The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 31

SUNDAY 12 APRIL 1981 OBSERVER REVIEWABTS Bartok's dead duck ALEXANDER BLAND on the triple-bill at the Coliseum. Thin-blooded Hardy PHILIP FRENCH on Superman II and A MONOTONOUS thud- caricatures). Nor does the Crash in 192D and the caped ding echoes around Leices- answer lie more than par- crusader arriving a few ter Snuare this week. It tially in a central perfor- weeks before Munich in the sound of three 5 tne is "ilii j.ccici i iicyc ana ms j.nimuie who once. i a s.

tnan at suggesting net- inner i neatre colleagues never maiclieri to lie beat ot growth or physical passion, aimed to do more than amuse ciinerent drummers, The fault lies in I'olanski and divert, though he did marking time Roman decision to mirror the book manage to shift enough spin- PoJanski with Tess rather than to re-create it. ach in the early 1930s to (Empire, A), Richard Thomas Hardy and Graham make the graLeful farmers nf Lester with Superman II Greene are always spoken of Crystal City, Texas, erect a fWarnpr A 1 and Rnhert as deeply cinematic novelists, statue to him. Superman and IK with PoDe fe one anticipating the the other heroes of Detective fr i in movies, the other growing up Comics, however, were pre- (Uaeon Leicester w-lt tnem. yet neither has sented, and they became camp During a great movie- filmed well, precisely be- heroes of the 1960s, decade that began in the cause they seem so easy to Superman II appears to mid-1960s, this innovative adapt. When the blood seeps have been made firom dis- trio was in the van, but in through the ceiling of the carded scraps retrieved from the six years since their last Sandbourne boarding house the wastepaper-basket at the major films.

after Tess lias murdered Daily Planet, where reporters 'Robin and Marian' and Alec, the small dark patch on Lois Lane and Clark Kent they've done the white background grow- are once more played by little of consequence. None ing to reveal itself as red, the Margot Kidder and Christo- of their new films is badlv modern reader inevitably pher Reeve. Here they're son's Go and Touch, smooth duet to an evocative' fragment, from a Frank Bridge quintet performed with perfect classical line by Bryony Brind and Michael Batchel-or an elegant pair we may well hear more of. Bridge also provided the basis for the evening's most substantial offering, Night arranged by David Bintley to' Britten's weM-known Variations 1 on a theme by that composer. It is a deft and: very professional work, not straining after originality, but franikily following each musical clue in Ash-ton style and setting the stage alive with engaging dances for the whole group.

Linking the numbers which are -joined is a sense of unseen; mood carried through in.a-balustrade and barbed--wire setting by Terry Rart-Jett. Marion Tait and Davids Ashmole led the dancing with-spirit. There was also a -f hurt-quart et by Derek pleasant but a bit came a rambling' symbolic work to assorted, Bartok by Michaql mysteriously beautiful, designs by Yolande Son-, nabend. At the Riverside Studios, Siobhan Davies presented two agreeable' group pieces by herself one to sonorous, trombone sounds, bheT to' compelling early Satie in; the familiar smooth, lilting, manner based on her own stvle. An attractive duet by Richard Alston, to Vaughan'.

Williams, was more lively and varied. his designer, Philip Prowse. To start with, this pays riff, but it soon becomes tiresome. Matz Skqog's hero, vital and sympathetic, is the only bright spot in a brave but unsuccessful effort to bring a dead duck to life; After this bit of un-miracu-lous meandering, the taut, high blood pressure melodrama of Bartok's more famous story of the mysterious oriental, so highly charged with lust that he cannot die until it is satisfied, is quite refreshing. Fleming Flindt's formalised version-of 1963 is relatively familiar and stands up pretty well the music alone is enough ttr freeze the blood.

But it needs stronger performances than it gets here. Van Cauweh-' bergh's Mandarin is too elegant and soft-moving to convey a dynamo of screwed-up sex and Caroline Humpston, though a lovely slinky figure, lacks the dance-power to make her final melting com-, passion moving. Bartok also provided the last of five pieces by young choreographers boldly presented by the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet on Wednesday, most of them seen before at Choreographic Group evenings. Outstanding was the mock country-dance solo devised, and brilliantlyjVper-f ormed, by Jonathan Burr.es an irresistible wit, skill and charm called, after the final tune, With a gaping wide mouthed waddling A tiny amphibian masterpiece. Another i hi accomplished trifle is Jennifer Jack IN the old days audiences were, in comparison with today, more voracious, or, if you like, more culturally receptive.

Not only would they mix opera, dance, mime or the odd bit of clowning or horsemanship in the same programme they would cheerfully sit through a full-length opera followed by a substantial ballet. Now we tend to be more finicky. The Bartok Triple Bill at the Coliseum is consisting of an opera (' Bluebeard's Castle ') and two ballets, the whole programme lasting three and a half hours, seems not only fearsomely long but artistically daring. If it fails, it is because the central work is so feeble. The Wooden Prince has a seductive score, but its libretto is painfully artificial and the music itself is theatrically impotent.

Even Gyula Harahgozo, the Hungarian choreographer who handles Bartok best, made no impression with his version seen in Edinburgh a few years back. By comparison with The Miraculous Mandarin, which completed the programme, it seems hopelessly diffuse. The fairy-tale plot, about a Princess who falls at first for a dummy Prince and his splendid accoutrements before discovering the true hero behind them, is as wooden as its subject. Rightly, Geoffrey Cauley has chosen to distance it; he does so by adopting an elaborate chinoiserie idiom, a style joyfully carried out by thinks ot a characteristically defending America and civi-Hitchcockian shot. But for Ksation as we know it from three renegades from Krypton led by Terence Stamp whose dated cockney-chic suggests a closer acquaintance with World's End than Outer Space.

Unfortunately Reeve's tail is between his legs at this point, because quite unforgivably Clark has revealed his true identity to Lois and forsaken his Super-manly powers to marry her. This is rather like the guy on Keats's Grecian urn being allowed to catch the girl. In several of his early movies Richard Lester showed real feeling for the graphic style of comic-books, and there are some nice made, far from it, and with a little ingenuity each can be assimilated to its author's oeuvre. But they are effortful 'films, straining after effects, their virtutisit residing in a skill at adopting the styles of others. Less gifted directors might have realised them better.

Certainly Schlesinger's Far From the Madding Crowd is a richer account of Hardy than Polanski's version of Tess of the Richard Donner's Superman is livelier than Lester's sequel. Max- Fleischer's old black-and-white Popeye cartoons more vigorous than Altman's live-action feature. Tess is a very respectful film that picks up the greatest of Hardy's novels with the opening dialogue between the pompous antiquarian parson Tringham and the heroine's drunken, vainglorious father, John Durbeyfield, and moves NOBBY CLARK Lucia Truglia as the Princess in 'The Wooden flashes of visual wit in 'Superman But die tone is uneasy. There's too much money involved, the special effects are unnecessarily elaborate, we're embarrassed in the way we would have been to find an old Superman Natassia Kniski as Tess. steadily through it to the final scene of Tess's arrest Hardy and frisson comic printed on silk instead at Stonehenge.

Nearly every- simpiy in tne jariaiaay 0t pulp paper. where the original dialogue Li 'Popeye' begins like AJt- is" preserved. j-iclcs man.s maSterlv McCabe and near-blasphemous image by Mrs Mileri a deter- companng the first sighting mined Joner arriving at a 3fer and hostile ramshackle commun- young German actress Natassia Kin ski with her 'mobile peony mouth' and large innocent eyes' in the u'lrts bent on dominating it by title role, and the sterling whpn sheer will-power. Here it is a wii i i popeye in searcn ot ras larger stale, Hardy locates his tigures in ianLape (and each of this father, rowing into the port 1- Aiec ano i erci rirtn i i i or oweeuiaveii, an t.iucn- as the priggish husband llke construction on tne siae Angel ClaPregg who support wnrHS. of a Maltese cliff, photo- her, have all been cast in the rHr m.

graphed witn calculated in- iwve an iien cast ine prodce a compl Fellini's genuousness by service or narav i arner man Giuseppe Hollywood. The props and cameraman. costumes are flawless. oittoH rniilH ovtrarr frnm tho Rotunno. Rpforp he finds his old dad.

The locations in Normandy natural scene before him. In nnn Rrit-fanv t-haf- ctanH in -i ni i i Popeye (Robin Williams of fnr. Haritv'c Wnoiy TV'S MOrk and Minay someining innniteiy tninner ti. been chosen with care and HarH'c Pf meets up with the irascible Olive OvJ (Shellev luminously photographed by reverence for Hardy (or Geoffrey Unsworth (who perhaps because of the rever- died during shooting) and ence) his film lacks that pul- Ghislam Cloquet, even if the lift-, inrfependent of painterly effects they seek jls liiciiuv smirce. thai we jess often resemble Turner, Jind in Lean's Great Expec- the hamburger chomping Wimpey (Paul Dooley) and the bearded villain Rluto (Paul who thanks in part to ingenious make-up are uncanny incarnations of 17 Satrar'c ctrin -kar-ar-mric UonstaJble and Lnglish land- Cukor's 'David scape painters, than Lorot, Copperfield Or Wyler olcn a hahv Sand- WnHirriiie Hpihts' His i i ftuiiei ana un in snnu the bourne sequence) Monet.

-Tess' will not, I think, gain uv men, in LumjJdi isuii a peimajiciu uximiiLe udii. son. with the novel, does the film from the novel. The whole inconsequential seem such a cold, distanced Fortified in their different affair is more a theatrical largely lacking any ways by spinach and the than a cinematic occasion, true sense of tragedy It mysterious energies of the anH inrfwd half-wav to- isnt because the countryside planet Krypton, Popeye and wards being a rather fancy has been unduly prettified', or Superman were the most ballet. Harry Nilsson's songs, the- book's social and moral famous of the comic-strip however, are dull and poorly outrage piayea down (tne titans wno helped Americans sung.

Nobody could actively smug, middle class clerics eet through the Depression dislike but that's who dog Tess's career are and World War II, the mus- scarcely the kind of apology treated with ftttmg contempt, cular matelot emerging on anyone should be making for without ever being made into the eve of the Wall Street an Airman film. String of pop pearls DAVE GELLY on Neil Sedaka at the Apollo Victoria. of songwriting and there was not a single one which did not have some delightful turn of phrase to catch the ear. Even a simple teenage jingle like 'Calendar Girl' is distinguished by one magical harmonic shift which raises it out of the common rut. The lyrics may often be inept, rhyming fool with cruel and flashing with but the melodies rescue them every time.

Unable to hide behind the his white Las Vegas suit, complete with rhine-stpne belt, his plexiglass piano and his glutinous line in patter, Neil Sedaka sails'v perilously close to Liberacs territory. One tiring saves him: an unerring knack for inventing good pop tunes. At the Apollo Victoria last week. Sedaka was delivering a selection from his 28 years saving mask of irony, Sedaka relies almost entirely upon his musicianship to see him through. As a one-time Julliard student he really can play that absurd transparent piano and knows how to pace a song so that its strongest part: arrives exactly on cue, bursting out the surrounding orchestration with disarming candour.

In his early years Neil Sedaka was a contract songwriter, turning out hits for the likes of Connie Francis from a kind of tunesmiths battery-farm called the Brill Building in New York City. Histories of pop music tend to romanticise this place and its products, but the fact is that only Sedaka, Carole King and a few others ever succeeded in manufacturing anything but dross in such conditions. Writing pop songs develops the capacity for concise melodic statement, and when he sings abbreviated versions of numbers from the Brill period Oh, Carol or Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen Neil Sedaka shows how well he understood the job. In less than a minute each one is neatly tied and delivered with a flourish. Nowadays, of course, he writes songs for himself.

The best are either winsomely nostalgic or energetic, thumping pieces with meaningless lyrics but much musical charm. Love Will Keep Us Together is one of the latter. However you look at it, its rhythmic variety, deceptive harmonies or simple melody line, it is a perfect pop song. Rock music is a complicated game these days. Perhaps it won't do any more simply to knock out attractive tunes and parade them in front of audiences Something more may he required.

But well-made tunes don't grow on trees, as anyone who has sampled the latest crop will agree. Neil Sedaka, showbiz trappings notwithstanding, has a very rare gift. When the last subtle pose has been struck and the final ironic eyehrnw the. guy who can shuffle a dozen notes into a new pattern will still be in business. Take on some Single Lens Reflex Cameras and you could well be beaten from the start.

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