• U.S.

Show Business: Second Strike

3 minute read
TIME

Will the world never tire of Star Wars?

Mready the highest-grossing picture in U.S. history ($195 million), the film may very well break European records too. In Paris, where it opened last October, 1 million people went to see the robots, Artoo Detoo and Threepio, at the annual toy show, and kids say goodbye with a wave of the arm and a “Que la force soit avec toi.” Their parents are standing in line too, and journals have hailed its brave statement of the human spirit.

The film opens in London only this week, but the force is already there. Discothèques have been playing the music for months, and London papers don’t look complete these days without a Star Wars cartoon, joke or picture. One daily, the Evening News, is even running a picture-studded serialization to boost circulation. The two giant theaters where the movie will play have already racked up $320,000 in advance ticket sales—more than three times the previous record. Said a theater spokesman: “It’s easier to get knightedm than buy Star Wars tickets.” “I’ve been in this business for 45 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” says John Fairbairn, the film’s publicity director. “It’s an eruption.”

Even that unflappable knight of the Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi—otherwise known as Sir Alec Guinness—is amazed and a little perplexed by the Star Wars phenomenon. People who have seen the film in the U.S. are making him a cult figure, he says, and reminding him of his duties as the last of a great line of warriors:”It’s a fun movie, but some spooky stuff has crept in. People are taking it too seriously, and I wouldn’t encourage that altogether.” Adds the Catholic convert: “I’m an alleged Christian, so to that extent, yes, I do believe that something like the force exists. But not as expressed in Star Wars.”

Actually, Guinness almost turned the picture down when he saw a science-fiction label on it. He read the first few pages, however, and found himself still turning, a sure sign of a good script. Guinness usually takes more complex roles, like the traitorous diplomat he is playing in Alan Bennett’s current London hit, The Old Country. As Hilary, the high official of the Foreign Office who defects to Russia, Guinness plays a man who loves ironies and verbal puzzles. His own character is hidden, even to himself; “Hilary is Hilary watching Hilary watching Hilary,” says his wife. Guinness delights in the role’s subtleties, however, and his performance is brilliant throughout.

The part of Obi-Wan had no such psychological depth, he notes, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. “It had a touch of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings,” he says. “It was a rather simple outline of a good man who had some magical powers. I tried to make him uncomplicated. I’m cunning enough now to know that to be simple carries a lot of weight.”

There is one gesture of Obi-Wan’s, however, that he still regrets. When the planet Alderaan blows up, Obi-Wan reels backward and clutches his forehead, an unpardonable cliché in Guinness’s opinion. “I still go hot and cold when I think of that scene,” he confesses. During those awkward moments, he has at least one consolation: his 2¼% of the film’s profits.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com