D-Rated Movies

LES AVENTURES DU RABBI JACOB is being described by its American distributor as “a comedy of errors that harks back to filmdom’s finest tradition of slapstick and pratfall,” and since it is a French film I would have expected something reminiscent of the early films of Rene Clair or even Jerry Lewis. No doubt there are some such influences at work in this film, but they don’t go deeper than a rather superficial attempt to make a “crazy comedy.” There is plenty that is “crazy” here, too: Rabbi Jacobs (Marcel Dalio) leaves his New York ghetto to visit relatives in France. By a typically “crazy” chain of events he is “replaced,” both in the eyes of his relatives and in terms of screen time, by one Victor Pivert (Louis de Funes), a nondescript, middle-class Catholic messed up with facial tics and an uncontrollable urge to wreck his Citroen. The resulting plethora of misplaced identities drowns in a quagmire of Arab revolutionaries, a huge vat full of nasty greenish liquid bubble gum, and running gags about Jews, Catholics and Moslems.

Now obviously any film with that much going on is bound to be good for a few laughs, and no one would want to begrudge Messers Oury and de Funes an occasional titter. But it doesn’t work more than fitfully, partially because Oury appears to think that piling up gag on top of gag is better than sticking with one simple idea and building it up to a great climax. This seems to be the main difference between most contemporary comedies and the classics they often pretend to emulate. Both Rabbi Jacobs and Blazing Saddles, different as they are, illustrate what I think is the basic problem with movie comedy today, and that is that a welter of ideas, even great ideas, is not enough to make a movie. A good movie, especially a good comedy, requires not only great gags but also a technique able to make the most of the given situations. It’s not ideas that are lacking in these films, it’s technique. Preston Sturges or Gregory LaCava could have taken the same scripts and made comedy masterpieces or near-masterpieces, because they were not only great idea men, they were great technicians, too.

I suspect Rabbi Jacob would also have benefitted with someone other than Louis de Funes in the principal role; to me at least, he is an incredibly tedious comedian and his rubber face antics are irritating rather than amusing, particularly after the tenth display. Marcel Dalio, whom film buffs will remember from Renoir’s Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game, not to mention Casablanca and The Shanghai Gesture, in which his quintessential Hollywood croupier was one of the indelible archetypes of the Forties, is utterly wasted in a third-rate part with even less screen time than the auxiliary gangsters. Worse, he is virtually unrecognizable underneath his beard.

One technical problem: The print I saw had about one subtitle to every ten lines of dialogue, and while I normally prefer this method to dubbing, I wonder if it wasn’t a mistake. In addition, although my French is a bit rusty, even I could detect some incredible euphemisms in the transition from gibbering actor to printed line, the like of which I haven’t heard and seen since the time I saw a print of The Big Sleep that had been subtitled for the deaf and aged. Indeed, filmgoers with a good command of French may find this to be the funniest aspect of the film.



Animal Crackers, the “long-lost” Marx Brothers’ film recently in a long run at the Valley View, may not be the masterpiece everybody hoped it would be, but it certainly shows up contemporary film comedies for the mediocre lot they are. The story of the tracking down and eventual reissue of this film is told in a fascinating article by Wayne Kabak in the July-August issue of Film Comment.

As nearly everybody knows by now, Animal Crackers was the Marx Brothers’ second film (the first being The Cocoanuts, also from a Broadway show and, like Animal Crackers, filmed at the long-since defunct Paramount Studios in Astoria, Long Island). Its source was a play by Morrie Ryskind and George S. Kaufman, although it’s a good question how much of their original was left by the time four brothers finished with it. In fact, Animal Crackers really isn’t a movie at all but a photographed stage show, a bigger-budgeted and zanier version of the films W. C. Fields was making during the same period. It’s got many famous bits -Harpo’s silverware gag, his first of many chases after hapless blondes, and, of course, the Groucho theme song, “Hoorah for Captain Spaulding.” And it’s got the legendary Lillian Roth, too.

But poor director Victor Shertz-inger was hard-pressed to keep this melange in front of his camera at all times, and the static photography characteristic of very early talkies is all too evident. In other words, Animal Crackers lacks the controlled insanity that made Monkey Business and Duck Soup classics of Marxian.

Oh well, even second-rate Marx Brothers is preferable to first-rate Louis de Funes (see elsewhere). And besides, it’s been outgrossing The Great Gatsby.



Roman Polanski’s Chinatown has received some of the highest accolades of any film released this year, and deservedly so. But from what people say about it you would think it was little more than a superior version of the recent neo-Raymond Chandler sagas like The Long Goodbye and Gumshoe, another detective thriller goosed up with cute old cars and cute old songs and up-right telephones and Venetian blinds to make you sure every moment that you are really in 1932 or 1937 or 1945 or 1948 or whenever.

First things first. Chinatown is a superior detective thriller, superior to anything made in this country since Robert Aldrich’s 1955 Kiss Me Deadly. Instead of being a half-baked pop throwback, like The Long Goodbye, it restores to its genre the phlegmatic tension that films once possessed in spades and lost temporarily when they became “adult.” Screenwriter Robert Towne was never insecure enough to judge his period (Los Angeles in 1937) in advance, bringing 1970’s attitudes and assumptions to a period subject. And Polanski’s direction and the playing of the remarkable Jack Nicholson create a nightmarish but entirely credible world, one compatible both with the story of corrupt city politics-that is the skeleton of the film – and the haunted awareness of a malignant universe, a sense of the past based not on ignorance and an assumed innocence (a la Mr. Altman) but on an all too aware sensitivity we generally term “modern.”

That’s what’s so incredible about watching this film: we see what we might expect to be another period thriller, with the usual objects and icons signifying to us its period, and yet all this “stuff’ is percolated through a modern, perhaps. “decadent” or “European” sensitivity. All this without the net result being either warped in the process or reduced to simple-minded propaganda. It’s true both to 1937 and to 1974 and is thus true to life.

But it’s not really as a period piece that Chinatown succeeds or really needs to succeed. It’s a film first and foremost, and one which shares with Polanski’s previous pictures the most secure and precisely balanced sense of fantasy and realism in American films today. Polanski indeed is yet another example of the old maxim that European filmmakers (like Fritz Lang and Fury) can often treat American subjects with more accuracy and sensitivity than American directors. The final scene, in which Faye Duna-way dies in her cream colored Packard, shot through the head by the police, is one of the most stunning single shots in film history -that simple long shot of a car disappearing down a city street at night, and then the long, seemingly endless blare of the horn, funereal and shocking at once, is of such simplicity as to be at the very core of art.



MEDALLION: The Longest Yard (Paramount)

Robert Aldrich, who gave you Kiss Me Deadly and The Dirty Dozen (not to mention Whatever Happened to Baby Jane), now offers us this bone-cruncher blend of football and prison genres. Burt Reynolds is comfortable in his limited niche of ex-football-superstud – who – ends -up- in -prison-at-mercy-quote-of-stock-Establishment-goons-unquote (personified by Eddie Albert and a predictable gang of sadistic guards). Screenplay by Tracy Keenan Wynn.

NORTHPARK III: A Little Law and Disorder Opens Oct. 25.

The American Dream, elusive as usual, is the goal of two middle-aged New Yorkers, Willie, a cab driver (Carroll O’Connor) and Cy, a hairdresser (Ernest Borgnine (!)). Written and directed by Ivan Passer, who will be fondly remembered by art-house devotees of the Sixties as the writer of the Czech classics Loves of a Blonde and The Fireman’s Ball (both directed by Milos Forman) and the director of Intimate Lighting, cited by Vincent Canby as one of the best films of all time.

UA CINE I: Mixed Company (United Artists) Begins Oct. 18.

Barbara Harris and Joseph Bologna in a comedy produced and directed dy Melville Shavelson.

An ethnic version of Shavelson’s previous Yours, Mine and Ours. “Robe” in Variety says: “Instead of the outsize family as in Yours, this comedy effort tackles the ethnic ethos of adopting and adapting three children of different racial backgrounds, plus the added problem of blending with an existing family trio of not completely unprejudiced brats. The results are not as funny as some of Shavelson’s previous experiments (Room For One More, Houseboat, The War Between Men and Women), but there’s lots and lots of heart.”



UA CINE I: The Odessa File (Columbia) Opens Oct. 18 also at VALLEY VIEW

Frederick Forsyth’s best-selling novel as adapted by Kenneth Ross and George Markstein, with Ronald Neame (The Poseidon Adventure) directing. Maximilian Schell stars as an ex-SS Captain, Eduard Rosch-mann, who is in hiding somewhere in Europe, hunted by a German journalist, played by Jon Voight.

Forsyth may turn out to be the best thing that’s happened to the movie thriller since Ian Fleming, if The Odessa File is anything nearly as good as the previous Day of the Jackal. It will be interesting to see if the film treats the current political situation in modern Germany (former Nazi officials still in positions of power) as closely as the novel did.



VALLEY VIEW: Gone With the Wind (MGM) Closes 24 Oct.

David O. Selznick’s monument to Margaret Mitchell’s Old South. Rumor has it that Ben Hecht wrote most of the film’s best scenes, although it’s all credited to the late Sidney Howard. With Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia DeHavilland, and the inimitable Hattie McDaniel (as “Mammy”). Great bit parts for movie buffs. My favorite is Paul Hurst’s scurvy Union soldier who menaces Scarlett O’Hara on the staircase.

VILLAGE: The Black Windmill (Universal)

The latest by veteran Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Madigan, Dirty Harry), a suspense/intrigue story with Michael Caine, Joseph O’Connor, Donald Pleasance, John Vernon, Janet Suz-man, Delphine Seyrig, Joss Ackland, Clive Revill. Screenplay by Leigh Vance, from the novel “Seven Days to a Killing,” by Clive Egleton.

[No other information available at press time.]



FILM SERIES

Classic Films presented by the Dallas Public Library. All showings are free and open to the public.

Hampton-Illinois Branch (348-6160. Call for showtimes.

Oct 21: The General (1927-silent) Buster Keaton in one of his most famous features as a Confederate railway engineer who saves his engine, saves the South (for the moment) and wins the girl.

Oct 28: The Gold Rush (1925-silent) Charlie Chaplin in the Yukon, with memorable performances by Mack Swain (as a prospector with amnesia) and Georgia Hale as the dancehall girl.

Nov 4, The Eagle (1925-silent) Not as well known as Son of the Sheik, this is probably the best film of Rudolph Valentino. The setting is Czarist Russia, the script is by Hans Kraly, and the excellent direction-much better than the run of Valentino’s films -is by Clarence Brown, who went on to be Garbo’s favorite. With Vilma Banky & Louise Dresser.

Nov 11: The Phantom of the Opera (1925) Perhaps the most famous and still one of the best of all movie thrillers, with Lon Chaney Sr. as Erik the Phantom, deranged organist who haunts the catacombs underneath the Paris Opera. Directed by Rupert Julian, with Mary Philbin and Norman Kerry. Silent.

Walnut Hill Branch (357-8434) Call for showtimes.

Oct 19, The Lost World (1925) Silent. Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic tale of dinosaurs on a lost plateau in the Matto Grosso, with Wallace Beery as the intrepid Professor Challenger who brings one back to London. Still effective model work by Willis O’Brien, who later animated King Kong.

Oct 26: The Beloved Rogue (1927) Silent. John Barrymore in fine form as the vagabond poet Francois Villon, but the show is stolen by Conrad Veidt’s deliciously bizarre Louis XI. Directed by the underrated Alan Crosland, who had previously done Don Juan with Barrymore and The Jazz Singer with Jolson.

Nov 2: The Cat and the Canary (1927) Silent. The original haunted house melodrama, complete with spooky corridors, hidden panels, a mad killer, and an ambiguous servant curiously known as “Mammy Pleasant.” Directed by Paul Leni, a German expatriate famous for the haunting Waxworks.

Nov 9: The General-See Hampton-Illinois, Oct 21 above for description.

Dallas Film Society. Meets the first Saturday of every month at 7 pm in the Austin Room, Northpark Inn, N. Central Expressway. Yearly dues: $5.00. Mailing list available by writing society at 3708 Centenary Drive, Dallas 75225.

Nov 2: I Walked with a Zombie (1943) Despite the absurd title, this is one of the classic fantasies of the cinema, a very free adaptation of Jane Eyre set in the West Indies. Its producer, Val Lewton, was that rarity of rarities, a genuinely creative producer. His other films, in a memorable series for RKO, were The Cat People, Isle of the Dead, Bedlam, and The Body Snatcher. But this one, directed by Jacques Tourneur, is his masterpiece. With James Ellison, Frances Dee, Tom Conway, Edith Barrett, and Darby Jones as the zombie.

University of Texas at Dallas Film series on Wednesdays at 7:30 pm. Admission: Adults, $1; Children, 50c Discount tickets available. Call 690-2281 for information.

Oct 16: Two films by Thor Hey-erdahl: Aku-Aku (Sweden, 1951) and Kon-Tiki (Sweden, 1947) The secret mystery of Easter Island and a journey by raft from South America to Polynesia are the subjects of these two largely unreconstructed documentaries by the famous scientist. Narration in English. Free admission.

Oct. 23: Red Beard (Japan, 1965). One of the most impressive films of Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood). Toshiro Mifune plays an arrogant and dictatorial doctor in a 19th century slum hospital. Japanese dialog with English subtitles.

Oct 28: Ugetsu (Japan, 1953). [Note: This is Monday night.] The most famous film of Kenji Mizo-guchi, Ugetsu tells a 16th century ghostly legend of two peasant neighbors. The two men leave their families, one to become wealthy in the city, the other to become a samurai warrior. Photographed with the mystic beauty of a Japanese painting. Winner of the Silver Lion Award, Venice Film Festival (1953). In Japanese with English subtitles.

Oct 30: Dumbo (USA, 1941). Walt Disney’s classic is head and shoulders over most feature-length animated features today. Plus Peter and the Wolf, with music by Prokofiev. Free admission.

Nov 6: The Third Man (Britain, 1950). Orson Welles as the near-mythic criminal Harry Lime in Grahame Greene’s cynical thriller, directed with great style by Sir Carol Reed. Pulp western writer Joseph Cotten hunts through a shattered post-WWII Vienna, a Kafkaesque nightmare world, and finds his illusions destroyed. With Trevor Howard, Alida Valli, and Wilfrid Hyde-White.

Nov 13: Classic German Silents. A documentary exploring the styles, themes, acting, and technical wizardry of the Golden Age of German Cinema and the great artists of that age: F. W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, G. W. Pabst, Emil Jan-nings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss, and Erich Pommer. Free admission.

New American Cinema. Saturday nights at 11:30 p.m. at the Festival Theater, 3104 Maple, 742-4201. $2.25. Oct. 19: Six Newly Discovered Old Time Comedies with Pop-eye, Spanky and Our Gang, W.C. Fields, Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy. Oct. 26: The Big Sleep with Bogart and Bacall. Nov. 2: Funky Love Stories: Sweet, Sour, and Sexy, nine short experimental films (plus one of the original Superman cartoons). Nov. 9: Jimi Plays Berkeley, vintage Hendrix from 1970; plus Sex Madness, a 1937 warning to loose women. Nov. 16: Erotic Cartoon Carnival, a collection of unusual animated erotic films. Nov. 23: Multiple Maniacs, a “celluloid atrocity,” by the makers of Pink Flamingos.

SMU Cinematheque presents a variety of unusual films, old and new, every Fri., Sat. and Sun. in Owen Arts Center, SMU. Showing at 7 & 9 p.m. Open to the public. $l-$1.50. Oct. 25-27: Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story. (November schedule unavailable at press time. Call 692-2979.)

Three Evenings With a Great Star.

A three night retrospective featuring Gregory Peck, with six of his films and after film discussion between Mr. Peck and the audience. Benefit for the U.S.A. Film Festival. Nov. 1, 2, & 3 (note date change from pull-out calendar). Call for details, 692-2979.

Dallas/SMU Cinema Society, a membership organization, meets once each month at 7:30 p.m. in SMU’s Bob Hope Theatre. Membership: $20 per year or $35 per couple per year. Theme for the Fall series is The Best of the French Film Comedies. The November film is Louis Malle’s Zazie Dans Le Metro. For further information call 692-3090