St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 44

March 30, 1979 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Movies niartha carr II) Wedding Plans Concern but obviously has enough time in grade to have become a colonel. Besides, inflation has hit the Air Force, too. As Phil Nowlan and Dick Calkins wrote in those days, "My instructor in the ways of the 25th century was Lieutenant Wilma Deering, the slender, blue-eyed, golden-haired, high-spirited young soldier girl who was destined to be my companion in many astounding adventures in this marvelous universe." Buck also finds a friend, a robot named Twiki, and a computer terminal named Dr. Theopolis who hangs around Twiki's neck.

Mel Blanc, who has been Bugs Bunny and thousands of other cartoon character voices, doubles in both parts. Both Hensley and Gray set their caps, or whatever it is that 25th-century women wear, for Buck, and Silva tries to destroy him, and the action is plenty of fun. There's also a formal dance, at which one discovers that 25th century party-goers dance what looks like a form of the minuet, until Rogers teaches the band how to move into a disco beat. He also wanders out of the dome, finding plenty of evil, disfigured folks and a wasteland, about which he says, "It's pretty primitive, but after all, it is the south side of Chicago." The best thing about the film is that neither director Daniel Haller nor his actors take themselves seriously, and the result is one of the more pleasant ways to spend some time. (Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes.

Rating, PG. At the Alton, Cinema IV, Ellisville, Halls Ferry, Ronnie's) and 9 o'clock, and it's free. The annual event, which draws material from all over the world, involves 24 films in some 90 minutes, including a few television commercials that show how that medium can charm while selling if the talent is on hand. As usual, the European entries are the most imaginative. For some reason, Yugoslavia seems to lead the world's animators, and "2012 Overture," without apologies to Tchaikowsky, is a fascinating and impressive, surrealistic, soft-colored look at a world of the future.

A Bulgarian entry, which pokes fun at civic leaders assigning responsibility for the collapse of a new building, is delightful, and a child-oriented cartoon, by Ron McAdow, involving peanut engineers, a cucumber submarine and a popcorn sea, is one of the nicest of the American films. Not all are light in mood, of course. A wry commentary on security comes from Stanford, and Poland's Zofia Oraczewska deals with a dinner party at which the food strikes back, in rather gory detail. Unusual techniques are on display, too. Joan Freeman of Boston deals with a woman's eternal dilemma, and uses clay figures rather than drawings.

Hungary's Ferenc Varsanyi illustrates an old folk tale with figures constructed of cookies and cake icing. Time Magazine and Embassy cigarettes are the subjects of two of the more striking commercials, one humorous and one in splendid design, and a pair of short Canadian films offer quiet, low-pressure instruction while being highly entertaining. "Symbiosis," by David Cox, deals with a mistreated island and its search for peace, and "The Street," by Caroline Leaf, takes a Mordecai Richler story and deals with the death of a loved one. Leaf paints on glass, and the figures have a richness and reality that is highly impressive. A couple of the shorts have erotic overtones, but most of them are winsome, wry looks at the world, and the program is a sheer delight.

DEAR MARTHA: Our daughter, who is in her mid-20s, has been living with a man for over a year in Chicago. They are going to be married soon and she wants our help with her wedding plans. His parents live on the West Coast. What kind of wedding plans can we make in a situation like this? E.R. THE EASIEST are probably the best, in this case.

Your daughter and her fiance can plan a small wedding in Chicago, and you and the man's parents can attend as guests. It is likely that they will want to have some of their friends at their wedding, and it will be easier for everyone if a minimum of travel is involved. By choosing to live together, your daughter and her fiance have already established themselves as independent from their families. Their wedding, therefore, should be treated as one between adults and be no more elaborate than they together can afford. Your help should be limited to love and moral support, particularly if your daughter will be living in Chicago until the wedding date.

If you want to have a party before or after the wedding to introduce the man to your friends, it would be a nice way for you to recognize the couple's establishment of a new family. No doubt your friends would be delighted to attend and wish them great happiness in their marriage. FROM PAGE ONE her clothes out of her hotel room window. The scene, without transition, shows her living at home with her mother and, to use an old-fashioned term, she has gone completely round the bend. Earlier scenes are dragged out interminably, and others, like the one involving two girls and a disc jockey, played in over-macho style by Robert Klein, are merely additional pandering to sexual overtones.

Later, when Esther is confined to a sanitarium, Peerce's approach is over-slick and very surfacy, reducing the part of Anne Jackson, for example, to almost nothing. Neither Peerce nor Kellogg takes the time to explain the title. Plath uses the device, which preserves artd suffocates as a symbol of her own feelings, of being trapped, and suffocating, in a world with which she cannot cope. In terms of this film, the title has no meaning whatsoever. Marilyn Hassett, last seen in a wheelchair in two parts of "The Other Side of the Mountain," portrays Esther, or Sylvia.

She's lovely, and Peerce takes great pains to emphasize it, with lingering camera shots on shiny hair, but her acting range, while fine for paralyzed skier Jill Kinmont, cannot cope with a character as complex as Esther, or Sylvia. Emotional illness is not a subject for omantic writing, which Kellogg should have learned from her previous film, "and while Hassett can scream -admirably, she always seems to be 5 acting, which is not enough. Sylvia, or was deeply disturbed, over a 4 variety of things, from the death of her to the fact that she felt that Buddy I had cheated her, and her position as a poor scholarship student in a wealthy college didn't help. But Hassett, limited by a story that fails to deal with these subjects the way the book did, is unable to depict a young girl who is really suffering. 'The wonderful Julie Harris, as her mother, is the standout of the film, offering confusion and love in equal parts as she tries to figure out her "daughter, and she is, as always, just right.

There also is good work from Barbara Barrie, as a magazine editor 0 who is a quintessential shrew, but again there is a problem because there is no reason for Barrie's resentment of 1 Hassett. The summer program was not "new, and it is hard to believe that Barrie persecuted all the interns. Why Hassett? Donna Mitchell is effective as Joan, I the college roommate and friend, and Mary Louise Weller is outstanding as a southern cookie who joins the magazine summer program. It is a brief, but excellent bit of work. The film has a lovely look, but it panders in every sense, especially to cheap sexual exhibitionism and to condescension toward those with severe emotional difficulties.

Several scenes of nudity, primarily involving Hassett and Weller, are the probable cause of the rating. (Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes. Rating, R. At the Des Peres) eBuck Rogers' Let's make a science-fiction adventure movie: We'll start with a handsome astronaut, and add an evil villain from another planet, plus a beautiful princess who is attracted to the astronaut. Oh, yes, and a cute little robot, too, and while we're at it, let's have another woman who is attracted to the astronaut.

She can be a pilot, too. Then we'll have space ships and some aerial dog-fights, which we can pattern after World War II airplane movies. In case we're successful, let's let the bad guys escape so we can set up a sequel. All right, call the special-effects men and turn 'em loose. Lights! Action! Camera! Do you think we made "Star Wars?" Nope; we made "Buck Rogers." As pure, unpretentious, simple, escape entertainment, it is a delightful motion picture.

The special effects are delightful, even if one of the space ships looks like a flying miniature of Union Station, complete with parapets. The dogfights are right out of World War II, and they're fun, too. The screenplay, by Glen A. Larson and Leslie Stevens, is filled with insouciant humor, and Gil Gerard, as the hero, handles the light lines with a splendid touch. He's a 1987 astronaut, tossed off course and frozen, in suspended animation, until some time in the 25th century, when he is rescued by a space ship, revived and returned to Earth, where he discovers that everyone now lives in enclosed cities since the nuclear holocaust of several hundred years earlier.

The rescuing space ship is on its way to invade Earth, and the sneaky folks aboard, mainly Princess Ardala (Pamela Hensley) and the evil Kane (Henry Silva) hope that Buck will lead them through Earth's defenses. Back home, Buck discovers that there are those who distrust him, like Col. Wilma Deering (Erin Gray). She was a lieutenant in the original stories, Tournee de Animation' The world of animation, a world that combines several different art forms, along with that of cinema, is delightfully available albeit too briefly at the St. Louis Art Museum tonight only, at 7 DEAR MARTHA: Several weeks ago my husband was in the hospital and many of our friends and business associates sent him cut flowers.

Some of the florists sent some long-life additive with their flowers, but it seemed that the flowers were so far gone before they got to the hospital that the flowers didn't really respond to it. What, if anything, am I doing wrong? Or is it the flowers nowadays? It seems so sad that people pay so much for cut flowers, and they are all gone in less than 24 hours! M.R. IT IS A SHAME that cut flowers do not last longer when so much money and concern is represented by them. There are several things you can do, however, to make your flowers last loger. Start by cutting off at least one half inch from the stems, and strip all leaves and thorns that will be below water level.

Place the flowers in a vase with lukewarm water (warm water is absorbed faster than cold water) into which you have dissolved some commercial flower preservative. (Aspirin, sugar, etc. do not work as well as the commercial variety does.) If you have your flowers at home, wrap the arrangement in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight. Then, when you display the flowers, keep them out of the direct sunlight and drafts. Keep the water level high, and change the water (with preservative) every other day.

Rich, Time NBC-TV York Daily News 6 niFMfE TOIo) TO1P? p53 utJLS rilfil SlPMjTI IIP liWE RHOMS Dazzling! Superb! A musical explosion!" Jeffrey Lyons, CBS-Radio review proof that real miracles can happen! for everyone. -Fra It glows and dances! -Jack Kroll, Newsweek Frank Herbie Hancock Performs Jazz At Mississippi Nights show biz at its breathless best. A delight! is is is THE FILM HAIR is THE FILM is THE FILM HAIR THE FILM HAIR MA a cheerful jubilation! -Gene Shalit, (Today), -Life Magazine Bruce Williamson, Playboy zestful! -Kathleen Carroll, New 0 triumphant! wonderfully nAIn carries vou awav! i a dazzling movie musical! -Judith Crist THE FILM is is THE FILM HAIR is THE Fll is THE FILM HAIR THE FILM HAIR HAIR marvelous movie! -i lark Martin SunrfirataH Pnlninniel ''Jack Martin, Syndicated Columnist an absolutely dazzling! The best movie musical since Cabaret! i ir mi i By John S. Cullinane Jazz came calling on Laclede's Landing Thursday night. Yes, it was just your typical Thursday night when you could walk up old First Street and hear Herbie Hancock.

Herbie Hancock? Yes, jazz luminary and keyboard whiz kid Herbie Hancock brought his band of all-stars and played a club on the waterfront. Actually, it wasn't any old club, it was Mississippi Nights, a club that is rapidly becoming one of the finest showcase clubs for national acts in the country. Hancock's band was chock full of musicians who are recording stars in their own right. There was Bennie Maupin on reeds and percussion, Alphonse Mouzon on drums and Webster Lewis on keyboards. Rounding out the line-up were Paul Jackson on bass and Ray Obiedo on guitar.

'X i When they all played at full crank, the music swept through the crowded club like a storm. There was the calm before the storm, lots of turbulence and a rained-on, purified feeling after every jazz number. Hancock himself came prepared to 'thrust himself into a variety of moods and attitudes. He began things solo on the electric piano with a nearly unrecognizeable but soothing version of "My Funny Valentine." It is difficult to get electronic keyboards to emote but Hancock managed to squeeze out human feelings on this number. An esoteric version of the jazz classic Voyage" followed and this time Hancock was joined by Jackson on iftthelavv It happens all the time.

A newscaster describing a criminal Investigation will say that "the evidence so far is only The implication is blear: that evidence is 'Second-rate, not as reliable as direct, eyewitness evidence. This preference for eyewitness evidence is hard to justify. Psychologists have been demonstrating for years that eyewitnesses may differ dramatically in describing the same event. No less an authority than the United States Supreme Court has said that "the annals" of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification." On the other hand, all of us are constantly showing our trust in circumstantial evidence. Steam rising frmo a fcup of coffee convinces us by circumstantial evidence that the coffee is hot.

bog tracks in the mud convince us by tircumstantial evidence that a dog has passed by. And, whatever the newscasters may 4ay, the law itself does not consider jazz bass and Mouzon on drums. They were three articulate and equal voices. Mouzon's percussion work was as crisp and fresh as a spring garden. Hancock romped on the piano in a way that was half rhythm and half melody.

It was a thrill when the rest of the band joined in except for the times that the musicians went for that "young" sound. Then it came out a little like disco-jazz if there is such a thing and there probably isn't. Hancock sang from time to time through various electronic devices. Sometimes the vocal effect was pleasing but on other occasions it was just a lot of arping and warping. Mouzon took a solo early in the first of two shows the band played.

It was monumental and entirely musical. The man had more rhythm in his hands and feet than a thousand Ginger Bakers a-thumping. Perhaps the finest hour for the group occurred on the very first number they played, "Hang Up Your Hang-ups." Not that it was all downhill thereafter but was the best composition for switching often and freely from jazz to something close to disco. There was a tremendous amount of syncopation coming off the stage, the tasteful kind that never sounds too busy. Whatever one thought of the type of music played at any point during the set, there was never any doubt that these were great musicians making it sound as great as it could sound.

circumstantial evidence second-rate. Actually, most verdicts of guilty are based on circumstantial evidence fingerprints on a gun, skid marks on a pavement, possession of stolen goods. In fact, some elements of a crime simply cannot be proyen in any other way. Take murder. To win a conviction the prosecutor must prove that the killer had "malice aforethought." Yet no one really "saw" what he had in mind before the killing.

Only from his words and his deeds can the jury deduce an evil purpose. Of course, if circumstantial evidence is not necessarily worse than eyewitness evidence, it is not necessarily better either. Both kinds can do the work of justice, proving the guilty guilty or the innocent innocent. Judging evidence by its label makes no more sense than judging a book by its cover. An American Bar Association public service feature.

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I SAT. 12:05 DOIET SOUND 2:0, 5O0, 7:15, 9:30 LATE SHOW SAT. 1 1:43 DOUY SOUND m. 7:05, 9:30 AROUND THE WORLD or around America. Th Travf) page can help you jrour vocation.

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