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Joan BunkeOn Moviesitively nibbled-at Professor Moriarty, Moriarty. And each time the boy-fig-his most memorable film character ure on the stairs becomes clearer*since his star role as Archie Bice in Arkin’s Freud makes a human being“The Entertainer” It’s in order to. of the pioneer of psychoanalysis — quote Olivier’s oft-quoted observation : though some of the lines Meyer gives“There are no small parts, only small him have a foolish, superficial sound, actors.” Olivier’s small part looms So, for that matter, do some of the Wat-large in Meyer’s fictional confrontation. son-Holmes exchanges; only the TrueTHE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION, directed by Herbert Ross, with Nlcol Williamson, Sir Laurence Olivier, Robert Duvall and Alan Arkln, at the RIVIERA.lt;PG)SILVER STREAK, directed by Arthur Hiller, with Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor and Jill Clay burgh, at VALLEY 2 and SOUTHRIDGE 3. (PC)PRICES: S3 generally* Special rates for seniors and children.T‘HE SEVEN-PER-CENT Solution” is so good-looking that you want to walk around in it, touching the props, examining the pictures, reveling in the gloss and texture of the sets.A “literary” work up to its very eyebrows, the film version of University ofjowa graduate Nicholas Meyer’s best-seller about Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud manages at the same time to be a first-class example of a well-made “visual” film.Director Herbert Boss, who turned to film directing (“Play It Again, Sam” and “Funny Girl”) after years as a ballet choreographer, knows how to use the grammar of film to make standard camera work look fresh. Often taxed with being literal-minded, he also has the ability to turn imaginative with suprising frequency.However fine Director of Photography Oswald Morris has made his film look, the actors don!t let {him, or it, steal any scenes. Nearly all of the turns, however small, are star turns.Sir Laurence Olivier’s role is very short — yet in a few sequences he creates a trembling, diminished, pos-between the real Dr. Sigmund Freud and Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional (to some) Sherlock Holmes in the Vienna of the 1890s.Nicol Williamson makes his Holmes neurotic and self-dramatizing, still quite superior but exhibiting real human failings. The great detective is, after all, slave to his cocaine habit (a seven-per-cent solution of the drug.)TiELLJNG the story, Meyer’s screenplay follows his novel closely (except for the slick romantic ending, the one he wrote for the British edition after the original American version.)To try to wean Holmes from his addiction, Dr. Watson (Robert DuvaU, who makes his character appealingly intelligent) lays a false trail from London’s 221B Baker Street to Vienna’s Berggasse 19, where Holmes and Freud (Alan Arkin) attempt to withdraw the detective from cocaine cold-turkey.Director Ross does some spectacular, though standard, camera acrobatics during Holmes’ delirium and inserts, for Holmes addicts, plenty of “in” references to stories in the canon.Ross’ technique becomes notable in a sequence that is intercut throughout the movie. Each time, the sequenceprogresses only by seconds but each time those seconds add their mite of information to clearing up the mystery of Holmes’ obsession with his nemesisBeliever will not swallow hard at some of the fatuous lines.“Seven-Per-Cent Solution” leads from strength in other areas, though.. Ross and Meyer covered their bets by planning the film to appeal to more than Sherlockians. The “extras” provide genuine film frosting for the literary cake.In one super extra, Holmes and the villainous Baron von Leinsdorf (Jeremy Kempr superbly cast) duel atop a speeding Austrian train, picking up the film’s rhythm with vital action. (The placement and filming of the duelers, however, is not as clearly staged as it ought to be. Half the time, the moviegoer has to struggle to figure out where be is atop the train.)Another good fextra is the subplot involving the demtmondaine Lola Devereaux (Vanessa Redgrave) and the Baron. It provides much snore than Just a chase through Vienna’s dark streets: Where else, without a stiffcover charge, could, we get a free hearing of Manhattan's newest enter-tztzzzont sensation — Regine — singing a Stephen Sondheim song?I’VE BEEN reading the ads all wrong, thinking “Silver Streak” was planned as a comedy. Comes now thepress information book, which calls the movie an “action thriller” with “heavy overtones of romance and comedy.” That explains why “Silver Streak”iiappears to be aiming its jokes at the jugular. Bloody comedy is a contradiction in terms and so is comic bloodletting, one would think. Director Arthur Hiller doesn’t think so.His stars are all actors with a gift for comedy Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor and Jill Ciayburgh (if anyone ever gives her a really good film role, she’ll run away with it). Wilder has the fey, diffident look of a character on whom life is playing a long-run practical joke. Pryor can snap out a black-conscious-ness line with engaging sass. And Ciayburgh has a livewire look, as if she’s ready to lead the gang feet first into the nearest prank.Hiller put the whole kit and kaboodle aboard a Los Angeles-to-Chicago “Amroad” train infested with a gang of art-world felons. After George Caldwell (Wilder) discovers a * murder victim, the chief art crook1 (Patrick McGoohan) sends Ms goon squad to get rid of Caldwell, who is dumped from the train a couple of times. The dumpings let him indulge in several comic sequences, including a wild plane ride with a tough old lady pilot (Lucille Benson).One-liners god sexual innuendoes provide some of the comedy, sight gags the rest, but toward the end Director Hiller lays on the violence with submachine guns, helicopters and a technically marvelous (but uncomic) train smash in a Chicago train terminal. rMaybe the way to go to an action-thriller comedy” is to go for the jokes and close your eyes during the vividviolence. Another director, Peter Bogdanovich, said it all in another context with a comment to the effect that film violence shouldn’t be “revolting.” Much of “Silver Streak” ’s is.wtr« urvktt, wMtThe MoviesBoff os BombsA porttv mfaitcWvi cemswwlvm «f sam* at Hit bettor Cspvjta cammairtt art cuM Iram Tha Tribunalan eccistonal wmmlne-iNi by • T reams slaflar.*The Pink Panther Strikes Again .Director Blake Edwards and actor Peter Seilers build their newest, and best, Inspector Clouseau comedy like good bricklayers — joke layered upon joke, with a superjoke as the topper. As Clouseau might say, “a fuenny, fuenny eoemedy.” (Joan Bunke.)King Kong (PG) — The machinery works and the beast is innocent, sensitive, impressive — which is more than you can say for the cheap human beings in this remake of the 1932-33 classic. John Guillermin directs the monster traffic skillfully. Go for the beast; the beauty’s trivial by comparison.(Joan Bunke)___Carrie (R) — There’s a moment in this movie when the audience levitates six inches and comes down screaming. Brian DePalma’s thriller is one of the year’s best, and Sissy Spacek is superb as a young girl with a strange power. (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun •‘Times.)--—Bugay Malone (G) - The plot’s borrowed from a hundred Hollywood gangster movies — but everyone in the cast is a kid. Jodie Foster (of “Taxi Driver”) stars as a nightclub torch singer and the movie has an appealing freshness and style. (RogerEbert, Chicago Sun-Times)Two-Mlnuto Warning lt;R) - Technical brilliance and wrenching, sustained tension make this bloody film about a sniper “crazy” at a football stadium a Not Bad candidate for the iron-nervedwho find film violence bearable. (Joan Bunke.)Joa Paathor (G) — The condescending tone of the script would insult a sawy six-year-old. As it is, it damages the first half of a well-photographed, agreeably scored adventure yam about a Florida Seminole Indian youth and his dream of making it in the white world aboard a fishing boat. (Joan Bunke.)it
Newspaper Details
Des Moines Tribune
Des Moines, Iowa, US
Fri, Dec 24, 1976
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
Rotten T.
USA 18 Jun 2020
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