St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 41

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 5 Page 9 Jake McCarthy Simulated Flight Martha Carr Night Sounds Religion page fivespectator i ti VV 5 4 A 'lir. J' 4 1 11 A f- i- 1 'MVv xjf Treat Williams portrays Berger, leader of the tribe, as they take over a society party in the film version of "Hair," the folk-rock musical of the 1960s. Milos Forman, whose last film was "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," is the i -j. a.J' fe.

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uwr 1 I A JhJL-i: 4V ii 4 A. High adventure in the 25th century, of course, is the theme of "Buck Rogers," starring Gil Gerard as the hero who saves Earth from some evil marauders, led by Pamela Hensley as the Princess Ardala. Marilyn Hassett and Julie Harris are daughter and mother, respectively, in "The Bell Jar," a film by Larry Peerce based on Sylvia Plath's novel. By JOE POLLACK Of the Post-Dispatch Staff 'Hair' A DECADE or so ago, when "Hair" first was presented on the stage, it was more than a musical. It was an event.

It didn't earn that accolade loosely, either. The on-stage nudity, brief as it was; the legal action in several cities, including St. Louis; the male-female and black-white relationships; and most important, the political stand against the Vietnam War, all contributed to it. But today, with Vietnam ended and the draft not an issue, and the show itself just about mild enough to play at the Municipal Opera, "Hair" no longer qualifies as an event. It's a movie musical, and it is very much like the original show when it is good, it is very, very good; when it is bad, it is horrid.

The good parts involve the song and dance work, especially the choreography of Twyla Tharp blended with Milos Forman's direction and the cinematography of Miroslav Ondricek. The film could do what the stage show could not: open up the action, and there are lots of scenes in Central Park, which poses a perfect backdrop for dance and for the music of Gait McDermott and the lyrics of Gerome Ragni and James Rado. The choreography is loose and almost free-form, filled with gaiety and abandon, and the dancers, some from the American Ballet Theatre, handle it brilliantly. Stuart Wurtzel, in charge of the overall production design, and Ann Roth, who designed costumes, also deserve plaudits. Like so many other musicals, and actually, so many other films, "Hair" is at its best in the early going.

A dance number echoed by the horses of a pair of park policemen is very special, and the integration of the song, "Sodomy," while three stiff-upper-lip ladies canter by, works perfectly. Even before the Central Park sequences, Forman begins the film in dramatic, effective style. With only a dog barking and a rooster crowing, we see a farmhouse surrounded by a white picket fence. There still is no music as a young man and his father leave the house, get into a pickup truck and drive to a country bus stop. The young man boards, and through the bus window, there is a quick panorama of the United States.

The New York skyline flashes by, the bus enters a tunnel (either Holland or Lincoln) and as darkness envelops it, the music comes up and hippieland's Oz, Central Park, enters the frame. Of course, there is no way that a person drafted in Oklahoma would go to New York for Induction, but Claude has to come from someplace far away, and though New Jersey would be rural enough for the average New Yorker, It wouldn't work in a movie with national When she thinks, starts, stumbles, stops and starts again after being asked if she has a message to include in a letter to Claude, it is an absolutely perfect moment. Beverly D'Angelo makes a delightful Sheila, the debutante who ends up with Claude. Dorsey Wright, as Hud, is generally strong, especially when he tries to convince Cheryl Barnes, his fiancee, that his name is no longer "Lafayette." Don Dacus rounds out the hippie group nicely as Woof. Miles Chapin is fine as Sheila's straight boyfriend, but the part is written so foolishly as to be far too much of the caricature that it is supposed to be.

There are some brief touches of nudity, especially of D'Angelo, but not much that could be considered offensive except for the banal dialogue and the fact that the entire film is about 20 minutes too long. (Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes. Rating, PG. At the Nameoki, Ronnie's, Westport) Where "Hair" comes a cropper, however, is when the characters have to speak, rather than sing. Their lines are so feeble, trite and meaningless that the film staggers badly in the contrast between the marvelous musical numbers and the interminable scenes between them.

Michael Weller tried to do something with the screenplay, but fails. The invasion of the fancy party is handled well enough, but it is an old comic device used by the Marx Brothers, among others. And putting the title song into a prison setting falls flat. Inserting the "Black BoysWhite Boys" number in the induction center is superlative work, and Tharp's under-the-table choreography works perfectly in the high camp number. The psychedelic wedding sequence, after Claude goes off on an acid trip, has some excellent moments, but Forman was carried away with its possibilities and devotes too much time to it.

The acting is generally good throughout. John Savage, the crippled soldier of "The Deer Hunter," is a splendid Claude, and Treat Williams plays Berger in extremely broad, effective, style, though his visit to his parents in search of money tends to negate his philosophical preachings. Annie Golden is marvelous as Jeannie, the pregnant hippie, and her gum-chewing, which is almost constant, has a hypnotic effect on a viewer. It often seems that there are as many diverse opinions as there were pages in the novel. However, where Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" is concerned, there should be unanimity everyone will dislike it.

The problems with the film are total, from the screenplay to the directing to the acting. Marjorie Kellogg wrote the screenplay and, as befits the author of "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon," it makes little sense. More important, it reduces the character of Buddy into a cipher, and more egregious, it turns the character of Joan into a Lesbian. The latter is insulting, in many respects. It is peep-show, pandering stuff that makes the totally false, too-common, Hollywood-style statement that two people of the same sex cannot have a relationship without it being homosexual, or bordering thereon.

The mother-daughter relationship is poor, too. Late in the film, Esther exclaims that she hates her mother, but nothing has been shown to give any reasons for the feelings. Director Larry Peerce shows little sense of pace or dramatic continuity. For example, there are a handful of hints that Esther is having problems with both work and men during a New York summer. It culminates with a date forcing his attentions on her, and she reacts by angrily, and emotionally, throwing See MOVIES, Page 4 -i The Bell Jar' There always seem to be problems when a movie is made from a "cult" book.

Those who form the cult, and those who just read the book, all seem to hold differing views as to whether the film is successful; whether it reflects the style, or the passion, or the message..