Film
Of Nebbishes and Kings
Woody takes us on a humorous/fantastic trip, not-so-bad guys flee the law, and Henry weds—over and over again.
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Even so, screenwriters Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr. have given us an elliptical version of Henri Charriere's autobiographica[ Papillon (the nickname he bore for the butterfly tattooed on his chest), which recounted his eight attempts at escape from French Guiana before a ninth led him to safety and permanent residence (as well as best-sellerdom) in Venezuela. And co-producer-director Franklin J. Schaffner has so overloaded the screen with details of routine and irrelevant characterizations that exposition predominates with one-liners and quickie-confrontations substituting for drama during the first half of the film. Then, in an attempt to jam-cram the climax, we race through a frenetic muddle of escape and capture and final try for freedom that becomes as banal as it is confusing.
Even the tedium, of course, is endurable, primarily because of Hoffman's witty and beautifully restrained portrait of Dega, the slight, bespectacled, prissy forger who financed Papillon's and his own survival and escape attempts, and because of McQueen's emergence as an interesting actor in repose (rather than as the flip charmer he usually embodies) in his portrait of Papillon as a man of superlative courage and determination. Each has a moment—McQueen as he accepts a half-smoked cigar from a leper and puffs on it, Hoffman as he turns his head in the embrace at their final parting—that pierces to the very heart in its revelation and effectiveness—and makes us aware of the root of our disappointment in the film. There is little cause for involvement—no chief sadist to hate, no true lust for liberty for men unjustly imprisoned (McQueen's insistence on his innocence seems routine, Hoffman's lucrative forgeries simply give him an edge over less fortunate criminals)—and we're given, in effect, a pair of movie stars to root for, with compliments to the makeup men obviously called for. And the net effect is of a strung-together serial, complete with comic relief (intentional or not) in Papillon's respite in an Indian village where he has a Tom Jones eating-courtship scene with a tawny maiden and we'd swear there was a strain or two of "Stranger in Paradise" in the score. Victor Jory, incidentally, who went the route in Escape from Devil's Island in 1935, is the all-silent Indian chief in this one and Anthony Zerbe does a nice bit as the superscabrous chief of the lepers.
HOFFMAN'S ON HAND AGAIN IN Alfredo Alfredo but the film belongs to Pietro Germi; it's almost a sequel to his delightful Divorce Italian Style and Seduced and Abandoned. The Italian title of this Italian film translates as "Till Divorce Do Us Part," apt for the recounting of the torments of a nice quiet man roped into a devouring marriage and finally released therefrom, by the reform of the divorce laws, only to find himself at the altar again, betrayed by the liberated lady of his heart. Since Hoffman spoke English during the filming, his dialogue is dubbed by an Italian-speaking actor and Hoffman seems to be miming the part. Nevertheless, he is completely charming as the pleasant routine-ridden bank clerk who is infatuated with a lovely young thing but cannot bear her ultimate infatuation with him. And with Stefania Sandrelli, that exquisite creature of Seduced and Abandoned and The Conformist, as the ultra-possessive female, and Carla Gravina, the liberated lovely of The Inheritor, as the free-wheeling love of his life, there's a delightful comedy at hand.
Germi is a past master in highlighting the social satire inherent in domestic and sexual relationships, in parental avarice where their children's future lies, in matrimonial demands and extramarital inhibitions. And the Italian divorce laws, past and present, are choice grist for his mill of ironic comedy. Women's wiles and men's morality are his fascination but while there's a cruel clarity to his perception there's an overwhelming fondness for his foolish creatures that permeates his films and makes Alfredo Alfredo a joy.
FOR THE YOUNG THERE'S AN engrossing feature-Iength animated film, Fantastic Planet, "inspired" by Stefan Wull's novel, Oms en Serie, a science-fiction fantasy whose technique is as fascinating as its plot. Directed by Rene Laloux, who collaborated on the scenario with Roland Topor, who did the original art work, it's a Lil1iputian-oriented tale of the Draags, 39-foot super-science-oriented creatures on the planet Ygam, who keep Oms (or humans) as pets. The prime minister's daughter finds a baby Om and raises him but he runs away at 15, finds a colony of wild Oms and helps lead the successful Om revolt that results in the founding of the planet Terra. A new and complex technique that has won the film several festival prizes results in animation of fascinating depth and imagination, reminiscent most of Czech animators' work.
Humor and pathos underline a fine adventure story, yet for a ridiculous reason—there is frontal nudity in the outlined Om figures (women's breasts, a suggestion of male genitals)—the film has been rated "R." There are so few worthwhile children's films around that it's a shame to hinder their enjoyment of this one, but the over-18 young-in-spirit can accompany the youngsters and marvel too.
IF YOU MISSED THE BBC'S The Six Wives of Henry VIII on CBS, all you movie-going television-scorning snobs, you missed Keith Michell's superb Emmy-winning performance as the multi-wived monarch. But thanks to the enterprise of some British moviemakers, you're being given a second chance courtesy of Henry VIII and His Six Wives. In this film—wherein the opulent sets and costumes and lovely settings seem, along with Michell, borrowed from the BBC offering—you are given a chance to watch the overwhelming performance of Mitchell as the monarch who reigned for 38 years and devoted the last 14 to a succession of five wives in his search for a male heir, a proper political alliance, and a virtuous companion.
There is, of course, something irresistible in the Henry VIII story, the period, the ramifications of each marriage; moviegoers take particular pleasure, I suspect, in the changes time, our mores and our morals have wrought on the 1933 Charles Laughton version of The Private Life of Henry VIII on which we did our cinematic teething. Frances Cuka, Charlotte Rampling, Jane Asher, Jenny Bos, Lynne Frederick and Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Henry's wives are perfection in their roles. I can pay them no greater compliment than to note that one remembers each clearly in retrospect, as one remembers Donald Pleasence's Thomas Cromwell and Michael Gough's Suffolk, and has a suffusing awareness of a time and a place in each segment of history. With a screenplay by Ian Thome, who did the Jane Seymour segment of the BBC production, and with yeoman direction by Waris Hussein, the film is, in sum, a thinking-man's spectacular, with something, of course, to pleasure even the non-thinkers.
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