and Eddie Job-
son, have studied music since childhood,
and the group, origitnally formed in late
1970, took their own good time getting
it together before stepping out into the
glamour and the frenzy of the stage,
The group set out from the onset to
create a new fusion and balance of elec-
tronically synthesized sound and more
conventional music. The result is defin-

itely electrifying, though not entirely
pleasing. The mood of the album is
harsh and disconcerting, especially with
respect to lead vocalist Ferry's strange-
ly penetrating baritone, which alternates
between crooning (Righteous Brothers
style), bleeting, coming on hot and lip-
py, and sometimes almost comically
vampish.
Together with the band, his effect has
been to produce an album that is, at
times, hard driving electric rock: hot,
flashy, fashionably raunchy - and then,
in the quieter numbers (of which there
are several), stranglely haunting. There
is something here that lingers; a poig-
nancy perhaps, best ilustrated in their
arresting song of love and resignation,
"Mother of Pearl."
'5. ING STONE has said of this al-
vill make it for this group
i America. There, as elsewhere, Roxy
"5',5ic has been hailed as "the first orig-
inal sound of the 70's" (Phonograph ma-
gazine). Maybe so. Absent from this
music is the romanticism and revolution-
ary idealism that so characterized the
last decade. Absent also is the 1950's
rock-around-the-clock nostalgia which
many performers have been toying with
lately. There is something new here. It
is not pretty music, to be precise, but
it is certainly worth listening to.

Roxy Music