Cinema .
Indigestible Huck
Duncan Fallowell
Huckleberry Finn. Director: J. Lee Thompson. Stars: Jeff East, Paul Winfield, Harvey Korman. 'U.' Odeon, Leicester Square (114 minutes).
Bof. Director: Claude Faraldo. Stars: Julian Negulesco, Marie Dubois, Paul Grauchet. 'X.' Academy Two (95 minutes).
Continuing my survey of the people of the globe in the guise of film reviews, I am terribly in favour of Americans at the moment. Even the most gin-sodden strands of the media had nothing on the whoosy tank-up of London's July 4th. I reeled in porches draped with the Stars and Stripes, I was bacchic in Belgrave Square, I clinked juleps on pavements with bobbies in shortsleeves, my trousers transpOsing from blue at the hip to mud-brown, at the ankle: there is nothing quite like doing it out-of-doors. But even this goodwill on a 'full tide would have to draw the line at Huckleberry Finn. Now that the Readers' Digest has stopped sending me extravagant technicolored booklets advertising their collections of tunes we have loved, twenty-five long-players of Stokowski stroking his chin all in one big hat-box, Vienna bon-bons by a dozen different people called Strauss and the sexiest moments from the symphonies, three days solid with climaxes plus a packet of hankies free, they have the money to go into films. The saving on postage alone must have financed their productions of Sawyer and Finn.
The inferior book is the superior film. Tom Sawyer as a picture had no more qualities than one might cynically expect but it was sufficiently engaging not to have the kids whining on you. Huckleberry Finn however, with the school holidays in the offing, might well provoke our youngsters to rise against their oppressors. I shall be right alongside them daubing the screens with lollies and ice cream, bursting into tears and embarrassing mum for no other reason than the insult in expecting children to sit through nearly two hours of verbal inconsequence and weak songs.
Not that it is a musical. There are no production numbers. Presumably as a way of adding some zing, or distracting the attention from the fact that there is nothing to hold it, people do burst into voice on rafts in the middle of the Mississippi and sound like Rex Harrison rehearsing on borrowed time, especially Har\ley Korman who as the King has potentially a great character part. Unfortunately he is the vicitim of corny direction, lame script and neurasthenic melodies, so that his 'rowdy trouping strikes one as overdone and fraught with risks of a cardiac nature. Jeff East as Huckleberry can punt well and never looks out of place. He also lacks that hint of intelligent devilry in the original. East's 'What's Right. What's Wrong' is the most memorable of the songs and his voice in mid-break adds a touch of reality that is almost exotic. Roberta Flack singing 'Freedom' was a trendy idea but heavens her voice is a drag, honey without end. For sheer epic tedium the activities of the Readers' Digest can only be rivalled by the organs of government.
If you want something with more spike, a sex comedy, Bof, has it in a detached, faintly idiotic way, although being about the bedroom shuffle between father, son, son's wife, father's girlfriend and a black roadsweeper some of it might fly over the heads of your progeny. These films are usually so awful, particularly if British or Australian made, that it comes as an attractive surprise to find one with style. Since there is a lack of darts team appeal it might be more proper to call it a situation comedy, amusing rather than smirky or ha-ha. In case you received the alternative impression it is neither British nor Australian. How could it be, showing at the Academy? That's right, it is French.
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