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About The print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1977-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 2, 1983)
arts Curtain rises on ‘Androcles and the Lion’ Curtain at Clackamas Community College’s Theater Department’s Winter term production, “Androcles and the Lion,” will be at 8 p.m. this Thursday, Fri day, and Saturday, and next week March 11 and 12 in the McLoughlin Theater. There will also be a special 2:30 p.m. matinee on Sunday, March 13. Tickets are now available at 50 cents for College students holding a current ASB card. Gold card holders are free. General Admission is $3 and students $2. For ticket information or reservations call the College at 657-8400, ext. 356 or 283. Photos by Duane Hiersche Acting, direction prove a plus for bad ‘Jimmy Dean’ By F.T. Morris For The Print Chaplin’s movies are con sidered classic examples of content over form, in that the onscreen action makes the flat direction forgivable. Robert Altman’s “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” is perhaps a classic example of just the op posite. Here is a movie filmed and acted with such beauty that one keeps forgetting that the script is truly awful. Altman directed the stage version late last year on Broad way, and it bombed with amaz ing swiftness. No matter how it may have looked on stage, Ed Graczyk’s play just isn’t any good. Altman then recon structed the single set in a Manhattan loft and shot it with his Broadway cast very quickly and on a low budget. The hur riedness of the project is what makes one so unprepared for the loveliness of the movie. Altman is unequaled as a director when it comes to film ing a long dialogue scene; and this movie, a long afternoon of conversation, is right up his alley. The plot concerns a reu- Wednesday March 2, 1983 nion of a James Dean fan club twenty years after his death in 1955. That premise has a lot of possibilities, but Graczyk con tinually apes Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh.” The characters, which at the begin ning promise to be funny and entertaining, are brought down to their knees and their preten sions and deep, dark secrets are made public. This isn’t ex actly what I look for by way of fun. Yet Altman is a fabulous director, and his sly camera movements during this long afternoon are graceful and seamless; this movie is all of a piece. And he has assembled a cast that is almost letter-perfect. In the past, Altman has specialized in unusual casting, often using performers against type. But here he uses his ac tors in ways that bring our opi nions of them to the surface. Cher, for example, is cast as Sissy, a good-time-gal, and it works not only because she proves to be an accomplished actress, but because of her slightly checkered past. Cher is quite a suprise here, but Sandy Dennis and Karen Black are just as good. At times it’s dif ficult to figure out who steals the show. Sandy Dennis has more mannerisms than even Katherine Hepburn, but they really fit her character, Mona, a woman of great pretensions. Mona is sickly and has delu sions of grandeur because she was an “extra” in the James Dean movie “Giant,” which was filmed a short distance from the setting of this movie. Karen Black is talented enough, but she has been so consistently misused that to think of her only recalls junky movies. But she is presented here in the best possible way, even though her part is too reminiscent of “Iceman” (she is brought into the story in order to strip the other characters bare). The smaller parts are capably handled, also. Kathy Bates and Marta Heflin are two other members of the fan club, and they are a real Laurel and Hardy, one hefty and crude, the other mousey and hilariously nervous. Susie Bond isn’t very likeable as Juanita, the owner of the five and dime, but her character isn’t meant to be likeable. Still, Bond could have managed to be both irritating and wat chable, but she isn’t. Newcomer Mark Patton, as Joe, an important character seen only in the flashbacks, is wonderful and achieves greatness by the simplest means. “Jimmy Dean” certainly won’t have viewers holding their breath to find out what happens next, because its so simpleminded. There is never any real suspense or tension in the women’s problems, because we can always guess what the outcome will be. But, with the help of a talented director and cast, getting their is more fun than one would im agine. Cougar speakers place at tourney The College’s speech competition. Sue Dumolt grab team, under the command of bed a second in the Open Coaches Frank Harlow and Division-Expository, and Linda Connie Connors, sallied forth Perkins brought home the gold to the Idaho panhandle last with a first place performance weekend to compete in the in the Open Division- Expository. North Idaho Invitational. The Cougar Grammarians Other participants includ took second place at the ed Lisa Baller, Scott Van 11-team tournament, which Cleeve, Harvey Wells, Melanie was held in Couer D’Alene, Wright, and Ward Moore. Coach Harlow recently re Idaho. The event took place on Feb. 25-26, and drew two and quested traveling money from four-year colleges from the Associated Student Government to send at least throughout the Northwest. Placing high for the Col five of his competitors to the lege’s team was Julie Van Or Nationals tourney, which will man, who took third place in be April 6-12 in San Antonio, _ the Open Division-Oratory Texas. Page 5