Page 6-Wednesday, August 9, 1978-The Michigan Daily
'SGT. PEPPER':
A lousy
By OWEN GLEIBERMAN
George Burns doing a cigar-in-hand
rendition of "Fixing A Hole"? A villian
named Mean Mr. Mustard who hates
love and loves money? Peter Frampton
singing "The Long And Winding Road"
while wandering down a long and win-
ding road? Have the '70s come to this?
But enough beating around the bush.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
as Leonard Pinth-Garnell would so suc-
cintly put it, is veddy, veddy, bad. Ted-
dible. Producer Robert Stigwood's
magnum opus is a wildly amateurish
pastiche of Yellow Submarine, The
Monkeys, and a thousand movie-
musical anachronisms. Its one dubious
attribute is the resplendently campy
sensibility it shares with the AIP mon-
ster pics and assorted Ann-Margaret
flicks. On the other hand, at least the
people responsible for those movies
knew what potboilers they were.
THE "PLOT" of Sgt. Pepper is ap-
time is guaranteed for all
propriately incoherent, but I gathered
it involved a second-generation incar-
nation of Sgt. Pepper's Band (the Bee
Gees), who Billy Shears (Peter Fram-
pton) leads on a crusade against the
aforementioned Mr. Mustard, an up-
dated Blue Meanie. He steals some in-
struments, the concert halls close down
for some reason, and Aerosmith plays
"Come Together" and kills Fram-
pton's girlfriend, Strawberry Fields (I
guess it makes a bit more sense than
calling her I Am the Walrus). Some of
this takes place in Heartland (shades of
Ulm-
ults S .25
NOWS STARTING BEFORE 1:30
SUN. & HOLS.12 Noon til 1:30 P.M.
Pepperland), a cheap-looking studio
backlot that's supposed to be a happy
little town.
There are, of course, obviously awful
moments, like the one where Billy
Preston gets down and helps Frampton
"get back" to the balcony where he on-
ce belonged, but many will savor the
more sublime idiocies: Barry Gibb,
during a sorrowful rendition of "The
Long And Winding Road," in-
congruously brushing back his blow-
dried mane like David Cassidy in his
prime; Frampton, losing his girl and
putting on his sad face like a kid who's
just lost the big game. Frampton's aura
is a bit pallid even for the composer of
"I'm In You," and his unrelenting
dorky grin looks to be the result of
his having been heavily drugged.
INCIDENTALLY, don't go to Sgt.
Pepper hoping for even the most vague
spiritual evocation of the' Beatles.
Despite George Martin's Beatle-
albumish arrangements, the Fab Four
never even come to mind. Martin, the
deservedly hailed "fifth Beatle" who
produced the group's records from day
one, should have his knuckles slapped
for being involved.
Robert Stigwood, who's very rapidly
becoming the Mean Mr. Mustard of the
"rock"-film craze, seems intent on
proving that pop icons can be national
folk heroes. Come on, Bob. Peter
Frampton may have sold 10 million
albums, but he's never going to be
bigger than Jesus.
Court fines Times as
Farber serves term
DAILY EARLY BIRD MATINEES - AdL
DISCOUNT IS FOR SI
MON. thru SAT. 10 A.M. ti I13b P.M.
EVENING ADMISSIONS AFTER 5:00, $3.50 ADULTS
Monday-Saturday 1:30-5:00, Admission $2.$0 Adult and Students
Sundays and Holidays 1:30 to Close, $3.50 Adults, $2.50 Students
Sunday-Thursday Evenings Student & Senior Citizen Discounts
Children 12 And Under, Admissions $1.25
TICKET SALES
1. Tickets sold no sooner than 30 minutes
prior to showtilne.
2. No tickets sold later than 15 minutes
NEW YORK (AP)-A subpoena
ordering New York times reporter
Myron Farber to turn over his notes on
a murder investigation appears to be
"sweeping in its extreme," a high-
ranking JusticesDepartment official
said yesterday.
Farber has been imprisoned in New
Jersey since last week for failing to
release his notes to the judge in the trial
of a doctor accused of murdering three
hospital patients. In addition, The
Times is being fined $5,000 each day it
refuses to hand over the requested
material.
"A CONTEMPT sanction should not
be imposed prior to full appellate
review ... but it is troublesome when
you're in the middle of a trial," said
Philip Heymann, assistant attorney
general in charge of the Justice Depar-
tment's criminal division.
Farber's reporting three years ago
led to murder charges being filed
against Dr. Mario Jascalevich in con-
nection with patient deaths in 1965 and
1966 at Riverdell Hospital in Oradell,
N.J.
Jascalevich currently is standing
trial, accused of killing three patients
by administering curare, a powerful
muscle-relaxing drug.
HEYMANN SAID he was concerned
that Jascalevich's lawyers, whose
request for the materi'il sparked the
judge's subpoena, have not yet been
asked to show they need Farber's files
to adequately defend their client.
"The demand for thousands of pages
is sweeping in its extreme, on the sur-
face," Heymann said as a participant
in a free-press panel discussion at the
American Bar Association's national
convention.
Another panel participant, Times
executive editor A. M. rosenthal,,called
the Farber supoena "ludicrously
wide," and indicated that The Times
was prepared to continue refusing to
honor it.
"FIVE THOUSAND dollars is a lot of
money," he said of the daily fine facing
the newspaper. "We can afford it
because wewill it to afford it."
The panel's two-hour discussion,
which played to a packed room of
lawyers, centered on the Farber case
and the Supreme Court's recent
decision giving police the right to obtain
warrants to search newsrooms.
One panelist, CBS News president
Richard Salant, said, "Lawyers and
police don't belong in the newsroom and
most reporters, most of the time, don't
belong in jail."
Fiarber
The Census Bureau says the popu-
lation of New York in 1703 totaled
20,665, of whom 51 per cent were
under 16 years of age.
10:15
12:45
4:15
7:15
9:45
Drum corps marches on
(Continued from Page 3)
when you're gonna takea shower," said
bugler Sandro Dicarlo. "Nothing else
matters anymore."
Some Lancers get nervous before a
b,. it ptpam clim the "ronkies"
don't have time to get nervous," added
Dave Morgan, who plays in the brass
section.
The Lancers' visit was co-sponsored
hv the Iniversity and McCormick En-