Arts & Entertainment THE MICHIGAN DAILY Friday, July 2, 1976 Page Six Jeffrey Selbst jj7jt :Thearial THE THEATER department has thrown down the gauntlet. This is, as I understand it, not a mere product of a little high-level pique, but rather a carefully thought out, brazen attack on every- one who has ever had a slightly discouraging or less-than ecstatic word to say about them. In short, the department has decided that it will break tradi- tion and accord complimentary passes for shows only to those reviewers whose papers print free publicity before the show, or as we refer to it, flack. The flack is to take one of three forms, or "conditions," as Al Henry of the Theater Department gently refers to it. A newspaper, to qualify for the department's munifi- cence, must print either one of their press photos, a press release prepared by the department, or run their own publicity story. This is monstrous. NEVER CAN I recall hearing of such a blatant attempt tc blackmail any form of media into submission. The point is not what we care about free tickets (I want to deflate that defense right now) because if that were the point of this campaign, then all free tickets would be denied to all media equally, which, though perhaps an ill-tempered move, would be a fair one. No, the point is, in the words of the aforementioned Henry, that the "theater department has been hurt oo many imes." Presumably, since I was old on the one hand that the fact of our running reviews a day-and-a-half after the show is not their chief complaint, and that our reviews do have an effect on their box-office business, this means that, in their longer-running shows, which may or may not sell out, the outcome is attributable to the effect of our press coverage. So, they are now demanding unpaid, blackmailed publicity to counteract the bad reviews they are by now certain we will give. To call this merely unprofessional is simpleminded; it is infantile. WE DO NOT FEEL that we are the only ones to be so singled out. Which makes the matter worse, of course, for they are now saying (by their actions), "we can do without the whole review- ing world." The implied, of course, haunts the edges, "unless you are willing to buckle down to what we consider good standards of artistic journalism." Like petulant, outsize children, they are dangling what they must consider the greatest adducements to good behavior the world has ever known-a pair of tickets to-omigod-a PTP show -as some kind of hopelessly idiotic reward We have discussed the matter thoroughly, and we are taking the following position: we are going to continue to review their shows, as a service to the students who perform in them, as well as the Daily readership as a whole, but we are going to buy our own tickets regardless of whether or not we inadvertenly happen to fulfill any one of their three insane conditions. We can only hope the so-called leadership of the department will recognize their own creeping stupidity, but on the other hand, we don't expect much. HAD A thoroughly delightful time at Meadowbrook, the summer home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, last weekend. They put on the second annual Marathon concert-five hours of your favorite composer, in the Festival's bucolic setting. I didn't know if there is much that is more pleasant than listening to beautiful music played with thousands of people mill- ing about beneath trees and sun and such. There was a slight disappointment in that the Festival committee apparently decided not tamper with the formula; hence, this year's concert was to that last year's concert was such a success that hey had better Beethoven exactly what last year's was to Tschaikovsky. Most of which is good. Both years they played some of the lesser-known chamber, choral, and solo vocal works, as well as the most ppoular symphony (Tschaikovky's Sixth, Beethoven's Ninth), polishing off the evening nicely with a musically simple but appealing encore numbebr, replete with cannon (both years as well: The 1812 Overture, Wellington's Victory). Oh, well. Noth- ing succeeds quite as well as success, to coin a phrase, and the munching of cheese, the slurping of wine, the reading of the Sunday New York Times, visiting with old friends, all makes it possible to suffer even a high-school orchestra concert of the same music. And the DSO is rather better than that. IN KEEPING with my remarks a little over a week ago about the Bicentennial, and how privileged I feel to be alive at the time of it, it might be worthwhile to note that WUOM (91.7 FM) has a fine program of American classical music lined up for the Fourth. In two programs; they will present, Ives' Holiday Sym- phony, Delius' Appalachia, Bernstein's Candide Overture, Gersh- win's Porgy and Bess, the requisite Dvorak New World Symphony Largo movement, Joplin's Entertainer Rag, "Chester" from Schu- mann's lovely New England Triptych, the Shaker Tune from Ap- palachian Spring by Copland, and in the evening, perhaps the choicest treat of them all: Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan from the Newport Jazz Festival. What funt 'Murder by Death Dearth of comedy By ERIC GRESSMAN The advertisement in the Detroit Free Press claims that after viewing Murder by Death, . you could die laughing!" The commercial seems ripe for an FTC ruling. However, the first part of the statement has some validity. You could die after seeing the movie but it would more likely be due to boredom or nausea than laughter. In fact, humor is lacking in this film. This is not to say that Murder by Death had no potential of being a funny movie. It definitely has but never realizes its potential. A truly all- star cast includes Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Peter Sellers, James Coco, Tru- man Capote and Nancy Walker. The purpose of the Neal Simon-authorized movie is humorous enough, to parody mystery characters. There is a plot, however thin. The story com- mences when the mysterious owner of a ghoulish mansion invites five of the greatest detectives in the world to his abode. They are to solve a future murder of one of the persons staying at the mansion. Lionel Twain, host of this bizarre home (played by Truman Capote), offers a re- ward of a million dollars to whoever solves the murder of the victim. The detectives must weed through a number of illusions and obstacles erected by Twain in their attempts to discover who among them is the victim, and who the murderer. THIS PLOT has a number of elements which should keep the viewer's interest. Though devoid of any philosophical depth, the film should be compelling throughout since the viewer along with the detectives could attempt to uncover the victim as well as the murderer. There are a number of competent actors and actresses to complement the plot and satirize the plethora of coincidences, trite expressions, hyperbole and other phrases used by writers of ratiocination. The great mystery then is why this film does not present itself as an epitome of humor. There is ample opportunity for satire. Simon does at- tempt to parody mystery characters. Playing the noted criminologist Miss Marbles, Elsa Lan- chester has a chance to poke fun at the famous Agatha Christie heroine. Peter Sellers plays Sid- ney Wang, a Charlie Can-type personage replete with Japanese Number Three Son. But those op- portunities are lost because the satire is neither biting nor humorous. Attempting to be funny, Sellers rattles off Chinese fortune cookie phrases and nauseum. Lanchester is not able to parody Agatha Christie's character beyond her name. It is difficult to determine whether James Coco, as Milo Perrier, a famous Continental sleuth, even tries to be funny. THOUGH MOST of the performances are mis- erable, there are some sequences which evoke some chuckles. The scene of the blind butler (Alec Guinness) who attempting to explain the deaf and dumb maid (Nancy Walker) is absurdly funny. Unexpected actions and utterances from the characters also arouse one from somnolence. For instance, Miss Marbles' aging nurse (Estelle Windwood) surprisingly attempts to entice Sam Diamond (Peter Falk), a San Francisco Private Eye. Unfortunately, these types of scenes are few and far between. The failure of Murder by Death to fulfill the promises of the advertisement may not be totally the fault of the actors. Neal Simon's screenplay is only weakly humorous. Perhaps better type- casting could have saved this movie. Sellers should have played the Continental sleuth with the French accent. He could have parodied his own characterization of Inspector Clouseau. If Peter Falk played a detective similar to Colum- bo's character, he might appear more humorous than his portrayal of a crass sleuth with a Hum- phrey Bogart twang. Also, there are too many characters for the development of any one of them. The movie thus had to rely on stereotypes of certain mystery characters and suffered be- cause of it. In conclusion, it appears that a more apposite title for this film would be Murder by Dearth. In this movie, there is a dearth of humorous acting, good screenplay and typecasting which murdered any chance that a viewer might ". . . die laughing." All H uiey Arthur Hailey, author of "The Moneychangers," visits the set of the movie. Helen Hayes and Kirk Douglas star in the venture, which will air on TV late this year or early next year.