(3 of 5)
STOP, YOU'RE KILLING ME is an apt title for a slightly bloodstained package of three one-act plays by James Leo Herlihy. The title's aptness lies not only in its suggestion of homicide but in its humor as well—each of the three is laughing on the outside while dying on the inside. And the Theater Company of Boston seems to know exactly what the dark and savage satirist is laughing about.
SPITTING IMAGE. Sam Waterston and Walter McGinn play a homosexual couple who, to the dismay of the Establishment, have a baby. Though the play is basically a one-joke affair and has the somewhat inflated air of a short story masquerading as a novel, it is often amusing.
DAMES AT SEA, with a thoroughly engaging cast and some of the most ingenious staging currently on or off Broadway, is a delightful spoof of the movie musicals of the '30s.
ADAPTATION-NEXT. Elaine May directs both her own play, Adaptation, and Terrence McNally's Next in an evening of perceptive and richly comic one-acters.
TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK is a loving tribute to Negro Playwright Lorraine Hansberry presented by an interracial cast in which whites as well as blacks speak for her.
CINEMA
STOLEN KISSES. Francois Truffaut continues his cinematic autobiography in this lyrical souvenir of adolescence about a young man (Jean-Pierre Leaud) journeying —sometimes reluctantly—into manhood.
THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY. The subject of this chilling film is kidnaping, but Director Hubert Cornfield uses it as an excuse for conducting a surreal seminar in the poetics of violence. The uniformly excellent cast is headed by Marlon Brando, who steals the show with his best acting since One-Eyed Jacks.
AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) is the movie everyone has heard about but few will be able to sit through. Its widely and cleverly publicized sex scenes are secondary to a seemingly interminable journalistic narrative about youth (mainly Lena Nyman and Borje Ahlstedt) and politics in Sweden.
3 IN THE ATTIC has echoes of both Alfie and The Graduate, but viewers may find themselves being won over by its own sleazy charm as it spins the unlikely tale of a campus Lothario (Chris Jones) whose best girl (Yvette Mimieux) develops a novel and strenuous plan to punish him for his infidelities.
THE STALKING MOON. A bloodthirsty and ingenious Indian wants to take revenge on Gregory Peck. Such presumption can lead to only one conclusion, but there are thrills along the way.
SWEET CHARITY. A lot of energy obviously went into this project. Most of it, including Shirley MacLaine's performance as a dancehall hostess, goes to waste.
RED BEARD. Japan's Akira Kurosawa, who is counted as one of the world's greatest moviemakers, takes a simple story of the spiritual growth of a young doctor and transforms it into an epic morality play.
THE SHAME. Ingmar Bergman ponders once again the problems of an artist's moral responsibility. This is his 29th film and one of his best, with resonant performances by Liv Ullman, Max von Sydow and Gunnar Bjornstrand.
THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S. Some talented players (Jason Robards, Joseph Wiseman, Harry Andrews, Norman Wisdom) have the time of their lives in this affectionate tribute to oldtime burlesque.