FILMS: The Stalking Moon
By BOB BUTLER
Kansan Arts and Reviews Editor
The big trouble with Robert Mulligan's "The Stalking Moon" is that it has no characters. To be sure, the film stars Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint, but the characters they play are Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint.
Peck is Sam Varner, an Arizona Indian scout who is quitting the cavalry for a ranch in New Mexico. On his last assignment he rescues a white woman (Miss Saint) who for 10 years has been a captive of marauding Apaches. With her is her 9-year old son, the offspring of a murderous renegade named Salvaje.
Varner agrees to take the two to his ranch, only to find they are being stalked by Salvaje, who is never seen but leaves behind him a trail of dead men with split skulls. As might be expected, the final showdown is between Peck and the Indian, and of course Peck wins.
To be sure, there are some fine moments—the final hunt and Salvaje's death, the beautiful scenery, the dusty realism of the settings and costumes.
But scenery and costumes aren't much good without real persons to enhance them. For instance, what kind of man is Sam Varner? Pecks' portrayal, coupled with his few lines, don't tell us much. He agrees to take the woman and her half-breed son to his ranch, thereby risking his life—but why? If he was lusting after Miss Saint, who doesn't look at all bad for 10 years out in the sun, we would have a good reason. But Varner is apparently sexless. And also a little stupid. Salvaje is out to retrieve his son, and it is apparent that the boy wants to be with his Indian father. So why does Peck have to break up the family?
What is strange is that we like Sam Varner despite all his blandness. The reason is that Sam Varner looks just like Gregory Peck, all-around hero and do-gooder, and is there any true-blooded American who hates Gregory Peck? Evidently only the drunken Indian in the audience Saturday night who rooted for Saluaje.
The same goes for Miss Saint. She doesn't say much either (her character hasn't spoken English for 10 years) and I started to wonder why I liked her after she had been responsible for the deaths of at least 30 people. The reason is that I have always seen Miss Saint as a silent, suffering, noble woman. I can't recall ever having seen her in a bitchy part.
"The Stalking Moon" does have one notable performance, however. Robert Forster as another Indian scout who rides to warn Varner of Salvaje's approach is a real person. He is a half-breed who chose the white man's way and is bitter about his choice. "Some half-breeds turn white," he says of the boy. "Maybe this one will always be an Injun."
The kid would have been better off that way.
Play shows moral choices to kids
By JUDY JARRELL
Not a fairy tale in the usual tradition, "Big Klaus and Little Klaus" instead asks children to view reality and make moral decisions.
Kansan Staff Writer
The KU Theatre for Young People production will be shown Feb. 28 and March 1.
"Big Klaus and Little Klaus", a story by Hans Christian Anderson, was adapted by Dean Wentrom in 1966.
"Children are looking for realism all through life, and this is exactly what the play gives them," said Dr. Jed Davis, University Theatre head, speech and drama professor, and director of the play.
The story is about two brothers and their struggles in a society where justice is
controlled by the people and value is placed on material items, Davis said.
"Little Klaus (the protagonist) ultimately triumphs over oppressive forces with his wit," Davis continued.
Big Klaus (the antagonist) dies a violent death in the end, at the hand of Little Klaus.
"The play and the story ask the audience to judge to some extent, but in reality it asks the children to think about the moral questions involved," Davis said.
He added, "These are questions we will actually encounter as we grow older and take our place in a complex society with actually contradictory morality operating."
Concerning the violence in the play, Davis said Big Klaus' death is no different than Jack killing the giant or Gretel pushing the witch into the oven.
The adaptation presents a transition between the children's fantasy plays and the adult drama, Davis said. It is a much needed theater form, he added.
The play will tour Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska March 3 through May 15.
"Big Claus and Little Klaus' will bring children closer to the life of the adult by asking them to sort out degrees of goodness and comparative evil," Davis said.
"It will ask them to laugh, yet also to judge the way of the world with sympathy and understanding."
RECORDS:
Jethro Tull
By WILL HARDESTY
Jethro Tull is a new (to this country) English group. Their first album THIS WAS is out on Reprise.
The group has been called a rock and roll blues-and-jazz quartet and have the strange habit of making themselves up as old men when they perform.
A good new sound.
Jethro Tull takes up where Cream leaves off. There is one Cream song on the album—"Cat's Squirrel"—which shows Jethro Tull can be as heavy as Cream, but then Tull goes beyond—into bluesy jazz-rock. They do well. Particularly strong in the jazz vein in Ian Anderson on flute and Clive Bunker on drums. Anderson also does wonders in setting a blues mood by playing harmonica to compare and contrast with guitarist Mick Abrahams' rock moods. Glenn Cornick is at home in any mood on bass.
Music is becoming an important (would "dominant" be too heavy a word?) means of communication between new-thinking persons in the world today. Joe South believes this and his album INTROSPECT shows it.
His album is an introspection for the world today, and he has a well-said but biting way of pointing out what fools and facades we are. His hit "Games People Play" sets the general theme.
Joe South has a good voice, tremendous thoughts, the ability to set them to good music and a back-up to compliment the other elements.
Feb. 24
1969 KANSAN 5