Battling a wild river
in a wild land
a pig. Just as Ed is about to meet the same fate,
Lewis (who was more prepared for the journey
than any of the others—remember the message on
his wet suit) fires a perfect center shot to kill one
of the assailants with an arrow.
The second mountaineer gets away and leaves
the four city men with their biggest dilemma—
what to do with the obdy. While the other three are
willing to hide the man in the woods, Drew holds
out for taking him to the city and facing up to the
establishment organizations. In so doing he seals
his fate.
This movie is about surviving after all of the
establishment organizations have crumbled.
Drew can not survive without the establishment,
so he can not survive.
This survival message is given voice by Lewis.
But in the end, it is Eld who faces the face-to-face
confrontation between civilization and survival.
Besides the outstanding jobs turned in by the
four voyagers and the mountain people, Dickey
himself does a good job as the sheriff—the
representative of the establishment even in the
mountains—who puts the survivors to still another
test after they get off the river.
With Dickey so involved in the movie, it is
somewhat surprising that he would have allowed
the Aiming to take place without supplying the
viewer with the same type of motivational in
formation he supplied the reader.
But then maybe he, too, got caught up in the
excitment of the Aim. That’s easy to do. It’s a
damned exciting—as well as intense and
frightening—movie.
Art Bushnell
movies
Lady Sings the Bines
Directed by Sidney J. Furie
“Lady Sings the Blues” draws you
into the story of Billie Holiday so fast
and so far that it is hard to sit back and
look at it as a film.
Billie Holiday’s life encompassed cat
houses, cheap clubs, magnificent
success, deep despair, dope, and jail.
She paid her dues so many times and
in so many ways, especially in the film,
that a television soap opera couldn’t do
better as far as sheer tragedy goes.
The events, though highly roman
ticized in sports, show plainly that
talent can’t overcome racism. Billie
(Diana Ross) walks out of a whore
house into a sleazy club. From there
signs with an all-White band that tours
the South waiting for that “big Break.”
While on tour she sees a Black man
lynched, her bus is attacked by Klan
smen and in one sequence when the
band leader goes into a restaurant to
get her a sandwich he turns to her and
says “you’re not missing a thing.”
Blatant but true.
The climb is too tough lor Billie. She
turn to dope. It is this that provides the
most graphic scenes of the movie. The
agony and horror of what dope can do is
spread so thick across the screen that it
is clear that director Sidney J. Furie
Furie uses Billie Holiday’s troubles as
propoganda against dope.
Diana Ross can actually act. She
must play Billie from her early teens
when she is scrubbing floors in a cat
house all the way to her triumphant
concert at Carnegie Hall. This in itself
requires a great deal of talent, but
considering that she is in almost every
scene of the movie, the range of her
acting talent is broad indeed. Her
singing is full of emotion but trying to
copy such a great singer as Billie
Holiday implies that her singing is a bit
mechanical.
Ross’ scenes when she is either high
on dope or suffering from not having
any are probably the most graphic to be
seen outside of the real thing. It is to
her credit that they are so horrifying.
Billie Dee Williams as Lewis McKay
her lover, is a loser. He may be good
looking and he may have the brightest
teeth since Ipana toothpaste wait off
the market, but his mumblings and
blank stares leave a great (teal to be
desired.
Richard Pryor as Piano Man is the
biggest loser. He plays the part like a
loser too. It seems that he really wasn’t
given any lines but that he was just
allowed to mumble, rap and appear
cute. He is not cute. Pryor may be one
of the best comedians around but you
can’t see that in this film.
As the movie progresses, you realize
that Billie Holiday can’t win. She tries
to kick dope but is arrested at the
hospital. She makes a big comeback
after she gets out of prison but can’t
perform in the downtown clubs because
her cabaret license has been lifted. She
• travels across the country in a fan
tastically successful tour, but despair
about going home sets in and she once
again turns to dope.
Carnegie Hall is hers when she comes
back. But not the clubs. Jail looms
large again and then a tragic death.
Screenwriters Terrence McCloy,
Chris Clark and Suzanne de Passe have
structured this movie to keep the
viewer enthralled. But at times it is
hard to believe that her life was this
slick and evenly paced. The viewer
gets the idea that the tragedy of her life
was too colorful and too bright to be
true. .
‘Lady Sings the Blues” is hard to
describe and hard to judge. At worst it
is melodrama; at best it is a tragic
story. It is just put together too well to
be real.
Bill Bucy
The Getaway
Directed by Sam Peckinpah
Edited by Steve McQueen
“The Getaway” is the second most
exciting movie in town (after
“Deliverance”), but it isn’t the best of
Sam Pickinpah’s films. In fact, it isn’t
even entirely his.
Naturally the director was involved
extensively in the pre-film planning of
the movie, so the script and action
revolve around a pure Peckinpah plot.
But the end result is impure Peckinpah,
as edited by the film’s star, Steve
McQueen.
“The Getaway” was one of the first
productions of the new First Artists
Production Company and raises
questions about stars owning the
company that makes their movies.
Quite simply, the star of this movie —
McQueen — is one of the owners of the
film he’s working in (other founders of
First Artists include Barbara Streisand
and Dustin Hoffman).
And the movie reflects McQueen’s
position of power. He went over some
of Peckinpah’s original shooting as film
editor and left his mark on what began
as Peckinpah’s film.
The end result is a movie along the
same story line as “Straw Dogs,” but
put together like “Bullitt.” And it is
that Bullittesque editing that detracts
very much from an otherwise good
movie — if you like Peckinpah’s blood
and guts approach to excitement.
But even McQueen couldn’t entirely
hide Peckinpah’s influence. The film is
quite similar in plotline to the director’s
previous works.
Just as in “Straw Dogs,” the film
follows the coming of age, the at
tainment of manhood by an outsider —
in this case McQueen as Carter “Doc”
McCoy, bank robber.
Just as in “Straw Dogs,” the man’s
wife is unfaithful to him for his own
good — here Ali McGraw’s body is used
to gain McCoy’s release from prison at
the outset of the film.
And just as in “Straw Dogs” the wife
and husband are reunited by physical
suffering and a violent showdown in
which the two of them take on fantastic
odds, kill the enemies who so greatly
outnumber them — and in the process
become more permanently bound to
each other than ever before. In “The
Getaway,” all of this action takes place
as McQueen and McGraw escape from
a bank robbery, fighting police, the
gang McQueen robbed for and one of his
rebellious co-workers.
McQueen is good in the lead role —
after all, he tailor made the movie to
perfectly fit him.
McGraw at times leaves something to
be desired, however, as the wife. She is
least believable whenever she has to
pick up a gun and kill someone — once
the character starts firing, she can’t
seem to stop and MacGraw just can’t
pull it off. How could that nice girl that
died of cancer ever do something so
mean and cruel? At times she really
does look like she stepped into all the
carnage straight from “Love Story.”
During the course of the getaway, one
of Doc’s wounded partners in crime
takes a county veterinarian and the
vet’s wife hostage to aid him in pur
suing McCoy. Sally Struthers as the
vet’s wife is superb. A real gum
chewing, radio-listening housewife who
gets hooked on the excitement brought
into her life by the bandit emerges. A
far cry from “All in the Family.”
All in all, the film is quite exciting
since it’s really one continuous chase
scene with violent stopovers. But
Peckinpah could have done better;
perhaps he did. McQueen’s editing
intrusion into the film prevents the
viewer from knowing exactly what
Peckinpah had in mind.
One thing’s certain about McQueen’s
involvement in the final version of the
film. As McCoy and his wife drive
toward the horizon and whatever kind
of questionable future they might have
together in Peckinpah’s mind, you can’t
help but think they should be riding in a
Le Mans race car, or maybe even a
motorcycle.
Then McQueen’s handiwork would be
complete; his brand would be on the
entire film.
Art Bushnell