Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 27, 1970)

MARCH 27, 1970 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY To | ~—, i Page 3 M.A.S.H. (20th-Century Fox) M.A.S.H. stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. Newspapers recently reported that the US Army and Air Force. have banned the movie M.A.S.H. from theatres on military bases, claiming that it would undermine the confidence of soldiers receiving medical treatment. It might, on the other hand, make them laugh right through their term of service. M.A.S.H. is a hilarious motion picture, one of the funniest of many, many years— but at the same time an extremely moving film. The time is any wartime — specifically, Korea. The M.A.S.H. unit has been assigned to a group of irreverent civilian doctors, who having been caught up in the draft, have made it their function to operate, in every sense of the word. They are determined to retain their senses by recreating the freewheeling atmosphere of their medical school days, and at the same time, do their jobs as professionally as possible. The young doctors, Hawkeye Pierce (played by ex-Torontonian Donald Sutherland) and Trapper John (Academy Award nominee, Elliott Gould) understand that without a few extra-curricular activities, they will never be able to preserve their sanity. High wagers are forever being placed, for the purpose of discovering the genuine blondeness of nurse Hot Lips Houlihan; the doctors’ houseboy is encouraged to beat his Korean draft by accelerating his heartbeat with injections of Speed; the bed of a veteran, incompetent major and his mate, Hot Lips, is bugged so that the sounds of their love-making can be broadcast throughout the camp; corrupt golf and football games are played, with the sole purpose of building up morale while the war is going on. As one of the prankster doctors remarks, “how many times de-you get to go to Japan with your golf-clubs?” The whole thing might sound just another one of those mild little military-life farces that have become so prevalent since the end of World War Two. But director Robert Altman (That Cold Day In The Park) and screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. have hit upon something much more ferocious. Adapted from a best-selling novel by Richard Hooker (which strangely enough turns out to be a pseudonym for a leading surgeon) M.A.S.H. develops into a brilliant mixture of the very conventional comedy genre and the unconventional improvised documentary treatment. The endless stream of jokes flows at the same quick pace as does the endless stream of blood in the surgery. The constant humour is in such perfect taste with the ugliness and monotony of wartime, that it challenges both the audience standards and the standards of the popular, commercial cinema. The intelligent performances of the cast are perfectly subordinated with the over-all theme of absurdity as they were in Dr. Strangelove. M.A.S.H. not only mixes blood with slapstick comedy, it mixes the psychological horrors of the daily human experience with’ | those of wartime. KO ek Anne Of The Thousand Days (Universal) Anne Of The Thousand Days took producer Hal Wallis seven years to assemble and requires an appropriate 242 hours to view. It is a film version of Maxwell Anderson’s play concerning the relationship between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Charles Jarrott, a newcomer director from British television, directs Genevieve Bujold as Anne, Richard Burton as Henry, Anthony Quayle as Cardinal Wolsey, John Colicos as Thomas Cromwell and Irene Papas as Queen Katherine in this historical melodrama which aspires to be as good as Wallis’ previous English-history project, Becket, or the recent Robert Shaw Paul Scofield film adaptation of A Man For All Seasons, but compares weakly to both (indeed, two very difficult films to follow). The story is a study of power, a study of two public personalities who become ruthless schemers for their own benefits. Anne and Henry are very simply, two uncompromising forces whose reversal of position changes the balance of power. Anne is young — she likes dancing, clothes, gifts and power. has the power but is without a son to be his heir to the throne. He has his eye on the girl. Starting as a beautiful child, she contrives to catch the passion of the King — “if you make me Queen of England, I'll give you sons”; she gradually reduces the monarch to a puppet whereby she forces him to divorce his previous wife, Katherine of Spain, and take her as his Queen. But when Anne can only give her husband a daughter, Elizabeth, he rigs charges of adultery against her, and in the end, has her beheaded. Henry Some audiences may find the movie terribly cold and monotonous with its sub-Shakespearian dialogue and its rich costuming and set design, although most will be delighted to see a ‘good-old-fashioned’ movie depicting the whirlpool of power and erotic intrigue which surrounded Henry VIII’s rebellion against the Roman Catholic Church. The cast includes every key performer from this genre of film-making, and one relative new-comer in the starring role as Anne — Canadianborn Genevieve Bujold. Anne Of The Thousand Days is more than just a probe into historical analysis from a psychological perspective. It is also a homage to a style of film-making which is seldom seen today — extravaganza in everything portrayed on the screen. For this reason alone, I guess, Anne has been nominated for ten Academy Awards, including those categories of best picture, best actor and actress, best art direction and best costume design. As a result of these honours, the film will have tremendous boxoffice appeal to all those who follow the awards with the least bit of seriousness. some commercial television distribution. CBC signs mammoth film distribution pact The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently announced that it has signed an agreement to provide for the distribution of its English-language television programs throughout North America. The agreement provides exclusive rights to distribute selected CBC programs for educational and non-theatrical markets in Canada to the Visual Education Centre in Toronto, and to markets in the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico to Public Media Incorporated of Wilmette, Illinois. The agreement with PMI also includes Vol. 35, No. 11 March 27, 1970 Editor: ED HOCURA CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ont. Second class privileges applied for Published by Motion Picture Institute of Canada, 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ontario Canada ¢* Phone 924-1757 Price $7.50 per year “A FILM OF RARE AND EXTRAORDINARY TENDERNESS WHICH | FIND IMPOSSIBLE TO PRAISE HIGHLY ENOUGH! The most breathtakingly photographed feast for the eye since ‘Elvira Madigan’.” — Rex Reed « film by Joan -Gabriel Ubicocco from the novel “Le Grand Meaulnes™ by -Alain-Fourhier