Friday, May 10, 1974
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page Five
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cinemQ weekend
as.. s' .*.
Pick of the week:
Blazing Saddles
The Movies, Briarwood
Actually, this latest M e I
Brooks "movie" is not much
more than an ordinary TV com-
edy sketch extended out to fea-
ture film length. Nevertheless,
a few great one-liners and some
brilliantly composed situations
makes Saddles a top candidate
for the funniest film of the year.
On the outside, Saddles is a
spoof of the grade B western
flick. Yet there's more to the
film then just satire, since
Brooks seems to have permeat-
ed tne wnole work witn an al-
most Laurel and Hardy atmos-
phere.
Cleavon Little and Gene Wild-
er head up a fine cast, w i t h
some hilarious backing f r o im
Harvey Korman, Madeline
Kahn, and Brooks himself.
-Davie Bistuquist
Morgan!
Friends of Newsreel, MLB
Fri., 7:15, 9:30
Sat., 9:30
The original title of this 1966
brisiant olack comedy was
Morgan: A Suitable iase for
Treatment. Thankfully the
shortened title doesn't change a
singie frame of Kael Reisz'
snapy direction ant cutting
- we still have intact the in-
creaotle story of a mental case
posing as a sophisticated Eng-
lish painter, trying to win back
the discarded love of his ex-
wife before it's too late and
he goes completely over the
edge.
The best thing about Morgan
has to be the ending, even if
the Czech director Reisz (who
later went on to make The
Loves of Isadora) did steal it
from an old Luis Bunuel movie.
-Michael Wilson
Last Picture Show
Friends of Newsreel, MLB
Fri., 7:15, 9:30
Sat., 7:15
The first time I saw Peter
Bngdanovich's Last Pictnre
Show (1971), the moody black-
and-white photography with
those Orson Welles lighting and
camera set-ups left me feeling
cheated and angry at the same
time. But as the years go by
my affection for this "nothing
much has changed" soap opera
increases with each viewing.
Anarene, Texas, circa 1951, is
the setting for Larry McMur-
ty's depressing screenplay con-
cerning the growth and aware-
ness that hits two boys as their
town and its inhabitants wastes
away with age and pathetic
abuse right before their very
eyes.
Timothy Bottoms and J e f f
Bridges are the "adolescents"
who grow up too fast too soon.
The film also features Cybill
Shepherd as the blonde bitch
they both love and lose, Ellen
Bitrstyn in a dynamite perform-
ance as her mother, Ben John-
sn as the surrogate father for
the whole town and Cloris
Leachman playing a sex-starv-
ed, emotionally emaciated wife
of an android-like high school ing director who tackles genres
athletics coach. Look for Ran- instead of movies every time
dy Quaid, the prisoner in Last he makes a motion picture. He
Detail, in a hilarious cameo role made a musical with the Dave
as the town lush. Clark Five in 1966 called Catch
-Michael Wilson Us If You Can and went on to
* * * film Deliverance for the Walter
Serpico Mittvs in his audience and Point
Campus Blank for the gangster devotees.
Serpico is a fine example of Now he comes up with Zardoz
how a film can wrestle with a for all the science-fiction freaks
controversial subject and come and falls so flat on his face he
out on top. sounds like a pancake in those
Miehigan Daily
A rts
Al Pacino exquisitely portrays AP wire service interviews.
Serpico, a Greenwich V il l a g e Nobody understands Zardoz
intellectual who decides to join completely and nobody wants
the New York City police force. to. Ostensibly, it's about a my-
Disgusted by rampant corrup-" thical, stone-faced God iat
tion among patrolmen, he com- sends Sean Connery to some din-
plains to his superiors, but each tant planet as a kind of exec-
time receives the same blunt tinner after ars of train g
answer - an order to keep his ain g years of home base.
Baaa muh hu.and killing at thehmebe-
damn mon h ut 's best Connery, however, reads Frank
movieS alsoha sto B 'sWizard of Oz along the
be p oduer ino o arens tiso way and finds his God's name
first picture since setting up contained in the title and the
firt pctue sncesetingup Zarden philosophy integrated
shop permanently in the United Ztrde boso y
States. with the book.
-David Blomquist Chaos results, but by this time
* * ,you'll be so tired of seeing
the former James Bond run-
Zardoz ning around pot-bellied in some
The Movies, Briarwood skinny underwear that the mad-
John Boorman is an interest- dening conclusion will cause
more yawns than exclamations.
Zardoz is a tiny bit pornograph-
ic in some parts, but even that
doesn't help.
-Michael Wilson
The Sting
State
The fascinating aspects of The
Sting are limitless: you could
spend days trying to figure out
what makes this film so success-
ful and never come up with the
rright answer because there is
none. The movie is utterly dc-
void of cinematic talent and
completely claustrophobic.
The screenplay by David Ward
is strictly third-rate stuff ---
most of the "plot tricks" a r e
about as hard to figure out as a
three letter crossword puzzle.
Stars Paul Newman and Rob-
ert Redford smile, sweat, swear
and swing a lot, but you know
underneath it all they're just
bluffing until the paychecks are
cashed and the percentage man-
ey starts rolling in.
The saddest thing about The
Sting, however, is the direction.
George Roy Hill used to make
fairly decent pictures like Toys
in the Attic (1963) and T h e
World of Henry Orient (1964),
but ever since he became a com-
mercial success with Butch Cas-
sidy (1969) he substituted non-
sense for talent. But fear not,
dear reader - The Sting will
doubtless be back -- the only
question lies in possbile titles.
How about Son of Sting? The
Bride of Sting? Or perhaps
(Continued on Page 12)
May Festiva:Usual top form
By ROY CHERNUS
May has always provided the musical
epicures of this area with binges of
Metropolitan Opera performances in De-
troit and Philadelphia Orchestra con-
certs in Ann Arbor. While the Metropoli-
tan has been groaning through a year
of finaaiil and artistic crises, the Phila-
delphians tinder Eugene Ormandy were
respledent in the four concerts of the
81st University Musical Society May Fes-
tir. n last week in hill Auditorium. The
occasion was a happy conjunction with
Ann Arbor's Sesquicentennial celebra-
tion.
Ormandy and the orchestra evinced a
command in repertoire ranging far be-
yond the standard fare. One would be
hard pressed to name better American
cultural ambassadors to tour mainland
China as they did last year.
There was plenty of "decadent bour-
geois music" on the programs that would
surely infuriate the Chinese including
Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, Respig-
hi's Roman Festivals, Brahms' Violin
Concerto (with soloist Yehudi Menuhin),
and Saint-Saens' Fifth Piano Concerto
(with soloist Byron Janis). The Roman-
tics have long been Ormandy's forte.
These were suitable works in which the
Philadelphians could display their ro-
bust, expansive sonorities.
Respighi's tone poem does veer, if
not into decadence, then into a bit of
headstrong self-indulgence on tIe com-
poser's part not found in his other 'Ro-
man' tone poems. Much of this show-
piece is awash with swollen orchestra-
tion, "indigenous" touches like schmaltzy
waltzes and stark programmatic effects
(mandolin plinking, growling brass, etc.).
IHowever, Ormandy's clear-headed direc-
tion highlighted the almost hysterical
fervor vithout losing perspective and
sweep.
Saint-Saens' concerto is another razzle-
dazzler, full of pyrotechnics for both
orchestra and soloist. Byron Janis at-
tacked the splashy chord passages, in-
cisive rhythms, and quasi-Impressionistic
swoops with commendable brio, but it
seemed that nothing could make up for
the work's lack of thematic ingenuity.
Saint-Saens' piano concertos have never
held a secure place in the repertoire,
and a listening leaves little wonder why.
Btrahms' violin concerto lies at the op-
posite end of the spectrum with its
wealth of thematic and rhythmic sub-
tleties underlying a capivating heroism.
Yehudi Menuhin, who gave a glowing
account of the Irahms Violin Sonata in
D Minor with his sister Ilephzibath here
in March, plied the stime intensity to
the lyrical lines hooming fanfares in the
concerto. 'tonal impurities often cropped
up in the forte passages, but they were
negligible to the final simmering result.
The pointed rhythmic manipulations be-
tween soloist and orchestra were enun-
riated by Ormandy and Menuhin in an
intimate rapport. Neither was the jocu-
lar side of the third movement over-
looked.
The vocal side of the festival was dis-
tinguished by a red-bloodied, idiomatic
performance of the all too neglected
Dvorak Requiem, and the radiant so-
prano Beverly Sills in her millieu of the
Italian Bel Canto repertoire.
Sills was in exemplary coloratura form
in Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165,
Depuis le jour from Charpentier's Louise,
and the final scene from lDonizetti's
Anna Bolena. Mozart's piece was created
in a religious vein, but incorporates the
vivacious character of 18th century Ital-
ian vocal music. The nimblest flights
were negotiated by Sills with disarming
ease and vibrance.
The Charpentier and Donizetti selec-
tions posed the challenge of evoking dra-
matic ;itiations in the concert setting,
but the 1suk of th-ntri'al- ambience made
no difference to Silts. Sde divined the
passionate vitality and bitter torment of
the rese'ti'e works with a wider and
more pr'anoiured vibrato.
Refined '"-alism orevailed tw) in the
Dvorak hewimem by a well-matched
qartt of solaists --sainrunut tanice liar-
sisyf. ira,-""r)-s'iurauii h)anna Simian, ten-
or Kenneth 'iege. aol bass-baritone
Mirhnrl Ielie'ti under ("e-rah cond+ictar
Jiindrich luhsn, the Usi ersity Choral
Union, and the Philadelnhia Orchestra
As with singing lietler, you don't have
to be of the same national origin as a
musical genre to perform it well, but it
undeniably helps. In the case of Dvorak's
music, it certainly helps Raphael Ku-
belik, and it does for Rohan as well.
Eugene Ormandy