man of astounding talent and mis
chievous bent "Cocky and contented,"
Photoplay called him. He won a Hol
lywood contract by using all his ac
cumulated Army leave time to venture
to the German location of director
Douglas Sirk's A Time to lave and a
Time to Die There he won a small
part, that of a neurotic army officer He
also got busted, around the same time,
for arranging a gag in which he and
some cohorts invented a mythical
American film star named Rex Wrayne
and — through elaborate play acting —
made that imaginary an or front page
news at the Berlin Film Festival of
1957
Jim Hutton’s career peaked with a
string of light comedies He was
memorable alongside a very young
Jane Fonda in Period of Adjustment, a
1962 release He and Maryiine Poole
Adams. Tim's mother, divorced when
Tim was three
Most of Tim Hutton's growing up
was in Connecticut and in Berkeley,
California He lived with his mother,
quite apart from shew business influ
ences Exception came when young
Tim and friends staged a barnyard
production Oliver It was great," Hut
ton recalls i got to sing 1 had this
little, high voice "
When he was sixteen, Tim Hutton
moved to Los Angeles to live with his
father He enrolled at Fairfax High,
where he took the role of Nathan De
troit in a production of Guys and
Dolls He visited his father now and
again on the set of Ellery Queen, a TV
mystery series starring the elder Hut
ton Then the two starred together in a
dinner theatre production of Haney
Finally, Hutton the younger decided
acting was definitely what he wanted
He dropped from high school, scored
a General Equivalency' Diploma, and
auditioned for made-for-TV movies
His widest notice came for Enend/y
Eire, co-starring Carol Burnett and Ned
Beans
Beatty praised Hutton to writer
Bruce Ccxjk for American Etlm maga
zinc "I myself tend to be an actor who
makes broader choices," said Beatty,
so I appreciate an actor who can do
the same thing making more subtle
choices, working more or less inter
nally "
Robert Redford, who directed Ordi
nary People, has said that he saw
something that was natural in Hutton,
rather than something that was acting
The two spent a lot of time taking
walks together, tossing a football
around, establishing intuitive trust
Similarly, Hutton and George C Scott
built a rapport through the early days
of Tafts' shixiting schedule They heid
marathon chess games, all of them
won by Scott Chess spread like a
fever, lasting long after Scott had
filmed his short segment Just before I
walked in on Hutton, twelve of the
young cadet extras were at the same
long table, intent on six separate chess
matches.
"George doesn't like to sit down to
play just one game," Hutton says "You
keep going with him until you’ve
played five, six games in a row. It’s re
ally intense concentration 1 never beat
him. But by the time he left I was play
ing chess better."
The Stones tape has given way to
Weather Report Hutton is mouthing
percussion accents to "Birdland "
The press agent arrives at this point,
holding three naked cigarettes upright
"These are from your usual nicotine
supplier,” he says, and re-assumes his
horizontal position.
"You know," I comment, “Johnny
Carson and Chevy Chase also have
backgrounds in drumming. They’ve
said that it helped build their timing."
“Really’" Hutton's face flashes with a
nanosecond of delight, then levels off
again He genuinely likes to converse,
but he doesn't like the feeling of being
set up to talk about himself personally
I brought some drum pads along and
set them up in my hotel room so I can
play along with the tapes I wanted to
bring along a snare and a floor tom,
but I think that would drive people
crazy Anyone want a Snickers?” he
asks, offering from a small stash of
candy bars on the table
Do you have any particular notions
of what your strong points in acting
are? Say, timing for example?"
“Um ... I don't know. It’s sort of
tough to be objective about that. I just
sort of work from instinct. And not
really from any method I've learned.”
Instinct plus research, make that
Hutton is a voracious reader when
preparing a role. For Ordinary People
he read The Catcher in the Rye, A Sepa
rate Peace, East of Eden and a book on
psychological problems of the chil
dren of wealthy parents. He also spent
time talking with patients at mental
hospitals for teenagers, even posing as
a "trial" patient for a day. He says the
experience was “moving,” especially
when other patients un-seifcortsciously
checked his wrists for suicide-attempt
scars.
Taps motivated Hutton to read
American Caesar, a biography of Gen
eral George S. Patton, Herman Mel
ville's Billy Budd, and other books fo
cused on authority and conflict. In ad
dition, he spent four weeks living at
Valley Forge Academy before filming
began. I ask if Taps is a story of social
processes or a private, individual story.
"I'd say it was more private,” Hutton
comments. "Moreland doesn’t know
anything more than this private world
he lives in. He doesn’t have any broad
scope, any overview. So it’s more pri
vate, a world in which he is the com
mandant
It appears almost certain that Hut
ton’s influence will extend beyond the
gates of this fictional military academy.
But exactly where it, and his career,
will go, Hutton isn’t prepared to guess.
“1 don’t know," he says at the inter
view's close, "I can't really think in the
future, never really have been able to.
Cause it’s a very moment kind of thing,
from role to role. I mean, Ordinary
People and the success of that film has
given me the opportunity to, I’m sure,
for the next couple of years, find work.
But beyond that, I don’t know. I mean,
things just sort of happened. I was very
lucky.”
QN CCREEN
Reds
starring Warren Beatty , Diane Keaton,
Jack Nicholson. uritten by Warren Be
atty and Trevor Griffiths, directed by
Beatty
Radical journalist John Reed was
born in Oregon and was buried in
the Kremlin That quantum leap in ge
ography and the political polarity it
implies sum up Reed's extraordinary
life Although he was dead just a few
days after his 33rd birthday, his life
was crammed with more adventure
than most people ever know or want
to know He went to Harvard, wrote
plays, organized with the Wobblies,
became a journalist, lived with one of
the richest and most controversial
women of her day (Mabel Dodge),
wrote poetry, broke hearts, traveled
with Pancho Villa and immortalized
the Russian Revolution in Ten Days
That Shook the World, a piece of
reportage that is now more notable
for its drama than for its truth. John
Reed was a star of his generation
and a legend in his own time.
Warren Beatty first discovered Reed
more than ten years ago and became
obsessed with putting his story on the
screen He ultimately spent more than
two years in production on Reds, and
between 133 and $40 million. The film
lasts three hours and nineteen minutes
and is a kaleidoscopic vision of Reed
and his times The film is audacious
and often startlingly successful, while
at the same time faint-hearted and
predictable.
Beatty, who wrote the screenplay
along with British playwright Trevor
Griffiths (with reported assistance
from Elaine May and Robert Towne),
chose to focus on Reed's affair and
marriage to Louise Bryant, a tempera
mental and tempestuous woman who
craved the spotlight but was never cer
tain she could win it on her own.
When she met Reed, she not only
found a lover, but a ticket to the fame
and fortune (not in the monetary
sense) she coveted. She was, without
too much of a stretch, Bianca to Reed’s
Mick.
Diane Keaton plays Louise, and at
times it’s a very daring and amazingly
subde performance. She's not afraid to
let the audience think she's frivolous
and unlikeable. She never stoops to
woo the audience By die end, when
her maturity and commitment to Reed
are tested in the extreme, her anguish
and strength are all the more compel
ling At times Keaton seems a bit too
modem; some of her political spout
ings sound as if they were left over
from Woody Allen's Love and Death
Beatty is a fine producer and an in
teresting director, but he's a limited
actor. He’s best at playing men who
are so slow that life eats them up
<Bonnie and Clyde or McCabe and
Mrs Miller), or California golden boys
who belong in bed (Shampoo). He
doesn't begin to convey Reed's com
pelling intelligence or his clarity of
thought; he’s much too anxious to
please. Beam- never shows us Reed’s
darker side, his selfishness, his devils.
The complexity of the man is missing.
Also, and this is most curious of all,
the sexual chemistry between Beatty
and Keaton is all but non-existent.
They never ignite on the screen, al
though we keep expecting them to.
This has been sold as a movie not un
like Doctor Zhivago, although it’s a far
better movie, it doesn’t tug at us the
way that film did. In fact it isn’t until
Reds is just about over that Keaton and
Beatty manage to break our hearts,
particularly in the one totally apocry
phal element in the movie — Bryant’s
trek across Finland and Russia to find
her ailing lover.
This Ls not to say that Reds is without
sexual chemistry, but it’s supplied by
Jack Nicholson, who shows up briefly
as playwright Eugene O’Neill. Nichol
son's scenes with Keaton are the best
written in the movie, and although she
doesn't give off much raw passion,
Nicholson gives off so much we forget
the imbalance.
Beatty has also shown his courage
by inter-cutting his drama with
straight-to-the-camera testimony from
people who lived through that same
era. Like Marcel Ophuls in The Sorrow
and the Pity, Beatty has let people who
knew Reed and Bryant talk about
them. Some remember everything all
wrong and some have an axe to grind,
but the device is riveting. The major
objection is that Beatty never identifies
these people and it just isn’t fair. Some
faces may be recognized, such as
Henry Miller or George Jessel; but
how many people know Rebecca West
by sight or Roger Baldwin, the founder
of the ACLU?
All in all, Reds is a movie to see. It’ll
give quite a history lesson to most au
diences, as radical Americans are not
exactly well represented in main
stream history texts, and it has a scope
and daring that few Hollywtxxl movies
have these days. Betty has crammed
his movie with people and places,
ideas and emotions; although he’s not
always successful in making them
coalesce, he’s on a very right track that
few filmmakers these days ever bother
to mount Jacoba Atlas
On Golden Pond
Starring Henry Fonda, Katharine Hep
bum and Jane Fonda; written by Er
nest Thompson; produced by Bruce
Gilbert; directed by Mark Rydell.
Simple stories often make the best
films. Ernest Thompson’s On
Golden Pond, adapted from his play of
the same name, is a simple story, well
told, and it speaks of life. In Mark
Rydell’s care, the story has made an
excellent transition to the screen.
Norman Thayer, Jr. (Henry Fonda)
and his wife, Ethel (Katharine Hep
burn), have returned to spend the
summer at their rustic home on
Golden Pond in rural New Hampshire.
Norman’s 80th birthday is approaching
and in celebration of the event, daugh
ter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) arrives from
her home in California with current
flame Bill (Dabney Coleman), a den
tist, and his son, Billy (Doug McKeon).
The two lovers dash off to Europe,
leaving this 13-year old in octagenarian
hands, a situation that begins badly but
ends warmly. Chelsea returns alone
(Bill had to rush home to aid a pa
tient) and has a reconciliation of sorts
with her father, with whom she's been
at odds all her life. As summer ends,
the couple, in pretty fair shape for two
old birds, pack up and head home to
Boston for the winter.
Superb performances from Fonda
and Hepburn as a pair who've been
together for around 50 years, and still
care deeply for each other, make On
Golden Pond a special event. Fonda is
stunning as the cranky, complaining
Norman. He’s got a right to be mad:
he’s old, he's losing his memory, he’s
got angina, he feels death constantly
hovering about, "You’re old and I’m
ancient," he tells Ethel in a fit of pique.
"I’ll show you the bathroom, if I can
remember where it is," he says to
Billy, overhearing remarks about his
fading memory. During a particularly
feisty exchange on death, Ethel says,
"Don’t you have anything else to think
of?", to which he responds, "Nothing
quite as interesting.”
Yet for all its sentimentality, the film
is often hilarious. Norman gets the
best lines and Fonda is delightful,
throwing out one dry, crackling line
after another, all delivered without a
twinge of a smile. In most cases,
cliched instances of melodrama have
been admirably avoided by Thompson
and Rydell, though the relationship be
tween Norman and Billy is sometimes
a little too dear. And Ms. Fonda’s play
ing of Chelsea doesn’t seem to ring
true. But the flaws are slight and the
lead performances remarkable.
Zan Stewart
Buddy Buddy
starring Jack Lemmon and Walter
Matthau,- written by Billy Wilder and l.
A L Diamond, based on a play and
story by Francis Veber; produced by
Jay Weston; directed by Wilder
Veteran director and writer Billy
Wilder fell short in the making of
Buddy Buddy Rather than being an
outrageous comedy, the film is merely
an outrage. It's sad to see such a pro
(Some Like it Hot, Sunset Boulevard,
The Seven Year Itch) plod haplessly
about like a fly trying to run a 50-yard
dash through a vat of peanut butter.
W’aiter Matthau plays a highly-paid
underworld hitman, who has rubbed
out two victims, one by bomb, the
other by poison. He’s about to make
the final kill in his illustrious career.
Enter Jack Lemmon, a distraught hus
band whose wife (Paula Prentiss) has
run off with the director of a sex clinic
(Klaus Kinski). As Matthau stands
poised from a hotel window with his
high-powered rifle about to blow away
the target mobster, Lemmon in the
room next door constantly distracts the
assassin by loudly, and ineptly, at
tempting suicide. That is the plot in a
nutshell — although a trash bag might
have been a better place for it.
While Matthau barely manages to
muddle through this farce with the
tired mugging and deadpan delivery
we’ve seen so many times before,
Lemmon fairs far worse. His histrionic
antics wear thin, calling to mind a
combination of the stuttering Mel Tillis
crossed with a tired Daffy Duck. Pren
tiss and Kinski often look about as
animated as cigar store indians.
The real fault lies with the writing of
Wilder and cowriter I. A L. Diamond.
These two old pros show a lack of
originality as they’ trod over well-worn
comedic territory. Tired jokes about
policemen, sex, drugs and hippies
0hippies? Good grief!) inhabit this list
less and tasteless script.
The one thing that is amazing about
the film is that it manages to fail on so
many different levels. Buddy Buddy is
about as dated as last year’s calendar,
and just as useless.
Bill Braunstein