(3 of 4)
AMERICA HURRAH, by Jean-Claude van Itallie, erupts on the theatrical landscape, pouring a lava of satire, comment and invective on some questionable aspects of modern life. Three playlets, Interview, TV and Motel are inventively directed by Jacques Levy and Joseph Chaikin and interpreted by a flawless cast.
EH?, by Henry Livings, is about Valentine Brose. He lives in a boiler room. He is a nit. His wife lives in there too. She is a nut. He is funny. She is funny. So is the play.
CINEMA
ULYSSES. An honest mildy sensational, and for the most part intelligent precis of James Joyce's masterpiece — although the film suffers from Director Joseph Strick's decision simply to illustrate Joyce's words rather than transform them into images.
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. Italian Director Franco Zeffirelli has breathed new life into Shakespeare's bawdy comedy with a brash and breezy style and lusty performances from Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
FALSTAFF. Orson Welles is both director and star of this amalgam of scenes from five of Shakespeare's history plays in which the Bard's "bombard" of a buffoon domi nates the stage. The film flickers with the glitter of genius—amid great stony stretches of dullness and incoherence.
PERSONA. Swedish Actress Bibi Andersson and Norwegian Actress Liv Ullman look alike, and from this similarity Director Ingmar Bergman has woven a deep, dark story of merging personalities.
HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING. Hollywood has broken the (Bobby) Morse code and come up with a pretty good reproduction of the Broadway hit musical.
THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF JEAN-PAUL MARAT AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF THE ASYLUM OF CHARENTON UN DER THE DIRECTION OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE. An excellent rendering of the Royal Shakespeare Company stage production.
DUTCHMAN. Subways are not for sleeping in this 55-minute rendering of LeRoi Jones's racial shocker that slams through the spectator like a jolt from the third rail.
YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW. Both the faults and freshness of the custard-pie plot and wacky camera work that tell the story of a youth cutting loose in Manhattan stem from the vast, undisciplined energy of Director Francis Ford Coppola—a new talent worth watching.
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Playwright Robert Bolt, Director Fred Zinnemann and Actor Paul Scofield have all been nominated for Academy Awards for their contributions to this excellent film about Sir Thomas More.
BOOKS
Best Reading
DISRAELI, by Robert Blake. An excellent biography of the brilliant and irreverent Prime Minister whose gaiety and wit infuriated his Victorian contemporaries even as they illuminated the issues and pretenses of his time.
JOURNEY THROUGH A HAUNTED LAND, by Amos Elon. Following a long, thoughtful trip through Germany, an Israeli journalist writes of the "moral schizophrenia" and conflicting values that haunt the country a generation after the death camps.
THE UNICORN GIRL, by Caroline Glyn. A 19-year-old novelist takes a fresh look at the passions and perils of early adolescence in a properly upsetting setting: a chaotic Girl Guide summer camp.