Canadian Film Weekly (Feb 13, 1970)

Page 4 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY February 13, 1970 movie reviews By GARY TOPP Tell Them Willie Boy is Here Abraham Polonsky hasn’t directed a film in more than 20 years. He made his directorial debut in 1948 with Force of Evil, which has been described by many as one of the great films of the modern American cinema. After completing that movie, he had a run-in with the House of Un-American Activities Committee and was blacklisted. Polonsky has been away from the cinema for some time now, and quite obviously, he has a heavy mind. Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is his new movie for Universal, and it is definitely a mirror of Polonsky’s personality. Unfortunately, the screenplay is so full of self-awareness, and there is so much sloppiness (dead people breathing heavily!?), that the statement falls apart. Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is a very simple western about a white sheriff (Robert Redford) chasing an innocent Indian (Robert Blake) who has really nowhere to go. He’s a loner who refuses to be stuck on a reservation, even though white society won’t accept him anywhere else. Although Blake gives a marvellous performance (his first since his triumphant In Cold Blood), playing his character as simply as possible, the screenplay is so full of self-explanation that it almost destroys the film. Polonsky is concerned about many things, some of which include racism — “real democracy is letting that Indian come and go as he pleases, as if he still owned the country, as if he were white and a man”; sensational journalism — “you’re another reporter with incorrect facts”; mis-government — “the president said to take my problem to the Indian bureau”; black (or minority) power — “you can’t win, you can’t beat them neither, but they’ll know I was here”; and liberal democracy — “no-one is their enemy”. Tell Them Willie Boy .. . at its simplest is a manhunt, far from perfect, but extremely interesting at times. We see a pattern of white America’s attitude towards non-white minorities. I doubt, as many critics have stated (probably only to get their names in advertising material), that Willie Boy is “one of the year’s ten best”, but I firmly believe that it is a worthwhile picture, one which might start some people thinking. More For years, my friend and I would go to the American International exploitation flicks just to watch the further adventures of -our lovely, baby-faced dream, Mimsy Farmer. Then for a time, she disappeared to Europe. Well now, Mimsy is back! Her new movie, made overseas (distributed here by Prima Films), is called More and although I kind of enjoyed what I saw, it unfortunately adds up to much less than its title suggests. Quite evidently, the French director Barbet Schroeder, whose first movie this is, wanted to tell a moralizing story of two beautiful, but shiftless youths who destroy themselves by drug abuse. At the outset of the film the hero explains, “I wanted to be warm. I wanted the sun, and I went after it”. By the end, however, he asks, “where is pleasure without tragedy?” The endless stream of drugs (from harmless marijuana to shooting heroin under the tongue), sexual acts with opposite and similar sex, lying, stealing and romping in the nude eventually develops into an extremely campy self-parody. Schroeder has tried hard, and for his first film, he should be congratulated. I think though, that if More had been a short film, it would have been more fulfilling. What is interesting at the beginning develops into something repetitious. I am quite positive that when the public discovers the controversial matter of More, there will be a mad dash to the box-office. Personally, I think that today’s youth (even though the movie concerns them) will be much too sophisticated to be seriously lured in by our heroin(e). Will the NFB make it with youth-oriented Prologue? Robin Spry, the 29-year-old director of the National Film Board’s new feature film, Prologue, is in definite agreement with the fact that today’s youth predominates the market, and that if film maker’s want to satisfy that market, they will be compelled to include young issues and feelings in their pictures. Although Prologue is an extremely open movie concerning itself with the difficult problems of today’s young people, it is a movie of real truths, one which should have definite appeal to audiences of every age group, as it is about every age group. Elaine Malus who was born in Montreal and who plays Karen in Prologue, agrees. In an interview following the film’s New York premiere, she hoped that her “parents will see this film, because it explains so well all the things I can’t talk to them about. There are so many ideas that are difficult to explain about yourself and young people, but they come across here.” Prologue relates the story (by Spry and Sherwood Forest) of two young people who are both college drop-outs. Jesse (American actor, John Robb) edits an “underground” newspaper; Karen is a waitress in a topless discotheque. Jesse takes off for the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago in order to “throw out your Canadian apathy and do something about it”; Karen takes off to a commune in Ontario with David, a draft-resister (played by former Northwestern University politicalscience researcher, Gary Rader) in order to get free because “you get so caught up protesting yourself that you’ll end up almost destroying what you're trying to preserve.” Spry’s movie introduces film audiences to the controversial and outspoken Yippie leader, Abbie Hoffman, and takes you behind the scenes of those black days in Chi cago during the 1968 Chicago poli tical convention. Here a number of notable figures in the anti-war and civil rights movements (among them Dick Gregory, William Burroughs and Jean Genet) join with the young protesters in expressing their dissatisfaction. Douglas Kiefer’s Chicago footage (edited by Christopher Cordeaux) is strikingly chilling and ought to be shown to all the shortsighted politicians as a permament reminder of those disasterous days, when Chicago town almost burnt to the ground. The actual convention filming was a problem for Robb. In a New York interview he stated, “Sometimes I wanted to disassociate myself with the camera so that I could participate in the work there. It was a big conflict to have to play the part and only pretend to do things I wanted in reality to do.” This involvement, as well as all the conflicting viewpoints brought out by various characters throughout Prologue, makes the film a very honest expression. Favourable reaction from viewers in New York and at several international film festivals tend to point to the fact that Prologue will have great appeal to every type of person. It is a very important testament of our times, definitely a mirror of today’s thought. The movie will have its Canadian premiere at Toronto’s Odeon Coronet Theatre on Feb. 20 and shortly after will open in Montreal, Hamilton, Ottawa and Calgary. It opens in London, England, on Feb. 25. —GARY TOPP Cannes Festival opens its doors The Cannes Film Festival has invited all private producers to participate in the “Fortnight of the Film Directors”, a mini-festival enabling the maximum number of directors of all tendencies the chance to express themselves. From May 2 to May 15, 1970, this newly introduced series of projections will run parallel with the official Cannes Film Festival. Organized by the Society of Film Directors, the film showings will be entirely free and open to all countries. There will, however, be no prizes awarded. Any film will be welcome, without consideration for the conditions of production or direction, or of censorship. Thus, the number of new films that do not enter into the criteria of the Festival or of the Critic’s Week, will have a chance to be seen by the international press and the professionals of the medium. It is hoped that “a young avant-garde cinema of writer/directors will come and widen the scope of the Cannes Film Festival.” Any further information or any applications may be found through this magazine. FOR SALE Lincoln Generator (200 Amp); Hertner Generator (60 Amp): pair Ashcraft Model D Lamp houses: 4 — 5,000 ft. upper magazines; 3 5,000 ft. aluminum reels; 8 — 5,000 ft. steel reels; 10 — 2,000 ft. steel reels; 2 5,000 ft. lower magazines; pair GK anamorphics; pair 4% in. superlite lenses; pair 3 in. GK lenses; pair GK projector heads Model 21; pair GK sound heads type X S76; pair GK pedestals; GK amplifier; 3 exhaust fans; 6 soda acid fire extinguishers; 3 pyrene fire extinguishers; 4 quarter horse motors. CAPITOL THEATRE WOODSTOCK,ONTARIO CE A at 1 net a i a sh in x EE eras : 5 Seen Rate WO ees 5 SAE Dee Ty PANN: MERCED CRRA Wb ie OU Ey Ea eh etn a RE AA TC MRE ER oS nN LES 3 SOME ME RY tool sein oer naa nn itn i: pen hesitant acelin elas Paani we adh e Se a ihn a Renae en ea