CINEMA
Three's a crowd
CHRISTOPHER HUDSON
After Shadows and Faces comes Husbands ('x', Columbia), John Cassavetes's latest, most tedious attempt to get actors to improvise meaningfully in front 'of the camera. On this occasion Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and Cassa- vetes play three hus- bands who throw over office work for a few days, when their near- est and dearest drinking companion dies, and take a long, boozy look at themselves. They sleep in a New York subway, run around a gym, sit drinking and singing in a bar, vomit together in a lavatory, fly over to London, gamble in a casino, sleep—independently- with three dollies in a hotel and then, two of them, fly back to their Long Island suburban housewives, all the time shouting, groaning, punching each other on the shoulder, cursing, hooting with laughter because if they, the actors, stopped and sat down and took breath, it would be all too apparent that they had absolutely nothing to say.
This is the trouble with extemporising a script. On the credit side, it can create gen- uine tensions and excitements. There are a few times, perhaps twenty of the hundred and forty-two minutes, when everything coheres and the camera is forgotten : the. early stages of the bar sequence and the scenes with the London girl Mary Tynan (a very good performance from Jenny Runacre) have this sort of lucid naturalism. But for the rest, there is too much self-indulgence and sheer exhibitionism. The three men end up sounding less like everyday husbands and more like Punch-figures who have lost their Judies and go battering away verbally at the audience instead.
The Tales of Beatrix Potter ABC 1) is as unexceptionable as they come. The masks and costumes are superb, •and the Royal Ballet scamper prettily around in them to the pleasant music of John Lanchbery. Jemima Puddle-Duck narrowly escapes the fox, Jeremy Fisher gets a ducking, Peter Rabbit twitches his ears, Pigling Bland falls for a sultry little piece in snout and black whiskers, and they all twirl and entrechat to backdrops of the Lake District spreading greenly over the hills and far away. Under- fives will love it: under-tens will find it better than they might have expected.
A more enterprising film than either of these has arrived at the Academy Two with the unlikely title of Pm An Elephant, Madam ('x'). One of the most intelligent and perceptive German films of recent years, much better than Yesterday Girl despite ir- ritating camerawork by someone trying to be Raoul Coutard, it sets a motley collection of grammar school teachers against a very, articulate sixth form taking time off from their finals to protest the expulsion of one of their members, who couldn't care less.
To recapitulate on February and March, the outstanding films have been The Music Lovers, Death in Venice, Battle of Algiers and Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspi- cion, with Five Easy Pieces and Simon the Swiss not far behind. One other recom-
mendation : Leslie Halliwell's The Filmgoers Companion* has recently re- appeared in a revised third edition, and is still the most fascinating of all cinema guides.
*(MacGibbon and Kee £5.00)
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