Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 27

nrrnniT FF5FF PPFRRFRIDAY 22. 1982 3C wwipwj wwfcw Sweet sentiment and tart humor fill 'Golden Pond' tures at a reckless boater but there Thayer Is the nerve center of this small drama, and Fonda, who really seems to ON GOLDEN POND Area theaters Norman Thavtr Henry Fonda Edith Thever Katharine Hepburn Chelsea Jne Fonda fP-J Dabney Coleman Bill Ray McKeon Billy. By JACK MATHEWS Frt Prs Movlt Critic HOLLYWOOD "On Golden Pond" is one of those movies that can trick a reviewer, on reflection, into not liking It. Any film with that many good lines, with people you enjoy that much, In a setting that gorgeous and that serene, must be cheating somehow. I So, if you find me saying the photography is laced with cliches of shimmering sunsets on golden ponds, that Ernest Thompson's screenplay is improbably flip, that it strums the heartstrings with shameless abandon, and that no effort Charlie Martin William Lanleau Produced by Bruce Gilbert; directed by Mark Rydell; written by Erneil Thompson; photography by Billy Williams; music by David Grusln; distributed by Universal Pictures.

Running lime, 1 hour, It mln. PARENTS' GUIDE: PG, some profanity. Isn't much that doesn't work. Thompson deserves credit for the rich dialogue, and director Mark Rydell knew exactly when and how to play his casting aces. Hepburn and Fonda could have been making their 20th film together rather than their first.

He also got excellent performances from the young McKeon and from Dabney Coleman, and though Jane Fonda seems to have been trying a little too hard in those scenes with her father, the family resemblance certainly plays well. BUT ULTIMATELY, "On Golden Pond" Is Henry Fonda's movie. Norman have done the best work of his career playing mindful old men in recent roles for both television and film, has filled that center with life. Fonda, whose only Oscar nomination was for "The Grapes of Wrath" in 1940, has disdained the Academy Awards system throughout his career. He told his biographer, Howard Teich-mann, that he had seen people react to Oscar announcements by groaning, "Oh, no," and didn't want them doing that if he won.

In a couple of months, the odds are he will win. And people won't groan. ft i Jkl vfli 1 see McKeon). Chelsea has come partly to see if she can make some emotional contact with her aloof father before he dies, but more selfishly, to see if she can dump the brat off for a month while she and her boyfriend gambol through Europe. Add a fishing pole and you've got all the elements for a conventionally maudlin melodrama.

A crotchety old man. A crotchety kid. An elusive 10-pound trout. A bad accident and a climactic rescue. Communion bridges the generation gap over Golden Pond.

FORGET MAUDLIN. Forget melodrama. There is plenty of sentiment in "On Golden Pond," but given the subject, It's relieved by an astonishing amount of humor. Laugh for laugh, I don't think there have been two or three funnier movies in the last year. A lot of the humor is a little too easy putting some salty words in the mouths of a kid and an old man, having -in was spared in exploiting the casting or two legendary stars who'd never worked together before, ignore me.

Those things are all true, and they've earned the movie some bad reviews, but 'audiences are too busy laughing, too busy caring, to be put off by the motives of the film's makers. If you can check your cynicism at the door, here's a two-hour tonic guaranteed to lift your spirits. THE STARS of "On Golden Pond," of course, are Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, whose careers had never crossed before in their combined 90 years of acting. Fonda, now 76 and seriously ailing, and Hepburn, 74, play Norman and Edith Thayer, an aging couple spending what he is convinced will be their last summer together at their cabin hideaway on a New England lake. "4 The stars of "On Golden Pond" are Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, whose careers had never crossed before in their combined 90 years of acting.

v. 1 i ft) listens to her husband's whining and hears him saying, "It's great to be alive." Entering the picture is their middle-age daughter, Chelsea (Jane Fonda), visiting from the West Coast with her dentist fiance CDabnev Coleman) and forgetful, but still sharp-witted, facing his 80th birthday with the stoic dignity one usually reserves for the gallows or a fall from a plane. She is as strong and supportive as you assume she always has been, an optimist who listens to the loons and hears them savine. "Welcome." who Fonda and Hepburn make obscene ges his querulous 13-year-old son (Doug He is a retired professor, cranky and Dreyfusi allll ftlheif 5s to do learn enjoy! Everything new from Detroit and the rest of the world. Special events every day.

Over 200 cars in exhibit. Educational exhibits. On-stage entertainment daily. 'Beautiful all the fun for the whole familyl WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY Area theaters By JACK MATHEWS Fret Prett Movlt Critic HOLLYWOOD For an actor who operates on a combustible energy flow of instinct and physical motion, Richard Dreyfuss has taken on the most difficult role imaginable as a bedridden quadriplegic In "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" Dreyfuss plays Ken Harrison, a brilliantly eccentric Boston sculptor cut off at the prime of a very full Ken Dr. Dr.

Scott Carter Judge Richard Dreyfuss John Cassavetes Christine Lahtl Bob Balaban McMillan Kaki Hunter Mary Orderly John Thomas Carter Produced by Lawrence Bachmann; directed by John Badham; written by Brian Clerk and Reginald Rose, from the play bv Clark; photography by Mario Tosl; music by Arthur Rubinstein; distributed by MGM; running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes. PARENTS' GUIDE: Intense subiecl material, profanity, nudity. life by an auto ac cident that severed orderlies one tough, one dingy, one funny off of which the patient bounces his personality. CASSAVETES makes the strongest impression among the supporting cast, even though his character seems to have been fashioned more from a position paper than from life. Lahti, Al Pacino's lawyer girlfriend in "And Justice for All," is awkward and unconvincing as Dreyfuss' compassionate doctor, and her reaction to him is not explained by anything that happens on the screen.

Balaban is the most distracting presence, a mousy lawyer who stutters through much of the movie first, It seems, from nervousness, then from a speech Impairment then suddenly stops stuttering altogether. But all of these reservations take nothing away from Dreyfuss' exceptional performance. Creating a character as complex, dynamic and believable as this one with only a face and a voice to work with is an achievement on the order of Mikhail Baryshnikov doing the lead in "Swan Lake" on one leg. Well, almost. 1982 DETROITJ AUTO SHOW COflO HALL JANUAKT IO-, irot Admission: Adults, S4.

Children under 12, free with a parent Senior citizens, free. Show Hours: 2pm through daily. Noon through Saturday and Sunday. his spinal cord just below his neck. The tragedy occurs in the opening moments of the film, and for the next two hours Dreyfuss dominates the screen as a talking head on a lifeless body.

It is a remarkable performance, as painful and difficult to watch as it must have been for ft 4 Vt harnessed to a wheelchair for daily dialysis to purge the poisons from his blood. In the movie's toughest scene, Dreyfuss is caught by orderlies while falling out of bed, and for a moment his head dangles inches above the floor, as if on the end of a rag. His view becomes our view, and his hopelessness is ours, too. Soon after this event, he assigns his lawyer (Bob Balaban) the job of suing for his right to die. ULTIMATELY, we are all asked to take a position in his case, along with the doctors, his friends and the judge (Kenneth McMillan), who makes the final decision matter what I decide, I'm a hanging As an emotional investment, Dreyfuss has made "Whose Life" this year's "Ordinary People." But beyond his performance, "Whose Life" is only a so-so melodrama.

Director John Badham, whose movies have included such odd bedfellows as "Saturday Night Fever" and "Dracula," constructed it with such a narrow focus that Dreyfuss is the only real character In the story. The others are all props for Dreyfuss' layered reactions to his condition, and they are as familiar to soap fans as the cast for a week's worth of "General Hospital." There's the loyal, pre-accident girlfriend (Janet Eilber), pushed out of his life when he realizes he will never get better. There's the sensitive, pretty doctor (ex-Detroiter Christine Lahti), who becomes emotionally Involved with her patient and tries to make life meaningful for him. There's the hard-nosed medical chief (John Cassavetes), who sees all patients as human objects to be kept alive at all costs. And there is the usual assortment of nurses and Dreyfuss Dreyfuss to ac complish.

The ethical theme of "Whose Life," examining a person's right to refuse medical care and effectively commit suicide, is one generally handled best by television. It is an emotional and philosophical exercise that, by necessity, is a talkfest of exposition. As such, it sits up there on the big screen as stark and uncomfortable as an aborted fetus. T. In the theater, you can't walk away from It, or yell the cat, or slip into the other room for a respite from the frustration and pain that transfers from the screen.

We are constantly reminded by the artist's wit and Intelligence and once, in a beautifully dream sequence of his studying the motions a nude dancer that a vital human being, whose work is movement, sees himself as a dead person whose brain is being kept alive against his will. His helplessness is total. He has to be fed, rolled "over every two hours to prevent bed sores and iff a i Vjf "ACCORDING TO JOHNPAUL," charming revue of Lennon- McCartney songs. 9 Doug's Body Shop, 22061 Woodward, Ferndale. 399-1040, 10-10 "CAPTIVITY OF PIXIE Deceased grandmother confronts frustrated writer.

8:30 7:30 Sun. Detroit Repertory Theatre, 13103 Woodrow Wilson. 868- aToUpYaWHITE CHICK8 SITTING AROUND TALKING," comedy. 8 6 and 9 6:30 Attic Theatre, 525 E. Lafayette.

963-7789, 11-5 11-10 noon-10 Sun. "HABEA8 CORPUS," Alan Bennett comedy. 8:30 7:30 Sun. Fourth Street Playhouse, 301 W. Fourth, Royal Oak.

543-3666 anytime. ('THE MADWOMAN OF CENTRAL PARK WEST," with r- Phyllis Newman. 8 2 and 8 2 and 7:30 Sun. Masonic Cathedral Theatre, 500 Temple, 832-2232 anytime. "I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES," Nell Simon's latest at 8 2 and 8 2 and 7 Sun, Birmingham Theatre, 211 S.

Woodward, Birmingham. 644-3533, 10-6 "TWIGS," comedy with Clorls Leachman. 1 and 8 2 and 8 Sat. Fisher Theatre, Second at Grand Blvd. 872-1000, 10-6 "A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE," Arthur Miller drama of a sim- pie man with overpowering passion.

8:30 6 and 9-30 6:30 Sun. Matinee at 2 Wed. Meadow Brook Theatre, University off I-75, Rochester. 377-3300, 9-9 dally. W8U THEATERS: "The Imaginary Invalid," Moliere farce, 8-30 "Cyrano de Bergerac," romantic tragedy, 8:30 Sat.

upstairs; "The Talking Drum," theatrical poem of black life 8:30 downstairs at Hllberry, Cass at Hancock, 577-2972 anytime. Margaret Heinze. left, and Barbara Hainault are "A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking," at the Attic Theatre. Eastland Dinner Theatre, Eight Mile at Kelly. 371-8410, 10-10 dally.

community theater "OUR TOWN," small town saga of slower times. 8 7:30 Sun. Wyandotte Community Theatre, Lincoln Middle School, Wyandotte. 675-0595, 5-9 dally. comedy II II I IIIM IIHIII Mra.Mil.

II, I.IH.1l!ild.1Hiail.'lHIII II I lilillilillMthlWlf ffl Mjjgiif INIIII lirjlll mjjiHJ COMEDY CAPERS, Stafford's, Maple and Orchard Lake In the Orchard Mall, West Bloomfleld. 8:45 and 10:45 851-8952 anytime. COMEDY CA8TLE In Maximilian's, 4616 N. Woodward, Royal Oak. Bill Klrchenbauer 8:30 and 11 Sat.

855-5115, 10-10 dally. dinnoi thoatoi "AMERICANA 8TRUTTIN'," revue of 1935-45 songs In a cabaret setting at 8 Frl. Players Alley, M-15, Ortonvllle. "HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES," comedy. 7 noon Wed.

Downstairs at Somerset Mall, Big Beaver at Coolldge, Troy. 7 643-8865, 9-6 weekdays. "I DOl I DOI," musical marriage at 7 Mama Mia, 9361 Cooley Lake Union Lake, 363-1535, 10-10 daily. "I DOI I DOI" black version of the musical marriage by Peddy Players In cocktail theater at 8 Cafe Promenade, Book Cadillac, Michigan at Washington Blvd. 961-0533, 10- 6 wokd8ys "I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES," Nell Simon's latest.

6:30 4:30 Sun. Win Schuler's, 3600 Plymouth Rd Ann Arbor, 769-9400, 10-10 dally. "MURDER AT THE HOWARD J0HN80N'8," mlschlevlous mystery. 7 Wine Tasters, 39909 Van Dyke, Sterling Heights, 961-0533, 10-6 weekdays. "SLEUTH," murder with your coffee.

7:30 Stouffers noxt ivoolt "CHAPTER TWO," opens Jan. 23 In dinner theater at Bambl's, Allen Park. "CRITIC'S CHOICE," Jan. 29 at Avon Players, Rochester. "NIGHT WATCH," opens Jan.

29 at Farmlngton Players Barn..