Thomas Haroldson

I’m afraid that Stanley Kubrick, who directed “Doctor Strangelove” and “Paths of Glory,” has NOT done it again. His new film, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” currently appearing downtown at the Summit Cinerama, cost more than 10 million dollars, and dollar for dollar it is probably the most boring movie ever made.

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“Barbarella” is a gas. No doubt about it. In fact, it is one of the most enjoyable and imaginative movies ever made.

The picture, in a sense, takes Candy to the year 40,000 and drops her off somewhere just this side of surrealism. And all in all it’s a damn fine trip.

Since Barbarella, like other masturbatory heroines, is a product of pure imagination, it is only proper that she is at last free from the mundane restrictions of earthly reality.

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If Luis Bunuel had not directed “Belle de Jour,” it probably would have turned out to be nothing more than a case history from the pages of Krafft-Ebbing. On the very surface it merely tells the story of how a wealthy married woman sets out to solve her “abnormal” sexual hang-ups.

Since she is a masochist, who secretly yearns to be dominated, debased and sexually abused, her life of complete comfort leaves her cold. For relief, she frequently resorts to erotic daydreams, but finally the moment comes when she is compelled to act out her sexual fantasies. After a couple of false starts, she becomes a Belle de Jour, an afternoon prostitute, in a small middle-class brothel.

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It is usually unwise and often physically dangerous to laugh at another man’s religion. When a person believes fervently in something, no matter how absurd the object of his faith appears, there is no safe way to tell him that he is wrong.

Therefore, when one attacks the movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” there is no way to avoid infuriating the worshipping instant cult that the movie has produced.

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During the American Civil War, Detroit’s population scarcely exceeded that of a modern day university. But, with 1,400 blacks and 43,000 whites, it wasn’t too small to have a race riot.

On March 6, 1863, rampaging whites left one dead, dozens injured, and scores of homes burned.

About 500 troops had to be called in from Ypsilanti to restore order.

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In 1943, Eastwood Amusement Park was literally the end of the line. Streetcars, packed with servicemen and factory workers, would cut sharply across Gratiot at Eight Mile, screech around a tight loop at the park’s entrance, and head back downtown.

Located in the then semi-rural town of East Detroit, Eastwood seemed removed from the bleak realities of the early Forties—if not from reality itself. In fact, even today, a list of the park’s attractions produces a mild sensory overload.

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“Elvira Madigan,” as advertised, may well be the most beautiful movie ever made. In any event, it is one of the most popular foreign films to come to Detroit in quite a while. However, I have a feeling that the capacity crowds that fill the Studio-North each night are not completely satisfied with what they see.

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The Detroit Repertory Theater’s current offering, Tango, is the most enjoyable play to appear in town since “MacBird.”

The director, Bruce Milian, like a good alchemist, has managed to transform broad farce, heavy social thought, and straight professional theatre into a first-rate production.

Tango is such a funny play that it is easy to overlook the fact that its humor is based on a very serious, and perhaps even a very frightening theme.

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To be a teenager in western Europe today is to enjoy a freedom of movement only dreamed about by American young people. During the summer, while most American kids are sitting home watching reruns on T.V., their European counterparts are out on the road.

Of course, the geographical makeup of the Continent makes travel not only possible, but irresistible.

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A little over a year ago I was a bit disturbed by the slight attention given the 12 victims of “Bonnie and Clyde’s” career. When I suggested that the movie should have given equal time to the victim’s point of view, a fan shot back, “What the hell kind of a picture would that be?”

Well, now, thanks to Francois Truffaut (who directed “400 Blows,” “Jules and Jim,” etc.) the question has been answered. “The Bride Wore Black” is a detailed account of how a woman kills five men to avenge her husband’s death, but the main focus of the film (interestingly enough) Is on the victims, rather than on the murderess.

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a review of

Frinck: A Life in the Day of and Summer With Monika by Roger McGough (Ballantine Paperback, 60 cents)

This is one writer’s answer to how the modern novella should be written.

“I read the news today, oh boy,

“About a lucky man who made the grade, And though the news was rather sad, Well, I just had to laugh.”

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John Wayne BIFF! has made a new movie POW! called “The Green Berets” AAP! It’s currently appearing at the Adams Theatre, and I want all you weak-kneed, yellow-bellied draft dodgers out there to double time down to see it.

The real-life John Waynes display their handiwork in Vietnam. The photo was sent to Vietnam GI, an anti-war paper edited by Vietnam Vets in Chicago. Photo courtesy of Vietnam GI/LNS.

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As most movie goers know, “skin is in.” Some of the current biggies in Detroit are: “Naughty Shutter”; “Naked and the Wicked”; “Nudes on Credit”; “The Erotic Mr. Rose”; “Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill”; and last, but not least, “Fanny Hill Meets Lady Chatterley.”

The above pictures, and many more like them, have become so popular in Detroit that we now rank number three in the nation in skin houses.

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Between now and October 9^th the J.L. Hudson Gallery is offering the public a legal trip via the work of Michelangelo Pistoletto.

Pistoletto, a 34 year old Italian artist, has succeeded in opening up an entirely new dimension in art through the relatively simple device of mounting life-size photographs on highly polished stainless steel plates.

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Richard Lester’s new film, “Petulia,” is a contradiction in terms—it is at one and the same time old-fashioned, avant-garde, sophisticated, heavy-handed, and pointless.

Lester, who directed the Beatles films and “How I Won the ‘War,’” is no stranger to cinematic mixed bags, but this time something went wrong.

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“Planet of the Apes” may turn out to be the “Bonnie and Clyde” of 1968.

Many film critics, after giving the picture an unfavorable review, are beginning to have second thoughts about it.

Richard Schickel, of Life magazine, said in a recent retraction: “I should have trusted my instincts, stood up and proclaimed my affectionate regard for the thing right off.”

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To get some idea of what “Poor Cow” is like, one need only imagine what “Elvira Madigan” would have been like if it had been filmed in the slums of London.

The two pictures are remarkably similar: both deal with impractical young lovers; both use the same impressionistic film techniques; both employ many short, carefully composed scenes; and both follow a visual, rather than a narrative, plot line.

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a review of

“Rosemary’s Baby” directed by Roman Polanski

It’s not everyday that one comes across a novel in which Satan rapes a New York housewife and forces her to bear him an heir. In fact, two and a half million readers found the story so intriguing that they turned Rosemary’s Baby into an overnight success.

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I have yet to read a really worthwhile movie review of “The Stranger,” and I’m not sure I can remedy the situation.

Like most film critics, I am tempted to write a long opinionated description of how well Albert Camus’s novel was transferred to the screen. I am even tempted to display my erudition, as many reviewers have done, by launching into a profound discussion of Existentialism.

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Eleanor and Frank Perry, who made “David and Lisa,” have come out with a new film called “The Swimmer.” Although it does not resemble, or live up to, their previous effort, it’s a better movie than most critics would have you believe.

I feel, despite what you might have heard to the contrary, that “The Swimmer” is a motion picture worth seeing. I should point out, however, that I’m probably the only reviewer in the country who feels this way.

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Harry Levin, the literary critic, once said that the achievements of such writers as Joyce, Katherine Mansfield and Hemingway “can almost be computed in terms of specific gravity.”

In other words, density, rather than volume, is the main characteristic of their work. However, in James Joyce’s novel, “Ulysses,” one finds both density and volume, which make it one of the most formidable books ever written.

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Reprinted from The Metro

ECOLOGY SUCKS! It sucks the life out of social reform. It sucks the energy out of campus movements. It sucks the irritants out of capitalism. It sucks change out of politics. It sucks reason out of thought.

Ecology has become the monster of our age. Unless revolutionaries, radicals, and liberal reformers soon recognize this, they, and humanism itself, will eventually be consumed.

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