SPage Six Thursday, August 5, 1976 Arts & Entertainment 'THEMICHIGAN DAILY 'Jackson Jaif' Defying taste .By KIM POTTER CURRENTLY on display at Ann Arbor's venerable grade-A State Theater is an odorous grade-B sex- and-violence opus entitled Jackson County Jail. In and of itself, the film is a not untiypical product of the School of Garbage Cinema, which gears itself artis- tically and financially to the needs of the fresh-and- gore clientele it faithfully services. Doubtless the genre fills a need in some septic corners of our society, but why, all things considered, is this acknowledged specialty product suddenly exposing itself within the confines of the pristine Butterfield Theater chain? On that question reposes, in the words of Hunter Thomp- son, a strange and terrible sage. Like a syphilitic phoenix, Jackson County Jail has risen from the celluloid ash heap to become the most bizarre movie mutant in many a summer. Produced several months ago by the senior connoisseur of low- budget nausea, Roger Corman, the picture made the usual obligatory tour of the drive-in circuit to which it was naturally and deliberately geared, did a negli- gible business and was then quietly and mercifully shelved. End of story? We should all be so lucky. Jackson County Jail contains nothing to differentiate it from the scores of other cinematic sleaze jobs native to the school: a California advertising writer (Yvette Mimieux) is traveling-rather inexplicably- through Mississippi en route to a job in New York City. BEATEN AND ROBBED of her car and money by a pair of teen-age hitchhikers, she staggers to a roadside diner for help, is menaced by its lecherous proprietor, and subsequently thrown in jail by the local sheriff for not having identification. True to the film's tobacco road stereotypes, Mimieux is raped in her cell by a hog-hackled deputy in a sequence that makes the brutalities in A Clockwork Orange seem Disney- anish. Yvette fights back, inadverently kills the deputy, then makes her escape with the help of a darkly hand- some anti-hero murderer (Tommy Lee Jones) locked in the cell next to her. l TABLE TALK: Rectificati1 By KEN PARSIGIAN "Six spades!" I heard Jeff belt out confidently as I entered the club. Since slams are usually the most interesting hands, especially when Jeff plays them, I decided to kibitz for a while. I took a look at Jeff's hand, then found myself a seat behind Mitch, who sat West, and was on opening lead. The bidding had been simple and direct. Mitch dealt and opened 3 dia- monds. North overcalled 4 clubs, and Jeff went Blackwood- ing with 4 no trump. When his partner showed two aces, Jeff jumped directly to the spade slam. Mitch led the diamond Ace which held, and followed it with a low club. This is what Jeff faced: North A x V A x x x x # x 4 A J 10 x x x West East - xxx Axxx x V QJ10 xx # A109xxxx xx 4 x x K Q x South A A K Q J 10 x * KQJ10 SK x Ax Jeff paused for only a second before going up wisely swith dummy's Ace. He drew trumps, cashed the King and Queen of diamonds, then started leading out good trumps. With this posi- tion, North V A x x 4 J West East 4 A Sx r Q J 10 # 10 x # 43 49 he led his last spade, pitching the club Jack from dummy, and East was fixed. If he pitched a club, declarer's 9 would be good, and if he threw a heart, dummy would make the 12th trick with a small heart. "What 6 fatuous lead," yelled Rich who had been kibitzing. "Why a heart opening 'tears it to pieces! Even a baby could see that," he chuckled. "Care to bet on that," asked Jeff calmly. Rich, eager to show his skill, readily agreed to replay the hand for the same stakes they were playing-$1.00 a point! The hands were reconstructed, and Rich was permitted to change his last call. "Double!" he shouted; trying to intimidate Jeff. "Redouble," said a calm, con- fident Jeff. In accordance with his claim, Rich led a small heart which Jeff won is his hand. Next, he led the diamond Jack, which Rich won with the Ace. "Certainly you didn't think that I would draw trumps first?" queried Jeff smugly. "A service I will gladly per- form for you myself," Rich said as he flicked a small spade on to the table. If Jeff had led even one round of spades before starting the diamonds, all wonld have been lost. Because Rich, upon win- ning the Ace of diamonds, would have led a club locking declarer on the board. With dummy's small spade gone, Jeff could not get back to his hand with- out conceding a club. But Jeff was not about to be done in so easily. "Care to double the stakes?" he asked slyly. Rich, who was becoming sus- ni-ions of Jeff's confidence, just neare'j at his cards. Jeff won the spade in his hued, drew trumps and cashed his high diamonds. With two "sod trimos left in his hand, this was the position: North V x x .RAJ West East - A Q J 10 f 1098 *- 4 6x 4 KQ South 9xx A 9x X On his penultimate trump, Jeff pitched dummy's club Jack, and East had no escape. If he discarded a club, declarer's 9 would take the last trick, and if he threw a heart, dummy's little heart would set up after a ruff. "Brilliantly done!" Jeff said. in mock admiration. "Your play destroyed my Vienna Coup. Such a pitty that there was still a trump squeeze. But, how could you have known?" he chortled. Just then, Phil (whom we af- fectionately call Philthy) walked in. What's all the commotion," he asked. "Oh nothing," said Jeff, "just a few palookas losing their money trying to break an un- beatable contract-unbeatable, that is, with me at the helm. Perhaps you'd like to try your luck?" Jeff asked hopefully. "But no, that would be a waste of time. You couldn't possibly defeat it. Why I'd even lay you 100 to 1 odds. Surely you can put up a dollar to my hundred?" Now, Philthy knew that he was the club's worst player, and he accepted it. But that was still no reason to embarass him about it. After all, he did have some pride. So, eyes red with anger, he agreed. "100 to 1 indeed," he said. "Let's make this interesting. I'll put up $10 to your $1000. You're obviously my superior, so there should be no risk on your part." "Of course I accept," said Jeff, hoping to impress the crowd that had now gathered around the table. So, the hands were recon- structed once more, and Philthy led a small heart against 6 spades, redoubled. For a minute I thought I was going to see a replay of the last hand, as Jeff won with the King, and led the Jack of diamonds. Since Phil would, of course, win with the Ace, I was already thinking about the next trick. But, to my surprise, Philthy was actually thinking about the trick. I wondered what could be going through his mind. Surely he wasn't contemplating a duck, that would be far too sophisticat- ed a play or even a thought for him. What could it be then? Then it hit me. He reasoned that since Jeff led the Jack, he clearly didn't have the King, so partner had to have that card. That meant partner could win the trick and lead a heart for him to ruff, defeating the con- tract. To make doubly sure that partner returned a heart, Phil- thy played his diamond 10, a suit preference signal for hearts. No soone table than terical laug "Oh, No! couldn't ha Pulling bol of diamond showing t chuckled, the King must take would be u to win this insist." Ha If y ed poet stori drac arts: Ed! St Now, Phi been fooled serve such pay for his bill, but he at the tabl "That is play," ann' ly. "I kne and Queen had my re way I did continue?" The crow as Jeff ga but the sr from his f realized th was nowt could ruff on the nex would he g With out would hav and a heat his hand. "I'll kill irate Jeff. fool and c like Oswal holds up t from recti doesn't ex squeeze is, way to bre "Well," I can accuse it on purpc "Done w The two fugitives elude pursuing cops in a car chase replete with the traditional winding back roads and flaming crashes, then hide out in a country shack with the killer's relatives. While encamped, the protagonists drone a few flat, obligatory existential- isms, presumably to comply with redeeming-socal- value dictates while rigorously circumnavigating the remotest hint of redeeming character development. The Garbage Cinema crowd doesn't like the attach- ment of real-life minds to the various abused and vio- lated bodies on display. AMBUSHED BY THE LAW, Mimieux and Jones slug and shoot their way out of the trap and hit the road again in Tommy Lee's pickup truck, chased back to- wards town by the police. Jones soon realizes the struggle is hopeless, jumps the truck and gallantly heads out on foot to draw the cops' fire away from his female companion. He is followed, bleeding and pant- ing, through an extended and rather implausable odyssey through the back and main streets of the town, only to be climactically drilled through the heart and fall dead on the street smack in the middle of the vil- lage's Bicentennial Parade (ah, wicked, wicked America). True o n s to the standard loose ends of Garbage Cinema, there is nary a mention of Yvette's fate: r did his card hit the whether she is re-incarcerated, Jeff broke into hys- given a train ticket home or iter, gangbanged by the local towns- folk is strictly a matttr of fear- " he exclaimed, "you ful (or drooling) conjecture. ive fallen for that!" h the King and Queen And that's all there is-a plot s out of his hand and of moral and artistic imbecility hem to Philthy, he equalled only by the film's di- "Look, I have both rectorial dementia and its an- and Queen. No, you droid acting. But now the plot that card back. It thickens: Evidently J a c k s o n nsportsmanlike of me County Jail managed to plead way. I really must or con its way into just enough big city fleabag moviehouses to be noticed, however accidental- ly and belatedly, by some VERY important people. ve a floir for Suddenly one found one's eyes isic writioq? and ears jarred by the intonings ou are interest- of The New York Times' ponti- in reviewing fical Vincent Canby: "Jackson wry and uIe County Jail is filmmaking of es a bout the relentless energy and harrow- na, dance, film ing excitement . . . it details contact Arts nothing less than the total dis- sigan tay.Th integration of bourgeois America in this bicentennial y e a r." '91 Whether the total disintegration of Canby's critical judgment ilthy realized he had was due to self-hypnosis or I, but he did not de- heatstroke is pure speculation, ridicule. He would but whatever his ghastly mo- s blunder with a $10 tives, a significant cluster of would be respected critical bigwigs lunged onto Jackson's suddened and vacuous -.bandgwagon: "Explosive . . . how I intended to made with a tough intelligence" ounced Philthy smug- -NBC's Gene Shalit; "It's a w you had the King sleeper"-The C h i c a g o Sun- , but let's just say I Times' Roger Ebert; "Fast and asons for playing the frightening"-The New Repub- And now, may we lic's redoubtable Stanley Kauff- mann; and so on and so on in d was still laughing an ongoing spectacle of high- thered in the trick brow hara kari carrying all the miles were all gon' trappings of a Marx Brothers- ies For he suddenly ish debunking of cultural hum- ace. For ,,een bugs; one waits for Margaret tma ka re e Dumont to start leading the cheers, out the diamond Ace e. t round, but then how PRODUCER Corman, doubt- tet back to his hand. less stunned by this lemming dummy's spade he onslaught of elegant converts, e to give up a club swiftly marshaled his massive rt ruff to get back to hustler's abilities, yanked Jack- son out of its vault and re him!" screamed an launched it, this time into main- "He plays like a line theaters. Along with it went omes away smelling a purification PR campaign, re d Jacoby. When he placing the film's lurid-pitched he Ace, it keeps me ads with tasteful social-con- fying the count. He sciousness graphics laid thick ven know what a with quoted raves from the be- yet he finds the only nighed pundits. Put it all to- ak this one!" i a 1 said, "at least no one gether and presto: Trash is now him of having done alchemized into Art. Corman ose." must be laughing all the way to hat?" said Philthy. the bank.