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sinister, dehumanizing power of machines. Redford has survived as a human being by his devotion to literature, while his superiors (von Sydow and Cliff Robertson as the CIA section chief) have become little more than the computers and data banks they purport to control.The film JJ a polished commercial product with too much easy cynicism about our institutions of government to form any original ideas about oursystem of governanceYet the suspense accumulates to a high pitch and the plot contains all sorts of unexpected reversals. Mystery thrillers of this type depend on our division of humanity into heroes and villains, and this conspiratorial perception is somewhat at odds with the revelations of the dirty tricks of our CIA and FBI. which seem to bear out Pogo’s assertion, “We have met the enemy — and he is us.* * *By contrast With “Condor,”“Monty Python and the Holy Grail* does not build to a climax and begins to pow tedious after the first hour (It’s oven possible that ffee opening credits are the wittiest part of the film, with their scurrilous and vaguely obscene references to mooses, in some mock-Danish subtitles).It’s not that the “Grail” lacksstructure; this parody of theArthurian romances follows the traditional form with scrupulous attention to detail: in the film as inm legend. Sir Galahad visits a castle filled with “chaste'1 maidens in which the Grail is said to repose, and King Arthur and Sir Bedivere sail off in a providentially-provided boat to the island castle where the elusive Grail is said to lieU But the main :inp|l(^tiie MontyPython gang of actors is toward verbal wit As on the TV series, everyone talks too much, and the main humor lies in the improbable oververbalizing which people bring to nearly every situation '|^Early in the film. King Arthur s attempt to invite a baron to join his Camelot table is bogged down in a wonderfully inane discussion about the inability of sparrows to carry lt;■lt;lt;lt;,units to England. “How much wit can we squeeze out of any given situation?’* Is the question which the Pythoners ask in every scene. No one asks. “Have we said loo much? or, “Is it time to get on to the next scene?*’ The jokes simply pile up There is delightful visual humor King Arthur demolishes in a mostgrotesque way the stern Blacklllight, who refuses to give up the fight even when incapacitated to a remarkable degree; |pS Galahad's reluctant escape from a * nunnery’* is amusingly coarse And there art an abundance of those wonderful cartoons which are sprinkled throughout the Python TV series: this time they are clever parodies of the calligraphic designs of medievalmanuscriptsIt’s all an affectionate parody of the Grail legend delivered by a fine ensemble of British comedians who are thoroughly steeped in the King Arthur romances But as the evening wore on and the scenes became bo^fl ed down in excessive verbal wit i couldn t help wishing for a “straight*! version of tne legend itself. A serious version of tht legend filmed on location at these same wonderfully foggy Scottish castles, could be a marvellously entertaining film. It’s too bad that that our century is so uncomfortable in the presence of any non-ironic presentation of myth• * •Roger Vadim’s “Charlotte” is anefrgant, Vapid and lt;full pornographicexercise, (adim has always brought a sense of style and a certain charm tohis movies but here fir has forgottenwhat made his earlier movies so appealing Vadim’s films like “And God Created Woman V with Brigitte Bardot and even “The Circle of Love® with Jane Fonda were redeemed ■ their energy and spirit — the joy ofsex if you will - that is so sadly lacking inThe form of tilt film is that of amystery thriller, since Charlotte has been murdered and a lackluster search for her killer is being conducted. The man to conduct the search is Roger Vadim, who unwisely has cast himself as the hero of his own film. Vadim, the man who brought to stardom such notables as Bardot, Annette Stroyberg, and
Newspaper Details
Morgantown Dominion Post
Morgantown, West Virginia, US
Sat, Nov 08, 1975
Page 9
Full Page
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USA 22 Jan 2020
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