(3 of 4)
THE YOUNG RASCALS: GOOD LOVIN' (Atlantic). Still another rock group, adding to the glut. This one bloomed in the Garden State—which makes the Deep South Negro drawl puzzling, if pleasing. Rudy Clark and Arthur Resnick turn out a corny but effective song, which the rascals deliver with gospel fervor: "I was feelin' so bad, I asked my family doctor just what I had." And the M.D., with a wise "Yeah, yeah," prescribes: "Good lovin'."
CINEMA
JUDEX. A subtle, sophisticated French tribute to period pop art, based on the serialized adventures of a half-forgotten superhero who liked to vanquish villains and save maidens back in the silent-screen era.
BORN FREE. Kenya's scenery is spectacular, but the big cats snatch the lion's share of attention in a delightful film version of Joy Adamson's book about Elsa the lioness, whose loyalty and intelligence would do credit to any species.
MORGAN! An improper bohemian misfit (David Warner) goes ape and declares gorilla war on his former wife (Vanessa Redgrave) in a wayward British comedy that only occasionally gets out of hand.
HARPER. As a private eye focused on a kidnaping case, Paul Newman revives the Bogart tradition in lively style, with seedy-to-sumptuous local color supplied by Julie Harris, Arthur Hill and Lauren Bacall.
THE GIRL-GETTERS. Bird hunters fill their quota at a sleazy English seaside resort, where one young beachnik (Oliver Reed) shows a particular flair for wasting his youth.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. The life of Christ, taken word for word from Scripture by Director Pier Paolo Pasolini, an Italian Communist with a refreshingly earthy idea of how to do Bible movies.
SHAKESPEARE WALLAH. A brilliant and graceful comedy about a young actress (Felicity Kendal) who encounters romantic complications while touring India with a tatty Shakespearean company left over from the British colonial era.
DEAR JOHN. This tender, lusty lesson in love by Swedish Director Lars Magnus Lindgren studies the urgent biochemistry between a sailor (Jarl Kulle) and a girl (Christina Schollin) having a weekend fling.
THE GROUP. As in Mary McCarthy's gossipy bestseller about Vassar's class of '33, eight little grads make an entertaining soap-operatic mess of their lives while seeking sexual fulfillment and social betterment in the turbulent years before World War II.
THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET. Terrorized by the Nazis, a bumbling Aryan carpenter (Josef Kroner) turns his back on an old Jewish shopkeeper (Ida Kaminska) whose fate is the crux of this Oscar-winning tragicomedy from Czechoslovakia.
BOOKS
Best Reading
OMENSETTER'S LUCK, by William H. Gass. A portrait of the Puritan as a dirty old man. Philosophy Professor Gass pits a preacher crazed by suppressed sex and overt malice against a man who is simply good. Comic fireworks result.
THE BONAPARTES, by David Stacton. Napoleon may have been an ogre to his enemies, but his Corsican kin, disposed about the vacant thrones of Europe, merely made up a menagerie of bizarre misfits. Historical muckraking at its light-hearted best.