Films
around
Rating Key
★*** excellent
goodi
irk fair
* poor
“American Graffiti” is a great film. Not
because it deals with great human
problems but because it is a thoroughly
professional, highly polished piece of
cinema that is continuously entertaining.
“American Graffiti” is a nostalgic
reconstruction of one night in 1962. It takes
place in a typical small American town on
the final evening before several
characters are to leave for college. The
goings-on are funny and exciting, and the
characters are superb.
There is the squeaky-clean all-
American tennager with P.F. Flyers, a
car and a steady girl, played with
squeaky-clean perfection by Ronny
Howard who was the squeaky little kid
from “Andy of Mayberry.”
There is the bespectacled, shy and
clumsy guy everyone calls “Toad” who
deep down is just like everyone else.
There is the “tough guy,” the hot
rodder, sporting a T-shirt, tight jeans and
the meanest car in the county.
These characters,' together with an
assortment of other typical but authentic
replicas of Americana, produce a
strikingly vivd image of the early ’6o's.
The streets are lined with 1956 Edsels, big
finned Cadillacs with fur dice dangling
from rear-view mirrors, and the main
7-.thering spot is the drive-in hamburger
—i where the waitresses all wear rofier
ska tv.".
“M”... visual excitement, pace, brilliance of surface,
and feeling for detail interpreted by Peter Lorre with a
sparicot genius” Pauline Kael
Student/SF Films presents
FRITZ LANG’S Classic
M
with PETER LORRE
! BACK BV POPULAR DEMAND
Friday and Saturday 7 & 9 p.m.
HUB Assembly Room STILL ONLY 50 cents
campus
The Cheyenne Social Club
capsule reviews Fridjto Sunday
James Stewart and Henry Fonda make
a good screen team' in this easygoing
comedy about two grizzled cowboys who
inherit a bordello.
By John Wilson
The film’s director, ex-film student
George Lucas, has achieved with skill and
professionalism a masterful reproduction
in refined detail of an era not long past.
Lucas’ last film, “THX 1138,” was an
interesting attempt to create a strange
future environment where society was
totally mechanized and inhuman. An
intriguing and unconventional film,
“THX” lacked strong dramatic structure
and was not very successful.
Lucas learned from his experience,
though. He has given “American Graffiti”
a tight, well-paced script that moves along*
quickly and smoothly, and has filled the
soundtrack with music like "The
Peppermint Twist” and other rock-and
roll tunes from the ’6o’s along with the
great disc jockey “Wolfman” Jack.
What Lucas managed to create is not
just a nostalgic reminiscence. Partly
because he grew up in the early ’6o’s and
partly because we all are caught up in a
backward-looking cycle at the moment,
Lucas’ film shows us a bit about ourselves
and the way we live, or think we want to
live. There is something essentially and
uniquely American about. “American
Graffiti” and there is a level of social
commentary which flows swiftly along
beneath the obvious fun part of the film.
“American Graffiti” is a superior
example of American movie-making with
all the elements of greatness. To miss this
film would be a mistake.
The Arrangement
★★ •
Friday to Sunday
“Successful” advertising executive
Kirk Douglas reaches middle-age and
realizes the worthlessness of his life. Elia
Kazan directed this depressing tale based
on his best-selling novel.
•kirk
Friday and Saturday
. Atmospheric thriller, 'directed by Fritz
Lang, about a child murderer.on the loose.
Peter Lorre’s first starring role.
The Owl and the Pussycat
Friday to Sunday
Barbara Streisand gives one of her best
performances in this funny film as a
hooker who barges in on writer George
Segal after he has her evicted from her
apartment. .
The Graduate
•kirk'h
Friday to Sunday
A very fine satirical comedy, one of the
biggest box-office hits in movie history.
Dustin Hoffman became a star, in the title
'American Graffiti'
a nostalgic reconstruction
of one night in 1962
By Mark Trachtman
floating arm
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17.95
up to 10Ow
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127 e. beaver 237-6612
P.S. Friday. October 19,1975
role of a college graduate returning to the
affluence of suburbia and finding
hypocrisy ail around him.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know
About Sex...
•kirk
Friday to Sunday
Woody Allen is both director and star of
this film, which consists of six segments
satirizing sundry sexual situations. Some
skits sloppy, several side-splitting.
Milhouse
Friday only
A satirical look at the career of Richard
Nixon, utilizing film and television clips of
the events in his past. Will outrage his
supporters and delight his detractors.
Rabbit, Run
★★
Friday to Sunday
In one of his first starring roles, James
Caan plays “Rabbit” Angstrom, a former
high-school basketball hero who can’t
cope with the responsibilities of adulthood.
A fair version of John Updike’s novel.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
■k-k'fz
Friday to Sunday
Robert Altman (M*A*S*H) directed this
murky, moody western-about frontier life.
It focuses on the partnership formed by the
title characters (Warren Beatty and Julie
Christie), which has her running the local
brothel and him tendidg bar.