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Friday, October 31, 1975
University Daily Kansan
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Mutual disaffection SMIT Photo by DON PIERCE
Shelagh Abrams, played by Nancy Flagg, Pittsburg junior, and Jesse Jugehniem, played by Peter Miner, St. Louis graduate student, unwillingly become acquainted with each other in the play, playing nigdy through Thursday in Inge Memorial Theatre.
By WARD HARKAVY Contributing Writer
Philip Marlowe is the main character of "Farewell, My Lovely," a living film tribute to Raymond Chandler, who wrote the detective novel on which it's based. This is a new release, but it has the flavor of the 40s, the era in which Chandler wrote.
Marlore has been portrayed by several actors, among them Humphrey Bogart in "The Big Sleep." Robert Montgomery in "Lady in the Lake," Elliot Gould in "The Long Goodbye" and Dick Powell in "Murder, My Sweet."
BUT ROBERT MITCHUM, who plays an older Marlowe in 'Farewell, My Lovely,' perhaps comes closest to what
Chandler intended. Marlowe was a man of honor, whose judgments were sometimes wrong, a witty but sore small-town man, who was the mean streets of a seamy Los Angeles in search of the truth.
Such a character isn't always heroic. Chandler said Marlone wasn't very handsome, was middle-aged and pachy and wasn't much of a ladies' man. Can one think of Humphrey Bogart that way? Bogart was a great actor and "The Big Sleep," although confusion, was a very entertaining movie. But it wasn't really hard or terse enough to satisfy Chandra fans.
Dick Powell's performance in "Murder, My Sweet," (1944) changed him from an unsuccessful song-and-dance man to a dramatic actor and thus saved his career. "Murder, My Murder," the best adaptation of Chandler.
WHAT WORKS AGAINST "Farewell, My Lovely!" is that it and "Murder, My Sweet" were based on the same book. The title of the first version of "Farewell, My Lovely," was written in 1944, and musical when it was filmed in 1944, so the title was changed.
1944, so the title was changed. In spite of its being an important adaptation, "Farewell, My Lovely" doesn't suffer in comparison. Unlike Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye", which satirized Chandler, "Farewell My Lovely" takes
Rex Stout, good-bye
By WARD HARKAVY
By WARD HARRAVI
Contributing Writer
That fat detective with his passion for beer and orchids and for solving cases for money and identity, who can go on for hours but the guy who suffers the insults and the long hours and the idiosyncrasies of the fat detective.
They're gone.
Nero Wolfe, the fat detective, and Archia Goodwin, the long-suffering wise guy, were the creations of Rex Toddhunter Stout, who died Monday at the age of 88.
Stout was a Kansas for a time (were't they all?) although he was born in Noblesville, Ind. He was even the state's champion speller when he was 13. Stout worked as an itinerant bookkeeper, cigar salesman, stable hand and sightseeing guide in his travels.
Stout created something called Bank Day, a manifestation of a school banking system in 400 cities around the country, and he traveled around lecturing schoolchildren on the importance of
In 1934, Stout's first detective story, "Per-de-Lance," was published. He was hooked. Stout admired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashhell Hammett and many other mystery writers. His favorite book, according to one source, was *The Fool*. His wish was to write a great mystery novel.
From 1934 to 1975, Stout wrote more than 40 mysteries, most of them about the egistical Wolfe, which he invented two other detectives. But his, and our, main interest was Nero Wolfe.
Nero Wolo is a huge, blubbery genius who rarely ventures outside his New York City brownstones in a m.a. every day. He's working on a case. Wolf consumes up to six quartes of beer daily,
much of it while washing down the sumptuous
meaty feasts that are fixed by his cook. Fritz.
His most interesting employee, however, is Archie Goodwin, a young and fairly bright jack-of-all-tries. Some readers are offended by the sometimes abrasive Archie. But Archie is necessary to Wolfe; he is the one who does all the running around for the sedentary detective. He brings Wolfe into contact with the outside world—and with the reader.
Nero Wolea has acquired quite a following over the years. Alexander Woolcott claimed to have been the model for his friend's detective hereto, but Stukt dewd it. Only one movie has been made that our fat friend, "M meet Nero Wolea", starring Edward Arnold as Wolea and Lionel Stander as Archie.
Some have said that the reason there haven't been more adaptations of Wolfe is that Stout wasn't interested in writing screenplays or selling the commercial rights. It's just as well. The casting of Jim Hutton as TVS's new Ellery Queen makes the idea of the moguls' finding anyone to properly portray Wolfe too horrible to contemplate.
For those readers interested in learning about Nero Wolfe, William S. Baring-Gould wrote a delightful book in 1896, "Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-Fifth Street," which discusses the life story of America's fattest detective. Wolfe seems real in Raring-Gould's book.
Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are gone in the sense that their creator is gone. There will be no more new Rex Stout mysteries. But the books themselves are still here; many of them have been reprinted time after time and are readily available.
hard-boiled detective fiction seriously, as did "Murder, My Sweet."
Within those pages, Wolfe and Archie—and Rex Stout—still exist. That is good news.
Mitchum is physically perfect as Philip Marlowe. But more importantly, he conveys the ennui that is so much a part of the Marlowe character. One must remember that Marlowe is an imperfect but well-meaning knight fighting the often confusing and all-powerful forces of murder and corrupter. He has a unique ability to make mistakes. Mitchum is totally convincing as a detective who is far from perfect and anything but omniscient.
As in all Chandler mysteries, the protagonist is never fully aware of all the implications of his actions. He serves, instead, as a catalyst, trying to sort out immediate problems with the eye toward solving the main problem.
John Alonzo, who was responsible for much of the effective mood of "Chinatown," was the cameraman for "Farewell, My Lovely." Once again, the audience is treated to
a visual delight. The movie is in color, but it's almost monochromatically brown; there are shadows and oblique light patterns reminiscent of the best '40s film noir.
THE SCREENPLAY IS also effective in establishing a black tone and a threatening ambiance. There are a few character and name changes, such as a huge brothel madam substituting for a sinister doctor. The madam, played by Kate Murtagh, is a character that's similar to the ones formerly played by Hope Emerson.
As the Black Widow, the role played in other Chandler adaptations by Lauren Bacall and Audrey Totter, Charlotte Rampling is excellent. She exudes the fatal charm that so many of Chandler's women seemed to have.
One of the most interesting characters in "Farewell, My Lovely" is Moose Malloy, a giant ex-con who starts the unraveling of the plot. In "Murder, My Sweet," Malloy
was played by Mike Mazurki,
who did a creditable job. But
Jack O'Halloran, the newer
Moose Malloy, is much more
menacing than Mazurki ever
could have been.
HOWEVER, ONE MUST come back to Mitchum's performance to realize how important he is to the success of the movie. Mitchum is one of our finest actors. His macabre performance in Charles Laughton's "Night of the Hunter" is enough to make his reputation. In 1948, Mitchum portrayed a Marlowe-like character in the excellent movie, "Out of the Past." It seems incredible that could be still portrait a tough guy here after 27 years.
Although his face has acquired more lines and bigger bags, Mitchum is much the same now as he was then. He presents Marlowe as a tired man who can out the dumb plot. And the audience is glad to follow him as he does.
Return with the Beach Boys to those idyllic days of past
Reviewer
By TIM BRADLEY
During their first heyday, the Beach Boys were a rose among the ragewags of rock'n'roll radio. Their songs practically drooled simple sentiment and an outdoor ambiance that needed the back-to-the-garden boys by about three years.
With a Beach Boys record,
you could know the whirl of
idyllic adolescence even if you
were from Duluth and your
mother made you carry a
briefcase in the eighth grade
That was back in the old days, when everything was easier. Politics didn't mean anything 'cause you thought Henry Cabot Dugout had gone to Bayh a lumber transaction. Food and funds came from your
folks and all you ever had to buy at the drugstore was Clearasil.
Your pals are looking more for yukes than bucks and the Beach Boys provided the soundtrack to many a madcap day of maindrag cruising and technical virginity.
Now, after many changes by group and audience alike, the Beach Boys' music still professes the importance of good times and of "Fun, Fun, Fun," but also of fun, am, but the scope is a little more universal, a little more mature and worldwide.
the touching "Caroline, No" or to dazzle the brain with the monumental "Good Vibrations." Their swirling finger-in-ear harmonies fill every song with near-mantic intensity and thumbs-up exuberance. They can do more with a ba-oom-shooby-do-wop any than band in the land.
"Serious" songs such as "Don't Go Near the Water" comfortably coexist with capricious classical music. "I Gave Around." They still have the capacity to warm the heart with
Good music must have the ability to transcend and transport, and the Beach Boys' music can do that. It can transcend the problems of the day and transport you to carefree days when those prime-of-life hormones were blitzing out of control through your body and not too much was going through your head. Give the concert all you've got, all you are, and you'll have yourself a hoot.
Two-acter challenges audience
By EVIE RAPPORI
Entertainment Editor
By EVIE RAPPORT
Like Woolcott Gibbs, an editor and writer for the "New Yorker," I am, on the whole, hostile to puns. Most puns display a singular lack of careful attention to implication and a plodding slyness that beeps you to anlaud their cleverness.
But a good pun radiates vividly and declares both its creator and its defender, its aptness, its connotations, its implications. A good pun demands for its creator subtlety and its vivacious sensitivity.
"Congersonas," an original play by Paul Stephen Lam that has been performed at the Theatre, is an exhilarating display of verbal inventiveness that also succeeds as a sober personal commitment and rejection.
The continuous, brisk intellectual and verbal conceits on which the play progresses do not mask the sincerity of Lim's theme—the painful, often dangerous consequences of seeking the truth.
At the risk of contradicting various knowledgeable sources, the truth does not necessarily prove a statement and destroys one who encounters it, as Lim so ably demonstrates in his two-act play. As I think of it, he pushes him in the play's title itself.
As I think some more, that's exactly the kind of play this is. We begin with a fact, then proceeds through word games and variations to examine the myriad of less tangible realities behind the
Yet it does so with a hard-headed maturity that forces the audience to recognize the
Lim's play, the University's entry in the American College Theater Festival's original play, is set in the plush New York apartment of an advertising artist, who invites three people to dinner on a Thanksgiving day. Afterward, they spend five minutes before they arrive.
Paul Hough, as the twins, Miles and Mark, demonstrates a sensitive, plausible grasp of the priest's struggles with his brother's emotionally complicated life.
seriousness of its intentions. We may delight in recognizing an off-handed reference to T.S. Eliot's works but we must nonetheless acknowledge how the reference fits the situation.
The priest's confrontations with each of the guests reveal his relationship to their relationships they shared with his brother–relationships he is forced to recreate and, ultimately, reject as his brother
Peter Miner, as Jesse Jugendheimer, portrays his character's worldly cynicism and irony in the war of European sophistication.
find out what drove his brother to that ultimate act of rejection.
All are masterfully directed by David Cook, who has designed such completely appropriate blocking and engaging direction isn't even obvious a rare theatrical achievement.
Nancy Flagg plays Shelagh Abrams competently, presenting the character's
Greg Hill's aggressively stylish set captures perfectly the atmosphere of sophisticated that surrounds the whole play.
In all, "Compersonas" is an admirable, encouraging promising production, marked by a fine blend of literary and memorable and memorable for its provocative discussion of difficult topics.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas women's athletic department, and published in the women's periodical second-class postage paid at Lawndale semester or $12 a year in Des Moines County and $14 a year in Omaha. Subscriptions are $1.35 per subscriptions and paid through the university.
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Editor
Dorothy Ellsworth
aggressive femininity well.
shert Schlozem, as Shealgh's
daughter, Rhoda, also does well
an almost silent but effectful
role.
Assistant Business Manager Advertising Manager Jekel Kardu Roarty Parts
Assistant business manager Advertising manager Assistant Advertising Manager Linda Beach Manager Advertising Manager Debbie Service Promotion Director Promotion Director Danny Spencer Promotion Director Manager
Hashinger production simple actors treat characters well
University Theatre productions are often very professional, and costumes can be very professional. Yet it is nice, once in a white, to see a solid, tailored, student-directed production.
By JIM BATES
Artist Writing
The Hashinger Hall production of Noel Coward's *Biluth Spirit* is simple, fundamental and a nice thing to see.
Admittedly, it is a farce and, as such, allows the actors to get their fill. It also makes otherwise the skatter-brained maid-child Edith (Mary Lakey), for example, is overweight, is worth and the audience loves her.
The cast is well-balanced and
each member handles his stereotyped character very well. Madame Arcail (Misty Arcail) is a female spacial; Ruh (Valerie Meyers). Charles Condomine's second wife, is pure pseudo-intellectual; and Evela (Janet Kesamey) is supra-feminine and sexy.
Charles himself (James Stringer) is a mildly stuffy, maddeningly precise character, but is probably fun to play anyway, since he gets to say most of Coward's witticism.
And Coward has many witty idioms. The play, like most of Coward's works, uses words. Even if the plot had been awful (it wasn't!) and the characters 'unsympathetic' it might still be worth the 50 cent
"Bilite Spirit" is definitely worth seeing. The set is simple but sufficient, and Anne Abrams directs her small cast around the small stage very closely, only thing about the production that bothered me was its being billed as a Halloween treat.
donation it takes to get in just to hear Coward's flair for phrases
True, it has a ghost or two in
it, but it really doesn't have a
thing to do with black cats or the
color orange. I'm sure Coward
never thought of it as a
Halloween play.
But if you do happen to be sitting around this Halloween weekend with nothing to do, amaze your friends and go over to the kitchen entertaining as soaping windows and warmer as well.
Theater
This Week's
CONPERSONAS — Paul
'im's, highly original,
hallenging discussion of the
nuth and personal
commitment.
(8 p.m. nightly through Thursday in Inge Memorial Theatre.)
BLITHE SPIRIT—Noeel Coward's ethereal fluff about an English novelist, his second wife, his departed first wife and a zany medium trying to bring them all together.
HIGHLIGHTS
(8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in Hashinger Theater.)
Concerts
(8 p.m. Saturday in Allen Field House.)
BEACH BOYS—Old pros from the early days of surfin' and sunbleached swinging, mellowed somewhat by the times that have, indeed, been a 'changin.'
THE GLINKA QUARTET-
Select group of young Russian
musicians trained at the
Moscow Conservatory.)
(8 p.m. Tuesday in Swarthout Recital Hall.)
Exhibits
(through Nov. 16 in Kansas Union Gallery.)
(Through Nov. 23 In Museum of Art.)
ROSS M OFF E Y T
MONOTYPES "The sea and
the beaches around Provincetown,
and the harbor for
the places in this exhibit.
DESIGNER - CRAFTSMAN
EXHIBIT—Most local artists,
whose works were judged by
fellow artisans, have contributed collages, quilts and other original pieces.
ROBERT SUDLOW PAINTINGS-Eleighone eights by a KU professor of painting, distinguished for their intense study of regional landscapes, flora and fauna.
(Opening at 2 p.m. Sunday in 7E7 Gallery, 7 E. 7th Street.)
Films
LET'S DO IT AGAIN—Actor-director Sidney Potter's follow-up to "Uptown Saturday Night" is short on plot but long on emotion. The show sparked by Bill Cobay's chattering performance, reminiscent of Elliott Gould, Actors Osley Davis, Calvin Harper, Michael McCormack and comedian Jimmy Walker also contribute to the antics.
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY-
Raymond Chandler's best detective novel gets respectful treatment from director Dick Richards, camerman John Alonzo and an excellent cast, including Robert Mitchum, Michael Ripley, O'Halloran and Sylvia Miles. Mitchum is particularly good as Phillip Marlowe.
FANTASIA — Ho-hum. The animation is masterful, but the pacing is incredibly slow. As a game mechanic, the *Caballeros* is "better, and," *Alice in Wonderland* is "more fun. However, "Fantasia" is yesteryear's fad, so the Comic-Con adaptation plays it safe and uninspired.
TOMMY=A third week of Ken Russell's pop culture excuses. Starring Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed and Roger Dairy, The Wonderful Life by Eric Clapton, Keith Moon, Tina Turner and everybody's favorite rock star, Jack Nicholson.
MHAOGANY—Diana Ross's second movie is a disappointment. Her uneven performance in this soaper betrays the promise she showed in "Lady Sings the Blues," Much of the blame can be attributed to her failure for making every emotion seem cheap. Also starring Anthony Perkins and Billy Dee Williams.
KING OF HEARTS—isn't war insane? Why, yes it is. Do you have any other original thoughts? No.
STOP! LOOKI AND LAUGHI
and BEDTIME WORRIES-
The Three Stooges and the
Little Rescals will wickle your
tools with their inlaitures. Let
your dog go and take your kids
along.
THINGS TO COME—A very good science fiction film made in 1936 and marked by absurdly inaccurate prophecy. Directed by William Cameron Menzies and starring Raymond Massenet. Good sets and special effects. The film's focus is on UNIVERSE, an award-winning animated look at the solar system.
DOUBLE INDEMNITY—An excellent "film ill nur." Barbara Stanwyck, Fred McMurray and Stephen Hawking, Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder wrote the cracking good dialogue from a James M. Cain novelta. Wilder directed this movie and saltifying murder story.
THE BLUE ANGEL-
Mariante Dietrich is the entrancing singer; Eml Jannings is the befuddled and entranced teacher. Both are excellent in this well-known movie directed by Josef Von Sternberg in 1929. He advertisements for theaters and theatres.