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Thursday, July 17, 1975
University Daily Kansan
"BE OF SOME HEP?"
Actors spark wacky film
Rv WARD HARKAVY
SULLIAN'S TRAVELS — 1941 — Directed by Preston Sturges. With Joel McCren, Veronica Lake, Porter Hall, Franklin Pangborn and Robert Warrick.
There was once a golden age of comedy in Hollywood, the 20th "Sullivan's Trawler" musical. A 1964 film by
REVIEW
age, is surely a golden moment and an enjoyable one, too.
Preston Sturgis, director of "Sullivan's Travels," was a comic genius whose only creative period was from 1940 to 1944. He directed some of the wackest movies ever to emerge from the Hollywood film factory. McKenna, who worked with Mickey Mouse, the Lola Mouse, "Palm Beach Story," and "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek."
Though one of his lesser efforts,
through his work on the
funnest movies of the early 40s,
Joel McCrea, who is best remembered for his gritty and heroic roles in Westerns, plays Sullivan, a director who searches for "the truth." Sullivan says that he is sick of happy movies and that he is ready to make "meaningful" movies. So he leaves his house, finds a job as a doctor and tries to rough it across America to discover what the country is really like.
But enough about the plot. It isn't really that important to our enjoyment of the movie. What is important is Sturges' marvelous use of characters and his rapid-fire scattergun dialogue. He was a mad genius and his films show it.
Throughout his peak period, which incidentally was also his most productive period, Sturges employed some of the best character actors ever to appear in movies.
He gave these actors, among whom were William Demarest and Franklin Pangborn, scripts that exploited their best and most imaginative traits.
For instance, William Demarest, who appeared in "Miracle of Morgan's Creek," was the master of exasperation. His gravelly voice, aided by a Brooklyn acent, and his marvelous scowl were put to best use in the zany Sturgies movies.
Demarest played Hendra Fonda's valet in "The Lady Eve," Officer Kockenlocker in "Miracle of Morgan's Creek," a slogan selector in "Christmas in July," a tough sergeant in "The Conquering Hero" and Joel McCrea's bodyguard in "Sullivan's Travels"—all of which were movies directed by Preston Sturges.
That's the thing that remains in the memory after a sidesplitting experience of watching a Sturges movie—the character actors. If you've seen Eugene Palette as a character, you'll know that you're gonna you'll know what I mean. If not, watch the character actors in any Sturges film.
"Sullivan's Travels" also stars Veronica Lake, who is surprisingly good in a comic role, but whose performance is of secondary importance in this zany film.
The only real fault with the movie is the naive and sentimental ending. But it's not offensive; it’s merely a letdown after two hours of uffaws.
Though it's not *Sturges'* best movie, "Sullivan's Travels" is still one of the best movies to appear at KU this summer. It尾部 an appetite for more Preston Sturges films.
By CHUCK SACK
Kenton Receiver
Hollywood plague hits 'Locust'
"The Day of the Locust" is a very special and curious type of failure. It is suffocated
Day of the Locust—Directed by John Schlesinger. With Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, William Atheron and the novel. Based on the novel by Nanjuelo West.
REVIEW
by an excess of both money and interest that are rarely paired in large studio programs.
Based on Nathaniel West's novel of the same name, the film concentrates on the self-deluted grotesque that inhabit the Mecca of broken dreams, Hollywood itself. But although the novel succeeded in sketching the frustrated souls of untainted men, women and all losers, the film delivers only superficial glimpses of these characters.
In Burges Meredith, Donald Sutherland, Jonnie Blake and William Atherton, "The Day the Moon Collapsed" is an unnattractive cast of any major motion picture. Yet most of them look exactly right.
Only Aberthert, who looks too rawnoted to play Yale graduate Todd Hackett, is miscast. He's too bad about his ears and his ears on right angles to head and looks perfect as a pot-bellied accountant. Burges Merideth plays an old vaudeville man in "Batman" and gave to the Penguin in "Batman" on TV.
But the primary attraction in the film is Karen Black as Faye Greener. Faye is a tragedy, occasionally slipping into prostitution, but always clinging stupidly to her dream of becoming an actress. This character gives the role an appealing deserition.
While all of the males look right, they don't act right. Atherston isn't convincing
because he lacks the self-confidence the role demands. M尔德 is much too tight in his hammesses, and Sutherland is simply too intelligent to convict us that he is a clod.
West powerfully depicted the lunacy of the Hollywood fringe by describing a disaster on a film lot in which several extras were hurt.
Schlesinger makes no attempt to minimize the scene.
The story moves toward a climax at a movie premiere, where people erupt in an outburst of unexpained enthusiasm unexplained. West's original satirical tone overpowers the sequence and throws the film out of balance. Instead of being distressing, the picture is merely distressing.
A thoughtful and intelligent director, he is at his best handling dialogue. But even this attribute works against the film. The characters of "The Day of the Locust" are, with the exception of Tod, witness people, who don't converse so much as they prattle.
The soundtrack is crammed with thirteen songs that make one nostalgic for the days before nostalgia. Worse yet, the details are so precise, cars with high-gloss wax, windows of glass and touches, that the seedy, pathetic ambiance that is essential to the story is lost.
This isn't because Schlesinger doesn't try.
"The Day of the Locust?" is a pastiche of good money and ideas that are misplaced. Ironically, that's how Nathanael West saw Hollywood.
KANU is applying for two grants which would enable the radio station to expand its coverage of local news, cultural and informational programs by five per cent, Paul Dahringer, KANU program director, said yesterday.
—NOTICE—
TO: All organizations allocated funds by the Student Senate from the Student Activity Fee
FROM: John House
Student Senate Treasurer
3. Obtain ADVANCE WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION for each expenditure from funds allocated to the organization.
The grants would allow KANU to hire two additional staff members, Dahringer said, thereby increasing local programing from 80 to 85 per cent of the total air time.
Richard Wright, station director, said he was of receiving the grants. *SU*'s chances were of receiving the grants.
1. Attend a TRAINING SESION conducted by the Student Senate Treasurer. See the schedule listed below.
2. Sign a CAPITAL DISPOSITION CONTRACT with the Student Senate.
All officers who are to be responsible for the expenditure of allocated funds MUST:
"The names are thrown in a hat and you cray." he said.
BY DAVID BARCLAY Kansan Staff Reporter
No funds will be made available until these requirements have been met.
KANU applies for grants
Treasurer's Training Sessions have been scheduled for the following times:
Dahringer, however, was more optimistic.
"I think we have a very, very good chance of getting the grants," he said.
Wright said he would know by Aug. 1, whether KANU would receive the grants.
whether KANU would receive the grants. One of the grants is a minority training grant for a two-year full time staff member, said Mr. Ward. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting with the stipulation that the university pay half of the salary, which the University of Florida owns.
Monday, July 14 2:00 p.m.
Tuesday, July 15 10:00 a.m.
Wednesday, July 16 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, July 17 2:00 p.m.
Monday, July 21 10:00 a.m.
Contact the Student Senate Treasurer's Office at 864-3746 to sign up for one of these sessions, or for additional information.
NOTE: Additional sessions will be scheduled in the Fall for those organizations that do not require access to their funds this Summer.
Wright said the other grant was funded by the Federal Comprehensive Employment Training Program and would provide 10,100 maximum salary for another full time staff member.
Competition for the grants is very high Wright said. We are competing with 160 other noncommercial radio stations for the grants, only about 12 such grants will be awarded.
The primary criterion for qualifying for the grant is the acceptability of the job description. The job description must be
Without the grants and the new staff that ANU could probably limp by, Writen said.
"We will have to rely on tape services
from outside the area that we can get free or cheaply," he said.
Dahringer said he was tentatively planning several new programs for the fall semester in anticipation of additional funds, and he would program on the future of universities.
Dahringer said he intended to talk with students, consider the extent to which they were being educated by universities and discuss alternate methods of education.
A weekly international news summary is being planned that will focus on important world issues and events, Dahringer said. He told students would be interviewed for their role.
Dahringer also said a series of programs on the American Indian in Kansas, women
and other minority groups were also being planned.
The American Issues Radio Forum, a three hour long national call-in program on which experts discuss basic issues, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, will be conducting programs this fall regardless of whether KANU receives the grants, Dahringer said.
Programs that have been popular in the past will be carried over into the fall, he said. The Saturday Morning Jazz Scene, which has been at the top of the chart for earliness radio show, "The American awarding radio show," "The American" and Jim Searsh's "Opera Is My Hobby" and the Metropolitan Opera will all be continued. Dharringer said.
Stare at this picture for seven seconds and see if you can imagine in your mind the warm brown bun on the hamburger below; the succulent, jucy, red tomato; the melting taste of meth cheese or all of an almost perfect hamburger being sliced on the grill.
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2120 W. 9th St.