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Friday, August 29,1975
University Daily Kansan
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
TOMAKEE TOMAKEE
'Rollerball' brutal but needs oil
By CHUCK SACK
Film director Norman Jewison ("Jesus Christ Superstar," "In the Heat of the Night," "Fiddler on the Roof") is generally apt at providing lightweight entertainment. An instinctive storyteller whose weakest suits are intellect and dexterity often depends on for amusing diversions. In his latest film, "Rollerball," he's clearly striving for more.
The film, an uneasy blending of sports and science fiction, takes place about 50 years in the future. This future includes six corporate conglomerates—Apple, Dell, Time.com, Portion, Communication, Housing, and Food—and manage the world. Rollerball is a glorified roller derby that is the spectator sport of the time. Played with motorcycles, skateboards, cannon that shoots a stainless steel shotup, the game is a panacea devised by the conglomerates to demonstrate the futility of individual effort. Unfortunately, one player has come to dominate the game, and hisatives are trying to force him into an unwanted retirement.
The player is Jonathan E (James Caan), an inarticulate sterotype who knows that something is wrong, but who can't quite put his glove finger on the button. Her husband has been taken from him by an Executive who requested her, but it's the thought of no
longer playing rollerball that makes Jonathan mad.
Physically, Caan is perfect for the part, but he was wasted in the role of Jonathan. The script doesn't give him any motivation, so most of the time he must settle for looking confused. This is in character, of course, and Caan can confide about what he can or should do. But anyone with biceps could have acted the part, so the casting of a resourceful actor like Caan is
game itself is handled masterfully. Played on a banked circular track an elength of a mile long, rollerball has most players in it, and most jaded sports fan, and enough mayhem to horrify anyone else. The stuntwork (done under the direction of Max Kleven) is thoroughly convincing, and the actors are but When the players get off the track, so does the movie.
Jewison refuses to settle for
Enough action to satisfy the most jaded sports fan,enough mayhem to horrify everyone else.
simply dramatic overkill
Jonathan E's antagonist is the Chief Executive of Energy, B a rth o l e w e m (John Houseman). Jewison has often written books to propelling competitors like Steiger and Potter ("In the Heat of the Night") or McQueen and Dunaway ("The Thomas Crown Affair") to spice up a film, but the scenes between Caan and Houseman's quietly soothing voice, puffy face and spidery eyebrows are well-suited to the villainous role, but even the 72-year-old veteran can't gloss over his mistake. The Executives want is for you to stop playing a game that is degrading to you."
Despite such idiotic confrontations, the future world war II would have been ideally suited to Jewish's slick style. The presentation of the
merely telling the story, and the picture bogs down in his inane efforts to develop a theme. As you've probably guessed, "Rollerball" is an Individual-and-the-Establishment movie. Jonathan confronts his ex-wife's former partner, a coach, who had the best monologue in the film) and even a couple of mistresses.
The future depicted is an armchair quarterback's macho dream. Executives are the privileged class, women are the underclass, dress styles of dress and furniture look as if they were copied from a late-60s issue of Playboy. Television has been replaced by Multivision, a four screen process that looks like lyric outtakes from Jewison's "The Spectacle." It is conventional for science fiction films, everything is so sterile and antiseptic that when an
Hammett lives!
Gores' 'Hammett' is great detective fiction
By WARD HARKAVY
Contributing Writer
HAMMETT. By Joe Gores.
New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons, 1975.
"Samuel Dashiell Hammett guided Goodie Osborne out of Lowe's orate Warfield through the josking midweek crowds." It is the first paragraph of "Hammett," a novel by Joe Goros.
To the surprise of the reader, this is not a biography. Rather, it is a novel with Dashheil Hammett, as the detective casts costs Hammett as a writer first, a detective second.
Gores has written other detective fiction; he has also worked as a private detective. He is the admirer of Dashiell Hammett.
Before one dismisses "Hamnett" as an attempt to exploit another writer's name in a story, he must consider the author. Joe Gores.
The idea of Hammett being a writer and a detective is not at all absurd. He was once a detective in San Francisco and his experiences with the farmed Pinkerton's deserts provide an example of the material on which his short stories and novels were based.
This book is full of factual material about the San Francisco in which Hammett spent much time writing, detecting and analyzing crime that attempted an imitation of Hammett's terse prose.
On all accounts, Gores is successful. His book is a delightful blend of fiction and fact. And Gores' style, although it isn't as hard and clipped as Hammett's, captures the flavor of modern literature so much as so much a part of the genre of hard-boiled fiction.
An interesting facet of this novel is Gores' attempt to in-
tertweil Hammett's fictional involvement in a bizarre story line with Hammett's very real struggles to write.
Hammett wasn't a prolific writer. Although he lived until 1961, his productive period was the "20s and 30s. He didn't write any detective fiction after the mid-30s.
Between 1929 and 1933, Hammett published all five of his novels, including "The Dain Curse," "The Maltese Falcon," "The Glass Key and the Man in White," and most of his stories were written in the '20s.
Gores' book is set in 1928, when Hammett was working on "Red Harvest." Throughout Gores' novel, Hammett talks of revising "Red Harvest." This may be a strange mixture of fiction and fact, but the author's purpose seems clear. He was writing in as much of Hammett's real struggles with his writing as he possibly could. For that, Gores is to be commended.
Consistent with hard-billed detective fiction requirements, Gore's plot is very compricious and wildly improbable, and unsavory with bizarre monikered people like Dead Rabbit Lonergan and Crystal
However, the plot isn't strictly "20s vintage. The movie is kinky sex, which rarely was discussed by Hammett, Raymond Chandler or other works of hard-boiled detective fiction.
Devotees of Hammett, Chandler and Ross MacDonald will be pleased to know that Gore's Hammett is a detective finest tradition of hardboiled, soft-hearted private eyes.
Hammett, at least according to Gores, is truly a knight who
treads the mean streets in search of the truth. This novel has good guys and bad guys, and no anti-heroes.
"Hammett" is not a parasite, clinging to the mystique of one of the most interesting fiction this country has ever known. It is the product of exhaustive research into San Francisco's the 20s.
A familiarity with San Francisco and Hammett, although not a requirement for reading Gores' novel, would enhance the reader's pleasure. If you are more than casually interested in Hammett, an essential book to read is William F. Nolan's Dashiel Hammett, his biography and bibliography that is indispensable as a source of information on Hammett.
It is hoped that this novel will lead people to the exciting and rewarding short stories and novels of Hammett himself. Most of his work has been reissued and is available.
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The one time that Jonathan manages this distraction successfully is in a ridiculous interlude when Jonathan visits the World Library in Geneva. The library shows in a cameo appearance as a librarian who shows Jonathan a computer named Zero.
injured player is rushed to the hospital, one wonders why they didn't just operate at the arena.
theatre, there is no opportunity to reflect on the silliness of what is onscreen. Alfred Hitchcock is the acknowledged master of this type of mass hypnosis that distracts the viewer from the film's faults by keeping his attention elsewhere.
Outside of the sports arenas, though, this is the one successful attempt at diversion. The rest of the time one is left to ponder Jewison's message. He writes that a lot of professional sports or modern life, because brutality is the film's main selling point. But if he wishes to demonstrate the value of the individual, who have a robot like Jonathan as the her? One suspects that the man who was trying to say. In that case, "Rollballer" is nothing more than a Steve Reeves gladiator flick.
Such a dehumanized environment is uniformly depressing, and places an extra burden on the dialogue because there is nothing interesting to look at. But when the character feels comfortable with the trustability of corporate rule and the brutality of the game, the story falls by the wayside. Jewison and screenwriter William Harrison (who did the adaptation from his original short story) have drawn so much attention to the theme that it is impossible to ignore. And that there is not enough substance for it to stand up to this kind of scrutiny.
Jewish's direction is flabby, and gives the viewer too much time to consider such faults. Instead of action, dialogue must be clear; the director would have reversed the proportions to cover the flaws. For example, Jaws is really nothing more than an armored manipulation, but for the two hours that one is sitting in the
Tools for living are art objects
By PAUL GREGORY HEJNA
As the American Bicentennial approaches, glorifications of our nation's past are being taken for granted: Coins commemorate our two centuries as a nation, television spots inform us of what happened 200 years ago and spot their spikes in three-corner hats. Our nation has gone past happy.
So it's not too surprising to find an exhibit commemorating the first time people can shape a portion of pioneer America. What is surprising, however, is to find it well done when it happens — the kindly interesting to fascinating.
The exhibit, "Useful Art," is a Union Gallery display of the tools and hardware used during the late 1880s in Middle America. Although it seems difficult to identify, a close examination yields an understanding of this seemingly strange occurrence.
For the people living in the days before mass production, objects of necessity had to be made by hand. It seems that in addition to performing its duties, tools should be something more: an object of importance in Tools maker were regarded as artisans, and it is no surprise to find these things ornately and beautifully executed in wood, stone and glass.
The sleek curves of a field plow have taken on a new perspective when seen under the carefully arranged gallery
lighting. In the gentle slope of the plow handle, in as it rises from the blade, can be seen the similarity to a fine sports car built for speed but beautifully designed.
The objects run from the very orate to the very simple. An iron that the modern homemaker would find appalling consists of nothing more than a heavy metal weight and a handle joined by a small piece of wood—an exercise in simplicity. A small, hand-powered sewing machine is so ornately built as to take on the appearance of a flamboyant, cast-iron maze.
Something as simple as a windmill weight becomes a cast iron rooster, and another iron rooster stands as a weather vane. Increbled amounts of detail have been worked into every feather on its hammered zinc body.
The forceful art of woodworking beautifies a small spinning wheel. The strong lines of the body have been sotened to make my careful attention to the delicate and intricate carvings.
The SUA I to be commended for mounting such a fine exhibit of the tools and densities of the sculptural forms of a hundred years ago, and for avoiding the commercial temptations so blantant in other bicentennial ventures. It's a simple exhibition, mounted on wooden panels, humorous casual—like the objects it displays.
Photo by ROD MIKINSKI
It's showtime
A circus duo displays its own brand of horsemanship in the center ring at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus last night in Kansas City, Mo. The 10th edition of the show continues through Monday at Kemper Area. Shows will be today at 4:15 and 8:15 p.m.; 11 a.m., and 3 and 8 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. both Sunday and Monday. Ticket information is available by calling 818-621-6490.
This Week's
Films
HIGHLIGHTS
THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER -The only thing "the Pink Panther" will say is "The Pink Panther." He is Peter Sellers. He's the only character in another otherwise dismal and feeble sequel. The opening credits are trivial, though, Directed by the drab and dreary Blake Edgson.
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL - Slackspick you like this movie depends on what your sense of humor is like. Many think it's great; others can't stand it. See for
ROLLERBALL — Norman Kemp of the North Dakota adaptation of a William Harrison short story about the supergame of the future. James McGee wrote this.
JAWS—A person could get a real haddock trying to write anything more about this one
Staff Photo by DON PIERCE
Artful Utility
A lone browser studies one of several spinning wheels included in the "Useful Art" exhibit on display in the Union Gallery. The
display, which closes Sept. 5, features tools and implements of frontier life.
NASHVILLE—Whatever a person could say about this sprawling panorama would be incomplete, the subject of which can be said that, although it's three hours long, it should be longer. Too much happens to too many people in your life. Your time. Admit its vitality.
BOXCAR BERTHA- This is the first feature film directed by Martin Scorsese, who has since won a Grammy Award for "Mean Streets" and "Alice Doesn't Live Here anymore." That fact might be its only legitimate selling point. With Carrion, David and Carrion.
SIX-IPACK ANNIE—an unknown quantity appearing with "Boxcar Bertha" at the drive-in.
Check local theaters for times.
FOUR ACES AND A JOKER—This is a five-mile bill at the drive-in Sunday night on the movies —like "Avenue," Wayne: "Downhill Racer"; with Robert Doreau; "Cogan's Buff"; with Clint Eastwood; "Sam Whiskey"; with Burt Reynolds; and take The Money and the Woody Allen. Can you take it?
GROOVE TUBE AND UP THE SANDBOX—Plenty of offence, but no defense. At the drive in Monday and Tuesday.
JIMI HENDRIX—A 1973 documentary that interviews Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Mike Jagger, Eric Clapton, Townesh滩 and Lille Richard. Also includes segments of some of Hendrix's work.
(At 7 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Woodruff Auditorium )
(At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Woodruff Auditorium.)
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII—An elaborately staged and well-acted chronicle novel by Stephen King. Life. Directed by Alexander Korda in 1933, Starring Charles Laughton as the king, Robert Donat, Merle Oberon as Anne Boleyn, Wendy Barrie and Eric Branson.
(At 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Woodruff Auditorium.)
THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT—Another snappy British comedy from Ealing Studios. Alec Guinness, much to the dismay of both management and producers, can't wear out or get dirty. Also starring Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker and Ernest The斯ier. Directed by Alexander MacKenrick in 1952. Very good.
Books
LENNY, JANIS AND JIMI;
by Gary Carye (Pocket, $1.75)
Three of those in that rock'n'roll
heaven the guy was singing
about last year. Tragic figures,
such as the kid who died.
self-delimitated, Lenny
Bruce, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix.
FRANKENSTEIN UN-BOUND, by Brian Aldiss (Crest, $1.50) - He's back our World Cup; America is thrown by—some kind of time thing—back into 19th century Switzerland, and now he's in contact with the real honest-to-God Frankenstein monster —not Boris Karloff, not one you are ready for this one?
AN AMERICAN LIFE: ONE MAN'S ROAD TO SCHOOL
MAGRUFRAT
Megrauder (Pocket, $1.95)—One of those books that demonstrate how to profit from political misdeeds. Megrauder seemed, and was, a wonderful figure of that unholy mess called Watergate, and he tells his story here—the story of a man who was the true figure of his age, in a sense.
MOUNT OLIVE, JUSTINE,
CLEA AND ALAZAR, JACKIE
Pockel, PICKENS $1.95 each)—The famed
Alexandria quartet. Fifteen
years ago few novels were
written in the United
given this fabled group, set in
utilizing the same characters
throughout. The style is
enigmatic but lush, and the
deservedly modern jussies
Exhibits
THE ART OF THE INDIAN AMERICA-1CAH 94 and 20th baskets from native American bowls from several colonial museums
(Through Oct. 5 in Museum of Art.)
CONTEMPORARY IMAGES
—Recent acquisitions of modern artists' prints and drawings. Works by Claes Ranke, Jasper Johns, Rocke Krebs and Frank Stella are included.
(Through Nov. 30 in Museum of Art.)
GALLERY SELECTIONS
Sculpture, prints, paintings by nine local artists.
(Through Sept. 3 at 7E7, 7 East 7th Street.)