—The Daily Collegian Wednesday, July 20, 1977 Friedkin directs a downer Bleakness damages 'Sorcerer' By ALAN KOLPON Collegian Staff Writer While watching "Sorcerer," now showing at Cinema One, one gets the feeling that it was made with the best of intentions. However, these good in tentions are mixed with a certain pretentious bleakness that causes the film to fall short of being a fine ad venture story. A remake of the 'sos French film "The Wages of Fear," "Sorcerer" tells the story of four disreputable men. They are a petty New York mobster ( Roy Scheider, the most familiar face in the movie), a crooked French banker (Bruno Cremer), a Mexican hit man ( Francisco Rabal) and a young Arab terrorist ( Amidou). Fleeing from their , troubles, the foursome, by coincidence, end up hiding Novel explores infidelity Feminist looks at ancient theme By ARLENE VIGODA . for the Collegian "Half a Marriage" by Violet Weingarten ( Alfred A. Knopf, $7.95) . This is the era of the self-conscious feminist novel the thinly fictionalized accounts of the author's sexual, emotional and psychological trials which leave her with a wiser and more elevated consciousness. We have seen competent authors like Erica Jong, Marge Piercy and Margaret Drabble explore the intricacies of male female relationships. Violet Weingarten expertly reconstructs the experience of Jane Robbins, a loving wife whose 'perfect" marriage goes awry when her husband reveals he is leaving her for another woman. This theme has been depicted countless times and very often is hackneyed and effusively sentimental. Not so in this case. Weingarten makes :u•Aurw. ARBY'S ISA... DINNER FOR A DOLLAR •An Arby's Sandwich piled high with Tender Roasted BeefeCrispy PotatoesoCole Slaw Arby's announces a sale that's a change of pace and taste from your regular eating habits. Dinner for a dollar. The , three-course meal for one price. ONE DINNER-ONE DOLLAR-ONE PLACE (4) Arb® .i..› in a shabby little South American village. When nitroglycerin is needed to put out a raging fire in a remote village, the four men ( for a big reward) volunteer to drive two trucks containing the nitro. One of the trucks is called Sorcerer. The route they must take is a shambles, forcing the men to drive even deeper into their hell on earth. movie review Much of this story is exciting, with solid and quick-paced direction by William Friedkin ("The French Con nection," "The Exorcist"). Friedkin here obtains a fine sense of grim atmos phere from his locales, aided by some su perb photography. The international cast, particularly Scheider, performs well. The screenplay by Walon Green is sure that the mawkishness is kept to a minimum. Her observations are cooly astute, as is her wry humor. Jane becomes obsessed with the Other Woman. She often wonders if she is as real to Karen as Karen is to her, and "if I am, then how could she do it tome?" • Her thoughts focus on Jason's lover when she bathes and examines her stomach, observing the faint ivory stretch marks left by her pregnancies. ( Karen was never pregnant). When she is in bed with Jason she wonders, "Did Karen do this too? Is this what she said?" • Jason's gauche but honest remarks about Karen do little to ameliorate Jane's misery. "She's marvelous," he tells her. "Quite young and beautiful . . . You'd love her. She'd like you too. It's a damn shame you two can't meet." Offer valid Wednesday, July 20 Good at both locations: 111 Sowers St. 400 W. College Ave. very downbeat and this helps to con stitute the film's major flaw. "Sorcerer" has an overwhelming sense of bleak 'espair, which works against the film's attempt at a combination of adventure story and a message picture. The characters in Green's screenplay lack qualities of those in another film he wrote about losers, "The Wild Bunch." The characters in "Sorcerer" aren't allowed the dignity and upbeat heroics of William Holden and his gang in that Sam Peck inpah classic. Everyone in this film looks like a born loser with no real hope in sight. "Sorcerer" tries to be different and often succeeds. For that reason, it is worth seeing. But after it's over, one feels it would be much better if Friedkin and Green had tried some other ap proach. When Jane discovers a note Jason wrote about her and Karen, she begins to understand why he has turned to another woman. Paradoxically, Jane irritates him because he has no complaints about Jane herself. Their marriage, he writes, is "com fortable, polite, bloodless dead. Dead as a runover dog lying on the side of the road. Like everything else in my life." Jason explains that Jane "remade herself into a 'wife' (and that) Nora walked back into the doll house over my dead body." Jane and Jason Robbins are three dimensional people who make -the reader really care about their tenuous futures after Weingarten ends her story. This fine novel of a woman struggling to realize her needs as part of a unit and, more iMportantly, as an individual, makes fascinating reading. A Division of Dante§ In IMP 30 6 . ( 0c) v 6,3) A<s°, 0 9 6, c , „ r • 2tgi4 Tonight.is Blue Grass Night at the Westerly Parkway Hi Way Pizza Featuring at 9:00 - Whetstone; Run Location: Westerly Pkwy. Shopping Center Call 237-1074 Wide tapdance, country, rock, jazz Rock, country, swing and Dixieland jazz highlight upcoming local musical events. The Hoofers, a Dixieland group of seven dancers formed to "preserve and present_ the art of tap dancing,'! go onstage at 8 tonight in Eisenhower Auditorium. Nittany Mountain Summer is also sponsoring Friday's Tammy Wynette show at 7:30 and 9:15 p.m. in the auditorium. The • Pousette-Dart Band will ap pear in concert at 7:30 p.m. on July 28 at the Westerly Parkway Junior High School football field. Also appearing will be two local groups, the 7-11 Band and Round 2. The State College Dance 'Band will present a free concert at 7 p.m. Thursday on the Fisher Plaza next to Kern. The big band show is sponsored by the Graduate Student Association. variety of music slated: "The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia," part of Preston Jones' highly praised "Texas Trilogy," plays at 8 , p.m. from tomorrow through August 6 at the Pavilion. Festival Theatre's fourth summer pioduction, "Gershwin Revisited," opens July 29 at the Playhouse. "The Mousetrap," . Boal Barn Theatre's production' of Agatha Christie's whodunit, plays through Saturday at the Boal Barn Playhouse near Boalsburg. Curtain is 8:30 p.m. The Office of Student-Activities is sponsoring a free film festival. All movies will be shown on the HUB arts notes The Sophisticated lan Shortcut ____ It's a stunning summer haircut from lan of Danks. Danics-, Corner of Beaver Ave. and Allen St cr kt t - l it 4‘/ a r 0 PENN STATE CLASS RING ONE HUNDRED EAST COLLEGE AVENUE notro 1P41117 1%/ a dozen fresh soft shell New England Clams . served with corn on the cob 2.45 lawn; or in the HUB ballroom in case of rain, at 8 p.m. The films are: "Lost Horizon" (July 29), based on James Hilton's novel about a utopia; "Shenandoah"' ( August 14), based on a Broadway play, stars James Stewart; "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" ( August 11), a low budget 'sos, alien takeover, isn't as as bad as the lurid title suggests; "Endless 1 Summer" ( August 17), Bruce Brown's surfing film, drew praise for its music and photography. A ceramics exhibition by Denise Lausier Stone will be on display till July 30 in the Commons Gallery at Kern Building. Also appearing will be an exhibition of hand-made paper by students under the instruction of Diine Pepe. ' . Take a Shortcut'to a beautiful new you 238-5521 THE OFFICIAL Steamed Clams ® SPECIAL Wednesday nights from 5 to 9 PM only you can't beat it! Rear of 210 W. College ave 237-3449 0 . . . . Q . D
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