Films
Photo oourtaay Columbia Picture)
"California Suite 's" Walter Matthau might consider this a night to forget
in a scene with a call girl (Denise Galik), thoughtfully provided by
Matthau’s brother. Galik becomes slightly tipsy and overly immobile
and is eventually found the next morning by Matthau's wife, played by
tiaine May.
California Suite
Directed by Herbert Ross
Valley River Twin
And you thought they only raise
oranges in Southern California.
Wrong. If Neil Simon’s California
Suite is any indication, they also
raise turkeys.
The ads for this film claim it is
the funniest film of the new year.
That’s like saying last week's rate
of inflation was the lowest for the
new year.
California Suite is not often
funny. This is the type of film after
which one hears members of the
audience muttering, “But it got
such good reviews.”
Herewith is a bad review.
California Suite consists of four
very separate vignettes spliced
together so that we don’t have a
chance to become too bored at
any one time with any particular
vignette. Two vignettes deal with
‘serious” aduR relationships —
Simon attempts to prove he is a
mature writer. Two deal with slap
stick situations and prove that
Simon is very much an immature
writer.
According to Simon, serious
adult relationships make for a lot
ii
of bitching and snide remarks. In
one adult segment, Jane Fonda,
as a New York career woman,
goes to California in pursuit of her
daughter, who has opted to live
with her laid-back dad (Alan Alda),
Fonda’s ex-husband. Fonda
bitches at Alda, who lays back and
catches. Fonda’s acting is good,
Alda’s drab. Will the daughter stay
in California or return to Newi
York ? If she had a sense of humor
she would leave bote parents.
The other adult segment is
about an English actress, played
by Maggi Smith, who with hei
antique-dealer husband (Michae
Caine) has gone to California tc
attend the Oscar ceremonies be
cause she has been nominated
for an Oscar.
Caine prefers young men to th«
aging Smith. Theirs is obviously
meant to be a funny but touchine
relationship. After all the Eng list
bitching that goes on betweer
Smite and Caine (as opposed tc
the American bitching that goes
on between Fonda and Alda, I was
not touched. The problem is tha
Simon tries to tie everything up
into a neat Hollywood package
where a happy ending is assurer
-a
Am m,
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pains to be realistic. Real life
doesn’t make for neat packages.
The same fault troubles the Fonda
segment. The result is phoniness
and wasted first-rate acting jobs
by Fonda, Caine and Smith.
When Simon confines himself
to simple, slapstick situations he
manages to elicit some laughs.
But the slapstick segments —
skits, really — are as old as the
hills.
In one skit Walter Matthau fran
tically tries to hide a drunken
hooker from his wife (Elaine May),
who has shown up at their hotel at
the wrong moment. Matthau is
funny, May acts like a zombie.
In the other skit, vacation cou
ples — Bill Cosby is one husband,
Richard Pryor the other—rub one
another the wrong way and even
tually come to blows. In the thea
ter where I viewed the film this
segment was the only one which
consistently evoked laughter.
I’m not, by the way, prejudiced
against Neil Simon work, I saw
The Goodbye Girl and enjoyed it.
In fact, I appeal to you to wait for its
sequel — don’t waste money on
California Suite or they might be
encouraged to make a sequel to it,
too. Please spare me the chore of
reviewing a sequel. I’d rather stay
home and watch repeat episodes
of The Love Boat and Fantasy Is
land. By William Kogut
The Wiz
Directed by Sidney Lumet
National Theatre
When pleaded with recently to
sing “Over the Rainbow” for a
screaming collection of her
mother’s fans, Liza Minelli cooly
replied, “It’s been done."
Miner's determination to do
instead of redo has assured that
she won’t have to share the room
Judy Garland has reserved in the
hearts of fans and on the pages of
National Enquirer.
| The same determination distin
guishes The Wiz as a musical that
stands independently from the re
vered 1939 classic starring Judy
Garland, which was actually a re
make of a 1925 silent movie ver
sion.
* I VwUvVI W l\l lw™ MIWJ » *» --
when the staged Broadway musi
cal collected seven Tony awards
including best musical in 1975.
More than $20 million was spent
putting the hit on film and a similar
budget promoted it with splashy
color ads, a double album, even a
poorly written novelization of the
movie.
There’s something about see
ing a Wiz scrapbook and a Wiz
novel go on sale at Hirons that
takes the charm out of lauding a
good film. But what you can't laud,
you can enjoy.
The music, staging and attitude
of the movie are energetic and
original; delighting in an updated,
transplanted land of Oz, spoofing
and complementing the original
story. The Wiz is wittier, less pre
tentious and more lighthearted
than its grandmother.
The Wiz’s Dorothy, Diana Ross,
is a black school teacher from Har
lem. She’s never been to Kansas,
much less wanted to go back.
Judy Garland discovered that all
rainbows lead to Auntie Em’s back
yard. Diana Ross finds them in her
own soul — “You must believe in
yourself — la da, da da daaa. .."
As one might expect, it’s Diana
Ross who pulls the movie to
gether, and, like Judy Garland,
does so without a costume
change. Her irrepressible spirit,
expressive voice and sense of
presence are principal delights in
the movie.
Ross is one of those dassy per
formers who exudes all the energy
she can summon, employing even
her posture to develop her mood.
Strong supporting perfor
mances from Ted Ross (no rela
tion), the lion, and Mabel King as
Evillene, the wicked witch of the
west, add to the effects. EviUene’s
scene produces both the most
memorable line of the movie:
“Would you like mustard or
sauerkraut.. .with your hot dog 7’
and the most memorable song,
“No Bad News.”
Caked with make-up and bur
dened with a costume of fur, Ted
Ross manages to be the most
emotionally versatile of the sup
porting crew, often without resort
ing to dialogue.
~emu
Food Service
ing: Michael Jackson never
seems to break through puberty in
his portrayal of the scarecrow and
Nipsy Russell merely lives up to
the standards of dramatic in
terpretation he and Arlene Francis
set as panelists on “What’s My
Line.”
Music from the movie is lively
and enjoyable, deriving most of its
effect from staging and choreog
raphy, though none of the cuts
stands on its own when transfer
red to vinyl.
Seeing the movie is enjoyable.
Trying to recapture that enjoy
ment through promotionobilia
isn’t. By Tom Wolfe
The Boys From Brazil
Directed by Franklin J. Schaff
ner
West 11th Walk-In Cinema
In The Boys From Brazil the
premier actor of the English
speaking theatre, Sir Lawrence
Olivier, plays a wizened old Jew
who hunts Nazis and is called
upon to deliver lines such as, “So
there are Nazis in Paraguay, so
vat else iss new?” The quintes
sential American hero, Gregory
Peck, plays the mad Nazi scien
tist, Dr. Joself Mengele (known af
fectionately by his former patients
as “The Angel of Death”).
In the film Mengele has cloned
94 little Hitlers and is about to
carry out the assassinations of all
the clones’ stepfathers. The step
fathers' deaths, hopes Mengele,
will duplicate the traumatic loss of
a father the original young Hitler
suffered. Thus not only will flesh
have been duplicated but envi
ronment as well, and as Mengele
puts it, "Vee VHI haf a Hitler tailor
made for the BOs.”
“Who voud belief such a pre
posterous story?” asks Olivier.
“Only a dummkopf,” answers
this reviewer. It’s impossible to
take this film seriously. But if one
does find the fanciful idea of clon
ing Hitler the least bit interesting,
then the film constitutes good, en
joyable trash. The build-up to the
revelation of Mengefe’s plan is
well-paced, the various assassi
nations are as clever as any in a
James Bond film, and the climax
— involving Peck, Olivier, a Dack
of killer Doberman Pinschers and
a young American Hitler clone —
is wonderfully contrived. The final
scene is a let-down (Olivier’s ac
tions are not worthy of a true Nazis
hunter), but manages to leave the
door open for a sequel. By W1I-.
Ham Kogut
Archie critics
plan ‘payoff
benefit bash
While Archie laughs, the Citi
zens Cooperating to Recall
Weinstein are $900 in debt from
their defeated campaign effort.
The group hopes to remedy that
situation at the Weinstein Payoff
Ball Friday, 9 p.m„ in the Eugene
Hotel’s King Cole Room.
The benefit dance and party will
feature Billy Dee and the Party
Kings and The Raccoons. Both
bands are donating their time for
the evening, and other local musi
cians will be sitting in as well.
The Recall Slaughter Players
will present some irreverent thea
ter, tentatively entitled “The Pimp
and the Paupers." With a title like
that, Archie won’t be the only one
laughing.
Tickets are $2.50 for the im
poverished, $3.50 for the unim
poverished. Must be 21 or over to
attend; ID is required.