Miscellaneous Films Scrapbook

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Gardens . . 35-38 33 Home .....•• 36 . 34 Movies •. , 10-16 es1 . . . 34 Music .... 17-19 na .. ,, ,32-33 Records •• 29-31 ce ,, ..•.. 17 Stainps .•• 32-33 ma , ..•.. 1-9 TV-Radio 20-25 TV-Radio 16-20 11118 The New York Times Company

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~~tlon2 Sundayi, '.February 18, 1969 .+

ARTS AND LEISURE

Named Desire-or Death?

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By DAN ISAAC

"All poets look for god, all good po·ets do ••• " -TERNESSEE WILL4\MS, "Sud-ly Last Summer."

N THE night of December 3, 1947 -more than 20 )'ears ago now"A Streetcar Named Desire" opened in New York, and the next morning it was clear that Tenn•see Williams had established himself as a major American dramatist. Had he written nothing more than "The Glass Men4arie" (1945) and "Streetcar," his reput;4tion would have been secure; for these two plays have already achieved the stature of American classics. In the years 11bat followed, Williams succeeded in ha'flng ten more fulllength plays produced in New York, plays which have pres~rved~'s prominence as the greatest living pl right in America today, Only Arthur Iller and Edward Albee can be conside~ rivals for such eminence and esteem.

Twenty years is a loag time, and it may make all of us a little bit sad and sentimental to think back to who we were and what we were doing •hen we first discovered Tennessee Widlams for ourselves.

But it's been a long time for Mr. Williams, too, and there is no one who feels the flow of time more il1ll1)edia11fly, more painfully, than he:

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"It goes tick-tick, jlt's quieter than your heartbeat, a l'adual explosion, blasting the world we lived in to burntout pieces. • • • Ti~whci could beat it, who could defeat it ~ver? Maybe some

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saints and heroes, but not Chance Woyne."

So spoke the playwright through his central character in "Sweet Bird of Youth," giving memorable expression to the way in which the measured intervals of our regulated lives-who among us does not wear a watch?-lead only to a private little apocalypse of extinction. But maybe the artist, the playwright who takes our unspoken anxieties and hidden fears, shaping them into images that move and mean-maybe such a man ranks with the saints and heroes, for it is he who conquers death by creating the timeless world of a play.

Ironically, it is just now when ·Williams has successfully won the dusty respect of academe that his reputation among theater critics and practitioners of the avant-garde is in great disrepair. Looking a little antique· in the midst of so much that strives to be modern, the Williams play seems to belong to what we have already begun to think of as the past.

After all, two movements in the last ten years, the Theater of the Absurd and the Theater of Cruelty, have occupied the center of the stage. And not since December, 1961, when "The Night of the Iguana" opened, has Williams had a successful new play on Broadway. 'l'he general assumption about Williams -indeed, a public myth that has such a fast grip on our fantasies that we are unwilling to admit it might not be true-is that he is repetitious to a fault and has written himself out Even were this indict-

ment true, Williams is nevertheless one of the few American dramatists whose work displays any evolution of thought toward the solving of a set of philosophic and religious problems. That critics have failed to deal productively with this fact only emphasizes that Williams's image as the play\Vright of sex and violence was too valuable a commercial and critical prop· erty to be readily forsaken.

The ideological shift in Williams's plays was signaled by a significant change in dramatic strategy. His earliest plays were concerned with the representation of a developi,ng action, an action that required a certain duration of dramatic time and a number of scenes to unfold; in distinct contrast, the later plays tend to collapse the range of dramatic time into a limited period that seldom exceeds 24 hours.

Starting with "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," almost every Williams play is more interested in exploring a situation rather than narrating a complex action. And in the last plays, "The Night of the Iguana" and "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore," character and thought take com· plete precedence over plot.

At the same time that this emphasis on thought occurred, Williams's manipulation of symbols-important to the life of even his earliest work-became more pronounced. In the later plays, the intricate and ambiguous complexity of thought is made to compensate for the excitement lost through diminished dramatic action.

As Williams continued to develop this new dramatic (Continued on Page 7)

Twenty years ago "A 9lrcctcar Named Desire" with Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy, le~, established Tennessee Williams as a major American dramatist. Today he prepares his latest play for Broadway, '~Kingdom of Earth." Below right, at a rehearsal, he watches as Estelle Parsons, portr.ing a Southern girl, accepts the caras of her new husband, Brian Bedford, although she has her eye on his brother, Harry Gu•rdino. This "comic talc of crude se.x" is set against the' background of an approaching Mississippi flood.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1968

A Streetcar Named Desire- or Death?

Continued from Page 1 strategy, the meaning of his plays became more obscure. In.Peed, "Milk Train," a play that lias been dismissed as both a Commercial and critical failure, is one of his most ~nteresting and profound works. (I · would agree that the first version of "Milk Train" that opened early ln 1963 was flawed to a fault; but when a greatly revised and superior version was perfonned a year later, it last.ed only a few performances.) The real problem, though, with "Milk Train' 1 is that it is a mystical work of religious significance; a work that hides its many meanings in strange myths, occult rituals, and obsessively repetitive words and phrases. Furthermore, the constant references to sleep and food become elaborate metaphysical 1t1etaphors-secret signs to a set of dark truths.

But the last thing the American public is prepared to believe about .:rennessee Williams is that he is .a religious mystic!

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"You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And "funerals are pretty compared to deaths."

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, "A Streetcar. Named Desire."

Drenched with the horror of death and dying, all of Williams's playS..:.-Jlke funerals-are an esthetic and ritualistic response to the painful awareness. of. extinction. It is the frightening final power of death in Williams's !dramatic equation that produced two different responses: Uie rage for sexual satisfaction in the early plays; and the religlous quest in the later ones.

After the stark reality of Big Daddy's being told the truth of his moribund condition in "cat on a Hot Tin Roof," Williams's plays !l'eemed to proliferate Christ fig· ures: an attempt to bestow upon sqffering and death a meaning tltat would transcend the limits of human accornpli$1tment. Never trwy convincing in either "Orpheus Descending" or "Suddenly Last Summer," tl1e Christ figure as a viable dramatic metaphor col18'lsed completely in "Sweet Bird of Youth": Chance Wayne, unethi· eat and seldom sympathetic. hardly deserved the nobility in! herently associated with such a com~_on.

Clearly. bankrupt ~ "Sweet Bird of Youth," the po$ of tile man who would play Chri:lit ~~· , ngrily denounced an< "' !F "The Night of tile d it is here also thlt' rst

time, a clear philosophy emer~d as to what one could do in a world where God's existence was questionable and death inevitable.

One might, if nothing else, attend the aged who are sick and dying in order ta help them get through their dying comfortably. This· is the message that Hannah brings to Sl;lannon, an exhausted ex· priest who finally gives u11 his religious posturing.

In a long speech that serves the purpose of a parable, Hannah tells Shannon how she first witnessed impoverished old men in Shanghai in the House of the DyiDJ, and how their eyes suddenly lit up with joy when little comforts such as opium candies were placed on their straw mats. This was the experience that brought her to believe that one of the few deeds worth doing in this world was to help the moribund die happily and gracefully.

It was in the Far East that Han· nah had this experience that affected her as though it were a religious revelation: and insofar as she passes the story of this experience on to Shannon, a spoiled priest, as though it were the highest kind of wisdom, what this play argues is the exhaustion of one religious tradition and the arrival of another. Much tortured by his own conception of God as the violent agent of thunder and lightning, Shannon began "touring God's world" in what is clearly meant to be a religious qµest.

That he twice refers to Hannah as "Miss Thin-Standing-Up~Female Buddha" suggests that, for playwright Williams, a form of Buddhism has come to replace Chris· tianity as a source of valid religious authority and ethics.

Helping the dying to get through it, one of several motifs in "The Night of the Iguana," became the central subject of Williams's most complex and obscure play: "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Afr/more." It Is also Williams' most concentrated attempt to formulate and expound a metaphysic that will answer the questions that terrify, indeed traumatize, his major dr!lmatic figures: the meaning of life under the aspect of death in a godless universe. Bearing the nomenclature of a Christ figure, Chris Flanders is nevertheless an emissary of Eastern thought and religion. A mysterious character whose integrity is constantly in question, Chris comes to the dying Flora Goforth in order to ready her for her imminent death; and he does this by describing an experience in his own lif~n­ other instance of a parable-when

ing like a runner in a race whenever the horn of the boat in the harbor is heard, she is always off and running at the sound of the third' ·blast. Looking more disheveled and mutilated after each con~st with the cocaloonies, she al· 'kp.yf!f. manages to return with a fiih · in her motilh-only t<> have it stolen from her at the last moment.

But the comic keynote of this piece is the Gnadiges Fraulein's indubitable courage, her willingness to continue to go out and do battle with the big predatory ~itds, even though each engagement !eaves her with an organ or a limb less. To say that this play is a veiled metaphor for the way Williams feels in the face of increasingly mor~ hostile and uncompnihending criticism might not be too far off the mark.

Even more r~velatory of ,the privat~ and prob\ematic disposition of an artist beginning to ·discover hpw hard it is to express himself is Williams's unproduced play, "I Can't Imagine Tomorrow." A short but nevertheless itp.mensely moving work in a style that is far more economic and terse than

costing him immense pain, One sarcastically tells him, "You completed a sentence. lt wasn't easy for you, but you got through it.''

For "completed a sentence" read "completed a play," and we suddenly reaJ.ize that this statement may perfectly represent the. -private pain suffered by the · playwright in bringing his mall!rial forth, having to fight the 'tenden~y toward silence all the way, · .

Just a few lines later in "I Can't Imaginjl Tomorrow," One relates· a parabll4-a, parable that puts ev. erything I have. been trying to say about the work of Tenness.E:e Williams in absolute perspectflVe: ONE: I'm going to tell you a story.

••. It's about a ·small man: ...

-A small man came to the house of Death and the uniformed guard at the gate asked him what he wanted. He said that he wanted ·Death. The guard said that's a very. large order for a small man like you. The small man said yes, he knew it was a large order, but it was what he wanted. The guard asked for his documents. The Qnly document he had was his birth certificate.

The guard looked .at th.e date on

he learned the teaching of his week's run atd •closed-which Swami by simply sitting with him only served f1*ther to convince a whole nigh~ without either of the public that Tennessee Williams's artistic 1>ower was in dethem speaking a word: MPs. GoFORTH: No message, he cline.

Again the cdtics had failed to Jidn't have any message?

CHRIS: Yes, that night it was si- recognize the new advances made lence, it was the meaning of by ihe playwri8'it, for one of the plays in "Slapst.tck Tragedy.'~ was silence.

MRs. GoroRTH: Silence? Mean- a masterpiece of surrealistic satire.

Indeed, "The C!iadiges Fraulein" ipg? might well be iionstrued as Wil· CHRIS: Acceptance·, liams's answer to "Waiting for MRS. GoFORTH: What of?

CHRIS: Oh, many things, every- Godot." Two W,liit.e-faced clowns, thing, nearly. Such as how to aging SoutherQ women called live and to die In a way that's Molly and Polly, cai:ry most of the more dignified than most of us actiori with thetr comie dialogue. know how to do it. And how Placed in an •ogether unrealisnot to be frightened of not tic setting whele both light and knowing what isn't meant to be landscape have a color range known, acceptance of not know- from . gray to fhite, Polly fixe~ ing anything but the moment the location for the audience as of still existing, until we stop "the Southernini;t ~eY" in a long existing - and acceptance of monologue that begitts the play.

When Moll;9" arid Polly are not that moment, too. · · fleeing huge mvt 1r birds that peA . powerful message, but cu- riodicafly walk ~n stage or are riously qualified by the ·char- imagined to . be swooping the air acter who speaks these words. above them, they sit around a di· Known in high society as the Angel of Death because of his tendency to exploit rich old ladies who are sick and dying, Chris Flanders is a figure of such great ambiguity that one wonders if the playwright himself may not have been drawing back a bit from what look like final answers. The many and convoluted metaphors written into this metaphysical drama suggest that 'what Williams finally arrived at when his quest was completed was so hopelessand ultimately frightening-that he built into the play a set of subtle contradictions in order to refute his own conclusions. The final truth that Williams arrived at in "Milk Train" was at least so frightening that it rendered the Paul Ntwman was Chanc:e Wayne, lover to an aging star, Geraldine Page, in most productive American play· wright of the past 20 years ar.In. his suffering and death, was he perhaps a Christ figure? tistically catatonic for a time.

Perhaps the very advice that Chris the birth certificate and said, offers Mrs. Goforth explains this lapidated front porch gossiping anything else Williams has previtoo early, you've come too tendency toward inactivity: "Si- cruelly about the Gnadiges Frau- ously written, it, too, suggests in early, go back down the mounlein. · many respects the mood of a lence. Acceptance." tain and don't come up here Living now in ~olly's flopheuse ' Beckett play. But reading ·it, one again fqr 20 years. The small "Death is one moment, and life known as f'the big dormitory," the instinctively feels that Williams man started to cry. He said if is so many of them."-TENNESSEE Gnlidiges Fraulefti is a European has arrived at this point not beyou won't let me in for 20 years, WILLIAMS, "The Milk Train Doesn't circus performet' whb has fallen cause of any tendency to imitate, I'll wait 20 years at the gate, I Stop Here Anymore." into low estate .. lier big act had but out of the pure terror of his can't go back rlown the mounWe have been waiting for Wil· forced her into c,~petition with a own despair. tain. I have no place down The only characters in this very Iiams to have a new full-length seal for fish thr.(IWn into the air; there. I have no one t<> visit in play produced in .New York some but when the set) became angry short work are simply called the evening, I have no one to four years now, but this is not to with her success in iptercepting "One" and "Two." One is a womtalk to, no one to play cards say that he has been altogether his food, he beet her with his an, talkative and sarcastic, who is with, I have no one, no one. unproductive. Four one-act plays flippers and fordd her to leave in great pain and "".ants to die.

But the guard walked away, have appeared in various issues of the circus in a 1'ate of, physical Two is a helpless little man who turned his back on the small Esquire during the past few years; disrepair. Now the Gnadlges Frau- wants nothing more than to help man and walked away, and the two were produced several sea· lein is reduced 'to fighting the One, his only friend, but does not small man who was afraid to sons ago under the title of "Slap- huge birds; knowA to the Southern want her to die. His ineffectuality talk began to shout. For a stick Tragedy." But because the natives as "coca)Oo11ies,'' for the is underscored by his inability to striall man be shouted lo.udly, critical response was so negativ~. bad fish the local fishing boats complete a sentence. After he stutand Death heard him and came the two plays finished out a throw back into ihe sea. Crouch- ters through a speech, every word

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out himself to see what the disturbance was all about. The guard said the small man at the gates had come 20 years too early, and wouldn't go down the mountain, and Death said, Yes, I understand, but under some circumstances, especially when they shout their heads off at the gatP.s, they i:an 1'e let in early, sp let him in, anytl).ing to stop the disturbance. Well?

What do you think of the story?

TWO:· It's, uhONE: It's uh what?

TWO: Did you make up the story?

CNE: No. You made it up. You've been making it up for a long time now. It's time to send it out for pub14cation. Don't you think so? . ' . ' Tennessee Williams did send bis story out far publication. This shy poet of death has written some of the. most beautiful and pdwe{ful plays ever to be presented on the American stage, plays whp~e reputation will continue to grow until they are recognized QY all as a major achievement jp. dramatic literature.

And fot those of us who admire not only Williams's early work, but greatly respect his efforts to wrench his later writing into a unique for:m, the news that he has produced two new plays offers hope-ev~n though one of them, "The Two Character Play,." had unfavorable reviews and a short life in London this past December.

From all reports, "The Two Character J>lay" is surrealistic in style: two actprs are left alone in an empty theater, having been forsaken by the other actors, who consider them insane. One of the two wants to continue performing; the other wants only to sleep and die.

While "The Two Character Play" may well be struggling to create a new dramatic strate1Y within the dimensions of the Theater of the Absurd; the play that will open next month on Broadway under the title "Kingdom of Earth" is a return to an older and more familiar style. Based on both a short story and a one-act play that Williams worked UP. some time ago, "Kingdom of Earth" is a comic tale of crude sex about to be consummated on the lip of the grave. With the sound of a raging flood that threatens to cover over all of the Mississippi delta as background music for the entire action, death now assumes apocalyptic proportions. · The. long wait for a new play from Tennessee Williams is over.

But whether we have God or Godot io' thank for it is a very open questiori. Perhaps both.

In any case, thanks and celebration!

.A!I:TRO 6010WJJ'IJIMYE/l

entertainment enterprise in the history of our N ocivilization has been awaited with such eager

A Tale of the Christ'

anticipation as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's $15,000,000 miracle of the giant screen "Ben-Hur". It is the crowning glory to the immortal story into which its author General Lew Wallace put eight years of labor, which has been translated into nearly all languages, which electrified the world for seventeen years as a stage play, and which as a silent motion picture made screen history!

Now, in all its sweep and scope, in all the grandeur of the most modern techniques of color, sound and visual excitement, and with the most lavish expenditure of talent and money, "Ben-Hur" is a screen event so remarkable that only seeing it can convey its wonders.

From the entire cinema world eager to be associated with its historic filming, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer selected, as director the brilliant Academy-Award winning William Wyler. With all its pageantry, spectacle and conflict-the most exciting in the history of show business-this choice of director gave assurance that the human story would be immortalized.

The raging seas on which slave galleys fought naval ~..;.....;....;;.......1 battles against marauding pirates, the vast arena with countless thousands cheering the fabulous chariot race-these and many more eye-filling sequences are but background for the story of people. And because these people lived in the most stirring period of human history-the period between the birth and death of Christ-their story is one of Faith in God and in the goodness of man, a touching religious document as well as exciting fiction, and also one of the most beautiful love stories ever told. The combination has inspired the world through generations. · MARTHA SCOTT .,., CATHY O'DONNELL· SAM JAFFE Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sent large companies of technicians and talent, together with 250 tons of KARilliNBERG .SAM ZIMBAlIST equipment to Italy to film it in the actual locales of the story. More people than ever before, thousands upon thousands acted in it. A hundred thousand people worked in it one way or another behind the scenes, more than had ever engaged in such an undertaking.

It is inevitable that practically every man, woman and child in America will want to see "Ben-Hur'', and it is predicted that the demand for tickets will exceed anything ever known in theatrical annals. Be sure that you and your family are taken care of. Act fast. Fill in the coupon shown on the reverse side and mail it at once to the address indicated.

Starring

CHARLTON HESTON ·JACK HAWKINS HAYA HARAREET · STEPHEN BOYD HUGH GRIFFITH TECHNICOLOR•

RESERVE YOUR SEA TS NOW-USE COUPON ON OTHER SIDE

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This WeekS Movies SATURDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, MONDAY, TUESDAY,

NBC CBS ABC ABC ABC

TUESDAY, NBC THURSDAY, CBS FRIDAY, CBS This is the week of Ben-Hur, the 1959 11-0scar-winning film of the 1880 Lew Wallace novel that is so revered that CBS will devote 4% hours to an unabridged telecast of the 212-minute movie. That, friends, is reverence.

Without a doubt, this 15-million-dollar movie stands as the superspectacular and most tasteful and intelligent Biblical-fiction film in Hollywood's history.

Credit goes primarily to director William Wyler, a literate screenplay by Karl Tunberg (with a major assist from Christopher Fry), a stellar cast and a couple of action experts {known as second-unit directors) named Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt, who provide us with the best chariot-race and sea-battle sequences on film.

These alone vitiate the minor quibbles one might have with plot, performance or God's miracle including a beautyparlor treatment along with a cure for leprosy.

Another spectacle, Battle of the Bulge, is strictly for small boys of all ages who are too lazy to do it themselves when it comes to playing soldier. This 1965 made-in-Spain World War II film is high on exploding tanks and careening bullet-riddled bodies and bulges with the same old schmaltzy inanities wrapped in ersatz authenticity and "synthesized" to irritate the experts or the veterans. This will be served up in two separate helpings. Those whose blood lust needs further feastA-2 TV GUIDE

By Judith Crist A Patch of Blue Ben-Hur Fantastic Voyage The St. Valentine's Day Massacre Maybe I'll Come Home in the ¡ Spring Madigan Battle of the Bulge (Part I) Battle of the Bulge (Part II) ing can supplement it with The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a 1967 Roger Corman massacre of the good oldfashioned gangster movie. It's 100 minutes of murder (or less, perhaps, for television's sensibilities) and the actual killing of a mere seven members of the Bugs Moran gang seems anticlimactic.

To reaffirm your faith in humanity in the face of the other premieres, however, there's A Patch of Blue, a flagrantly sentimental 1965 film with tremendous emotional appeal based on unforgettable performan.ces by Elizabeth Hartman, Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters and the late Wallace Ford.

Acting of this caliber is rare indeed -and not to be missed. An unprev i ewe d tailored-for-television film, Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring, also purports to deal with people, involving young folks in conflict with rigid parents.

As to the reruns, Madigan is a copsand-robber-cops film that even in 1968 was pretty simple-minded for the Dragnet generation, although Richard Widmark, as always, lends distinction.

And Fantastic Voyage, that excellent 1966 sci-fi adventure in inner space (physiological, that is), is simply fantastic fun, complete with Raquel Welch in jumpsuit.

In some areas network movies may not be seen on the days indicated.

CINEMA Box Office August's box-office favorites, reported last week in Variety's survey of 26 key U.S . .cities: 1) That's My Boy (Paramount) 2) Show Boat (M-G-M) 3) Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland (RKO Radio) 4) Captain Horatio Hornblower (Warner) 5) On Moonlight Bay (Warner)

The New Pictures A Streetcar Named Desire (Charles K. Feldman: Warner} is an impressive adaptation of Tennessee Williams' prizewinning 1947 Broadway hit about a fatebattered Southern belle in the last agonies .

& MARLON BRANDO Sin does not go unpunished.

KIM HUNTER

of degradation. Though the movie has its flaws, it can claim a merit rare in Hollywood films: it is a grown-up, gloves-off drama of real human beings.

The cinema version reunites the play's author, who worked on the script, its director, Elia Kazan, and most of the original orincipals, including Marlon (The Men} Brando as the tormented heroine's brutish brother-in-law, Kim Hunter as her well-balanced sister and Karl Malden as her mama's-boy suitor. Even in casting ¡ Vivien Leigh in the leading role, thus brightening the marquee with a star more familiar to moviegoers Chan Broadway's Jessica Tandy, Director Kazan has chosen ¡ aa actress who grew into the part in the Loadon production of the play.

Within the limits of Hollywood>s selfcensoring Production Code, the movie follows the play's story faithfully. Again Blanche Du Bois moves into her sister'~ squalid New Orleans flat, the last stop "er alcoholic, nymphomaniac flight fr.;/;

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a tide of troubles: a long siege oI family deaths, the withering away of family fortune, the suicide of her young husband, the loss of her home, her job, her reputation. She still clings to a pretense of genteel propriety. But when she crosses Stanley Kowalski, her roughneck brother-inlaw, he drags out her past, and thus strips the illusion from the gullible suitor she has all but hooked. Finally, while his wife is in the hospital having a baby, Kowalski brutally ravishes Blanche and pushes her completely over the edge of sanity.

To get the rape episode by the censors, Director Kazan had to agree to change the play's ending to punish Kowalski, though the "punishment"-his wife's refusal to have anything more to do with himseems not only mild but temporary. Elsewhere the movie's changes are more sub. tle. The play took no sides between Blanche and Kowalski; the film softens her into a more sympathetic figure, turns him into more of a loudmouthea heel. The new script also muffles the undertone of sex that accompanied the hostility between the two characters in the play.

At its high points, Streetcar is observant, moving and exciting. Unhappily, despite Director Kazan's efforts to get movement inside the cramped settings, the movie too often seems stagebound and slow. It also has stretches of talk that go better in the theater than on the screen.

In her first movie in four years, and her first in Hollywood since 1941's That Hamilton Woman, Vivien Leigh seems overshadowed by the skilled actors around her. Among her handicaps: a somewhat watered-down characterization, and most of the movie's talkiest passages. The brilliantly lifelike playing of Actor Malden and Actress Hunter is even better than it was on the stage. As the hulking, animalistic Kowalski, Marlon Brando fills his scenes with a virile power that gives Streetcar its highest voltage.

• A Streetcar Named Desi.re is the- latest picture to suggest that Hollywood Censor Joseph Breen has been stretching the Production Code to let more of the facts of life reach the screen. The reason, according to Hollywood observers: to help producers strengthen their movies for the competition with TV. Other recent examples: A Place in the Sun, in which a character tries to get an abortion; People Will Talk, whose broad-minded hero marries a girl pregnant, out of wedlock, by another man; The Prowler, which turns on a wedding-night discovery that the bride is an expectant mother.

People Will Talk (20th Century-Fox}.

After looking askance at suburbia (A Letter to Three Wives) and show business (All About Eve), Writer-Director Joseph Mankiewicz now turns a critical eye on one of the nation's most revered sacred cows: the medical profession. In the third itl.stallment of his continuing probe of U.S. manners & morals, Mankiewicz ar'Ues that medicine needs more physicia ..,, ke eccentric Cary Grant, whose la' ~ 'nic-·i&><~·' the theory that the

Black Fanta~J, Superstitions, And Witches .

DARK OF THE MOON Hits Boards A black fantasy, dealing witli man's hypocrisy and his belief in the unrealistic, is the theme for the spring play, Dark of the Moon.

----r>a'ik of the Moon is the story of John, a witch boy, who falls in love with Barbara Allen, a hwnan. John makes a wager with the Conjur Man that he will become a hwnan if he marries Barbara and she remains faithful to him for a year. If Barbara is Wltrue during that time, John will revert back to his original self.

Barbara and John hav.e to contend with the supemitious mountain ~ople and their attempts to turn Barbara away from John, and the witches who try to lure John back to them.

The play reaches its climax during the revival in the church where the townspeople act on Barbara'sfaith, and try to cause her to be Wltrue to John.

For the production, the Dra- benches, a table, or some lanma Department will build a terns will be moved on stage to three-dimensional moWltain us- give the suggestion of a church, ing about one-third of the stage. the interior of a house, and a The building of the mountain is ,bam dance.

The costumes and make-up a complicated project. Chicken wire will be molded into shape, will also be suggestive. In the then covered with paste and case of the witch girls, the costumes will be a suggestion of a newspaper. When that is dry, the paper must be broken into fantasy. Since no one can say the holes in the wire to hold it whatwitches actually lo9k like, onto the frame. Then it will be they will be costumed attractcovered with another layer of .ively instead of ugly, following paper, and finally with a layer the idea that man is attracted of canvas strips. Behind .the to evil. The townspeople will mountain, out of sight, will be be dressed as people would exa series of runways for the actors pect moWltain folk to look li,ke.

The cast is composed of 23 to 11 come down the mountain. 11 The mountain is in view people; and although the play revolves around John and Barthroug~out the play. The audience will be continually aware bara, the most important scenes are the crowd scenes. The memof it overshadowing everything, showing the futility in John's bers of the cast are Lin Bedard, trying to escape his past. Set John; Donna Craig, Barbara Alsuggestion will be used to give len; Marlin Peterson, Preacher the idea of scene changes. By 'Haggle:i; Lana Smith, Fair Witch; .that is meant that only two Sue Ranuey, Dark Witch. Joel

Cagwin, Mr. Allen; Carol Ochel· tree, Mrs. Allen; John Pratt, Floyd Allen; Ron Anderson, Marvin Hudgens; Kaye Kotrous: Mrs. Swnmey; Steve Zmolek, Mr. Swnmey; Carol Anderson, Edna Swnmey; Dave Brasher: Uncle Smelicue; Lynn Lown: Mr. Bergen; Barb Halliwill, Mr.; Bergen.· Steve Moore, Hank Gudger Diane Jacques, Miss Metcalf; Chuck Neilson, Mr. Athens Gary Powers, BurtDinwitty; Lynn Smith, Hattie Heffner; Karon Hadenfelt, Greeny Gorman; Jim Pierce, Conjur Man; and Judy Campbell, Conjur Woman.

Mr. William Becvar, speech and drama teacher, will direct the production. Assistant director is Julie Bimdle and the stage manager is Ralph Hogan.

Dark of the Moon will be ~e­ sented Friday and Saturday, May 12 and 13 at 8:00 p. m. in the Ellsworth Auditoriwn.

, VOL. II

MONDAY, MAY I, 1967

NO. 7

young son of a starving German family gets caught up in the wretchedness and corruption around him and is driven to murder and eventual suicide. A neglected, part documentary, work somewhat overshadowed

by Rossellini's earlier and more highly praised Paisan and Open City, but realistic~lly reflecting the tragic aftermath of the war in Germany.

Fine plar,ing from Edmund Meschke as the boy. ,,

TEVERFILM

DirectionrREl.berto Ro~sellini Photography-Robert Juillard Screenplay-Roberto Rossellini, Art direction-Roberto Filippone Carlo Lizzani & Max Kolpet Music-Renzo Rossellini PLAYERS: Edmund Meschke, Ernest Pittschau, Ingetraud Hinze, Franz Gruger, Erich Guhne

DlCTlONARY OF 1,000 BEST FILMS U.S.A. (1947) movie focusing >eek) when he t anti-Semitism urageous script ·field in a minor good a film as :>re successfully

R. A." E. PICKARD Illustrated with photographs from the archives

le R. Wheeler :k :\vman Jones arfield, Celeste e Wyatt, Dean

;errnany (1948) ~rlin where the

GIANT U.S.A. (1956) Based on Edna Ferber's epic novel this 3-hour 18-minute movie spans three generations of a Texas landowning family, concerning itself primarily with the conflict between land-proud cattle boss (Rock Hudson) and hired ranch hand (James Dean) who discovers oil on his patch of land and rapidly becomes the richest man in Texas. One of George Stevens' finest films, examining all aspects of Texas life and concentrating for much of its length on the racial discrimination between Texan and Mexican. Dean's pacing out of his small plot of land and his subsequent discovery of oil are among the most celebrated scenes.

WARNER BROS.

Production-George Stevens & Photography ( W arnercolor )Henry Ginsberg William C. Mellor Direction-George Stevens Production design-Boris Leven Screenplay-Fred Guiol & Music-Dimitri Tiomkin Ivan Moffat Editing-William Hornbeck PLAYERS: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Mercedes McCambridge, Carroll Baker, Dennis Hopper

GIGI U.S.A. (1958) Elegant, beautifully designed tum-of-the-century music;al based on the Colette story about an innocent young Paris schoolgirl (Leslie Caron) who is trained by her grandmother (Hermione Gingold) and aunt ( ~sabel Jeans) for the role of grande cocotte. The more tuneful Lerner & Loewe songs-"Thank Heaven for Little Girls," "The Night They Invented Champagne"-are surpassed by the bittersweet "I Remember It Well," a Chevalier/ Gingold duet, and by Chevalier's solo 'Tm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore." Minnelli received an Oscar for this one, al155

LwwEYc:.c:. I NEW YORK

ASSOClA~~ ti~'C~1ege Wayne, Nebraska

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vard Haworth mpson 1er Lou HoJJand ,

U.S.A. (1944) out, together ns of the poor raise funds for ar," "The Day rom mawkish1eld the thing :1f and his two ess of the war follars.

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G~LD DIGGERS OF 1933 !his classic example of the Warn .

U.S.A. (1933) interest today mainly b f er musical of the early 1930' . f d . dd ecause o Busby Be k 1 , J s is o f's1gne aitce routines and fu h r e ey s avish, geometrically ~~nney," "Shadow Wal;~.. a.ndr ~~c .e;e~green songs as "We're in the \·lll~('r Rogers, Joan BJ d II e~m m the Park." Ruby K J on e and Alme Ma M h ee er, . I D' k gir s, ic Powell a songwriter and h c a on play tough show Jiard-up producer. ' c aracter actor Ned Sparks a

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• · WARNER BROS, D zrectton-Mervyn LeRoy Scre~nplay (from play Gold Dialogue-David Boehn & Diggers of Broadway by Aver Ben Markson Hopwood)-Erwin Gelsey & y Ch~reography-Busby Berkele .Lyrics-AI Dubin & Y James Seymour Photography-Sol Polito 1!~rry Warren !'LAYERS: Warren Will' ] Editing-George Amy

K I G' iam, oan Blondell AI· cc er, mger Rogers D' k p JI ' me MacMahon Ruby ' ic owe 'Guy Kibbee• Nd e Sparks ' GOLD RUSH, THE U.S.A. (1925) Chaplin's greatest silent fllm a ma t and tragedy revolving around an s er1y combination of pathos, humor ~o find gold in Alaska at the tum :;nateur prospector and his attempts is the funniest and saddest of aJJ Cthhe ce.n~ury. Afte.r City Lights this fiscenes: . a starving Cha r1·1e re d uced t aphnk's comedies· Most fa mous ghtmg Mack Swain in a small eabi~ :oo. mg one of his shoes, and edge of a precipice and which t tt b hich has been blown to the light progresses. The film took o ers ackward and forward as the scenes being fllmed in N d some 14 months to make the f th • snow eva a and wa successes of the 1920's. ' s one o e biggest commercial

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Assistant director1 Associate directorap m H. d'Abbadie d'Arrast Photography-R. H. Totheroh Charles Riesner !'LAYERS: Charles Chaplin M k S ?ameraman-Jack Wilson Henry Be ' ac wam, Georgia H I T rgman, Malcolm Waite B tty M . a e, om Murray • e ornssey '

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CONE WITH THE WIND .

Perhaps the best-loved .6Jm of aJJ ti U.S.A. (1939) of Margaret Mitchell's C'vi) W me, a 3-hour 40-minute adaptati I ar novel about the loves of tempestuo: 159

A SELZNICK-INTERNATIONAL PICTURE/M-G-M

Production-David 0. Selznick Direction-Victor Fleming Screenplay-Sidney Howard Photography (Technicolor)Ernest Haller & Ray Rennahan Art direction-Lyle Wheeler

DesignerWilliam Cameron Menzies Technicolor associates-Ray Rennahan & Wilfred Cline Musical score-Max Steiner Editing-Hal C. Kern~ James E. Newcom PLAYERS: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, Hattie McDaniel, Thomas Mitchell, Ona Munson, Victor Jory, Jane Darwell, Evelyn Keyes, Ann Rutherford, Butterfly McQucen, Laura Hope Crews, Harry Davenport, Eric Linden, Ward Bond, Roscoe Ates, George Reeves

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Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh). Not a great film in the true sense of the word, but undeniably a great piece of film-making and a monument to the skill of the technicians and actors associated with its production. Most celebrated sequence: the great pull-back shot which starts with a close-up of Scarlett and finishes by revealing hundreds of wounded and dying soldiers at the railroad station in Atlanta. Clark Gable played Rhett Butler, Leslie Howard played Ashley Wilkes, and Olivia de Havilland was featured as Melanie Hamilton .

Statistics: Although the unknown Vivien Leigh eventually got the role of Scarlett, several well-known Hollywood actresses, including Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert and Katharine Hepburn, were rumored to be in the running for the part. Paulette Goddard, who did a most satisfying test for Selznick, apparently came closest to landing the role. George Cukor worked on the film for a few weeks (the birth of Melanie's baby and the shooting of the Union deserter are two of the scenes he directed), but was replaced, reputedly at Gable's request, by Victor Fleming, who shot the greater part of the film. Toward the end of shooting Fleming collapsed, and both Sam Wood and Sidney Franklin worked on the final scenes. Shooting took 22 weeks starting on January 26, 1939 and ending on July 1. The fllm was premiered in Atlanta on December 15 and received nine Oscars, including awards for best film, direction, actress, and photography.

GOOD NEWS U.S.A. (1947) Delightful M-G-M version of the 1920's musical stage hit with Peter Lawford as young football hero and June Allyson as his devoted co-ed

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Eclu,a1·d Albee, 1nost exc,iting V.S. dra1ncitist, P1tli.fze 1· p ,r ·ize wiu1ie1· a 'n d theate1'" 11iogul, llcts e,ve1·ytl1i11g lvo1·ki.ug fo·r him-except llis 111use

by THO:JIAS B. MOBGAN

Edward Albee has spent a long winter in the theater since the success of his play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the fall of 1962. Over the past four years, he has written four more plays-

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1963), Tiny Alice (1964), Malcolm (1966), and A Delicate Balance (1966)-and the "book" for a musical comedy, Breakfast at Tiffany's (1966). The results have ranged from mild to disastrous.

Albee's winter was somewhat warmed when A Delicate Balance w~ the Pulitzer prize this month.

Hut the award was given less t~ "honor that conventional play than to ma:ke up for the injury four years ago when the Pulitzer jury named Virginia Woolf for the prize and the advisory board refused to give it. Albee may be changing his luck at this moment as he works on two original plays, The Substitute Speaker and Life, , and an adaptation of Everything in the Garden, by the late British author Giles Cooper. But then again he may not. Four years of a cold spell for a hot writer are an ominously long time and make one wonder what's to become of the valuable talent which has within its grasp the power of almost unlimited expression.

At 39 and going on middle age, Albee today is a vision of studied gravity. "I am aware," he says, as though it were expected of him, "that disasters overtake writers in middle age because of too much success or not enough." He is above average height, lean, lank and slightly stooped, as though by the weight of the world. He wears his brown hair in the semimod vogue, a change from the crew cut he wore in the summer of his career. The hairdo, stovepipe slacks and a taste for corduroy place him in the fin-de-

scene Susan Sontag generation, a little right of center. His bangs also foreshorten his forehead and emphasize the saturnine effect of brow and dark eyes. He has a good nose, a wide- :mouth that smiles thinly and a small chin that gives his whole face a triangular severity. Under his polar gaze you feel he may be examining you for some trace of frivolity. He has a voice to match-ruminating, with an edge of impatience.

Albee is rich. Who's Afraid of Virginia W oolj? has probably paid him about a million dollars, not counting his percentage of the final returns on the movie version, directed by Mike Nichols, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and written by Ernest Lehman. It may become the highest-grossing hlack-andwhite film ever made.

"Lehman," Albee says with a thin smile, "got a quarter of a million dollars for c_utting 10 minutes out of the play and adding 25 extra words, all terrible."

He takes a close interest in his own business affairs, avidly reads contracts with producers and publishers and asks questions of his agents. Jack Hutto, who represents Albee for the William Morris Agency, says Albee would make a "great" agent.

Albee lives in a 14-room town house on West Tenth Str:eet in Manhattan which he bought two years ago from Maurice Evans, the actor, for something over $100,000. He redecorated it with the aid of his roommate, an interior designer named William Pennington. They have gone in for dark cork walls, a white couch and matching leather sofas in the living room, floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the dining room. The walls

are hung with Albee's expensive collection of paintings by Picasso, Miro, Franz Kline -and Milton A very, whose faceless women are prcminent in the living room. Albee's third-floor study is a small, book-lined, pin-neat cubicle with a desk, typewriter and harpsichord, which Albee plays at.

Albee rarely writes in this room.

Most of his plays were composed in eadier apartments and various summer cottages. Now he owns a year-round beach house at Montauk, L.J., where he keeps a Lancia in the garage and a Henry Moore sculpture on the terrace. He has built a studio there with an .. almost secret" entrance throu~ a closet in the kitchen so, as he says, he won't have to see anyone unless he wants to. He expects to do much of his future writing in this place.

Between plays Albee spends most weekdays in New York, weekends and summers at the beach. He keeps five cats and two Pekingese dogs, shuttling them back and forth by car or plane.

He enjoys strolling around Greenwich Village consulting his muse.

Afoot, he clasps portentous bands behind his hack Jand dangles a True cigaret from his lips in the thoughtful French style. He entertains from time to time and often cooks for his guests, almost all from New York's beau monde.

He's a gracious host hut tends to drift around the outskirts of conversations. "You can be swallowed up by irrelevancies, so I like to keep myself peripheral," he says. "That way I can he objective about the center of things.

It is almost as if you had a small secret room where you keep youas-a-writer locked up and visit him from time to time. The idea is to keep the whole area of the creative act unmessed up."

CONTINUED

• in

a Soft Spell 90A

A ft111 froni. honest rage to the ea1·ttiestness of being i111portt1nt A

DELICATE BALANCE

(1966)

ALBEE CONTINUED Albee's present posture seems a long way from his attitude during the early years when he was writing his best plays. Then he was motivated chiefly by rage, and his creative energy thrived on it. His theme was an all-out attack on the expendahility of human beings in contemporary society-moving and shaking au• diences who recognized them• selves in his hollow characters ae they hacked and slashed at one another, seeking proof of their own human relevance.

In ,his one-act debut, The Zoo Stolj: (1960), for example, Albee ·told ·about the foibles and final de~pair of a perverse, bisexual, narcissistic antihero named J erry, who pours out the story of his unCterground life to a middleclass stranger he meets on a park bench. The point of the play is Jerry's final effort to validate himself through contact with one o;ther human being in the world -which is carried to a furious extreme when Jerry skewers himself on a knife he has pressed into the stranger's hand. Later, in the same desperately angry mood, Albee created for Virginia Woolf George and Martha, who battle to exhaustion over the symbol of their own feeling of unimportance, a nonexistent son.

Neither of these plays-Albee's finest-was flawless. George and Martha, like Jerry, are seekers after a ploy, a technique for merely coping with life. (..Don't you see?" Jerry cries. "A person has to have some way of dealing with SOMETHING!") They are not concerned with ends, only with means; they don't realize that finding "some way" will not he enough, that coping with life is not the same as living it. Jerry dies and George and Martha bleed without understanding that "coping" would still leave them once-removed from authentic feeling and real love.

Albee, as author, did not seem to realize this truth either. In the end, he failed Jerry, as he failed George and Martha, by denying them knowledge of the limits of

Three plays illustrate Albee's uneven showing over the past five years. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, shown here with original cast of Arthur Hill and Uta Hagen, was his best play and established his fame as the most incisive "Titer in U.S. theater. A Delicate Balance, though pale by comparison, won the Pulitzer prize this year. Malcolm, which ends with a sordid and fatal affair between a boy and a nightclub singer, was panned even by Albee-"a mess," he called it-and closed after seven performances.

Wuo's AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WooLF? (1962) their pragmatism. But Albee's anguished observation that this is how it is with people evoked pity for his characters as no American playwright had done since Tennessee Williams more than a decade before. He thus created great expectations: he was a young man focusing his talent, with an eye for comic observation, an ear for hydrochloric dialogue, an unerring sense of theatricality, trying on lenses through which he would capture his personal metaphor for reality.

nfortunately, after Virginia Woolf, Albee succeeded mainly

U

in showing the vulnerability of his rage-and his theme-to success.

His long winter has been one of self-indulgence, of dedication to the earnestness of being important, of writing importantly on subjects about which he had little of importance to say.

First in the series of his later plays was The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, adapted virtually as a recitation from Carson McCullers' novella about the triangular love affairs of a muscular couple and a homosexual dwarf. Albee brought little to the stage except fidelity to the atmosphere in which the novella was written 12 years ear-

MALCOLM

lier. The result was not an argument from the past to he heeded in the present, hut rather an experience of the passe.

Tiny Alice was a sex-obsessed religious fantasy describing the upshot of a billion-dollar bargain struck between two probable homosexuals to provide God (She's a she) with a husband for crucifying. Albee's point in writing the play is anybody's guess, hut the critics who said it had no visible meaning at all probably came closest to the truth.

Next was Albee's adaptation

(1966)

of James Purdy's Malcolm, a novel of the late '50s concerning the education of an innocent hoy by various sexes including a nymphomaniacal chanteuse who kills him with drink and sexual exhaustion. The play was bizarre and Albee himself says Malcolm was a "mess."

Last fall A Delicate Balance offered the story of an ineffectual suburbanite with a record of sexual malaise; he wonders what to do about some uninvited guests, who decide to leave his home before he can make up his mind CONTINUED

908

ALBEE

CONTINUED

to ask them to stay. It was the best of Albee's later plays, hut it lacked so much of his old vivacity and wit that one began to worry about Albee's supply of creative inspiration.

Finally, Albee adapted Truman Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's for a musical recapitulation of the familiar adventures of Holly Golightly, a party girl in wartime Manhattan. The Capote story probably can't he modernized foi+ any good purpose.

It depends for its charm on an evocation of that particular period in New York. Albee's effort to inject contemporary touches (pregnant Holly gets hit in the belly by a lesbian policewoman) and to strip Holly of all sentiment managed only to tum a hit of froth into a somberly ridiculous play with music.

On Broadway, Breakfast at Tiffany's lasted four preview performances-that is, it failed to open. Malcolm had closed in its first week. The other three plays enjoyed modest engagements, hut none was a match, critically or commercially, for Albee's earlier work. The subjects were tired, the themes foggy ~nd the writing pretentious. In tbe theater, to write urgently 'X~tbout freshness guaranftee ·dtJfltteS'.8, which was the most marked effect of Albee's work after Virginia Woolf.

Ti 1·ed subjects, foggy f hetiles, pretentious 'Writin.g Albee's own insights into these disappointing developments are not very helpful. He continues to assume that whatever concerns him also concerns his audiences, consciously and unconsciously.

"You see," he says, "there was a time when people believed in deities. And then revolutions came - Industrial, French, Freudian, Marxist. Gods and absolutes vanished. Individuals find this very difficult and uncomfortable. All they have left is fantasy or the examination of the self."

Having closed down his alternatives, Albee's thinking carries him well along the way to a curious vision of the artist-as-shaman. "The artist," he says, "is concerned with the self, the self without crutches because so many crutches have been taken away.

His concern comes about because the artist feels people are not handling the examination of the self as well as they might."

Albee also argues that ..American audiences" have missed the political metaphor of his work.

He says that Virginia Woolf is about the decline of Western civilization-which may he true, hut then, in a way, so is How To

Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Sometimes Albee just shrugs.

"I'm not a member of any establishment," he says. "I'm too intuitional for the intellectuals llnd too conservative for the way out." But his day-to-day .existence as well as his recent work indicate that perhaps his intuition has tricked him and his conservatism has thus far denied him the perception to set it right.

Albee seems committed to a sheltered life, most remarkable for its deliberate detachment and opulence. For example, one rainy afternoon not long ago Albee went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth A venue in the Eighties. Bareheaded, wearing a tan corduroy topcoat and tweeds and carrying an umbrella, he called on the assistant curator, an archaeologist named Virginia Burton, for advice on a trip he was planning to the tombs and ruins of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. He had brought along detailed itineraries proposed by travel agents and i;hipping lines.

He wanted to he sure he did the right thing. Albee spent a serious hour listening to Miss Burton, who finally assured him that the best-laid plans notwithstanding, one would enjoy most the unexpected adventures along the way. "I hope so," Albee said~ with a look of discomfort.

Then, in the rain, Albee set off on a long walk down Madison Avenue toward midtown to pick up a number of gifts he had ordered for his family and friends. The rain was heavy and cold, but this was the day he had arranged for the gifts to be ready. A few blocks from the museum he passed La Boetie, the small gallery of an art dealer· named Helen Serger, who was not on his schedule. He ducked his head as he went by, hoping to avoid Mrs. Serger's motherly eye, hut she spotted him. He stopped and turned hack, unable to resist her expectations. She was a middle-aged lady with a ready smile and hands clasped to her bosom.

"Aaaaah," Mrs. Serger exhaled, "Mister Ahhlhee! You haven't forgotten us?" Albee let himself he led into a back room where Mrs. Serger offered him a $3,750 early painting by Henry Moore for $3,500, a Leger for $23,000 and a Feininger for $7 ,000. With his weight balanced

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93

ALBEE

CONTINUED

on one hip, chin tucked in and eyes studying each painting in turn, he played her game. He said he liked the paintings and would consider them again when he returned from his trip abroad. Then he was able to leave.

Albee moved on in the rain.

He wanted to stop at Perls Galleries to look at some Picassos and at an antique shop to price a pair of 18th Century silver hurricane lamps that had caught his eye. So he did, but apologetically. .. I shouldn't walk on Madison Avenue," he said. "It's a disease.

I see so many things 1 want."

Foundli11g fllken

in by ti 't•audeville 11eir At an oddities shop, Albee picked up a brealHast-tray mat he had ordered for his mother, some linens and a shopping bag at Porthault's on.57th Street, a watch at Titlany's.-and two little pieces at Chait G,a.lreries, specialists in Chinese art. Ralph Chait, a smooth, portly old party, waited personally on Albee, fetching his gift-wrapped boxes and arrm-ging them for him in the shopping bags. As he was about to leal.\Te, Albee noticed a 10th Century Liao vase behind glass which Chait ,eagerly exhibited for him on a red-satin table mat. Albee caressed the vase, admired it close up and at a middle distance, and asked in a professional tone whether it had been repaired.

Chait assured him it had not been. "A beautiful object," Albee said. He told Chait he might buy it if the price were more reasonable. Chait produced an impressive book illustrating the astronomical prices of art objects these days. Then he offered the vase at $2,000 ... Lovely," Albee said, agreeing the price was right.

But then briskly, as though his expression of spontaneous sensibility had left him exposed, he added, "Art is the best investment there is."

Albee evidently feels that his style of life \s necessary for the sake of his writing and, in turn, that his writing is his only reason for being. "People write to let themselves know they are still alive," he says, in the curious way he has sometimes of talking about himself in the third impersonal person. "I am a writer-what one does is what one is," be says. He is solemn about it. "To divert," he says, "to make a':1diences hap-

py, and to make money-there are plays that succeed with these intentions. But they are not the intentions of the artist who is continuing the history of an art form." While I was with Albee, I felt cut off from the Man by the · owlish gravity of the Writer and suspected that he might also be cut off from himself.

In public Albee presents a dour image of himself as the Playwright of the Wes tern World, behind which one finds a man who takes himself too seriously. One evening Albee and his press agent, a sad-eyed man who owns a dog named Tiny Alice, arrived backstage at the Johnny Carson show in the NBC-TV studios to help promote the Broadway run of A Delicate Balance. Albee was relaxed in a cheerless way, wearing a TV-blue shirt and being uncertain about make-up-what it would or would not do for his video looks. He decided that a touch to hide his day's growth of beard was all right. Then, after a wait, during which he spoke to no one, not even Duke Ellington, who was waiting with him as a guest that night, he answered the producer's call. Johnny Carson, in his continental suit, introduced him to the studio audience and America abed as "that distinguished playwright."

After Albee had remarked on topless waitresses ("A marvelous way to get away with serving rotten liquor") and Walter Kerr, drama critic for the New York Times ("He's a pretty good critic -he likes about as many good plays as had plays"), Carson led him into the plug for A Delicate Balance: "It is about the nature of responsibility and it depresses me that the world prefers comedy to thinking."

In a few minutes it was over.

Albee joined his press agent backstage.

"How did I do?" he asked.

"Fine," the press agent said, with the weariness of a man of long experience. .. I thought it was all right," Albee said dubiously. ..It was fine, Edward," the agent said more firmly.

"Next time," Albee said earnestly, "let's get them to ask for questions from the audience."

A few nights after that, Albee appeared in a gray suit onstage at the New York State TheaterinLincoln Center to introduce Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the Russian poet who was just then completing a reading tour of the United States.

Albee's opening remarks were brief and proper. Afterward, he joined Yevtushenko and a small

In ·a change from crowd of well-wishers for champagne in the poet's dressing room. New York's Senator Javits had arrived and promptly engaged Yevtushenko in a NixonKhrushchev kitchen debate about truth and other such values. Albee stood near Yevtushenko as the debate waxed.

"We have no right to be happy in a world so full of unhappy people," Yevtushenko was proclaiming with some heat, when he discovered that he had run out of cigarets. Javits had 'none. The Russian translator was fresh out.

Someone offered a regular nonfilter cigaret, but Yevtushenko made a face. Finally Edward Albee dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out a package of Trues.

"True?" Albee offered, holding up the pack. Then he added, "True?

Truth?" It was not a joke hut again a gesture in response to some compulsion to add profundity to a commonplace exchange. It was Albee coping, by being his own grave image.

At such moments he seems an uneasy synthesis of man and actor, not so much out of calculation, perhaps, as out of his latterday investment in significance.

He reminds one of the older Hemingway trapped within a commitment to his idea of Man-as-HeMan, except that Albee's idea is that of Man-as-Writer. It is an idea that goes back almost to the beginning.

Albee was born in Washington, D.C. in 1928 but never knew his real parents. He was a foundling, and at the age of two weeks, to the manor adopted, he became the son of Reed and Frances Al-

the usual dour public demeanor, Albee ex· hibits a pixyish grin in the privacy of his Manhattan town house.

bee. Reed's father was Edward F. Albee, the theatrical tycoon and puritanical impresario of the Palace Theater in the heyday of Vaudeville for the Entire Family. E.F. used to censor every performance on his stage, even Sophie Tucker's, banning cuss words like hell, damn, spit and cockroach-a score his namesake has evened. When E.F. died, he left an estate of $3,200,000.

Young Edward grew up in an atmosphere of patrician living.

Home was a Larchmont, N.Y. estate, with winter quarters in Palm Beach, Fla. His father was not well and retired in the late '20s to raise show horses until his death in 1961. His mother is today a white-blond, firm-looking, statuesque lady in her 60s.

She is known to her friends as "Frankie." She used to model and was 15 years younger, a foot taller and considerably stronger than her ailing husband. She would stride through the house wearing hoots and riding habit, stropping her leg with a crop and urging Edward to be more like other boys. She travels today in a chauffeured Cadillac, license RA-2. Her taste in diamonds runs to large.

The Alhees and their son were estranged during Edward's young manhood, but mother and son say they have reconciled now.

CONTINUED

94

ALBEE CONTINUED

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Mrs. Albee visited backstage on opening night at A Delicate Balance telling Hume Cronyn it was not true, ·as often reported, that she had once denied Edward the privilege of using the family library. Sh~ only made the hoy put the hooks back in their proper places after he had done. with theni. She has also been to Edward's house in Greenwich Village a few times. I met her there a while ago and thought she was handsome_; "-Edwar~,~· she said, "was an adorable hoy~'; .

He was 6 or 7, Albee says, when he decided he was a Writer.

He did not li:ke· school and could not get up for ii in the morning despite three alarm docks. He read hooks on his own, though, ~ndeflected by the toys;· ·riding horses and nurses provided ··by his mother. He didn't get much of an education. ·He eontinued to write as a teen-ager wliile howicing from the prep school at Lawrenceville to the military academy at Valley Forge and finally to Choate in Connecticut. "l didn't have to read Holden Caulfield or End as a Man," Albee says. "I lived it."

life •••

'Ed,ward,' his 111othe,1· says, 'was ll'lt a,dorable bQy'

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Choate encourage~ Albee's wr1tr . i( not hi.s interest in scnol• ·arship, and helped him release a flood of verse, stories, a novel and a little play called Schism.

Briefly, Albee attended Trinity College, was engaged to a post-deb riain~d Delphine Weissinger and ran around with the upper suburbanites in W estchester County. But in 1948 at age 20 he was bored and frustrated and yearning for the writer's life in New York. He settled in Manhattan, riding out the postwar era and the early Eisenhower years writing poetry. At a writers' colony he met Thornton Wilder, who expressed admiration for his ·u nsold poems. In New York he met W. H. Auden, whofound his style overinflated and suggested a corrective fling at pornography.

"Before Edward wrote The Zoo Story," says his former roommate, a composer named William Flanagan, "there was no suggestion in anything he had done or in any attitude he had toward life that he might he a playwright. He was the least likely candidate for success among our Ing~

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friends. He dido 't go to the theater, he didn't know many writers. Mostly he knew musicians, my friends. He was shy, understated, an ohserver_:a sidelines person."

Helped along by the interest on an inheritance ($50 a week), Albee supported himself selling reC9rds, waiting on tables and delivering W estem Union messages. The most touching anecdote about this period concerns Albee's inability to collect money for telegrams bringing had news.

He would tell people that son John was in jaif or· Aunt Mary had died, but then he would return the telegram to the office marked nndeliverable-out of kindness, certainly, but perhaps also out of a feeling that collecting the money would close the circuit on a human contact. It was the kind of feeling Jerry of The Zoo Story might have had.

One way or another Albee had enough money coming in to live in fair comfort. But he was also drinkin·g heavily, carousing nights and getting nowhere with his writing. In 195'7, Albee says, his world was "going black." He faced age 30 in despair over a failed life and, raging over a sense of his own insignificance, sat down at the kitehen ta.hie one groggy nig_hi: to write a play.

He had not been a theater huff, hut he had read hundreds of plays since Schism. He knew the works of WiUiams and O'Neill, Strindberg, T. S. Eliot and Pirandello, and· Beckett, Ionesco and Genet.

Albee wrote The Zoo Story in three weeks with the technical facility of an old pro. No American producers would louch it, hut through friends of Albee's friend Flanagan a German impresario was found who agreed to put it on in Berlin in the fall of 1959.

The play caused a- minor sensation and soon opened off Broadway under the auspices of a former actor named Richard Barr, who coupled it with Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, calculating -that the public would make a connection between die two. Sainuel B~ckett, along ·with Eµgene · · Ionesco and 1eitii ."Genet, led the s~:.~ailed Theate·r of the Absurd, flourishing al the time in Europe. They viewed mankind's behavior, if not man's very existence, as -purposeless and rendered their vision in antirational theatrical terms.

Barr's coupling of the two plays was shrewd. In the late '50s th.e idea of the absurd was fashionable among young Americans.

In the world of down-and-out CONTINUED

Z oo Swry is a terrifying oneCONTINUED

affluent youth, it legitimized ennui. That the impulse behind Albee's play, as we have seen, was far from Ahsurdist-Jerry is nothing if not a frustrated pragmatist-was ignored. (So was Albee's statement that he had never heard the phrase "Theater of the Absurd" at any time before The Zoo Story opened and later, when he did, thought it meant the theater on Broadway!) As a result, off-Broadway audiences and critics felt that in Albee we had at last produced an Ahsurdist playwright we could call our own-when he had merely borrowed a few of the Europeans' ideas about the construction-imd form of a play, applying them .to his own personal theme. ~The Zoo Swry ran for 582 performances, a record for a nonmusical off-Broadway play. Its success changed Albee's life. He began working days and sleeping nights. He wrote a sequence of forceful one-act plays including The Death of Bessie ~mith, a realistic drama about the indifference of white hospital attendants to the dying Negro blues singer; and The American Dream, a satire on psychological castration and expendahility in family life. He then set himself to answer one of the Broadway showbiz questions of the moment: "Can Albee write a full-length play?" Albee had already replied, "All my plays are full. length." But, as it happened, the first play he wrote longer than one act turned out to he Who's

Afraid of Virginia W oolj?

The play exploded on Broadway and instantly promoted Albee to phenomenal prestige in the American theater. Albee won most of the major drama awards for the 1962-63 season. A list of the One Hundred Most Important Young People in the United States had Albee's name on it.

The National Institute of Arts and Letters elected Albee to its membership, and professional companies in 25 countries staged their own versions of Virginia Woolf. In Prague the title was

act play about a young man named Jerry (right) who involves a stranger in his life-and death.

changed to Who's Afraid of Franz

Kafka?

Youthful admiration for Albee's early one-act plays made him the most produced American playwright on U.S. college campuses during 1964-65. The U.S. State Department sent Albee to the Soviet Union as a cultural exchange visitor. And both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson invited him to functions at the White House. The Rockefeller Foundation supported a nonprofit enterprise set up by Albee and his co-producers, Richard Barr and Clinton Wilder, to encourage promising and untried pld) • ~ ~ the New l'lu) wrights' Unit Workshop, it has put on more than 70 new plays for short runs in a Greenwich Village theater.

Then there was the publicity. .. you must have a star to get a Broadway theater," Barr says.

"Edward is ours. So, all the publicity for the plays has been directed at him." In the press Albee was described as the new O'Neill, a young Strindberg and/or the northern Tennessee Williams.

Finally, Albee's prestige benefited from Broadway's guilt complex arising out of its waste of talent and energy on mediocre entertainment. Virginia Woolf helped Broadway justify its existence to itself. In a time virtually bereft of playwrights working at top form, Albee became the most talked-about playwright in the American theater because he was all there was to talk about.

Understandably, Albee has converted his prestige into power.

Not for him the humiliation of being ejected, protesting, from a theater during rehearsal, as Tennessee Williams once was. Albee will not join the Broadway legions of playwrights cajoled, seduced or driven by directors, stars and producers. He has moved to neutralize Broadway's medieval CONTINUED

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ALBEE

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state of mind by creating his own production organization. With producers Barr and Wilder as chief executives and Alan Schneider in charge of staging, Albee has taken control of every facet of his life in the theater. He dominates casting and the selection of other professionals; he revises his works to suit himself; his criticisms of performances, lighting and the rest are heard respectfully; he makes no concessions to theater owners or investors. In short, Albee exercises more power, perhaps, than any other playwright in the history of-the American theater.

But no longer powerless, Albee is no longer able to summon the anger that inspired his exciting early plays. He is a significant factor now in the American theater. And it is in this state of personal importance that he has produced his later, unfortunate works. He is not the innocent corrupted by commercial pressure.

He is, rather, the victim of his own failed sense of rage.

This showed in his reaction to winning the Pulitzer prize this year. The old Albee, remembering the snub four years ago, might

well have angrily refused the prize. Instead, he took it, contenting himself with a passing swipe at the Pulitzer committee and archly justifying his not refusing by saying he did not want to "embarrass the other recipients . .. by seeming to suggest that they follow my lead."

To those who criticize his later plays, Albee says that time will vindicate him and that perhaps "one hundred years" is the best judge of an artist's success. A play, he insists, has importance if the author intended it to he important. A play, however, in Paul Valery's phrase, "exists only in action." The interaction of the actual performance and the individual in the audience is all there is-not only a dilemma for the conscience of the critic, hut also a challenge to the skill and trust of the playwright.

The drama in the life Albee has been leading contains the stuff of American reality: irony, pathos and farce are there-even the prince's classic flaw. One can only hope that one day-perhaps even next season-he will find a new spark that will enable him once again to tell it like it is.

Absently scratching the head of his Pekingese Pucci, Albee meditates in his cork-lined living room.

~·

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l squareBaker's®Unsweetened Chocolate 3 packages (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened 3 egg yolks 2 teaspoons vanilla ~ teaspoon salt 3eggwhites l cup (8 oz.) sour cream

Mix crumbs, 1 tablespoon sugar, and butter. Sprinkle on sides and press in bottom of greased 9-inch springform pan. Combine pudding mix, % cup sugar, and milk in saucepan. Add chocolate. Cook and stir over medium heat until chocolate is melted and mixture comes to full boil. Remove from heat; cover surface with wax paper. In large bowl, beat cream cheese with electric or rotary mixer beater until fluffy. Add egg yolks; beat well. Blend in vanilla, salt and pudding. Beat egg whites until they form soft rounded pe1lks; fold into pudding mixture, Pour over crumbs in pan. Bake on lowest oven rack at 425° for 30 minutes,. or until center is set when lightly touched. Cool thoroughly. Just before serving, spread the sour cream over top of cheesecake. Garnish as PUDOING•PIE RWNG desired.This makes 10-12 servings.

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People 'lnink

'Reel' Generation of Movie Fans Picks 'The Graduate' as Favorite

By NANCY GILBERT

Zeffirelli style. The Florentine Who's Coming to D I n n e r • • director set out to make a (2.9) with S I d n e y Poitier F~ the young . .,genera~on, youthful version, a costume film shaking up white parents Spenmovies are where it s at. Film of the classic Shakespearean cer Tracy and Katherine Hepls what's happening. s t o r y for non - readers of bum with an Interracial marThis 1Qung, educated, film- Shakespeare. It is a scraw; riage, and "Camelot" (2.7) smart group is the first visual and boisterous version, a lusty the big movie musical. genenttion, teethed on television love story (in the wedding night r- - - - - - - - - -and matured by the influx of scene, Romeo is shown nude, foreign films in the last decade. rear view, and Juliet covered To their love of film was added only by a sheet) with teen-age learning. "Cinema" became a stars, Leonard Whiting and course of study in an increasing Olivia Hussey. • number of their schools.

It is a film made tor &nd with Thus, they have become the the young-and was sucoessful "reel" generation .and,. u the in that appeal, though more so b~lk of the mOVte-gom~ au- with the girls than with the d1enoe, they are . demanding a fellas. (It Is a romantic story, better quality film, a more after all.) "with It" film.

A slmllar glrls-more-thanWhen asked to name the boys reaction' to the classic motion picture they llked ••G e With the Wind" -ve best during the past year, on ..the loudest voice was for It a 1.4 per cent total. The. "'Tbe Graduate." It receivgreat romance, made hi ed a 2Z.S per cent total In lt39, still ·bas an appeal for our latest survey o u t yet another generation.

The fourth-pla~ choice of distancing all oth~. 1be total was split about evenly "2001: A Space 0 d y s e y " ' between boys and girls. reflects the .youthful attntction "The Graduate " directed by to vivid visual Imagination. This an imaginative 'Mike Nichols film "trip" Into the future, with and starring Dustin Hoffman as iw;chedellc scintillati?n from the antihero Benjamin, tells of director Stanley Kubrick, g o t a young bu; just out of college, 5.7 per cent of the tot~I v~te trying to decide what to do and was more of a favonte with next-and who is seduced by his the guys than the gals. girl friend's mother before be Other favorites of the year abducts his true love from near- were the unusual "Planet of the marriage to another and runs off Apes" (2.9 per cent), a reverse with her. In a background of evolution tale which starred B e r k e ley-swimtnlng-pool-Call- Charlton H e s t o n; "G u e s s j fornia-suburbia and a gaping generation gap, "The Graduate" is funny and sad, real though unrealistically p r e sented.

Youthful audiences found it easy to identify; they du1 it.

Second on the favorite Utt, with a U per cent total, ls "ltOIDIO ml .Tullt,,. PnDCio The Yeut11 sertice

1lm Review ot -1

By James W. Arnold The year 1968 was eminently forgettable in many areas of life, and it was also a trying one for movie buffs, especially if they demand of a film that it be both cinematic (truly a work of art in motion picture terms) and relevant (dealing truthfully and intelligently with major human concerns).

It was a frustrating season, and not only for those who tally up the scenes of bru· tality, nudity and per v ersion. There was an abundance of expertly made films with somehow displeasing content ("The Gr ad u ate," "Ro s e mary's Baby," "Thomas Crown Af. fair," "Wild in the Streets," "Petulia," "Rachel, Rachel").

There were entertaining films with somewhat less art ("Funny Girl," "Camelot," "The Odd Couple" and even "Yours, Mine and Our's"), and a few substantial films that weren't quite artful enough ("Subject Was Roses," "Zita," "Live for Lif.e,' 1 "The Fox").

Tllese are all films that, for some reason or another, one had to respect. There was also the usual allotment of utter disasters. Worst film nominees (among the majors, anyway) would have to include "Helga,'' "Lady in Cement," "The Producers," "Green Berets" and "Valley of the Dolls." Taste, of course, counts in identifying turkeys, just as it does in naming favorites. My ten best, more or less in descending order of preference, are: 2001: A

SPACE

ODYSSEY

(Kubrick): There will be chatter. publi'city and awards for

other 1968 films, but don't be confused. This is the picture of the year, In a class by itself. It will be discussed as long as mo· vies are seen and appreciated.

It is simply everything a great movie ought to be, and its mystery, its open-endedness, is per· haps the greatest of its assets.

ELVIRA MADIGAN (Wider· berg): The gentle, floating dream of romantic love mav be t~o fragile to survive in a real world, as this remarkable Swed· ish film suggests. But the grace and loveliness of ijlat dream has never been so hauntingly described by the camera.

THE WHISPERERS (Forbes): An old woman, abandoned in a loveless world, fantasizes beauty and meaning from the material of her own despair. This is one of the screen's rare lionest looks at poverty and old age, done with poetry and an unusual kind of hope: that man will always somehow wrench solace from his misery.

BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Pontecorvo): A tense documentary re-creation of the Algerian struggle for freedom. which somehow captures all the glory and cruelty, all the passion and sorrow, all the ambiguity of every human revolution.

IN COLD BLOOD <Brooki:): This powerful and beautiful film of the Canote novel is much under-rated. The most intelligent crime film yet made, it is a model for the artistic handling of sensational subject · matter. An ugly and terrifying fact of history is turned into art, a grim mystery is transformed into at least understanding "through a glass, darkly."

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER (Miller): A film about

the deepest meaning of love, gettini it and not getting it, and what that does to people.

How many movies have been made on the subject of the re· demptive power of charity?

This adaptation from Carson Mccullers is flawed, and it is terribly sad, but it deals sensitively with the problems of ordinary human beings.

THE LION IN WINTER (Harvey): A movie in the theatrical tradition (fine acting, literate dialog, super-dramatic confron· tations) that is likely, in a lean year, to be over-valued. The exeitement, . mostly from verbal conflict, is entertaining enough.

But when the noise• is all over, it isn't very significant.

YELLOW SUBMARINE (Dun· ning): Next to "2001." this must rank as 1968's most imaginative film, an expe~iment in the art of color anim4tion disguised as a Beattles comedy cartoon. The moral points about love and peace are perhaps juvenile, but in technique the film surpasses "Fanteeia," no small achieve· ment.

FAR FROM THE MADDEN-

1 ~WD (Schlesinger): Since sophisticated moderns tend not to like moralistic Victorian plots, this marvelous f11m of the Hardy novel underwhern.i. IUD>' · But Ju-

lie Christie makes Bathsheba a most fetching movie heroine, and the camera's treatment of the splendors of rural England add a dimension that the novel, for all its rich visual symbolism, never had.

HOW I WON THE WAR (Les.

ter): An improbable mixture of realistic horror, satire and broad farce, this is the first artistically successful pacifist anti-war film. It strips the audience of every defense (GI humor, sentiment, battlefield heroics) usually built into war movies, and hammers home the point with typically unpredictable Lester cinematics: war can never be won without the stupid and gullible.

For close runners-up, rd begin with "Pretty Poison" and "Hang 'Em High,'' skillful potboilers with more cerebral content than anyone had a right to expect; "Secret Ceremony,'' which probably had too much cerebral content; and "Paper Lion,'' a joyful romp with no cerebral content at all. Francis Coppola's direction and the bright songs pushed "Finian's Rainbow" ahead of the other musicals, and "Wait Until Dark" and "Planet of the Apes" were fun films with some impressive moments.

At least one of my favorite categories, visual slapstick, wu well represented by Peter Sell· ers' "The Party." But the oth· ers, westerns and detective sto· ries, are in the grip, respective· ly, of sadists and sex maniacs.

Alan Ladd and Humphrey Bogart fans, meanwhile, must settle for the late night TV mo· vies.

Tlie Ten Worst Movies Of 1972

By VINCENT CANBY

T

•

It's never easy to compile a list ol the 10 worst films of the yeu. There ~ are considerations. No ~ie directed by Billy wl!def will ever be allowed od the list, even if it seems M bitterly archaic as "Av.uiti." "Butt.erllies Me Free" is foolish, sentimental stµff, but that. after all, is ju$t what every• one loves about It; "Child's Play" doesn't work, but it has a superior performance

by James Mason, and "The Ef· feet of Gamma Rays on Man· in-The-Moon Marigolds" has· its heart in the right place.

You simply cannot hate a horror film ("The Night of The Lepus") in which a moth· er explains to her small daughter the hormone shots being given· to a paiir of rab· bits: "We're trying to make Jill a little more like Jack, and Jack a little more like Jill." Peter Ustinov's "Ham• mersmith Is Out" was, over the long haul, a disaster, but it offered us occasional glimpses of Elizabeth Taylm: giving a real perfonnari~ .

*m··..-;

fan..

ny a auti and though Richard Burton was not good in it, he recouped all with his splendid work in Joseph Losey's ''The Assassination of Trotsky."

No matter how bad a film

by Sam Peckinpah is - and both "Straw Dogs" and "The Getaway" a.re pretty bad-you simply cannot put a Peckinpah film on the list. He's _ ~ good a direcror, even when the films don't work.

Last yea.r, in addition 'to seeing his "Straw Dogs" 8llld

..The

Getaway,"~

The Ten Worst Movies of 1972 Continued from Page I

HIS is the .week to be churlish; to turn that smile upside down. To encourage a kind of cab driver-grunipiness and to nouri9h unfair biases. To use blunt instruments on sinners.

To be negative in as decisive a way as possible. To be insincerely alarmed and saddened by Sl!()Ond-rateness.

To cite failure wherever found. To be, .above all, frank, lettilll the chips fall where they may.

It is' the time to aay, straight out, that almost every non-musical film t41at Barbra Streisand has ever made would have been more interesting with another ac· tress. To declare Charles Bronson the winr.er of . the award given annually to the actor who has succeeded in apllB&ring in two or mOftl of the year's dumbest moviea (Terence Young's "The vatachi Paper&" ana 'Midraet Winner's "The Mechanic"), and to cite Mr. 'winner for having directed anO!Mr of .,,- • 1972's more rotten efforts, "The Nightcomers," in which Mr. Winner modestly took it upon himself to tell us everything that Henry James, after some deliberatiort, de· cided not to tell us about the even.ts that occu!Tedr before those in "'the Turn of The Screw."

.,m.. w1~

r"

also saw

his "Junior Bon°ner," which was very good indeed.

The following films, listed In no particular order, H"e my list of the 10 worst films of 1972, or, more accura~ly, the 10 films I remember best with malice: Mary, Queen of Scots, di· rected by Charles Jarcott; screenplay by John Hale. Vanc;ontlnued on Page II

esa Redgrav,e plays Mary more by size than with emotion (she looks beautiful and huge) and Glenda Jackson plays .Elizabeth with a good deal of intensity, yet what 1 \'O<'all ti.bout this film most yividly is )ta ci.tnplete lack of urgency. It's a Christmas 1card sale in Jll!lluary. The dialogue oken Ms the desperate ring of improvisation.

Mary, to the dissolute Darnley: "You disgust me!" ;Qarnley to Mary: "I disgu~ you!"

So it goes.

with the new President's battles with red-neck Congressmen, his advisors, the members of the Black Caucus and his daughter, who just hangs around the house sneering at her old man for n6t being militant enough. The dullness of the drama, and the fuzziness of its thinking, evoke the magic of the Eisenhower Years.

The Public Eye, directed

iy Carol Reed; screenplay by

Peter Shaffer, based on his play, Mia Farrow plays an American waif; thotfgh she is Young Winston, ltirected by actually an armor-plated antiRichard Attenborough; pro- in~llectual, married to a duced and written by Carl nice, respectable London acFotttnan; based on "My Early countant (Michael Jayston) Life: A Roving Commission," who doesntt share her pasby S\r Winston Churchill. sion for horror films, sun"Young Winston" i'S one of sets, dolphins, ice cream and those movie biographies in franco Zeffirelli"!; "Romeo which a chAlf'acter askis the and Juliet." It takes Topol, sreat-man-to-be: "What's who gives what is p06itively ever to become of you?" the year's worst performBecause young Winston has ance as a lovable private a fairly good idea of what's detective, to reunite the fo become of him, and we couple. The film spends so time sight-seeing know for sW"e, the point of much the movie has to be an inter- around London you might pretati<Jl of that kftowledge. reasonably wonder if it was According to Carl Foreftlan, financed by BOAC. )'<>Ullg Winston lt"eYi imo the Portnoy's Complaint, digreat Sir Winston because his mum was a London toast, rected by Ernest Lehman; and his dad distant and syph- screenplay by Mr. Lehman, ilitic. The movie makes a adapted from the novel by Philip Roth. "This is my life, ~at call on our affection for the indomnitable old cuss, doctor, my only life," Alex and it's so confident that it Portnoy (Richard Benjamin) presents, as a climax, Win- shouts at his analyst, "and ston's first major appearance I'm living it In the middle before Commons at the age of a Jewish joke!" Under of 27, when he makes a pas- Ernest Lehman's spectacusionate plea for a sane fiscal larly clumsy direction, PhUpolicy. It has all the charm ip Roth's great Jewish joke and grace of a report by the has turned terribly unpleasant. Because the movte looks keeper of the exchequer. as pretty as a Prell comThe Man, directed by Jo- merical and as prim as a seph Sargent; stoi'y and Sei:mon~tte, Roth's hugely scr~Qplay by Rod Serling, .funny, dirty, first-person narbased on the novel by Irv- rative becomes embarrassing· ing WaJlace. A<;cording to a ly crude and show-offy. It long-popular myth, some proves once again that there · movies are so bad they're are some things that simply good. If it's possible, though, cannot be filmed The I doubt it, )IOU might de- Yellow Pages, The Bible, "Rescribe "The Man" thait way. membrance of 'things Past," James Earl Jones plays a most film reviews and black Senator who suddenly "Portnoy's Complaint." becomes the President of the A Place Called Today, di· Uni~ States when the cei1ing in a 600-year-cld palace rected and '.written by Don falls on a lot of powerfuf Schain. Thts is my sentiheacjs during a summit con- mental cbOice as the most ference in Frankfurt, Ger- horrible film of the year, one many. It may be some indi· of the two soft-core porn cation of tlie film's narrative films of 1972 that starred drive that: during the rest Cheri Caffaro (Mrs. Don of "The Man," I kept wonder· Schain) as a .mgularly uning why the ceiling fell rath- qualified enchantress, a role er than getting involved that amounts to a ldnil of eliaracter part for her. The i'µriOu.sty ~~~pUca an crooked election ca,mpaign involving a crooked black politician, a crooked white politician, and a ¥8lty white revolutionary (L8na Wood) who obviously divides her time equally between· partic~ ipating in polities and applyiag eye m.ake-up.

The War Between Men and Women, directed by Melville Shavelson; screenplay by Mr. Shavelson and Danny Arnold, suggested by the writings and drawings of James Thurber. This was undoubtedly the year's most peculiarly mixed-up comedy, about a cartoonist (Jack Lemmon) whd's ftoing blind and tries to keep it a secret from the decent woman (Barbara Harris) who loves him. An· other hilari0us character is a little girl who stutters. The cartoonist is 16osefy based on Thurber himself, but Shavelson and Arnold seem to have confused the Thurber

wit with the humor of W, C. Fields, to the disadvantage of all. The biggest Shavelson-Amold coup: an endorsement of the film by Mr. Thurber's widow.

Trouble Man, directed by Ivan Dixon; screenplay by John D. F. Black. 'l'his stands out as one of the worst bla~k rip-off tilms of the year be· cause so many good people were involved fa it, including Ivan Dixon, the director, and Robert Hooks, the star who plays, though without a great deal of convictiorr, another black supercat.

Savage Messiah; directed

by Ken Russell; scfeenplay

by Christq>her Logue, based· on the book by H. S. Ede. No list of the most awful films of the year would be complete without something by Ken Russell, even a comparatively placid drama such as "Savage Messiah,'' which is all about the strange (platonic) affair between Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, the French sculptor who died in World War I at the age of 21, and Sopitie Brzeska, the Polish woman twice his age whose name he added to his own. If it's nothing else (and it isn't), "Savage Messiah" is a Golden Treasury of Definitions of Art. Among other things, we learn that "a·r t is alive'• and that "art is above sex,'' which, I 'uppose, is a kind of definition.

• • • • And Hope To Die, directed bY. Ren~ Cl9tent; screenplay by Sebastian J:aprisot,. hued on a novet by David Good». , . . east ii beaded by Robert Ryan, Inn· Louis ~&'!ant Lea Mas-

~i.-.iu;111. .Aldq

li

~IS about 10a underworld characters in Montreal and more than that ye need not know. Just remember the title and, if you have to, break your leg to avoid seein1 it.

The Trial of The Catons· ville Nine, directed by Gordon Davison; screen.play by Father Daniel Berrigan and Saul Levitt, based on the play by Fattier Berrigan. An object lesson in piety as a dramatic tatlacy, "The Trial of The Catonsville Nine" sets out to celebrate a real-life event of courage and commitment and effectively enbalms it in tableaus so full of . self-con~tulations that you're likely to wind up questioning your original •dmiration for the nine. The acting is uniformly dreadful.

At a period when the war news has been so grim, the failure of this film seems just that much more grievous.

j

Ste ns: What

Went Wrong? ~ BJ VINCENT CANBY N George Stevens' 1935 endings imposed from with· film version of Booth out. but that Stevens' characTarkington's "Alice Ad- ters including Anne Frank. ams," the heroine, the Sh~e and Jesus Christ, have chosen "to believe, to affi~, sllall-town girl from ~e iS9ng side of the tracks, wins to say yes to life. . • . This dre hand of the rich young affirmation in the face of ntaD from the right side of knowledge is an entirely different thing from the ignorthe tracks - an upbeat al· ant and facile affirmation of t&!tiltion of the novel in which Afice goes off to become a the man who ha:s no idea of eetary, and probably a the horror that life can be· ~· In Stevens' film come." rm not convinced that this "ff'J'Sion of "The Diary of Anne new affirmation is entirely #tank." made 25 years later, liUle Anne, just before ~he different from the old, and and her family are earned it's one of the few thin~s off tn a epncentration camp, with which I disagree in leoks up at a sky of fleecy Richie's extremely intelligent White clouds and says: "I strn book the first full-length bllteve _ in spite of every- study of the man who, I feel, tbing _ that people are ba- reached his peak in the 1930's iiteally good. • • • I think the and 1940's with such films as 6Id is going through a "Gunga Din," "Swing Time," jiiase-like I am with moth- "Woman of The Year" and "The Talk of The Town." er... .d In his' generally fine, luc1 Stevens, after serving a critical study, "George Stevens: An American Romantic," long and valuable apprenticeDonald Richie trac:es the ca- ship first as a cameraman reer of one of America!s most and' then as a director IRl~ssful directors of mess of sborts, directed 24 fea~re ~tertainment in terms that films, beginning in 1933 with Richie sees as the matura- "The Cohens and the Keltion of Stevens' 4'6manticism. lys in Tfouble." Eighteen of Jt isn't si,mply tliat Stevens' those films are in the profitins no longer have happy gram of the Museum of Mod· em Art's retrospective that ends this week with the showing of his mC1st recent film, "'Ibe Greatest Story Ever Told," a pious screen translation <:A the Gospel according to Fulion Oursler. It's in this film that the leading citizens of Hollywood - as once did~~ ci~ of Flom!ce and Amsterdam-give cbntelJ\porary dimension to the shadowy features of the New Testament characters. Concurrent with . the hommage, the museutn is publishing the book by Riehle, who is perhaps best known for his critical essays on the Japanese cinema and who is organizing a massive Ja~­ ese retro&pective to be neld at Modern later this year.

The Stevens retrospe<;tive and Richie's book not only call attention to Stevens as one of the most astute and clever providers of American d~ams, but also (ueconsciously) to tlhe fact that what eventually went wrong with Stevens was enctly what went wrong with Hollywood in the 1950's and 1960's. The movies became physically Continued on Page 5

I

..

the

eorge tevens :J:ontlnued from Page 1 and longer, but the lities and the intelleccapacities of the men made the biggest and expensive films resrna!lil. F1aced with a I0*1d theme, S4evens would ~ ways shrink rt to fiQonnulas dl8t were sue· ~ in the romantic drama.-00 sorewlball comedies of 1111( ibhit"lies and forties. I

I

ktfw' at no otih.er excu:se for ~ icestlng

of Mi>llie Perkins

l4ie ti:tde :role in 'The Diary

ci8nne Fl'ank," or for the ter•

rAle,

sweet, constant Alfred

~an score in that film,

oitor the gaudy religiosity of atllte Greatest Story Ever 'llli,'" or even for rthe easy ~tions to racial problems • "Giant," a film that is Jack Mitchell ollerwise satisfying as popu"TH£ LAST SWEET DAYS OF ISAAC"-Austin 1- euperficial narrative, as Pendleton is a photographer who writes commers;ials for UiMle Edna Ferber original. a living and Fredericka Weber a secretary, in the chie n most interesting musical due tomorrow at the Eastside Playhouse. ~.pefining the romanticism ~.director. who was born 1904 in Oakland, Calif., shared with his public arine Hepburn, Jean Arthur Richie, however, does appreassumption that "there 'llnd Charles Coburn, and util- ciate Stevens "elegiac" cut_ mething innately godd in izes to just the necessary de- aways from primary scenes in that no matter how _he ~ .'...':stock'.'.. performers @jjl " , " .awl ''..A ~ ID 'Ille be perverted by this u Grady SUtoon, FTanklin Sun" so that we are denied ct world, this core of Pangborn end Andy Clyde. closeups of Mercedes MccamLater, in -rile Greatest Story bridge taking a fatal plunge Temained."

Ever Told," this affection for offherhorse and Shelley Wine also appreciates hat it is - Stevens• !faces and iStock characters iled ters going down into Loon tjliadly Alnerican distrust of him ro· disaster, although the Lake for the third time. Stev· tli intellectual. In "Woman film is a good deal more bear- ens, at his best, is a master ~ The Year," it's Spencer able It.ban most aildcs have manipulator of emotions, and s no-nonsense sports ever ackOOwledged, if only in these two instances was r who is right and Kath· because of die director's use careful to see that the au· Hepburn's egghead po- of his ~. Grand dience did not become too aanalyst who is wrong. Canyon fooa!les. closely involved with the fate Richie somewhat overem- of characters who were, after In •-nte Talk of The Town," Id Colman's ptofessor phasizes St:evens' preoccu- all, not the people in whom off his beard and be- pation with outsiders as pro- we are principally interested. one of the boys. In tagonists - George Eastman "'lliltoioWI Lady," Ginger Rog- in "A Place in The Sun," The Stevens* retrospective the nightclub singer, Jett Rink in "Giant,'' Jesus, comes to its close with the es Beulah Bondi, the Ail.ice Adams, et. 111:1.-end Showing of "Shane" (1953) nlilllllon...i•ty pn!Siderit's wife, Stevens' fondness for photo- this afternoon, "Vigil in The h to do the Big AppJe. As graphing ms out:siders through Night" (1940) tomorrow, and e puts K: "The prosely- windows, to stress their "out- "The Greatest Story Ever for mediocnity is a fa. sideness." Go down the list Told" (1965) Tuesday-which figure in American of today's first-run films and prompts a subsidiary comyou can define 8!lmost Ml of ment about movie retrospec• " things that make Stev- the protagonists in ~s of tives in general: rties and forties film their outsiden~Yies MonI occasionally envy art critng today are, with tand's political leader in "Z," ics who can go through, say, ttJtion of his extraor- Jane Fonda's mara'lhon dancer the current Alexander Calder lameraman's apprecf. in "They Shoot Horses~ Don't show at more or less their f1'!' ~ (m~ _-fP., "Ilhey?ta, Jon Voight's :and t>us- own speed. Movte ret;tospeco ·~" "Giant" and' "A tin Hoffman's hustlen fn tlves ~re much more ri&orous in The Sun''), the very ''Midnight C~y." Most affairs; since movies, seen for s that make his later heros and heroines are out- the fifth time, must be unfil!J].s so tiresome. The early siders, at least within the con- reeled at the ~ same films are unconscious social text of 'their dramas, and rate at which they were undAcuments made by a man often - as do real people reeled the first itime tthey vrere "who paid attention to what .come in contact with win- seen. It's possible, of course, tlJe..,public liked and gave it dows that serve no special, to dip in and out of a movie to them." Stevens sentimen- symbolic function. at wiJI, as do a lot of ladies I also disagree with Richie's · with shopping bags who seem talized women and never denfed himself the easy laugh, criticism of Stevens• fondneis to f.ind the museum's auditoai later, in "Anne Frank," for showing us reactions, in- rium a convenient place for (which was not popular), he stead of showing us the pri- resting swollen ankles. This, didn't deny himself the easy mary scene. He notes that in however, may be great for melodrama. Watching that "'The Greatest Story" Stevens swollen ankles, but it's no film the other day, I had the shows us the raising of Laz- way to see a film. A movie, terrible feeling that all the arus in long-shot and in the in addition to being a suecesFranks would have been alive reactions of Uriah (Sal Min- sion of related images, is time today had they just not taken eo) and Old Aram (Ed Wynn). elapsed. Any tinkering with thqt damned cat into hiding I have ~o particular fondness that time must transform the with them. In the best of his for either of these perform- film into sometlhing other --.an" films, Stevens plays ances (Lord knows), but it than what it was originally, wth the formulas of conven- does seem as if Stevens did whether ~e tinkering takes tiQDal films end obtain·s ex- what he did for very good place when one voluntarily tNordi_.y fine iperfonn- reason-a miracle must re- •leaves the theater, or when .Ds f.rom people like Cary main indescribable or 1t no one involuntarily submits to G1'lftt (18 a farceur), Kat!l- longer seems miraculous. a commercial message.

f

A

!'18:

ow

o Young People Dig

That Present Movie Scene? their growing love that overcomes his impotence, and the relationship bet we e n this achievement and their diminished interest in crime is not lost on the young audience. The reversal of the 'sleep together now, get acquainted later' approach is significant here. These are only a few of the nuances that sensitive ears and eyes pick up beneath the gunfire and banjo-plucking."

In "The Graduate," he added, many adults expressed shock at the hotel scenes involving the young hero and the older woman who seduces him, but "those who are not busy judging the morality of the hotel scenes will note that sex doesn't communicate without love. Some may even note that Ben (the hero) is using sex to strike at his parents-not a bad thing for the young, or their parents, to know."

One of the best examples of the difference in viewing habits between young viewers and the older generation is "2001: A Space Odyssey," a film that has very little dialogue, a confusing ending and a mysteriously reappearing black monolith that looks like a miniature UN b u i l d i n g or an unmarked domino.

Square Viewers "Only a square viewer wants to know where the black monoAs 1n example, he cited the lith came from and where it is many protests made 1g1inst "Bonnie and Clyde" because of the film's ability to influence young people to crime, violence or even, as one elderly matron complained, "teach bad driving habits to the young."

"The performance of youthful audiences in discussions of contemporary film indicates their f r e e d o m from the judgmental screen which blurs so many films for other generations," Father Schillaci commented. "In speaking of 'Bonnie and Clyde,' late high school kids and young adults do not dwell upon the career of crime or the irregularity of the sexual :relationship, but upon other things.

"The development of their nove fascinates young peQPle, !because Clyde shows he knows lBonnie better than she knows herself. Although he resists her aggressive sexual advances, he ~knows and appreciates her as a :person. It is the sincerity of

New York. -(CPF)- There would be less concern among moralists about the influence of some films on young viewers if adults had a better idea of how high-school and college students look at films, according to a priest specializing in the study of films.

The Rev. Anthony Schillaci, O.P., a member of the National Film Study Program at Fordham University, was jnvited to write the lead article in "Saturday Review's" annual film issue, and the Dominican p r i e s t .started off by declaring: "The .better we understand how young people view film, the more we have to revise our notion of what film is."

He said that while their eld¡ ers still look at films in bits and pieces--looking for a logical story line, etc.the younger generation experiences films much differently, preferring to have many elements left out 'so that they can "fill them in" or so that they can later discuss their own interpretations.

Thus what many adults strongly object to in such films as "Bonnie and Clyde," "The Graduate" and "Petulia," among others, the younger generation either doesn't see at all or interprets much differently, Father Schillaci said.

going," Father Schillaci observed. "For most of the young viewers to whom I have spoken, it is just there."

The priest emphasized that adults should take more interest in how young people view films because they are "the major shaping force on the medium," since the age group from sixteen to twenty-four accounts for 48% of the box office.

"A frequent answer to a recent survey question indicated that a young man takes his girl to the movies so that th~y will have something important to talk about," he added. "The film-as-escape attitude belongs to an age when the young were not yet born; and the film-asthreat has little meaning for the sixteen to twenty-four group, simply because they are free from their elders' hangups."

"The young are digging the strong humanism of the current film renaissance and allowing its currents to carry them to a level deeper than that reached by previous generations," Father Schillaci concluded. "One might almost say that young people are going to the film maker's work for values they have looked for in vain from the social, political, or religious establishments. This reaction, which has made film modern man's morality pJay, has not been carefullv â&#x20AC;˘1tâ&#x20AC;˘1'zed.''

....

Flustered Inspector

By James W. Arnold "Inspector Clouseau" raises the problem of whether a series of films built on one character can survive not only a change of stars but also a change of directors. It can't, it hasn't and it won't, but in this case that may be the judgment of a slapstick perfectionist.

Clouseau, the terribly cool but incompetent French detective, a comic variation on the antihero, h a s alr e a d y passed the c r i t i c a 1 test of a sequel. Created

by Peter Sellers and director Blake Edwards in "The Pink Panther," Clouseau blund ered with equal success through "Shot in the Dark," which was saved by being Clouseau-ized. Then he was transformed into a passable cartoon character.

The new "Clouseau" feature was made in England with only two Americans involved: director Bud Y o r k i n ("Divarc~,

American Style") and Alan Ar·lcin in the title role. Both are good fellows with simply impossible tasks. Edwards and Sellers are ingenious at . high quality no n s e n s e (cf. "The Party"), whereas Yorkin and Arkin are merely good, with the added handicap of working with a joke that somebody else invented and perfected.

There are three basic ingredients in Clouseau comedy. One is an outrageous plot, another is having the hero blunder in unpredictable ways. (E.G., Sellers' famous pursuit of Elke Sommer in a nudist colony, or his getting knocked over by a spinning office globe). Thirdly, the character never loses that insufferably haughty confidence associated with the Surete.

This new film is really a James Bond spoof, which calls for a different and more predictable kind of outrage - the dumb sleuth uses an ingenious weapon the wrong way, and it works · anyhow sort of thing.

Bond satire has become a tiresome thing that not even Clou· seau can salvage, although it is a m u s i n g to see him absent· mindedly try to light a cigaret with a lighter containing a laser beam. .

Arkin is a delightful · New York nut, with a voice, like the whine of a dying motor, but he is not Clouseau. In emulating Sellers' superb dead-pan he overlooks Sellers' amazing ability to convey flickering doubt or even panic with a blink or smirk, an expression that scuds briefly over his slit-eyed face like a cloud. Arkin's face is nearly as frozen as Keaton's, and the character becomes m o r e cartoon than lovably complicated human oddball.

Still, the new "Clouseau" has its moments: when Arkin is urged to test a tape recorder and in his natural reserve can think of nothing to do except sing "Paris in the Spring," or when Arkin and villain Frank Finlay get embroiled in a game of jacks and begin to scream and cheat.

Another vital element in Clouseau comedies has been a touch of Gallic sex farce; and it is done here rather heavily when a couple of thinly clad beauties attempt to compromise the inspector with bedroom photographs.

Like much of the film it seems hastily thrown together. Otherwise, even a slightly shopworn Clouse.au qualifies as mildly ludicrous escape for the family.

Department at Random

Random Answers to Random Questions Dept.: Q. If you had only five dollars to spend on movies this year, what would you see?

A. I'd see "2001" twice. If some ether money turned up, I'd see "Cool Hand Luke," "Elvira Madigan" and "The Battle of Algiers," probably in that order.

Q. Why? A. It's fairly easy to identify a well-made film, or to describe one with an intellectual content that is challenging and meaningful. These films qualified in. l:>oth ways, and also managed in various ways to send legitimate chills up a very jaded spine.

Q. Why do you knock "The Graduate"? It's been setting phenomenal box-office records and has been the subject of recent analyses in such prestige magazines as the Saturday Review and the New Yorker. · A. I don't knock it. It's a slick and skillful comedy that deals with the kindergarten basics of the generation gap problem. I recommend it to everyone who wants to learn the basics, especially from the young viewpoint, to which the film adroitly defers. It is an adult film, however, only in the underrated and superbly compassionate performance of Desperate Middle Age by Anne Bancroft.

Q. What is the biggest 'problem Catholics have today in regard to movies?

A. The split in understanding and opinion between buffs who see lots of films and the mass of their co-religionists who see hardly an~ To some extent, this is also a generation problem, since buffs tend to be under-35, often much younger. The conflict is reflected also in the new directions of the Catholic Film Office and reactions to them.

Q. Why does this split exist?

A. Many of us were r:tised to see films solely in terms of content, which had to be either harmless or morally orthodox.

Now there is not only a tendency to judge the value of technique or art first, but to be much more open-minded in content, to look not so much for appropriate, expected and official "answers" to human problems as for exciting and perceptive "questions."

Q. And the danger is?

A: Polarization, angry misunderstanding, and subsequent slowdown in developing an enlightened, religiously committed film audience. In the meantime we writhe frustrated on the dilemmic horns of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Sound of Music."

JOYCE HABER

Jean Simmons, Reticent Romantic Actreu lean .Simmons:. A restlessness remannefecl.

• •1 told the kids in the cast there are two things you mustn't ~do when you're golng to auditi9n, said Jean Sim.tnons, who's starring in the National Company of that Tiffany of musicals, "A Little Night Music" now in its final two weeks at the Shubert.

Jean's two rules: "Don't pluck your eyebrows and watch your outfit." ''l'd lost weight," she said, "and was wearing a pantsuit as I stood on the stage in New Yark audi~ tioning for (producer) Hal J>rince and (composer) Stephe-n SOndheim. I Celt my pants coming down, I was terrified. I stood still.

"Hal said: 'That was fine, but can you move? So I explained to him I was afraid to.u · The beauty who's been "afraid· to' most of her life was sitting next to me, :Wearing no makeup, no jewelry, only a simple cotton print dress. Her soft brown hait showed very ~ strands· of gray: The effect of the natural color was that \ithich millions of woi:nen try to -achieve with caps and streaking at beauty salons. Miss Simmons· ate sparingly-onion soup ("that's on my diet")-..shaded by trees and trellises at Hollywood's intimate Le Restaurant.

Jeane p ained that she'd never been here before fac h ., to a Hol oo taurants-: "'She and lier h 1 • " writer-director Richard BrookS; almost never go out. Miss Sim mons thought We were· meeting at i\nother, even more intimate. bistro, Ma Maison. The confusion was subconscfously sound: Ma - r, co•host is Frenchman Pierre Groleau Pier a tennis regu. lar at the B QOkses' home court in Holmby Hills.

So are Gene Kelly, Alan Bergman and Michel Le,grand. Says Gene, appreciatively, of Jean: She's the "kind of woman a man can really sock the ball to. • 'That's rare. Men usually defer to ladies by bitting gently. Usually men detest mixed doubles. With Jean, it's different She really slams them back."

A Delicate Bolcmce Professionally, Jean has been slamming them back to top mate stars for close to 30 years. At 19, she played Ophelia to Sir Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet," for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. The delioately balanced Miss Simmons also ·took on Stewart Granger ("Young Bess"); S~ilcer Tracy ("The Actress•,•, in which Jean played· the young Ruth· Gordon); Richard Burton ("The Robe"); Marlon Bra:ndo ("Desiree"~ Brando, in a rematch, plus Frarik Sinatra ("Gtiy's and Dolls"); Paul Newman ("Until They Sa~l"); Burt Lanca~ler ("Elmer Gaptry"); Kirk_ "Dougla:!! ("Spartacus"); Cary Grant ("'!"he Grass Is Green~ ef'lt. Robert Preston ("All the Way Home"); the late Laurence Harvey (''Life at the T.op); Dick Van Dyke; Jason Robards C'Di.-vorce, American Style"); Dean Martin ("Rough Night in Jericho!'), and John Forsythe ("The Happy ·Ending'').

Except on the eomposition court and on celluloid, Jean is not noted for slamming them bat:k. She is shy and reluctant to talk about herself or her private life. She is a romantic who loves to escape the violent world by playing a musical or a period picture. Her ger:it\e. 'intelligent. husb~nd, Richard Brooks, pu,~ it w.ell: ~Certain a~tori; ~J)d'. p~rticular­ ly actresse$ are studio manufactured. .They ne~r w-ent to a fc>r.mal school of acting._ Maybe they took dancing le'sso because their mo\hers wanted tliem to for a month.

"Jean and Elizabeth (Taylor, once Jean's close chum) are very much the same. They're instinctive. They don't get progressively better with each

rehearsal, as a method actor ®es. When I was making 'Cat ort a Hot Tin noof,' Paul Newman came tG•me after several rehearsalt. He said: 'Hey, nothing's ~appening: When we shot their first scene together, Elizabeth came alive. Paul came up to me and said: 'Gee, what happened? I had no idea it would be that way."'

When Richard was shooting "Elmer Gantry," he says, "Burt Lancaster said the same things about.

Jean. And in front of the camera, the same thing' happened. She came alive.It Jean had her own feelings about Richard during "Gantry," which was when their romance really started. They had known each other casually for 10 years. Jean was married to Stewart Granger, and they'd meet at parties of mutual friends, Hke the Sam Zimbalists.

"The first three weeks on 'Gantry' I went heme every n:ight crying," says Jean. "I'd thought he was a funny man!. It took me three weeks to realize that his discipline and ~nergy had humor behind it.

He's always busy and moving around." "Jean may have been hurt,'' Richard adds, "because when I work I work. I didn't take her out for a drink or a sa~dwich an~ h lln"" Arriving in Holtywood in 1950: ean was alre.ad; Britain's most · popular_' female star She held four ·international acting awards tor ht!r Ophelia; internationally, she ranked fourth in F;ime's poll of stars. She was promoting "Trio," a movie based on the works of Maugham, and the Walter Wangers' gave her a rec.e1>!i9.n at the Beverly Hills Hotel Jean headed the reception line-holding an open autograph book. Myrna Loy, Joa-tt'Craw~~d, Ingrid -Bergman and others willingly signed. Even Louella Parsons had, two years before. Louella wrote: "Jean Simmons, that lovely girl, came to my house and asked me to sign her autograph -book. I think she could be a younger sister to-Vivien Leigh, they look so-inuch alike." Gene Kelly recalls that during her days at MGM, Miss Simmons, the No. 1 Star Fan, would come on the set to watch him dance.

Both the love for dancing and the idolatry are comprehensible. Born in Crouch Hill, London, on Jan, 31, 1929 ("I'm Cockney, true blue'~), Jean Merilyn Simmons' first i<;lol was her father C~rles, a gymnastics instrucU>r. who repre~ent:ed England in Sweden's 1912 Olympics Games. He was very }land· some, and died when Jean was 16. "I never kne how she felt about her father," Richard , r 1 1-.. "until after we did a. v.ery diffieult s~ene in , 11. try.' There were thousands of people riQting within tent.

11 Gantry told Jean, the E!vangeli$1, 'Y:Qu're ,t he onfy one who can stop t)'lat-·how}ipg .mob.' Pushed by ,Gantry, she goes out there. Jean had a speech whtch began 'Dearest ·God' or 'Dear Lo.rd' or sQmething. We · rehearsed and rehearsed. She said: 'I just can't do this.scene. It sounq~ .as though I'm rea(iing a letter, 'Dear Joe.' I said:"'Je;an, forget it sounds like a letter. Play it as though yo_u're play ing it to your father, because your. father is the Lord! She did it peFre,ctly."

At H. Jea·n entoHed in London's Aida Foster Dancing SchOol: "l was only there for two months.

And they called for someone who was l4 but,I,~ke~ 12 to play ·Margaret Lockwood's brat siS,ter. They paid me 5 pounds~" ' By 16, Jean had her license to teach dancing, but producer J. Arthur Rank stepped in and cast her as the young Estella in David Lean's 11Great ~xpec·

a

taticms.' I never took acting seriously before Lean," she says...That was it.' · That wasn't quite it, and over the next lour yean Jean made numerous British films, including one with Stewart Grange·r called "Adam and Evalyn:' Granger also produced the first of Jean's only two stage plays pre-"Music;'' She toured the provinces in Tolstoy's "Power of l>ar'kness," and recalls that it, like Hugh Wheeler's "'Rich Little Rich Girl," which closed pre-Br-0adway in tbe early 60s, was a disaster.

Jean m<;irried Stewart Granger. in December, 1950. after a three-year- romance.~y were- divorced 10 years later. Jttan.. married Brooks the same year.

She has twc;> daughter$, one by Granger named Tracy, after S'pencer, her costar in "Actress." the other

by Broo]<.s, named Kate, after Katharine Hepburn.

"She's qui~e a lady," says Brooks adrnirnigly .o( Hepburn. "She's a steel wire. Whatever "11 she suffe,i;ed, she would put it behind her _1 go fo( war<f.i "Hepburn could shop when she was 4. These stuJ dio girls like Jean and Elizabeth couldn't. They n~ver bougl)t a dress themselves. Or me\ the press the world has chan_g~d. and. when they have to firMi.

a supermarket, they cari't. If they find i they can't

stlln41he traffic or find a place to park. \ '1 11 they get inside ~ 11ay; 'l had .no idea things were so expensive: They get to be afraid of people, distrustful: Jean was trained to be a romantic and is a romantic today. She believed that wh~n you get married, you live happily ever after. Then she ·round out that life isn't that way. Life goes on after the peak.''

Marriage Peaked Early Jean's first marriage peaked early. There was lltigation with Howard Hughes, who bi>ught out her contract fronl Rank ("l read it in the papers"~ Hughes and EKO claimed that Granger sought a capital gain whereby RKO would buy both the Granger house and the film rights to a book Granger optioned. The Grangers s_ued for $250,000 in da· mages but settled out of eourt. Hughes presumably warned Jean, 'in 1952: "Your husband is making a ~apital gains deal and when you divorce you won't. be able to touch the money." Jean says today: "It. wasn't really me (.who sued Hughes) but my firs~ husband~ If we'd lost tne s\.lit, I think I'd have had a million-dollar' contract, which would have been very nice. I liked Hughes very much. He was pain· fully shy. He was always very nice to me."

The. nice Mr. Hughes' war:ning was tnild, as it turned out. Over lO years, all Jean's earnings and personal savings went into a 10,000-acre cattle ranch in Arizona·. When the Grangers divorced.

Stewart .,got , everything-except their datigh~r Tracy. Privately, among·frieJ\d!, Jean refers to hun even today as "Charlie Chan."

After she married Brooks, Jean went into se· miretirement, but the roles .of hausfrau and mother were anathema to her. When Brooks was on location, she ,found herself lonely• As she approached 35, and :then .40, she began to feel terror; "'l began di'inkin,g,"' she ~dn')itted. ·11very q~lc1dy, I was slugging down a lot. more than -anyon~ should.• Jean came out of it, of course: 'At.45, she has the svelte figure and beautiful face that manJ a Please Turn to Page 24

TWENTY-THREE

Jean Simmons, Retic·e nt Romantic Continued from Page· 23

girl of 30 envies. She began to take exer~se lessons at home with llollywood· specialist Marvin Hart: "I didn't realize what wonders Marvin did for me until I started this musical," says Jean.

Most r,eviewers didn't realize that "Happy Endil)g," the script ori which Richard worked for eight years and the film which won Jean a Best Actress nomination, was about her. "It was for her, really," says Richard. "A lot was abo~t her. It was very difficult for her to do. The PQint of the story was that if a woman becomes a kite or the tail of a dog, that's what she's going to be. MaTy, the heroine; has been raised on the movies, so when she'" gets married she has visions of kissing Clark Gable (Jean once referred to "mooning over Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy in cinema houses" i~ her teens).

"Mary quits school after three years," continued 'Richard, "be~use she's getting 'married. After 16 years of marriage, she's incapable of anyt}ling but be,ing a saleslady. All she can do is return to school.

"Marriage .foday perhaps is not right for all people. May~ marriage is antipathetic to love. Time may ruin marriage. Mary asks her .husband at the end of the:..Cilm, when he begs her to come back to' him: 'If you had a chance, would you marry me again?' He hesitates. That's the answer. That's what happened to .Jean. The pills and the booze and whatever it is are all crutches: "Gleaning the house or caring for the child is .not enough. A man has two lives. What can a woman ·do but go to the hairdresser? She has to grow up.

Lov~ is ,imJ>9r.t ant, but it's .n ot all of it; It's better·to be the lover, whether it's returned or not. But to be . 'loved, and not want to be loved by that person, is

. torture. To love without return is sweet torture.

That's .why I w~n:ited to do the picture."

It was· Richard who saw Jean's restlessness; he urged her to go to David Craig to take ·lessons in stage movem~nt and presence. Craig recommended singing coach George Griffin, w:ho wrote Hal Prince to say that if anything came along, Jean was ready for it. Two days later, Prince ealled to ask if Jean would fly East to see "Music" and, if she liked it, audition for the part Glynis Johns created on Broadway. "This was a dramatic moment for a girl of Jean's age, having been euphemistically called a star, whatever that is," s~ys Brooks. "Terrified of flying, she flew to New.York alone, got onto a stage to audition. That's the guts and the pro!? of this.life.

"1 told her she was sitting around the house and atrophying. It's like not using a muscle whiCh atrophies. Jean has to know that all the reasons she gave U>r not going out were excuses-motherhood, wifehood, appetites: sexual, sensual, etc......:.an stem from one source. You're an actress first. Tll'a t's true. of everyone iri life. If they .dori't function· at what· they're supposed to do, they don't function."

The spfendid Mrs. Brooks is functioning quite all' right at the moment, thank you. She's finished a· film. ''Mr. · Sycatnore;• with Jason Robards and Sandy Dennis." While appearing in "Music," she's been rehearsing a TV special, "Easter Promise," costarring Jason Robards and Mildred Natwick, directed by Paul Bogart, and written l?Y Gail Rock.

Small wonder that Jack Dempsey once autographed a pair of boxing gloves· to Stewart Granger "To the Champ," then asked whether. Jean knew anything about boxing, got a Simmons uppercut that s.e nt l;:>empsey reeling and changed his mind about· the recipient. Dempsey handed the gloves to Jean. "She's the champ around here," he said. ·

l

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SAN FRANCISCO CIVIC LIGHT"ePERA

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CABRILLO Russ.el Davie~ erna's Music •

~~~8Jfiifb~~~' brillo College,

SAN FRAN r Erich Kunzel

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Veronica TyL Thompson, '· ist Jeffrey. ~ ter, Oakland day. Flint C«i: C111>ertlno, 8 rCONCERT Jazz Ensem t works in ja, Church, van N ramento street

SA-; CABRILLO FE fiesta at San Ji. ning concert o No. 5 and Ma>< with the Berkele! plus works of G.. ford and Victoria Juan Bautista. 7 lh PACIFIC BALLET cert of Nancy Her John PaSQualetti '>' "Duo Concertant" in ' Blue." An even . of Pasqualetti's "~ Palace of F·ine Arts.

ea'r1~r.~E dke~~~:J!h~:r

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OPERA - Merola presents - Mozart's

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~~te;ta°:e':pugtedRi~~.fra' Paul Masson Mountain ' atoga, 3:30 p.m. today

·'

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WINERY CONCERT the Golden West" pre& prano Corinne Swall ~t~rft"e'r~~df;4s~.~.es K MUSIC l'ROM BEAR John Gosling conduc• "The Marriage of Figap

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CRESS ....... 32 ROME ....... H STAMPS ... Sl-31

SUNDAY, JANuARY 15, 1967.

+

D

Brando and Burton

One Might Have Played Hamlet, the Other Did

By WILLIAM REDFIELD

William Bed.field v an America" actor who played. Guildellstem in the 1964 Broadway production of "Hamlet" atarrillg Bichard. BurtOll. Bed.field kept a record. of h'8 ~erl­ ellCe m the form of letters to a frielld.. Besidea d.eacribmg daily rehearaal hGppem11ga, the lettera COlltaiMd Bedfield'a impreMioM of hf.s fel'low actora, acting and. a Zife in the theater. Theae lettera have now been gathered into a book, "LBttera from an &.ctor,'' to be publvhed Feb. 21 by The Vikmg Presa. Here is an e:rcerpt.

January 25, 1964 wo days ago-exactly one week before the commencement of "Hamlet's" rehearsals - I heard trom an old friend and one-time co--worker, Marlon Brando. He was on his way to New York for a few days' visit. would I meet !him In his Plaza Hotel suite at 6:30 on Saturday evening?

Drinks to be followed by dinner? The message came not personally but through channels, as becomes a super-star, but I intend JlO irony. Film stars are busier than you may Imagine. Friendship aside, lt seemed appropriate and even valuable to see hlm again just before rehearsing "Hamlet," since lt ls a role I believe he should have played: at least ten years ago, if not before.

Tyrone Guthrie stoutly maintains that an Important actor should play Hamlet, Benedick, Romeo-even Bassanlo-during his early years if he ts to grow properly, and I agree.

Better a poor Hamlet at twenty-five than a bad Lear at fifty. Or even a bad Willy Loman. The actor is irtretched by the verse roles, his muscles grow strong from hil!roic assignments. They cannot be fudged as naturalistic parts or film asslgrunentS can be fudged. More intporJ;a.nt, the borders of the indl\'fdual tallent are finally def(rted, and Brando-as a youn4 actor-seemed bounded b>t no borden at &11.

Since he was,.,Dllt'

T

Marlon Brando, hrofal bot strangelJ ~la "A SiNe

postwa.i: period but also the God Priapus of modem American playing (we see Brando in the performances of nearly every young actor whQ achieved notoriety· during the 1950's and 1960's), it seems worthwhile to consider his alternatives as well as his talent. They compare surprisingly with Richard Burton's.

Though !he llas not appeared in the New York theater since 1949, Brando remains the only American actor to be seriously thought of as Hamlet during the last three decades.

Before him, there was only Burgess Meredith, circa 1935.

Meredith never played the part either, until a quarter ce1Jtury later in a production

which could not, for some reason, get out of Texas. But even more than Meredith, Brando was the American challenge to the English· speaking tradition In the classic roles. We who saw him In his first, shocking days believed in htm not only as an actor, but also as an artistic, spiritual, and speclflcal· ly American leader. Since be was not only truthful but passionate-not only Greek-hand· some but unconventional-we flung him at the English as though we owned him and we all but shouted, "He does with• out your damned elocution les· sons, your fruity voices, your Continued on Page S

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National Societj Of Fdm Critics Pick Frst American Pie: 'Mash' All American film was voted t h e - - - - - -- - -- - -- wlnner of the year for the first time .by the National Society of Film Critie9,, an organization of 22 critics of national publications, mostly mapEines. 20th CenturyFox'1 "Mash" wu tapped u the 1970 best film.. ·Awards, disclqsed at group's fifth annual ceremony last Sunday <10) at New Y.ork'1 Allonquin Hotel, also included Ingmar Ber1man as best director for "The Passion of Anna" <UA->; Glenda Jackson as best actreu for "Women In Love" <UAI; Georae C. ScoU as beat actor for "Patton" <20th>; Loia Smith as best supporting actress for. "Five Easy Pieces" <Columbia>; Chief Do George as best supportiq• ac!or "Little Big Man" <NGPJ,-,'q, Eric Roh.,er wa. cited for best screenpl1¥ for "M)> Night At Maud's" !htlle C~~rary) and Nesto Ahnendros .. look, di& best cinemmy p~ for two films, "My t Ma1,1d:a'.' and Franeoia l's "The Wild Child" CU.A o 41eeial awards were also gi"'8. Donald Riehle and tile Film Dept. of the Muaeum of Modern Art were cited for the three-month retrospective of Japanese films held last year, and . Daniel Talbot of the New Yorker Theatre, for the contributions he bas made to the cinema by &hawing films that might not otherwise have been available to the public.

The members of the Society are, alphabetically, Hollie Alpert !Sat11rda¥ Review), Gary Arnold (Washington Post>, Jacob BrackIEsquii:e), Harold Clurman <The NatiOJll, Jay ·Cooks <Timet, Brad Darrach (I.Jfe), David Denby !The Atlantic), Penell>pe Gilliatt <The New Yorker), 'Philip T. Hartung ICommonweal), Robert Hatch IThe NationJ, Pauline Kael (The New Yorker). Stefan Kanfer <Tjme), Stanle, Kauffmann (The • New Republic:>, Arthur Knight <Saturday Review), Ro6ert Kotlowiti <Harper'.a>. .Joseph· lllorgenlterft _<Newnreett A.wlrew Sarria <Village Voice). Richard Schickel (Life), Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (Vogue), John SimOD <'l'he New Leader), Bruce Williamson <Playboy) and Paul Zimmennan <Newaweekl. Pauline Kael waa chairman of the group for uno. bein1 replaced thia year by Richard Schickel.

Runneniup · for the top awards were: best picture-"'lbe Pasaiea of Anna," "The Wild Child," "My Night At Maiid's" aad "Five Easy Pieces;" best director-Fl'llJleoia . Truffaut, Robert Altman ("Mash">.

Luis Bunuel ("Tr.latana';l,. Bob Rafelson l"Il'ive Easy Pieces"); best actress-Francoise Fabian ("'~ Night At Maud's), Liv Ullman <"Passion of Anna..), Barbra Streisand <"Owl and Pussycat"), Carrie Snodgt"ess <"Diary of a Mad Housewife); best ac;tor-George Segal ("Loving," "Owl and Pusayc:at" and "Where's Poppa?"), Jean-Lou.la Ti'inuPant t"MY . Night At Maud's), Jack Nicholsoa ("i'ive Easy Pieces"), Alan Arkin <"C&tch22"); beet .1upportiq actress-Sally Kellerman ("Mash"), Eva Marie Sahst <"Loving"), lfaren Black <"Fi,. Easy Pieeea"), Trish Yan Dew. !"Where's Poppa?">; aupport1n1 actor, Anttlony Perkins ('•C.tch-22" and "WUSA."), Richard Castellano ("Loven md Other Stnnce11">, Pete-r Boyle <"Joe">.

Paul Mazunty <"Alex In Wonderland"); 1ereenplay-"Pusion of ~a" and "Five Easy Pieee1"; cmemat1>1i-.m1-swn Hy t Yi at {"Patefon of Anna" and "l'irst

man

Love">, Billy Wlllla11111 <"Women

la Loft").

Swedish Student's Novel

To Spillane-.Fellows Hollywood, Jan. 12.

Spillant!-F e 11 o

w s Produetions

w

had acquired ftlm r i I h ta "Phobia," a tome by Gabrielle Berimann, 23-yee,r..ald eirchance Btudent at Stanford, who ia from Sweden.

It is a ftotlonaliz.ed bio of Edgar Allen Poe. was published in Sweden. Soreel'llliay ·wiJl be written by Spillane's v,p. Robert Blee• and Mill Bergmann, wilen Ille comee here from Sweden in· a eoupie ol mondlL

. B.leea learned about t.ile book whea :his 900, a !lludent at Stanford, eent him a copy. ·

but unspectacular¡ score. Here, the kiddie characters get clouted 'around a bit -rather amusingly, too-while old Fagin teaches them the economic facts of life in a song called You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two, and is wont to tell the tykes, "Shut up and drink yer gin." The romantic leads, wicked Bill Sikes and his Nancy (Oliver Reed glowering, Shani Wallis sparkling), come to a bloody bad end before the show is over-by which time the cruel exploitation of children has led our orphaned hero from the workhouse to bondage in an undertaking parlor, thence to Fagin's gang of thieves and the fortuitous discovery that he is, God save us, a rich and well-born little bastard, lost since birth. Mark Lester, the nine-year-old stray lamb cast as Oliver, looks genuinely amazed and delighted by the things that happen to him when he falls in with The Artful Dodger (Jack Wild). More importantly, there is Ron Moody, who originated the role of Fagin in London, obviously a definitive performance, because Moody is fabulous--always letting the deeper truth of the character penetrate his lowcomic disguise as a bag of grimy old bones flung together with something Lke perfection. In addition to Moody, Oliver! en joys nearly every luxury that big money can buy, yet avoids being spoiled by a wealth of Christmas-card settings and singing-dancing choristers ad infinitum. Scenes of uncommon cinematic beauty reflect the distinctive style of director Carol (Odd Man Out, The Fa.Llen Idol) Reed; who characteristically evokes the rich, dank atmosphere ~ere mischief breeds. Reed's fine hand joins with tpat of cinematographer Oswald Morris (the camera wizard of Moulin Rouge) to make war on poverty in a world of thick gray soot and chimney smoke, splashed with vibrant hues.

~¡

1

French director Jacques Charon's preparation for filming A Flea in Her Ear includes two stunningly successful stage productions, English and French, of Georges Feydeau's classic farce. Great pains have been taken with the movie, which speaks quality throughout. The belle epoque costumes and settings of Paris in 1900 are displayed like crown jewels, with Rex Harrison, Louis Jourdan, Rachel Roberts (Mrs. Harrison) and Broadway's Rosemary Harris romping among them as though born to a world of art nouveau naughtiness. Sad to say, the film is not especially funny, partly because the screen is a naturalistic medium that tends to flatten the charm of a mannered stage comedy. Too often the jokes go limp, despite the efforts of a scintillating cast-particularly Rex, his gloss impeccable in a dual role as a husband bored to impotence and as a drunken hall porter; and Rosemary, as the dissatisfied wife, reading her lines as if plucking pearls from an

oyster tray. In everyone's ear, of course, is a whisper of carnal adventure-at the Hotel Coq d'Or, a notorious maison de plaisir that's brim full of suspicious husbands, compromised wives, chambermaids, butlers, libertines, lewd Orientals, crowded boudoirs, slamming doors, revolving hideaway beds and unconquerable innocence. But be alerted, spectator sex fans, that no one ultimately scores at le sport. They simply make an old-fashioned game of trying.

When a movie has a bristling 21-gun title like Hell in the Pacific, one is entitled to expect an epic re-enactment of World War Two with John Wayne officiating at the fall of Bataan or Corregidor. That's not the case here, however; the film's entire cast consists of two characters marooned together on a desolate Pacific atoll: Lee Marvin, as an American airman committed to a war of nerves with Toshiro Mifune, as a surly Japanese soldier. Their real fight is the fight for survival; they circle, they sneer, they take turns trying to ensiave each other, they finally collaborate on the building of a raft and sail away to new hazards. The message implied hardly requires heavy italicizing, and director John Boorman, for the most part, lets human conflicts unfold in an almost casual manner, taking full advantage of what Conrad Hall's color cinematography can do for the velvety green jungles and shimmering blue seas of locations in Micronesia. Marvin and Mifune exude enough juicy vitality to animate a script that has only slight perception of character and very little dialog, half of which is, of necessity, in Japanese. They begin by throwing sticks and stones, then progress to mere mischief-Marvin urinating on his outraged foe from a treetop is a memorable image-and a sad, funny kind of truce that occasionally seems indebted to The Odd Couple.

Pacific's theme emerges without fireworks when the friendly enemies at last reach another abandoned isle, where GI and Japanese artifacts remind them that war has left its marks--a bombed-out hospital, cases of sake and a copy of Life photo-featuring Japanese war dead. But instead of a touch of genius that might have resulted in a great film, Pacific has a touch of contrivance-as well as a pounding, obtrusive musical score-that pegs it as solid popular melodrama performed with a high level of competence.

Director Joseph (The Servant) Losey has a passion for bizarre subjects and enjoys working with Elizabeth Taylor. It stands to reason, then, that he might film Secret Ceremony, wherein a faded prostitute who once lost a child of her own finds a haven of sorts in the delusions of a poor demented little rich girl.

The whore (Liz) resembles the girl's dead mother and begins to enjoy play-

ing Momma, just as one expects she will. She also becomes involved with several doggedly eccentric characters, including two daft aunties (Pamela Brown and Peggy Ashcroft) and the girl's stepfather (Robert Mitchum), who makes no secret of his incestuous longings--shades of Lolita's Humbert Humbert. Mitchum inhales the aroma of his lines as though every word were soaked in brandy, prattling of remote societies where daddies can diddle their daughters at will, or recalling happy bygone days when his sexually precocious ward "used to come to my room with a bottle of baby oil." The film's zingiest scenes are those stolen by Mia Farrow, jittery and neurasthenic as the girl and seemingly resolved to confirm her reputation for playing fey kooks.

Though she plays them to a tee, Ceremony lacks the narrative thrust and confident style of Rosemary's Baby. Ceremony is a florid whatsis, too silly for words and too serious for camp.

The hero of Decline and Fall of a Bird Watcher is Paul Pennyfeather, whose misadventures in English society were the subject of Evelyn Waugh's trenchant satirical novel Decline and Fall, written 41 years ago. The "bird watcher" tag was added as reassurance for modern movieiwers, understandably wary of any film that might lead down the well-worn path to ancient Rome. There's no cause for alarm; only the British empire topples, or lurches a bit, in director John Krish's charming, cynical and frankly archaic black farce about an Oxford boy whose school ties are severed when he is charged with exhibitionism and attempted rape. Though he happens to be innocent, the attendant notoriety propels him into a teaching career ("That's what most young gentlemen does that gets sent down for indecent behavior," purrs an amiable counselor). Pennyfeather's colleagues on the staff of a droll but dismal boys' school in North Wales are rogues, bigamists, religious fanatics and would-be kidnapers, all of whom eventually turn up again behind bars or in positions of public trust.

Meanwhile, young master Pennyfeather (played with a disarming blend of naivete and decadence by newcomer Robin Phillips) allows himself to be seduced by a student's exotic mother (Genevieve Page, the delectable madam of Belle de ]our), a socialite white slaver, and goes to prison for doing her errands. Waugh arranged for his hero's ultimate return to theological studies at Oxford; in the movie, Pennyfeather simply escapes across a bright-green meadow, throwing his clothes aside; but such gestures toward modernization are forgivable. A comic jewel compared with Tony Richardson's Hollywood corruption of The/ Loved One, Decline and Fall is alrrw' pure Waugh, acted with cunniw

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incapable of anything less. This arbitrary and constrained tragedy is anything but a masterpiece, but it is a work of troubled genius that serious Bergman watchers should enjoy puzzling out. Bergman himself links the film's title to "the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most palpable." His hero (perennial Bergman star Max Von Sydow) is a painter who has long since vanished without a trace from a bleak island refuge. Only the artist's diaries and his pregnant wife (Liv Ullmann) are left behind to tell how the end came. Looking backward, we see the painter despairing over "the utter unimportance of art in the world of men."

Afraid of the dark, he stays up all night each night to ward off the awful embodiments of those demons that possess him, even to sketch them when he can.

Homosexuality, Mortality, Celebrity and Lust appear in one form or another, like figures from an old morality play. The artist brutally slays a strange, seductive boy whom he encounters on the beach, later keeps a bizarre rendezvous with his beautiful former mistress (Ingrid Thulin), who lies naked in a nearby castle, while the laughing host and house guests assemble to watch. These are compelling images, shadowed with an intensely personal pessimism-and, perhaps, overshadowed by just a touch of self-indulgence.

ware across the starry black heavens without once permitting the truly astonishing technical feats to distract rapt attention.

All the fabricated space wheels, moon ships and interplanetary vehicles on display are superb designs, ·yet Kubrick never once falls into the space-time trap of allowing spectacular special effects to outshine the drama of events. Even for confirmed sci-fiophobes there are rewards emphatically worth waiting for, and one is the enthralling climax-a truly mind-blowing sequence in which astronaut Keir Dullea aims his space pod toward the hovering planet Jupiter and suddenly finds himself hurtled to a cosmic human experience.

Though his discoveries are philosophically ambiguous, they are optically so awesome that an audience may be glad enough to lea"e the mysteries of extraterrestrial life for another day. Clues that we earthlings are far from alone in the universe give impetus to a challenging plot devised by Kubrick with his distinguished co-author, Arthur C. Clarke, the scientist who is also one of science fiction's reigning wizards (and a frequent PLAYBOY contributor).

Dullea and Gary Lockwood, as second-incommand aboard the Discovery I spacecraft, are the only important human characters in the film; it is they who must match wits with their crewmate, an allpowerful, supposedly infallible talking computer-easily the biggest breakthrough in man-made bad guys since FrankenA girl dying of a nameless disease and stein's monster, and a great deal more striving to live life to the hilt while she horribly sophisticated. The computer's can keeps a card file of eligible bache- name is Hal 9000 (Hal for short), a treachlors. Each candidate for her favors must erous other-directed embodiment of upmove into her Manhattan apartment for tight electronics who turns out to be a a month-no more, no less--and fill up surprisingly effective villain as the story a diary to remember her by. That's the unfolds in front of Hal's malevolent, impremise of Sweet November, a bittersweet personal eye. At times, it may seem that romantic tearjerker contrived to make a this deepthink adventure-drama pauses to month seem much longer than usual. flaunt its painstaking research or its sciSandy Dennis superstars as the poor- fi spoofery mined with sly pokes at Panthing heroine opposite Anthony Newley, Am space liners, orbiting Hiltons and as a busy young British box .manufac- Howard Johnson's Earthlight Room aloft. turer who is supposedly enraptured by a But for the most part, the pace is as girl who cheats on her driver's test and breath-taking as the evocation of deep celebrates Thanksgiving vegetarian-style space, and of man's dehumanization by with a turkey fashioned out of straw- his own hand. One typical, startling Kuberry Jell-0. November itself is the sort brick touch is that Strauss waltzes flood the of strawberry Jell-0 turkey that used to sound track as if to waft nostalgia for the glop up the pages of ladies' magazines. good old days into the cool, silent void.

Only a knife-clean performance by New- Despite the fact that the underlying mood ley cuts through the movie's attempts to is contemplative, philosophical, metaphyssqueeze warmth and wit from a couple of ical, Odyssey offers a stimulating trip; just bleeding hearts. The saddest thing is Sandy sit back and defy the laws of gravity with -who continues her brave but seemingly your sensory apparatus on Go and your futile battle to utter one complete sen- mind wide open to the stunning import tence ere she suffers an emotional collapse. of this extraordinary film.

Producer-director Stanley Kubrick's long-anticipated 2001: A Space Odyssey is proof that man can, indeed, risk falling victim to his own technology and emerge unscathed. Unlike his Dr. Strangelove, this prescient movie produces few violent pro-or-con political responses, bµt for more than two hours · in wrap-around Cinerama, Odyssey parades futuristic hard-

RECORDINGS The flawless artistry of Carmen McRae becomes more apparent with each new recording for Atlantic, a label that has finally captured her soaring talent. Portrait of Carmen finds the vocalist with big-band backing and a quartet of top-flight arrangers. The tunes--from the opening I'm Always Drunk in San Francisco through

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were still written into their contracts.

During the Sixties, however, they 0 dropped all pretense of being homebodies and lived, loved, mated, divorced and even gave birth without undue regard for the shocked sensibilities of maiden aunts and elderly grammar school teachers. ea However belatedly, they separated their public and private lives.

So radically and speedily did public moral attitudes change during the Sixties that censure virtually became a thing of the past and movie marriages less-of a neo!SSity than a coovenienre-and when they were inronvenient, several stars made no bones about saying so.

Thus, Julie Christie, one of the more luminous of the new breed, candidly told interviewers that marriage was an unsuitable state while she was involved with the frenetic exigencies of her zooming career and that she much preferred sharing a temporary abode with some congenial "mate" of her choice. Another dazzling newcomer, Faye Dunaway, declared categ9rically, "I think marriage is a hindrance to love." Such statements would have been almost unthinkable ten years earlier. On the other side of the Atlantic, Italy's Monica Vitti lived openly with her favorite director.

Michelangelo Antonioni. And in France.

Jeanne Moreau was frank when she told a reporter, "What I like most of all is to act and to make love. Is there anything more that a woman could ask?" Most male stars remained unwilliog--0ut of a certain chivalry-to name their current attachments; but Michael Caine, the British smoothie, intimated he was dose to being a well-heeled Alfie in real life as weU as on the screen, and publicly proclaimed his disinclination to settle down with only one bird in a cage of domesticity; after all, he had tried marriage once and had found the relationship unsatisfactory. Albert Finney was another British luminary who developed a reputation as a bird fancier; and on these shores, Warren Beatty did his level best to emulate him, changing partners with near-frenzied abandon.

It was almost as though tl1e achievement of stardom now gave the newly anointed an opportunity to lead the free-swinging lives of their juvenile dreams. But more remarkable than this was the absence of any condemnatory verbiage in the popular press. The mass-circulation. magazines such as Life, Look, McCall's, The Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies' Home journal, which had formerly taken it upon themselves to be the custodians of America's moral heritage, still ran "personality" pieces of film stars but now added distinctly gamy tidbits to their portraits.

In a recent issue of Look, for example, a picture-and-text story about Catherine Deneuve, the piquant French sex star, 168 informed readers that "she often sees

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director Roger Vadim. whom she refused to marry when he became the father of her 110n Christian. . __ ..

The wheel had not merely turned, this was a new era entirely. Sex was now regarded as so normal. natural and healthy a function that many of the female stars found it not only socW.ly acceptable but downright essential to cultivate their sexual images. Where formerly only a brazen few, such as the late Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, and minor stars of the Mamie Van Doren variety, had disrobed for picture spreads in men's magazines, PLAYBOY's pages were graced during the new decade by a shapely procession of female stars au nature[: Ursula Andress, Joanna Pettet, Sylva Koscina, Susan Strasberg, Kim Novak, Carroll Baker, Stella Stevens and Carol Lynley, among several others. Not only did these young ladies feel that the exposure was helpful to their film careers but producers were eager, through this kind of advance unveiling, to stress the nudity quotients in their pictures. With the rapid erosion of censorial restrictions in the Sixties, Hollywood's female stars and would-be stars had the opportunity to display a good deal more than their acting ability.

Heading the parade was the beautiful, tragic Elizabeth Taylor, who, as early as 1959, gave some indication of things to come when she emerged from the Mediterranean in Suddenly, Last Summer dad in a dinging bathing suit that left little to the imagination. But more than her seductive curves, the drama of her personal life was the key to her continuing popularity. At times, it seemed that someone at that Great Typewriter in the Sky was scripting an impossibly corny soap opera for her to suffer through. She was a beauty, she was the acknowledged queen of the movies, she was rich, she was showered with attention and gifts and even the critics grudgingly acknowledged her professionalism as an actress.

Yet this woman who had everything that an $80-a-week. typist might dream of was sorely tried by sorrow, bereavement and a near-fatal illness. Four times married, twice divorced and once widowed-all by the age of 28--she moved elegantly through life like a daily participant in a gossip column, a target of voracious photographers and reporters wherever she went.

She was also judged by 20th CenturyF ox to be worth $1,000,000, plus ten percent of the proceeds, as the Queen of the Nile in Cleopatra-with such extras as a personal hairdresser and $3500 weekly toward living expenses thrown in. Arriving in London in September of 1960, where production headquarters was at first located, she was soon laid low with a series of complaints that included pneumonia, various viruses and

infected teeth. She was declared well enough to begin work in January-but then she came down with a cold; within days the word spread that Elizabeth Taylor was "at death's door." It was true; she had contracted double pneumonia and was gasping for every breath.

A tracheotomy was performed aod her weakened lungs responded; although the acrompanying fever roomed to l 08 degrees. she rallied and eventually pulled through. Two months later, still shaky, only partially recovered-but her eyes as lustrous as ever and her scarred throat dearly visible above the neckline of her gown--41e managed to mount the stage at Hollywood s Academy Award ceremonies to accept an Oscar, voted to her less for her performance as the unhappy trollop in Butterfield 8 than for her triumphant struggle for life in a London hospital.

Meanwhile, Cleopatra's expensive sets in England were dismantled and filming was rescheduled for the following September in Rome. By now, the bedeviled project had a new directorJoseph I... Mankiewicz-and a new cast that included Rex Harrison as Caesar and Richard Burton as Antony. In Ruth Waterbury's biographical panegyric, Elizabeth Taylor, the historic moment of meeting between the two stars was highlighted by Burton's opening remark to Elizabeth: "You're too fat-" The effect on Mrs. Eddie Fisher was cataclysmic; not only did her poundage melt away but so did her affections for her husband-and rumors that they had been transferred to Burton began flying around the world.

Suppression of the story by ulcerated studio press agents proved impossible, thanks to the hordes of Italian paparazzi who plagued the pair with long-lens cameras and the battalions of reporters who checked their every movement. Denials were issued-by Burton, by his wife, Sybil, by Elizabeth, by Eddie-but all to no avail. Sybil fled in one direction, Eddie in another- and eventually Fisher took refuge in a New York hospital bed, "tired, overwrought and in need of a sedative," according to his manager, who also stoutly claimed that Eddie and Liz were as devoted as ever. Liz. however, made her feelings fairly clear when Eddie put a call through to her in Rome and she relayed the message that she was "too busy" to bother answering the telephone.

Despite disapproving editorials--induding one in the Vatican newspaperBurton and Taylor continued to keep each other's company and soon costarred in another film: The V.l.P.s, for which Elizabeth received her customary $1,000,000 plus percentage; and Burton's fee shot up to $500,000. Eddie Fisher was now mentioning divorce from his absent (continued on page 172) 0

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wife, and Sybil Bunon also began to exhibit distinct symptoms of rejection.

After protracted negotiations. in which IC a considerable amount of cash changed hands with their spurned partners, Richard and Elizabeth made it legal in Matdi 1964.

Although the public began to evidence signs of satiety at the avalanche of publicity attendant on all these events, Cleopatra was a stellar attraction during its first months of exhibition, despite reviews that ranged from mixed to shattering. But Elizabeth probably could not have cared less. Finishing The V.l.P.s quickly, she played opposite Burton again in MGM's The Sandpiper, a drama of transcendent mawkishness, with Elizabeth as a bohemian beachnik and Burton as a ministerial headmaster who leaps from the pulpit into a guilt-laden affair with her.

Both were more careful about their vehicles thereafter--and neither could have chosen better than Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf1, directed by the gifted Mike Nichols. Deliberately despoiling her luxuriantly female image, Elizabeth transformed herself into a frowzy virago of 40, spitting out insults and epithets ~me never heard before in American films-at her professor husband. She was suitably rewarded with another Oscar at the 1966 Academy Awards. Her subsequent performance as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew was a trifle fishwifey, but she was ultimately subdued admirably by Bunon. Her incipient double chin and her matronly spread have since increased as she rontinues to share her husband's fondness for the cocktail hour; but at !16, she's still one of the world's most beautiful women-and a celebrity of the first rank.

Her chief rival during the previous decade, Marilyn Monroe, had also run into more than her share of tribulation.

Increasingly moody and neurotic after her divorce from Arthur Miller, hung up on a variety of chemical soporifics, the blonde goddess finally removed herself from this world in August of 1962. Hardly had the eulogies and homilies been pronounced when a good many stars and agents realized that a distinct vacancy now existed in the ranks of sex stars.

Jayne Mansfield might have been her chief beneficiary, but she was too gross a type for the current market, and her career continued to fizzle until fate struck at her, too; she perished in a car crash in 1967.

The rate of attrition among sex goddesses was growing increasingly high; but that didn't disoourage Carroll Baker from making her bid to enter the pantheon.

Thiny-one at the time of Marilyn's death and the mother of two children, she 172 attempted to capitalize on her early repu-

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talion as a sizzler, achieved when she appeared in 1956 as the thumb-sucking tease of Baby Doll. A few mediocre films followed in which she revealed little Hesh and less acting ability; so she returned to being a sex symbol-or trying to be one. In Station Six-Sahara, for example, she appeared, preposterously enough, as a visiting nymphomaniac at a Nonh African oil-pumping station. Taking sun baths in the skimpiest of bikinis, displaying shapely legs and her so-so cleavage to the sex-starved crew of the pumping station, she made for a less-than-lush oasis in the desert.

Something of a disaster, the picture wasn't released in this country until after Miss Baker had found the opportunity to put even more of herself on display in Joseph E. Levine's The Carpetbaggers, made by Paramount from the lurid novel

by Harold Robbins. During filming at the studio, word leaked out, hardly by accident, that Carroll was doing one of her scenes in the nude. ln the hope of implying.that the film.was hotter than a stag reel, the studio barred reporters from the set.

When the press somehow managed to get to Carroll anyhow to learn the truth of the matter, she blandly admitted that she had, indeed, shown all for her art in several scenes. "The decision to appear nude was mine," she stated. "I am an actress. As such l am called upon to interpret a part. . .. The trend now is toward showing human emotions in more depth. This involves sexual instincts." Though her views were commendable, they might have been more convincing if the film in question had not been The Carpetbaggers, since it contained little that was recognizable as human emotion-and precious little nudity either, except for a hasty shot of Carroll's derriere while seated at her dressing table. Paramount had either thought better about violating the Code or the entire nude-scene routine had been a publicity put-on.

Nevertheless, Levine was quick to sign up Carroll for Harlow, and his publicity office ground out endless turgid releases proclaiming her America's new sex godd~. But the validity of this claim was widely questioned; Time, for one, described Carroll as a "middle-aged housewife." Carroll's wooden performance in Harlow...,..-further hindered by a shoddy script-finally ronvinced even Levine and Paramount that she was not the erotic symbol they had touted her to be.

They forthwith decided that their contract with her was less than binding.

An out-of-<nurt settlement soothed her wounded feelings and Carroll headed for the Continent, where she hoped to find

more appreciation of her charms an<l abilities.

Another Hollywood glamor girl, Natalie Wood, suc.cessfully circumnavigated the professional reefs on which Carroll's career had foundered. A working actress since the age of four, the former Natasha Gurdin was 22 when Elia Kazan helped her epitomize the frustrated sexuality of a Midwestern girl raised by strait-laced parents in Splendor in the Grass. Slim but captivatingly curvaceous, Natalie achieved an early reputation as a swinger in her private life. Among her escorts was the idolized James Dean, with whom she appeared in Rebel Without a Cause, a role that made her an overnight teenage favorite. She was also squired about Hollywood by Elvis Presley, but she by no means confined her romantic life to the youngsters; in 1957, she spoke of a "definite understanding" with Raymond Burr and, later the same year, of a somewhat hazier understanding with Rohen Vaughn. So frenetically did young Natalie live it up during this period that her Warner Bros. bosses feb it necessary to advise her to cut out the late hours and the champagne-and to tone down her longshoreman's vocabulary. At the end of the year, she reformed by marrying Robert Wagner-then one of Hollywood's ranking glamor boysbu1' her instinct for ftamboyance and the wild life did not lie dormant for long.

Her large earnings were cannily invested, however, and Natalie's film schedule slowed down ronsiderably, Largely due to a reluctance to approve the slew of scripts then being proffered to her.

Soon thereafter, she sherl Wagner as a mate and resumed playing the field (one of her favorite swains: the ev~r-ready Warren Beatty) and periodically announcing or retracting her engagement to some rich manufacturer or other. It was evident by 1965 that her popularity had declined, panicularly with the younger crowd-as was underscored when the staff of the Harvard 1.Ampoon voted her the Worst Actress of 1966 and, uncharitably, made it apply to 1967 and 1968 also. Wounded but still game, Natalie traveled to Cambridge to accept the award in person-something no other actor or actress had previously done.

Another recipient of the 1.Ampoon's uncoveted award was Jane Fonda, who was voted the 1962 dishonor for her performance as a frigid young widow in The Chapman Report. Jane remained undiscouraged-it was only her third film effon, after all- and if she has not gone on to scale the more rarefied heights of stardom, she has since achieved considerable popularity and acting ability. Being the daughter of the distinguished Henry doubtlessly lubricated her career; but her patrimony, in a way, was also a handicap, for the physical resemblance was so close as to cause (continued on page 254)

SHOW B USINESS MOVIES The L. & H. Cult Two door-to-door salesmen give hard sell to homeowner. Homeowner objects, nonchalantly removes one salesman's watch, admires it, and then smashes it on doorstep. Salesman mulls, then casually breaks off section of door frame. Homeowner reflects, then rips off salesman's shirt. Other salesman blinks, frowns, and throws brick through window. Homeowner throws brick through windshield of salesmen's car. Salesmen attack homeowner's piano with axes, swat vases with spade handles. Homeowner tears off car headlights, doors, gas tank and sets auto ablaze. Salesmen demolish house, dig up lawn, hack down trees and shrubbery.

The scene is from a 1929 two-reeler starring, as the salesmen, those two heroes of the harebrained, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. To the uninitiated, the mayhem may seem just a grand exercise in slam-bang slapstick. But to a fan club called the Sons of the Desert, it is a classic example of the high comedic art of "reciprocal destruction" and worthy of scrutiny down to the last double take. Described as "an organization with scholarly overtones and heavily social undertones," the Sons of the Desert (named after an L. & H. film) was founded two years ago by a group of Manhattan literary and showbusiness people, now has chapters, or "tents," in seven cities, numbers among its members such modern-day gagmen as Jonathan Winters, Dick Cavett, Dick Van Dyke and Soupy Sales.

Hoot & Holler. "Laurel and Hardy did more funny stuff than Chaplin ever dreamed of," says Comic Orson Bean, vice sheik of the Manhattan tent. He finds that studying his collection of Laurel and Hardy two-reelers helps his own

LAUREL & HARDY IN "FINISHING TOUCH" (1928)

performances in the Broadway musical lllya Darling. In Detroit, the 75 tent members draw on a collection of 35 Laurel and Hardy films owned by Eric Stroh, of the Stroh beer dynasty; annually, the Detroit tent awards a "Fine Mess" trophy (a phrase from a famous Hardy line)-a $15 black derby-to the man or men who have "contributed a fine mess to Detroit." (Current holders: the local weathermen.) The Minneapolis tent shelters 150 fans, including Harry Heltzer, president of the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co.; members wear derbies to the meetings and hoot and holler in the best silent-film tradition. Johnny Carson prizes L. & H. for "their rapport, their genuine liking for each other." Mime Marcel Marceau calls Laurel the "maitre of all mimes in the world"; Author J. D. Salinger, who runs off old two-reelers for his children, refers to the pair as "two heaven-sent artists and men."

The Sons of the Desert is one of the latest manifestations of a growing cult.

Primarily, the interest derives from reruns of L. & H. films on TV. In the past three years, moreover, two successful feature-length films composed of clips from old L. & H. shorts have been released, and a third is scheduled for this fall. The fever has spawned a cartoon series as well as TV tributes on CBS and NBC, and the mugging faces of L. & H. appear on everything from puppets and salt-and-pepper shakers to the jacket of the new Beatles album. In Paris, one moviehouse annually runs a two-month L. & H. Festival. Marshal Tito has a large collection of their films and, following the custom of L. & H. fans Stalin and Churchill, has regular private showings.

Off the set, the comedians relished their own distinctive pursuits. Georgiaborn Hardy spent most of his leisure

IN "PARDON US" (1931)

hours at the country club, where, despite his 350-lb. bulk, he was one of Hollywood's best golfers. Laurel, who was born in Britain (and had understudied Charlie Chaplin), once explained that he and Ollie "had different hobbies. He liked horses and golf. You know my hobby-and I married them all." He had, in fact, wed four women a total of eight times, and a fifth sued unsuccessfully to be declared his wife.

Unfortunately, the two men did not own their films, and thus did not reap any income from reruns. During their last years-Ollie died at 65 in 1957, Stan at 74 in 1965-neither was independently wealthy.

Tie Twiddle. The tributes, though, keep growing. Later this month, the L. & H . lore will be further enriched by the publication of The Films of Laurel and Hardy* by William Everson. Incisive, objective and generously illustrated, the book traces the development of the team from their first silent two-reeler, Putting Pants on Philip (1927)-a fast-paced trifle with elements of homosexual humor-through their hilarious, Oscar-winning The Music Box (1932), to the sad, tired, misconceived mishmash, Atoll K (1952). In all, the dim-witted duo made 90 films as a team, immortalizing such mannerisms as Ollie's blushing "tie twiddle" and exasperated slow burn and Stan's tearless, whimpering crying jag and flip-flopping walk (which he achieved by cutting the soles off his shoes) . For some reason, women do not appreciate the humor as much as men do. Unlike Chaplin, who was ever the champion of the innocent heroine, Laurel and Hardy usually ran afoul of gold-digging coquettes or nagging wives. Typical is the scene in which

*

Citadel Press; 223 pages; $7.95.

IN "LAUGHING GRAVY" (1931)

They've even got Tito inside their tent.

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TIME, JULY 14, 1967

an amorous Ollie kisses his pinkie and touches it to his wife's lips-whereupon she bites it with a crunch. Rich with insights into the clowns' techniques, Films will undoubtedly add new dimensions to the L. & H. legend -a prospect that Everson contemplates with regret. "Overadulation," he warns, "can often build up a wall of resentment against its objects, who are usually wholly innocent of any involvement in a cult movement, often dislike it, and usually refuse to take it seriously."

When he heard about the formation of the Sons of the Desert shortly before his death, Laurel suggested that the club should maintain only a halfway dignity, and that "everybody have a hell of a lot of fun." As Laurel liked to tell his disciples: "Don't sit around and tear comedy apart. It is like a fine watch, and you'll never get it together again.

And don't ask me why people laughthat is the mystery of it all."

THE MOVIES: AN AMERICAN IDIOM _Readings in. the Social History of the American Motion Picture

Edited by Arthur F. McClure •(

'

Rutherford • Madison • Teaneck

FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY PRESS ·~_.,, .

l.iJ;rary Wayne State CoU~g!

Wayne, Nebrask~i

100 /The Movies: An American Idiom Lesser literary lights were engaged in the business of reporting on ·· the doings of the stars. Who were the Box Office Darlings of 1937? • . • • Who was the greatest screen lover of 1933? •.• These were the cosmic questions that occupied the readers of Photoplay and Modem Screen, along with those ideal Hollywood marriages which had generally ended up in the divorce court by the time the magazine went to press. Sometimes the public might be titillated by the tale of what Shirley Temple ate for breakfast or by a confession of weakness-like the one indulged in by Hedy Lamarr in "Hedy Wine."

Miss Lamarr, like Luise Rainer, was one of Hollywood's exotic imports. She had come out in the Austrian import Ecstasy in 1937, and with much heaving of bosom she had looked with distaste upon her aging husband, and longingly upon symbolic matings which took place between flies on the window pane. A nude swimming scene was such a flagrant violation of the Production Code that one had to journey . to a different city to see it. Managers of movie houses often advertised scenes from Ecstasy (with adhesive tape covering Miss Lamarr's shame), scenes which were excised from the cut version-a fact which the patron did not realize until safely ensconced in the theater. Photoplay in 1938 told how Hedy was just plain folks and hated being an "Ecstasy girl," attempting with little success ("She's just about as much an Ecstasy girl as I am.") to present the star as a product as American as com pone and apple pie.

By 1938 fans had something really important on their minds: the search for Scarlett O'Hara. David 0. Selznick had announced that the role would be played by an unknown from the South, and had even devoted two years to going through the motions of looking for her.

Every actress in Hollywood saw herself as Scarlett. Might it be Tallulah Bankhead, smoldering Miriam Hopkins, red-headed Erin O'Brien Moore, flashing Paulette Goddard? Selznick was reported to have considered Margaret Tallichet, Arlene Whalen, Liz Whitney, and Katharine Hepburn. The role was offered to Norma Shearer, who did not consider herself worthy of it.

Rival studios thought they might beat Selznick to the punch. Bette Davis, who had built up quite a reputation as a mean girl since her performance as Mildred in Of Human Bondage, all but spit tacks in Jezebel, kicking aside the code of Southern chivalry, biting her lips to make them red, giving amiable aristocrat George Brent the air. It did not win her the role of Scarlett, though it was suggested that the only person who could play Scarlett after Bette Davis' performance was Paul Muni.

Warner Brothers, which had produced Jezebel, had another string to their bow. Rachel Field's All This and Heaven Too was scheduled for production in 1940, with Bette Davis as a love-crossed governess and Charles Boyer as the Duke de Preslin. Gone With the Wind was some-

The Celluloid Safety Valve / 101 times refened to as GWTW and Wamers alluded to ATAHT-as it turned out, a trifle optimistically.

Photoplay interviewed some of the aspiring Scarletts, including . / Paulette Goddard, whose desire to play the part had her on the brink v of hysteria. Of the group, Photoplay put its money on Miss Hepburn.

Vivien Leigh, an Englishwoman, furnished a surprise ending to the search by unexpectedly walking off with the most coveted role in cinema history. Disappointed xenophobes saw her as a spurious daughter of Dixie.

If the search for Scarlett made the fur fly, the child stars made the treacle flow. In September 1938, Sara Hamilton visited a few of the kiddies in their native habitat and recounted their doings. Little Billy Lee informed Photoplay's reporter that the red button on top of his skullcap was his "tail light." "Fred MacMurray," Photoplay said cryP'. tically, "can't get over him."

Then over to "hazel-eyed, honest-souled, straight-from-the-shoulder" Virginia Weidler. "Make it ten," said Virginia when asked her age.

"Studio reasons. Always chopping off a year." Besides her hazel eyes and honest soul, she boasted "two chicken. pox marks above her right eyebrow, sixty-two freckles across her perfect little riose and six owls in her attic," and the fact that she thought Queen Victoria was a figure . _from American history. · · George Ernest of the Jones Family was interviewed in the company of his best friend Marvin Stephens. Photoplay solemnly reported the following epic interchange: "Well, good night Marvin," he'll say at the end of day's work on the set. · · "See you to~orrow" and for a moment the two friends will stand in the center of a huge movie set, hands raised in salute, and then go.

Two American lads off for home.

In What Makes. Sammy Run, Sammy Glick gives a musical tribute to the "little people" who, he feels, abetted his greatness. In the long run they were · t~ ones who had the last laugh. The character actors of Hollywood were grouped in a 1934 edition of Photoplay by studio.

Basil Rathbone, Roland Young, Elsa Lanchester, Una O'Connor, C. Aubrey Smith, and CCdric Hardwicke might be said to furnish the personnel for the English Division of Minor Players. There was also a Latin Division who peopled t~e gambling hells, ran the night clubs and ped~led an occasional tomato. Prominent among them were Henry Armetta, Cesar Romero, Joseph Calleia and Eduardo Cianelli. The Latin Division had a way of turning ugly. In Riffraff Joseph Calleia portrayed a sinister purveyor of cheap labor. Eduardo Cianelli could be egghead ugly as the gangster in Winterset or just plain ugly roughing up the girls as the proprietor of a clip joint in Marlced Woman.

IT WOULD SEEM unquestionable that Mr. Peck, who was awarded the Best Actor of the Year Award by the Motion Picture Academy a few weeks ago, sensitively and with the expertise of experience turned out one of the best performances of recent years in any American movie by any actor.

He portrayed Atticus in Miss Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novelbecome-movie, To Kill A Mockingbird.

The story centers on an incident of the southern Negro-prejudice drama, but so understates both its argument and its ~matic artistry that it attains to a life and a realism well beyond what might have been expected from a mid-twentieth-century piece of art.

A Negro, handsome and significantly, even symbolically, one-armed, is wrongly accused of raping a young Southern white girl brought up and dwelling in the heart of Alabama sordor and poverty. The implicit truth behind the accusation is that the young lady, herself even more deprived than depraved, attempted to seduce this virile though handicapped man. No one, of course, believes his telling of the story; and even the audience, who knows it is true, is held in abeyance by the mastery of especially Miss Lee's feeling for understatement and meiotic irony.

The most important and importu-

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Atticus in a small Southern community might propose. But the implication is not so much that the Southern lawyer would be incapable of real profundity, but that the author, director, actor, and Atticus himself realize that the profound speech would be out of style in this day and age, and would be considered unrealistic and somewhat spurious. Hence, somewhere in the projection of the To Kill drama is the semblance of art at work, and it is a satisfying thing to find, understated too, like the rest of the movie, in a modern American film.

The only powerful thing in the courtroom scene, except insofar as understatement is the most powerful of devices, is on the force of evil, the wronged young lady's plea for vengeance, shouted with obscene plays on the Southern anti-ideallsm of racial prejudice and on the Puritan consciousness, very subtly satirizing both, from the audience's viewpoint, and at the same time providing dramatic justification for the jury's verdict of guilty: the jury, upon witnessing the pathos we see as bathos, could very easily have been moved to an irate humor.

The villain, the girl's father whose intellect, such as it is (the intellect of a humanized Devil), is behind the deception, spits in Atticus' face later in the movie, with a kind of sullen matter-of-factness. The revenge that the audience desires at this startling incident - much like the revenge the jury might have felt - testifies to the

kiX,T, IVIoCkin.gbi:rd

nate scene of the movie is the nowfamous courtroom incident. The movie is spatially-oriented, and the courtroom is that spatial structure toward which the social forces aim. But the turbulence of these prejudice and integrity currents are almost incredibly toned down. They do not churn up the typical humanistic and Christian argument, but quietly let it come to the surface almost unnoticed. The movie is so intent, as was the novel, on accuracy of demonstration that it becomes almost soi-disant realistic: it is almost true that the movie is realistic, not because it seems to the audience, within the natural attitude, to be uniquely exact to experience, but because the movie proclaims of one value a realism and then ascends to that value. Atticus' speech - the excerpt of the movie shown at the Oscar presentations - is precisely the weak and somewhat disorganized idealism that a twentieth-century

power of provocation through drama, and the audience is drawn into the culpability of the Southerner. Atticus, who really is just merely walks away from his offender; an action supremely impressive because the actor is, after all, Gregory Peck. Later, indeed, the villain is killed by the strange young man who lives in the dark and ominous house on the edge of town, but the killing does not satisfy the viewer's possible lust for revenge, as the strange young man is simply a symbol of Southern innocence; he is the Mockingbird, never killed, who shakes hands with Atticus at the end of the show. The audience's feelings are made self-conscious, which through a kind of affective fallacy made good, instills the movie's argument into everyone.

The de-emphasis of time, which gives the movie its unique ideological aspect, is accomplished through both tone - a kind of quietude - and narration. The story is narrated by Atticus' little daughter, Scout, from a post-factum vantage, so the drama becomes both past and present, and thus achieves a temporal universality.

The children are the heart and soul of the drama, though they are rather more caricatures than characters, because the innocence and perishableness and impressionability of the children places prejudice - and innocence, the Mockingbird - in a sane perspective. Almost nothing is left undone, and the movie, following upon a brilliant book, achieves a kind of perfection.

-

James Devlin

MOVIES

Child re.n Caught Adult Dramas

S traight off, the little girl took to actor Gregory Peck (left) and drew no distinction between being on camera or off. Mary B~dham, 9, was playing Peck's tomboy daughter in the filming of Harper Lee's Pulitzer prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. It is among three new movies which are concerned with the pitfalls of growing up in a tense adult world. The others are David and Lisa (p. JOO), a look into the secret world of mentally disturbed youngsters, and Sundays and Cybele (p. 103), in which a child's idyllic love is destroyed by grownups. So perceptive are these films that they might almost have been conceived and produced by the children themselves.

But they are adult films aimed at grqwnup audiences, the widest of which will be won by Mockingbird-and deservedly so. Astutely directed by Robert Mulligan, it conjures up a small southern town during the 1930s, the camera exploring its shadowed lanes with the wondering eye of a child and its conflicts with a child's special wisdom. The town itself has been duplicated with authenticity on a 15acre back lot in Hollywood. The portrayals of the child and adult townspeople-including Peck in the role of the attorney Atticusare so believable that Mockingbird fairly sings out for this year's Oscar.

A rter playing a disturbing scene, Mary Badham cuddles up for comfort to Peck.

Off camera, he was her foster father in Hollywood, and on weekends she came up to play with his own children at his estate.

CONTINUED

97

M0

v I Es

CONTINUED

Small-Town Tranquillity and a Taste of Terror

S ad farewell is bade Scout by her ch.um, Dill (John Megna), who visijs each summer from Mississippi. ~-

Or

the many distinguished aspects of Mockingbird, the most remarkable is the acting of its children. Mary, who plays the role of Scout Finch, has a comradeship with a neighborhood chum (above) that is as believable as a backyard fence. She and Phillip Alford, who plays her older brother Jem, are amateurs from Birmingham, Ala., chosen from some 2,000 applicants in seven southern states. They portray the children of a small-town lawyer, and it is through their eyes that the dramatic story unfolds.

In the film, as in the best-selling novel, a tranquil world is set astir by the winds of change and shattered by terrors both real and imagined (right). The real terrors stem from the lawyer's defense of a Negro who has been unjustly charged with the rape of a white girl, and from the stigma and violence this brings upon the family.

The experiences teach the youngsters- and the audience as wella lesson about the sometime differences between justice and law.

Terror stalks Jem when he is mauled by a red-neck whom his father had exposed in court as a liar.

98

CONTINUED

Childhood fears press in on Jem as he explores a house which he believes is haunted . But it really

isn't. The shadowy owner seeks to keep all intruders away by giving them the scare of their lives.

CONTINUED

99

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Which Film Do You Prefer?

And which is superior as art and as entertainment? In this ACT interview, two professional film watchers struggle with these difficult questions.

JEROME B. ERNST

Henry Herx and Fr. Ronald Holloway direct the Center for Film Study, which is the educational affiliate of the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures (NCOMP}. They are also editors of the Catholic Film Newsletter. Interviewing them is Jerome Ernst, associate editor of Extension magazine.

Ernst: The Sound of Music is the biggest money making movie of all time. You are educating people with regard to films. What do you see as the educational value of The Sound of Music?

HENRY HERX: It's a good example of what Hollywood traditionally has done best and that is to provide a mass audience with an amusing story -stars, music, all the things that we associate with entertainment.

ERNST: Is this good or bad?

HERX: It's excellent. This is what movies originally were all about. A good deal of the future of the film, whether on TV or in theaters, is to remain a popular mass medium. Entertainment will always be one of the prime concerns of this medium.

ERNST: The Sound of Music, then, is entertainment, but are there also values involved in the movie? For instance, Pauline Kael, writing for McCall's, called it "a sugar-coated lie."

FATHER HOLLOWAY: We can always study a film and sort out what it is worth, its merits, its failings. It's quite easy to look at this film simply as an entertainment musical. You get very little educationally out of the history of the Trapp family or the religious background of the family itself ...

ERNST: At the same time, is not one of the biggest educational values of a movie the values that 8

are, say, presuppose~ot the story line as such ...

HERX: The question that you are proposing to an educator is a very difficult one. Is the educator to say there are many things here that don't jibe with reality, that they are a sentimentalized concept of what man is, of what his goals should be.

I think there is a problem with a film like The Sound of Music.

HOLLOWAY: It doesn't pretend to do anything socially.

HERX: Still, it is a concrete example of an entertainment film which presents certain social values. It says, this is what virtue is, this is an acceptable idea of religion.

ERNST: Or let's take another movie, Virginia Woolf, which the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures (NCOMP) rated is A-4-for adults only. It presents many social values. NCOMP said it dramatized man's need to face the challenge of reality in order, by achieving self-knowledge, to build a capacity for love. One reviewer, I recall, said he saw in the film nothing of the kind. "Must one roll in the gutter to learn the dregs run there?" he asked. The dialog is unquestionably obscene, profane, sacrilegious and blashpemous.

HOLLOWAY: You have two shotguns loaded here.

ACT I January, 1967

Photo by Josaph J. Lucas, Jr.

First of all, it is a different kind of film than The ,.Saund of Music. It's emphatically not an entertainment film at all but one that deals with problems which are interpreted in the context of the writer.

It deals with these problems in terms of the reality in which these people have to live and exist.

In this case, you have a mature audience going to the film and looking at it in relationship to the idea of the author as well as the serious content of the film.

ERNST: Which of the films do you think presents a truer picture of life or shouldn't we be concerned about that?

HOLLOWAY: As educators, I think we're always concerned about that. And we would have to say that Virginia Woolf does give a truer picture of life. But the medium is slightly different. The audience is going for different reasons in each case. In Virginia Woolf, particularly, one will get reactions very much like that of the reviewer to whom you refer. This is the way people react to serious drama. They react very strongly to anything that deals very directly with some of the problems of contemporary life.

HERX: The point here, in other words, is the audience. Does the audience want to go to an entertainment film to escape, to relax, to enjoy a few ACT I January, 1967

hours? Or does the audience want to go to the theater to experience life, to find some meanings and values for itself, to see what an artist communicates about life and to have a measure of one's own concept of life against that of this particular director or particular film?

At present there is simply not a large enough audience to support the serious film of communication, the one that is trying to say something about life much as the stage would do. This is why the entertainment factor in films is always going to be a large one.

The question an educator asks himself about films is the question of how well the director, the artist, performs his job in communicating, how well he uses his medium, whether it be for entertainment purposes or for serious purposes?

ERNST: Either one of them good.

HERX: One of the dangers is that we may look at art too much from the point of view of serious message, significance, all the things that we associate with the so-called art film today. There is a real danger here that we take a visual medium and we over-intellectualize about it. We over-verbalize about it. We do not use the medium itself; we don't use the visuals; we don't get down to the specific, concrete revelation of reality, of actuality.

This is what the film can do rather than give some abstract theoretical message.

ERNST: Of the two movies we've discussed, you said one was an escapist or entertainment film and the other a message film.

HERX: What do you mean by message film? I think Virginia Woolf is very open to interpretation. What Edward Albee is trying to do is to make us see reality in a direct way and let us make up our own minds. This is what most serious writers are trying to do rather than enforce their own point of view about what these things mean and how we should interpret them.

ERNST: But it's not meant as entertainment?

HERX: Definitely not. There's a problem here in understanding the ratings that NCOMP is giving to films. Apparently the audience which was disturbed by the Virginia Woolf rating was disturbed because NCOMP is using in its A-4 category a rating for serious expression on the part of an artist. To use the same kind of guidelines to measure The Sound of Music would be ridiculous. This is the reason why NCOMP now has more categories.

Basically there is a misunderstanding here about what NCOMP is trying to accomplish. The point needing clarification is that different types of films demand different audiences. Some people think all films are entertainment films and look upon them in the same way.

There are different traditions in film history of what a director, what an actor is trying to do with his particular film, whether it fits in the broad category of entertainment or whether it fits in 9

because the movie stresses the wrong social values, for instance? They also want to inform people about the movies with real value.

HERX: This is part of their objective today, .though they are also still very much concerned about a strictly moral evaluation. The problem is how to do this most effectively.

ERNST: They seem to be stressing more and more the educational aspects of the films.

HERX: They are trying to do this, but I don't think the NCOMP rating is the best vehicle for doing it. This is where the critics and the schools come in.

ERNST: You feel a lot can be done in educating people to films by encouraging them to study the techniques of films and the moral values?

HOLLOWAY: Not necessarily study the techniques of films, but rather what films present, what they mean in relation to the meaning gathered by an audience.

ERNST: If the viewers don't have these values themselves, it must be difficult to educate them to see proper values in a movie. What then?

HOLLOWAY: People often make opening statements on a movie and after discussing it reevaluate what they originally said. For instance, I had many discussions with ordinary people about Darling and their first reaction was sometimes that of repulsion. But many eventually realized it fits in with their moral commitment and they showed that they actually got a great deal more out of the film than they had realized.

ERNST: What can a parish do on the local level to educate.towards good films?

HERX: Parish organizations should be running film series using their own means and people.

ERNST: How would they go about this?

HERX: Our office has a basic list of films whkh have been used with success by various groups.

We have study guides and related materials to help groups hold discussions after seeing a film.

That's the basic thing-to have a discussion. People see films in a slightly different way from each other. It is very valuable to take these experiences and to put them together with what others have found, what others have experienced from the film.

ERNST: How large does an operation have to be to sponsor these programs? Is the financial burden too much for a small group?

HERX: It depends upon the type of film. The entertainment film is relatively inexpensive, costing anywhere from $25 to $35. The foreign made films, the ones which are more seriously intended, lend themselves much more to discussion on a level of meaning and interpretation. ¡But these cost anywhere from $50 to $200, so it would take a much larger group to sponsor these.

ERNST: How is your office set up to help?

HERX: Our office is responsible for the Catholic Film Newsletter which covers 35mm current releases for the general audience. Also, we are deACT I January, 1967

veloping pilot programs in connection with features and short films. We have available approximately 250 study guides for individual films because we feel that this is the way we can serve the teachers across the country and the film groups engaged in using films. In the past year we have answered inquiries from over 3,000 people who are actively using films. There is a tremendous gro.wth in the field of visual education.

HOLLOWAY: Our newsletter covers the contemporary film to a great extent. We try to bring out in the newsletter as much information as possible on an educational plane to help parishes, communities, high schools, adult education programs, seminaries, colleges, interfaith groups, pre-Cana conferences and other organizations so they can work out film programs in an educational context.

HERX: What is really important in film education is to show good examples 9f films. By using significant films we are often able to have people talk about the modern world. These people draw out ideas and apply them to their own parish or community. This can be a tremendous force in an area, but it is one that does require a good deal of effort by a dedicated leader and an interested audience.

" . . . different types of films demand different audiences.

Some people think all films are entertainment films and look upon them in the same way."

,

Henry Herx 11

Was Tennessee 1i.. ways A Christian Playwright?

Key West, Fla. -{CPF)- The news that playwright Tennessee Williams had converted to Catholicism - after such earthy plays as "Baby Doll," "Suddenly, Last Summer," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' and' "A Streetcar Named Desire" - may have struck some people as a complete character-turnabout, but not the person who really understoo·d Williams and his plays.

Dakin Williams, the playwright's brother who became a convert during World War Il and who was instrumental in Tennessee's conversion, recalls that as early as 1960, he, Dakin, wrote an article for a Catholic magazine and titled it: "Is Tennessee Williams a 'Catholic' Playwright?"

The article not only gave Dakin's detailed reasons for a "yes" answer but also pointed out that Tennessee was also "aware of his blood relationship to one of the greatest saints in history, Saint Francis Xavier."

According to "carefully documented family tradition,'' Dakin wrote, Tennessee is descended from the saint's brother, Valentine Xavier, a name Tennessee gave to the hero of his play, "Orpheus Descending."

According to news reports of Tenn..lff's INiptism into the C•thollc F•lth by • priest In Key West, the 54-y•.r-old playwright told the priest he h•d been • C.thollc In spirit all his· life. When Dakin first su11..ted the idH nine ye•n qo, along with the su11estlon th.t "•II of his pl•ys, rightly understood, ue morality pl•ys," many rHcl-

en thought the article should have been printed in the mqazlne's fiction ..ctlon.

Nevertheless, Dakin analyzed a number of Tennessee's plays. including 'The Glass Menagerie," "Sweet Bird of Youth," "The Rose Tattoo" and "Summer and Smoke" and discovered th•t "Tennessee, in his writings, has exhibited an increasing interest in catholicism." Other plays illustrated his deep concern with lost innocence. (The priest who bapUzed Tennessee said the playwright told him "be wanted bis goodness back again.'')

Of his growing' interest in catholicism, Dakin cited a scene in "The Rose Tattoo" in which the heroine is unsuccessful in imploring the village priest to reveal the secrets of her dead husband's confession so that she might dispel her doubts about his faithfulness to her.

"Moreover, I was interested to find in the printed stage directions for the theater version of 'Suddenly, Last Summer' an allusion ·to the Blessed Sacrament," Dakin wrote. " 'She lifts a thin gilt-edged volume from the patio as if elevating the Host before the altar'."

Tennessee once said be was hurt to think that people con· sidered him primarily as a "sordid, tragedy-obsessed, and controversial writer," Dakin reported. "He would rather think of his characters in terms of their spiritual assets--courage, generosity, humor, honesty, sympathy -than in terms of their failings."

Of "Streetcar Named Desire," Dakin said there can be "no valid moral objection to the exposure of this sort of sin in human nature," referring to Stanley Kowalski's brutality and selfishness in d e s t r o y i n g Blanche DuBois' illusions about herself.

St. Paul In "Summer and Smoke," the spiritually-minded daughter of a clergyman succeeds in conteitiiig the carnally-inclined son of a physician to a belief in God, but the daughter-named Alma, Spanish for "soul"-herself succumbs to the sensual side of her nature. Dakin ol> served that this was an obvious dramatization by Tennessee of St. Paul's admonition that one should take care that in saving another's soul he not lose his own.

In both "Orpheus Descending" and "Sweet Bird of Youth," the heroes lament their lost innocence. In "Orpheus," Val Xavier speaks of a strange sky-colored bird that never lands on earth, but stays clean and untouched high in the sky near the sun: "I'd like to be one of those

birds and never be corrupted.''

"Sweet Bird of Youth" Chance Wayne laments bis co~­ ruption by life and seeks to recapture his "sweet bird of youth"-his lost innocence.

"Though the forces of .vii often triumph in Tennes...'1 plays." his brother concludN, It Is becauM these forces triumph In the world, but "no one can doubt th.t TenMS1M's own sylftlNfhl" lie with the Blanch" and Almas, the Valentine Xevlen and the Chance Waynes. He laments the loa of their Innocence, their llv.., and their souls."

"What he is searching for,!'

Dakin wrote in 1960, "and is yet to fiild, is hope and redemption-pardon for the sinner in the mercy of an all-loving God Who will reward the sinner who succeeds in overcoming the evil effects of sin. As a searcher after truth, Tennessee may yet be led by bis writings to what I have found to be the fountain of all Truth, the Church."

In

This YleekS Movies

By Judith Crist

Saturday, PBS

Tuesday, ABC

Saturday, NBC Sunday, ABC Monday, ABC Monday, NBC Tuesday, NBC

Ivan the Terrible, Part I The Alamo (Part I) The Ten Commandments Riot The Alamo (Part II) Fools' Parade

If Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? comes to prime-time network television, can "I Am Curious (Yellow)" be far behind? The question is indeed one to po"'1er, because Ernest Lehman's 1966 film of the Edward Albee awardwinning 1962 four-character stageplay is on hand, with, we are told, "minimal" cuts.

A Broadway and movie milestone at very least in language in its time, Albee's study of a night in the life of a sadomasochistic . marriage may well have lost its initial sensation over the years. The movie itself, with Mike Nichols making his directorial debut in film, was undoubtedly overpraised simply because it was not a Doris-Day-domestic-fracas bowdlerization of the text; it retained many of Albee's expletives and was even more explicit than the play in that it visualized adultery, albeit in silhouette. The actors-Richard Burton as the sensitive professor; Elizabeth Taylor as his shrike-wife; George Segal as the sycophantic young faculty man, and Sandy Dennis as his drowned-rabbit wife--are excellent. Miss Taylor, gross of body and coarse of tongue in her first character role (one she clung to in several films since), and Miss Dennis, in her film debut, won Oscars. Even despite that "minimal" cutting, however, today's audience might wonder what the fuss was about. But while the opening-up of the play and blue-penciling may have vitiated tbe play's intellectual power and emotional purgation, one can at least hear Albee plain and ponder the precision of his scalpel.

A-6 TV GUIDE

A Brand New LHe

Wednesday, ABC And No One Could Save Her Wednesday, NBC The Norlin Tapes Thursday, CBS

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Friday, CBS

Wait Until Dark

Those for whom Albee is heady stuff may prefer Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 remake of his own 1923 The Ten Commandments, which was considered pretty racy back then. This superspectacular $13,000,000, 25,000-extras (including genuine Egyptians) star-laden story of man's discovery of divine law has everything a Hollywood Biblical should, from moments of grandeur and glory right down to a romantic triangle 'twixt Anne Baxter, as a gauze-draped princess named Nefretiri; Charlston Heston, as Moses, and Yul Brynner as Rameses. For those who prefer art and intellect in the spectacular, there is, of course, the repeat of Serge: Eisenstein's 1943 classic Ivan the Terrible, Part I. The week's third prime-time theatrical premiere is of Riot, a 1969 exploitation film that dresses up the prison-break cliches of the '30s with sex, sadism and blood lust and panders to its audience with Jim Brown nonacting his way along as superhero.

The late-movie premieres are worthwhile. Tuesday's, 10 Rilllngton Place, is an absorbing crime film, a factual recounting of the Christie-Evans case (Evans was posthumously pardoned 12 years after his hanging for murders Christie had committed) that was a major factor in the abolition of capital punishment in England. The story is prosaic, the characters dull, stupid wretches and the banality of evil is thereby epitomized. Richard Attenborough's Christie is a masterwork of introverted evil under the mask of midContinued on page A-8

World Film Sales Of ·Britam Having ·Expansive Period Berlin, July 13.

Foll<J1Wing two consecutive film fests, Cannes and Berlin, in which his company had officially competing entries ~"Bloomfield" here and the Grand Prize-winning "GoBetween" in Cannes), John Heyman's World FHm Saies is anticipating even busier times ahead.

London-based company, per Its exec v.p. Ian Jessel, has jl16t taken over foreign sales of the stillshooting "David and · Catriona," which Rank will release in the U.K. Yank sale is nearly set, and Jessel bas been screening a 45min. sampling to buyers here in Berlin during fe6t.

Upcoming on the World Film Sa'les slate are "The Creeping l nesh" with Peter Cushing and Christapher Lee, to start in August at London's Shepperton Studios; "Brave Neiw World," which a Yank major will probaibly take for Western · Hemisphere, leaving rest to WFS (pie is slated for a fall start with unfirmed cast proba'bly including Joanna Shimkus and Donald Sutherland, and Peter Hail ·directing); "The Man From Nowhere " aloso a falll sta'rter with n an · no an:Y teamed; "Tomor-........;il:lllll_.,. (already pre-sold starting Sept. 29 in Rome with Pete·r Collinson helming cast to include Lee J. Cotlb, Eli Wallach, Telly Savalas, Terence HioJij, Christopher Lee and with one lead still to be cast. · ~rther in fu.!fil:Ljl~ ~ more :Qurt:On stirrers: "Act of Treason," based on a Nicholas Monsarrat . boo~ and "Di~ ..HiSr .Diwrce Hers.'...' .sc.r.imed .by John orne a tar Burton a E

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