The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 11

11 Thursday July 22 1982 John Hurt advanced breed of rate in their seanch for a safe new home when spring tarings the farmer's plough, has a Jenry Goldsmith score of moderate accomplishment and at least Aboue, Cart Weatfters and Sgluester Stallone in Kocfey HZ; rigfet, Cassie McFarlane and Victor Romero in Burning An Illusion The Italian Stallion hits back and Spock goes down tor the count. Derek Malcolm on the new films Hurt: "I like being -thrown something 1 have to scramble for mi tfUne eaSg Easy if Simsifl foil he get as his new manager, but that other giant Negro, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), whom he beat for the title in the first place. Weathers takes hiin to downtown Los Angeles, to a gyirn where all the boxers are hungry as hell. He's got to taste that again, and learn to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Then he'll find out who he is, in the ring with Clubber.

So the stage Is set for just one more of, the bang-wallop fights that have boxing fans laughing cynically ibut the rest of us on our feet. And it would be true to say that Stallone has improved as a director, delivering a short, almost staccato movie which zips through the whole fable fast enough to prevent familiarity contempt. Star Trek II The Wrath Of Khan (iPlaza, A) takes a different taok. It assumes that familiarity breeds content, and does nothing unexpected at all, except that it kills off Spook (Leonard Nimoy) for which some may never forgive it. He is wafted heavenwards by William Shatner's Admiral Kirk with words the like of.

which, you wouldn't believe came even from the pen of Jack. B. Sowards in all earnestness. It is the 23rd century. The Starship Enterprise is on a routine training mission, when Kirk 'gets an message that Project Genesis, a top secret device, has been appropriated by Khan, his old enemy (Ricardo Montal-toan, still wolfishly like the matinee idol of his youth).

Aided by his band oo genetic supermen, Khan captures-, another. starshipahd: sets to get even if it means that the rest of us' cop it too. But Spock saves Kirk and us all. Can we believe that he, like Rocky, will never return? Is Hollywood that merciless, when faced with such a continuing good thing The dull thud of Nicholas Mayer's direction, which mixes the custardy platitudes of the original television series with some' of the less-thunderous special effects of the latterday cinema, has everything in place, like a tidy housewife's kitchen. And.

the dollars are rolling in to prove. we are all children: at heart and. wish to remain so. The Secret Of Classic, Haymarket, U) is- not Disney but Disney substitute, 7 a full-length animated feature based oh. Robert.

O'Brien's Mrs (Frisby And The Rats Of Nimh 'by Don Bluth, who. left Disney to go independent- in 1979. Curiously enough, Disney's Fantasia is revived, with new digital sound to replace the old Stokowski at. the Odeon, Haymarket. Take your Fantasia remains' totally unbeatable the very sec- tions we hated hack in the Forties seeming just perfect kitsch in the' Eighties, especially, Nutcracker Suite nvith' unbelievable art and character designs.

After this, Nimh- seems a numib. But actually it is a highly competent piece of work, well organised, sometimes imaginative and beautifully detailed. Few of the Contemporary short, cuts dead backgrounds and so on) have been taken, and the story is played through for all, and occasionally more, than it is worth. Only Dom DeLuise as Jdremy the Orow. the comedy turn and very well makes much effect as a voice.

Hermiorie Baddeley, John Carradine, Elizabeth Hart-man and Derek Jacobi are largely wasted. The story a. widow mouse; and her four children, aided by some moments ot tne pure magic that Disney used regu larly to voucnsate. Few British Film Institute Production Board features been successful in the market place ih recent years. But Burning An Illusion by Menelik iShabazz (Screen on the Green.

Ace AA) is both entertaining and per- unent enougn xo db tmore widely seen. It is unpretentious and direct in approach, the story of a West Indian girl (Cassie McFarlane) who works in an office and wants the conventional things out of life and out of her relationship with Victor Romero's toolmaker, thrown out of work and eventually arrested and imprisoned. The film explores first the growing tensions of the affair and then the girl's gradual realisation that her aspirations are simply those that a white wortd has imposed upon her. Drawn into the world of "Africa" but also one in. which women are not mere chattels looking foir more chattels, she begins to see society more sharply.

Shabazz. who wrote as well as directed the film, secures excellent performances tram his cast and paints the scene. mostly on location in London, without recourse to obvious He has gone for a superior ina oi soap. opera (rather than an overtly polemical film. Shabazz is well aware not only of racism and sexism but of the kind of white paternalism that can be even more dangerous.

And he as also able to show that the new generation of British-born blacks is very different from its immigrant parents. The film is lively, accurate and thoueht-nrovokine. burn ing illusions without substi tuting too many oi ais uwu. A highly promising Popular Indian cinema Is often tagged the worst in the. world and, as Western influence gets heavier and the various genres get systematically corrupted, there is some justice dn the insult.

Bombay Spectacular, which introduces au niaui examines to English audiences at the ICA from today until August 11, attempts a revaluation. The three central movies are Mehboob Khan's 1957 classic. Mother India Kamal Amroh's Pakeezah (1972), which starred his estranged and alcoholic wife, Meena Kumari; and Naseeb, made by Manmohan Desai last year and starring Amdtabh Bac- chan, the Clint tastwooa or the East. to my mind, tney 13 fly" illustrate the decline of the Bombay spectacular but also the potency of the genre's appeal to largely illiterate, audiences, who are nevertneiess acutely aware of their own culture. The other films include Sholay, the lavish curry Western made with a number of Italian technicians, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, in which Dev Anand confirmed his long-standing appeal, and Sampoorna Ramayana, made oy Kapu, tne eiegu director, and the only mythological epic on view.

This last is not as stunning as the same director's Sita's Wedding (eventually to be shown on Channel Four) hut is about the one film on view that owes nothing to the West. I'm sorry that no Raj Kapoor movie is on view. But at least this is an intriguing first look at the most 'prolific and possibly misunderstood cinema in the world. the and more Rood repertory can be found at the mmpstead ana the Kitzy, Brixton. Outside London, the Cam bridge Film Festival continues at the Art Cinema with The Boat Is Full and Taxi Zum Klo tonight.

Neil Jordan's Angel, the Irish film highly praised at Cannes, is screened tomorrow. Michael Raeburns Dons Lossine adaptation, The Grass Is singing, starts a run on Monday. Claude Goretta's successor to The Lacemaker, A Girl From Lorraine, ens at the Arnoifini, Bristol, tonight. Franc Roddam's livelv Qua- drophenia-is at the Duke of York, for the next few days, and Tyneside Cinema's celebrity lecture tonight is by Richard Atten- borough, director of the forthcoming Gandhi. From Monday next week, the cinema shows Rosi's marvellous Christ Stopped At njDoii, Dasea on tne carlo Levi novel, specially recommended.

The Birmingham Arts Lab closes for renovation from Monday till mid-August, but its last few days include Ivory's The Europeans, Fass-binder's Trie Marriage Of mana sraun and bod Graham's tinder-exposed The End Of August. Derek Malcolm ACADEMY I Oxford Margarettia von Trotta' THE GERMAN SISTERS aa ACADEMY 2 OxfordSf'4375129 JEREMY PAULKACAN'S THE CHOSEN, GRAND "An Individual "Afmsstralghtfbr "Reminds us both heart "Fascinating. "Absolutely "Stetger sque stature'. moment when he may need to change direction. He appears more relaxed than he did a few years ago, when I met him at the time of Travesties, but insists he does not hold a looser rein.

"Tighter, if anything. I'm much more determined to get thing right." Yet the signs of sitting easier in the saddle are there. He and his girl friend have a modest house in Oxfordshire now as well as his tiny Hampstead pad. He has stopped drinking rather than simply cut down. I found I function very well not drinking at all and I just decided I don't see the point of drinking one Scotch before dinner.

So I -thought I might as well have orange juice instead." He was resting most of last year partly intended, partly I just have not seen any good scripts. I mean, the film world doesn't seem to know where its going at the moment." So does he worry whether there is really a place for him "Things come out of the blue. Elephant Man came out of the blue, it should never have been made by present Hollywood standards but Mel. Brooks put up the money. You sneak one through every now and again.

Yes, of course, I'm concerned, I'm bound to be. I adore making films, but get deeply upset when I see films beirig made by committee for what they think a public massive generalisations across the board are looking for, when one knows that people want something that touches on the central emotional values and truths. If they work, then the entertainment will work. "But you say that to an American businessman, and he says Whaddyer mean, what emotional truths, what values This is an entertainment look, it needs a hook "The greed of the film industry knows no limits. And when you have a system where distributors get 95 per cent of the first week's profit, then you're going to get a system which wants to open in 1,300 cinemas' all over America all at once, obviously.

They're not prepared to do a Midnight Express and open it in three selected cinemas, and then let it snowball quietly to $90 millions, which dt has now, from a $2 millions expenditure. You're fighting a hell of a lot all the time, so, yes, I am encerned, but at the same time one has to be logical about it. There's no point in beating your head against a wall, and if at this moment it gets too difficult, then now perhaps is the time to go and do something live. Maybe that's wha the signs are signalling: 'Get your ass over there and something dn front of TOMORROW: Anthony Quayle, actor and stage director. Hugh Hebert meets an actor who has made his name oh stage, television and now in Hollywood EVERY TIME John Hurt.was hailed as the new.

rising actor, he would wryly recall all the other occasions, he. had been discovered. At. 42, he says he is too old. to say that any more, and though he does not, you might add that he is too well established; His career is 21 years long, he currently co-stars with Ryan O'Neal in a film received here with criticisms ranging from lukewarrii to plain hostile; but never mind; it's Hollywood.

Yet there is something in that old judgment. In the, Sixties and the beginning, of the Seventies, in plays like Inadmissible Evidence, and Little Malcolm and his Struggle against the Eunuchs, in films like A Man All Seasons and. 10. Rillington Place, he constantly showed himself a fine arid sensitive at Ins best -in' edgy -parts. Though, when he starred in Mr Forbushiand the Penguins (1971) the won flippers down: as, such they deserved to.

At least he was' never. pigeon-holed. accident not design. Then, in 1975, after me poex in Stonnard's Travesties fmvthe' HSC, one of the high points of 1970s theatre he turned dowm the chance 'to go- to Broadway with if so he could do a modest -television; play called The Naked Civil servant. This was his breakthroueh.

As Quehtin Crisp, the indomi table he was' both funny and arid conveyed a tough, gritty' courage. It brought recognition the streets, taxi drivers- who asked for auto-eraDhs in' lieu' of and shoals of letters from roebDle who had suddenly realised-that homosexuals are human. I don't know why it toot off like that. But I think Robert Bolt put his finger on it when he. wrote.

me a letter saying 'that, after, first. live -punupes, you reausea that It was a about the tenderness the as opposed to the cruelty of the crowd. "But one never thought about it like that when one was doing it. It was the same with Elephant Man' it never occurred-, to me that minority groups would iden- tify with the character." The Naked. Civil Servant came out iri 1975, won an Emmy Award in the States, and was followed rapidly by his performance as Caligula.

in Claudius, and the films Midnight Express, and Alien, Heaven's Gate, the hugely experisive Michael Cimino epic, was the only film I've ever done that was con- sidered to be anrout and out commercial success before it was-made, and the only one that has bombed so heavily. It was the greatest turkey of all time." And then there was partners, which was perhaps one of the difficult choices that success had brought. If he had stayed out of pigeonholes, it was not because he had consciously tried to avoid repeating the same kind of part. But here was co-starring role in Partners, where he was asked to play a homosexual cop and he had felt after Naked Civil Servant that he was not keen to play another gay. was' worried about that just simply, because people would think one was championing in.

some weird way the gay way of. life I hate the word gay the homosexual, way of life. I just thought that's not a help. But I did think this was a beautifully written script." Success, he says, sometimes to iron things out." He does not just mean your bank balance. To succeed does not necessarily mean you are right, but it is a reassurance.

It's such a difficult activity, acting, to 'put your finger on "what will or will not be received well, and confidence is very important, the confidence to know where to step next. I vacillate in confidence, sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down. bring problems, not the way I deal with, my life. I don't plan anything, I couldn't' any-' thing, because my whole career is built on going to the part, rather than someone bringing it to me. It seems to me if you're going to plan, you'd have to plan vehicles for1 yourself, and that's the last thing I'd want, because I like being thrown some-.

thing' that 1 have to scramble for" i So he is luppy, in a slightly: nervous way, to have been the role of Fool to Olivier's Lear for televi-sdori. that; the possibility of doing a play about Tom -Paine andor another play on Broadway. So does he now want to move back, into the theatre Apart from Shadow of a Gunman, at Nottingham, he has not appeared on the stage since Travesties. attractive. I'd like to be i back -with a response Don't want to leave it long." It seems like a From Thursday JUtY 22 lOklNU I UN 3920 AFTER ONE of the most miserable few months in the recent chequered history of British cinemas, compounded by the Falblands and the World Cup, two of the box-office swingers of the prosperous American summer have finally come to revive us Rocky III and Star Trek II.

May the Force be with them until Spielberg's E.T. comes to town. Nothing is real if you don't believe in who you are," announces the Italian Stallion in Rocky III (Leicester Square Theatre, A). It is positively the last appearance, says Sylvester Stallone, of Rocky Balboa, the lumbering ghetto heavyweight who becomes champion of the world. And dn the middle off the film he clearly doesn't believe in who he is because he is suddenly told by Burgess Meredith, his old-timer manager, that his reign has lasted several years only because the opponents have been carefully hand-picked': British title-holders or something.

What he; mustn't do is to fight the giant Clubber Lang (Mr T). He'll knock you into tomorrow," says Meredith. But Rocky is adamant. Til take the fight" he announces. And who does BRIEFING Best films Fitzcarraldo (Camden Plaza): Werner Herzog's South American fable, starring Klaus Kinski as mad Irishman dragging steamship over mountain in the effort to get grand opera up the Amazon.

An art house epic, weirdly wonderful. Missing (Empire): Costa-: Gavras, also in South America, explaining American complicity in the ousting of Allende through true story of American searching for his missing son. Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek very good. Joint Cannes The German Sisters (Academy): Very impressive Mar-garethe von Trotta. film; which won Venice last year, and (bases its story on the sisters, one of whom mysteriously died in prison after Red Brigade activities.

The other is still figKting.to find out the. truth. ipink Floyd the Wall (Empire): Alan Parker's highly proficient summation of the Roger Waters inspired album, with Bob Geldof as manic depressive rock star and animation Gerald Scarfe emphasising the reasons for his breakdown; Not a Love Story (Paris Pullman): Canadian, feminist' argument against pornography as fodder, for worst kind of male libido. Views of the real thing, usually not allowed, even in My Dinner with Andre (Gate Bloomsbury): Latest Louis. Malle) the record of a dinnertime argument between a playwright and producer, hooked on different views of life.

Absorbing and intriguing conversation piece. Best on TV Pocket Money (Saturday! BBC-1, 6 50 pm): Paul Newman. Lee Marvin in Stuart Rosenberg's Mexican Western, written by Terry Malick who went on to make Classrooty, scene from Pink Plpyd'The Wall films Female and Mondo Trasho fiends Is also" on. this tape); The, company 3 number of rock movies with Island and Virgin- associates; Mail order address: 8 Poland Street, Ldndon W1V 3DG. Special interest The' silly season may be upon us.

but there's; still plenty of 'good, programming to be the-Naliohal Film for -Instance, there's the Ritwik Ghatak retrospective Ghatak, a Bengali -Satyajit Ray. made only few features before he died of drink arid but they all passionate stylish and 'My favourite is The Hidden -(tonight and July 29). There are three Jacques Tourne'ur mbvies tonight at the arid' tomorrow two superb Rossellinis Stromboli Voyage -Iri Italy. At the Scala; an' always popular series of The Prisoner episodes hits thescreen from: for week. And at the the season spectaculars with Screen Goddess arid Bobby.

The Tati season -continues' at Badlands. Uneven, but wat-chable. Strangers On A Train (Saturday; BBC-2, 9 20 pm): Classic Hitchcock with Farley Granger and Robert Walker trying to commit murder for each other. Based on Highsmiith and co-scripted: by Chandler. Psycho (Saturday, 11 40 pm): The Hitchcock everyone knows and most love, with, Anthony Perkins doing nasty things to Janet Leigh; in the.

shower the' famous sequence courtesy of Saul Bass, and copied ever since. King's Row (Sunday, BBC-1, 1 55 pm): Famous 1941 melodrama with President Reagan as lover of girl from the wrong side of the tracks (Ann Sheridan). Probably Sam Wood's best movie. Dial For Murder (Sunday. BBC-2, 10 45 pm): Yet more Hitch with Ray Milland trying to commit perfect murder (of Grace Kelly).

Adapted by author Frederick Knott from own plav. Sergeant Rutledge (Tuesday. BBC-2, ,8 30 pm): Famous John Ford courtroom drama, with Woody Strode as black soldier accused of murder' and rape, and Jeffrey Hunter defending' Made dn 1960. New! oii video Palace Video, dedicated "to making' some sense out of. a very puzzling market for, intelligent film buffs, have Started well.

The first three weeks of their selling operation nearly the films on offer being David. Lynch's Eraserhead. John Pink; Flamingoes, 1st van Szabos Mephisto, and. Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath Of God. Aguirre has an English language, and sub-titled on the; same tape.

And there plans afoot to movies on. customer's blank tapes for a fraction -of the, normal cost, later, this year! This week, our new films were put on the list Herzog's showing, in and his famous Enigma Of Kavar Hauser, plus Stroszek; Chris Petit's An Unsuitable' Job For A Woman is', also' available. From next week, Oshihia's controversial -Ai No Corrida (uncut) out and, in August, there will be two Fassbinders, Fear; Eats The Soul arid the'- Bitter Tears Of Petra -Voriv Kant plus two m6re John Waters PRIX VENICE ftLM FESTIVAL voice in worid cinema" THETIMES the Jugular" ihat the cinema cairi stir and mind" DAILYTELEQRAPH ROPSTEICER-MAXIMILIAN SCHELL of Impeccable THETIMES riveting" SUNpAYEXPRESS "Ofcompelllnginterest" pBSEftVER comesnear to Rembrandt- -y 1274 46S3 1 JULY 25 039 1722.