KNWSAN REVIEWS
FILMS: Bitter Candy
By BOB BUTLER Kansan Arts and Reviews Editor
I don't suppose anything I can say here will keep people from wasting their money on "Candy." The word is out that this is a funny movie.* I have a sneaking suspicion that the people who say "Candy" is funny are trying to cover up the fact that they've been taken.
About 20 minutes of this film is entertaining. The rest of the two hours is filled with a hodgepodge of corny puns, slapstick visual comedy and boredom. There's not even enough skin to hold the thing together.
"Candy" has a lot of big name stars: Richard Burton, Ringo Starr, James Coburn, Walter Mathau, Marlon Brando and others, all of whom should have known better. Candy herself is embodied in the form of Ewa Aulin, who looks like Bambi and persorms like a lost puppy.
A film which had been true to the book would have been a really funny satire of sex. The "Candy" we have been sent by director Christian Marquand is merely a high-budget peep show trying to imitate comedy. Only in one or two instances does it succeed, such as with Burton's performance as a wind-blown Welsh poet who carries his own breeze around with him.
In short, "Candy" is a waste of time. You'll be more entertained studying for finals.
BOOKS: Cottonwood
By MIKE SHEARER
"Half in, half out/ of reality, I paint/frescoes for your blindness," says one of the poems included in the new Cottonwood.
The issue sparkles anew with the addition of some intriguing art work and some good poetry. It does indeed paint frescoes for our blindness.
There are reasons to read the new issue with caution however, because some very bad poetry is sewn into the fabric of good material. The bad poetry is placed in such close proximity with some good but complex poems that the reader might take pure superciliousness to be profundity. Why, for instance, the editors chose to place a small (in two ways) poem on autumn in a spring edition is unknown.
An interview with William Gass is quite successful. Gass talks abut, among other things, the merits of his own works. His honest appraisal would be beneficial reading for neophyte writers.
The disasters in the issue are quite noticeable. In the second short story, an excess of adjectives and some unbelievable imagery hamper a basically good story. ("Chuckling hoarsely, the farmer grimaced as he twisted his finger in his right ear." Even if the farmer weren't driving while he performs this contortion, it would still be impossible. I tried it. Later in the story, the farmer hums a phrase, something else I don't believe can be done.)
As an entity, the Cottonwood is nourishing and is a "frescoe" which would be an asset to any library of literature.
RECORDS:
By WILL HARDESTY
"Johnny Winter" by Johnny Winter on COLUMBIA (CS-9826, stereo) is this cat's first album. It is excellent. Winter is a 27-year-old blues shouter who has had all the breaks—all the bad breaks. He is an albino in an age when everyone wants to look alike. He was born dirt poor. His folks moved from place to place in the South when he was trying to go to school. He was a bluesman when the fans wanted rock. He gave up playing what the masses wanted to hear to play what he liked. Finally, he was "discovered" and now is starting to obtain the recognition he is worthy of. He has had the background to know what the blues are all about—both when he writes them and when he plays them.
"Tartaglian Theorum" by John Andrews Tartaglia on CAPITAL (ST-166, stereo) is an orchestra-with-Moog-synthesizer arrangement of nine popular songs and one new one. This album is not one which the average listener positively cannot live without, but if you like the Beatles, Supremes, Glen Campbell and Doors, but also like quiet music, this will prove to be an enjoyable album.
May 9
1969 KANSAN 5
Fri., Sat., Sun.
"PRIVILEGE"
Dyche
50c
SUA Pop Film
NROTC takes overall meet honors
Navy ROTC won overall honors at the University Tri-Service meet last night, said Kelly Stein, Topeka junior.
first; Air Force, Larry Giles,
second, and Air Force, Chip
Layman, third.
Miss Stein said the meet competition was between Army, Navy, and Air Force ROTC groups, and included standard platoon, standard squad, and individual drill-down competition.
The Navy won both standard platoon and squad competitions, with Army placing second in both, and Air Force third in both.
The individual drill performances were divided into three categories: freshman, sophomore, and advanced.
The results in the freshman competition were: Navy, Mike Barnett, San Francisco, Calif.
Menninger to talk at joint meeting
Results in the sophomore drilldown were: Army, Maurice St. Germain, Sauguoit, N.Y., first; Air Force, Norman Peterson, McPherson, second, and Army, Doug Sheffner, Topeka, third.
Karl Menninger, director of the world-famous Menninger Foundation, Topeka, will speak to a joint meeting of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi at 6:30 p.m. May 15 in the Kansas Union Ballroom.
The dean of the Menninger School of Psychiatry will speak on "Crimes Against Criminals," George Byers, president of Phi Beta Kappa and professor of entomology, announced yesterday.
Reservations for the dinner must be made by Saturday in 515 Snow Hall, 426 Fraser Hall, 143 Malott Hall, 217 Strong Hall, 102 Nuclear Reactor Center, and 124 Lindley Hall,
Byers said.
"A BRILLIANT MOVIE.
I RECOMMEND
IT FOR A DOZEN REASONS!"
—New Yorker Magazine
In the advanced division, Air Force, Robert Benda, Oberlin junior, won first. He was followed by Army, Robert Clancy, Falls Church, Va., junior, and Navy, James Zimmer, Riverside, Calif., sophomore.
The meet was held in the National Guard Armory and was sponsored by Pershing Rifles, Company E-7, and its affiliate, the E-Co Berets.
The scholarship and scientific societies will sponsor the man whose book, "The Human Mind," 1930, opened the field of psychiatry to the layman.