Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 15

Chicago (Tribune SUNDAY, JANUARY 10. 1971 ENTERTAMMENT FEATURES GARDEN STAMPS COINS 1 1 1 it Nureyev Dances 5 Performances Here This Week 1 If 3 rf-MS4Stlv: -Av 1w By Thomas Willis THE ADVANCE BILLING read "big fellah sing-sing village story and dance." After much beer drinking and spitting on the floor, the tough guys on the local rugby team had been persuaded to allow a stage to be built in the midst of their field. The 10,000 spectators who paid 20 cents apiece for tickets spoke mostly pidgin English or Bantu dialect. When the performance was over, there was wild applause. Some watchers, however, thought that Hilarion and Albrecht were rather weak Dance I If Ill dance several of the brilliant Spanish sequences, and cooperate in the key moments of tenderness.

The beer drinkers from the back countrythat "Giselle" took place in the territory of Papua in New Guinea may be reflected in Mr. Helpmann's "The Display," also having its local premiere at the matinees. The mating dance of the native lyrebird, a haberdashery relative of the peacock, provides the theme. But the story of sexual conquest is set amid a rowdy beer-party following a rugby game. Mr.

Helpmann, by the way, has dedicated the ballet to his friend, Katharine Hepburn, who suggested the birdwatching biological connection. Meetings of quite different sorts take place in the third afternoon offering, Frederick Ashton's "Les Rendezvous." Mild flirtations in a French neo-classic park to music by Francois Auber add up to a fluffy souffle, vintage 1933. The restaged version by the Sadler's Wells Theater Ballet was seen here in 1952. The Australian Ballet's connection with British dance has been strong from its beginning in 1962, when Peggy van Praagh was lured from the Royal Ballet to form a new company in the southern hemisphere. Today repertory includes a wise assortment of post-empire staples "La Fille Mai Gardee," "Pineapple Poll," "Les Patineurs," and "The Dream." But the homeland has not been neglected.

An ambitious program of commissions is under way to encourage Australian composers, choreographers and designers. Touring the remote reaches of the continent is part of the game for the Melbourne-based company which is barely a decade old. A typical year will see some 20,000 travel miles logged by company tour groups. As a national ensemble supported with grants from the federal arts council, all seven states, and several large cities Melbourne and Sydney contribute $500,000 each! they have to stay on the move. Those who pay the piper still call the dance, even in the land of waltzing Matilda.

Rudolf Nureyev takes a Spanish fling with two of the Australian Ballet's corps of lovelies in "Don Quixote." The Nureyev choreographic version of Cervantes' novel opens the company's first local engagement Friday in the Civic Opera House. And Noivthe 20 Worst Films of 1970 fighters. Given "Giselle's" plot provocation the rivals should at least have grabbed one another by the throat. With tour yarns like that and Rudolf Nureyev as a guest, how can the Australian Ballet miss? The panther-limbed superstar, a guest with the young company on its first international tour in 1964, will dance in all five of the Civic Opera House performances next weekend. Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, he will appear in "Don Quixote," the full-length ballet he has re-created from the Russian version learned during his Leningrad-Kirov days.

At the matinees Saturday and next Sunday, he will be the bravura male in the final act of "Ray-monda," a sparkler he also choreographed using Russian models. By Gene Siskel Nureyev does not dance the Don in Cervantes' classic. That character role goes to Robert Helpmann, the former Royal Ballet mainstay who now is the Australian troupe's co-artistic director. Nureyev's character is a sort of a Spanish-Russian Figaro, Basilio the Barber. His lover, named Katri, is danced by Lucette Aldous, borrowed for the Australians' first American tour from London's Royal Ballet.

The romantic pair are not very important in the novel, but in Russian ballet, as we all know, plot doesn't count. The loving duo gets to the script which wasn't taken from "Rio Bravo" 1958? 8. "Getting Straight" pretends to believe that American film audiences are dumb enough to buy a movie climax in which a normally unconcerned student turns into a brick-throwing maniac when a professor suggests that F. Scott Fitzgerald was a homosexual. I wish I had had a brick when the movie ended.

9. "The Out-of-Towners" pretends to be 1970's family entertainment, but misses the mark by 20 years. If Sandy Dennis whined one more time I was going to take off my socks and try to stuff them down her throat. Jack Lemmon makes the "worst for the second consecutive year "April Fools" was 10th in 1969. to a fugue that Toralv Maurstad who plays Composer Edvard Grieg couldn't become a household word if he became Vice-President of the United States.

13, 11 and 15. Anthony Quinn. For appearing in "The Secret of Santa Viltoria" town drunk becomes mayor, P. Campus drunk-radical becomes college president and "Flap" town drunk becomes protest leader. For a change of pace he ought to try "The Ulysses S.

Grant Story" national President becomes town drunk. 16. Ann-Margrct. Who would have thought she would be able to cheapen a motorcycle movie? She does it with a foul mouth and fleshy body in C. Company." 17.

and 18. The most pernicious attitude in film making happens to be the rotten film labeled as a spoof. The script writers and directors are unable to create quality satire, so they excuse their lack of art by saying they are just kidding. "Dirty Dingus Magee" and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" prefer to leer rather than amuse. motorcycle style, but avoids one-half of that.

Robert Redford and Michael Pollard, serving up the two most predictable performances of the year and thus share the annual Anthony Quinn-Zorba the Greek Award, are clearly the losers. Who are the winners? 4. "A Man Called Horse" pretends to tell it like it was for the American Indian, but winds up being nothing more than a sado-shocker with the much heralded "Sun Vow ceremony," a gory manhood ritual which comes off like a Bar Mitzvah without the presents. Film also features Richard Harris in a blond pageboy and naked bottom. 5.

"Diary of a Mad Housewife" pretends to be a clarion call to the roller pins for the frustrated housewife. Scenarist Eleanor Perry butchered Sue Kaufman's fine novel proving that some women are no kinder to their brctheren than men. Carrie Snodgress manages to triumph over a screenplay which does not contain a single idea. 6. "The Baby Maker" pretends to tell us about the new generation of young marrieds who are willing to rent a hippie girl's womb when they can't have a baby of their own.

A new generation? Sarah let Abraham sleep with Hagar some 5,000 years ago. Barbara Hershey retires the Miss Sincerity loving cup with this performance. 7. "Rio Lobo" pretends to be a Howard Hawks western. Sure 'nuf Duke Wayne is there, but where is that part of NINETEEN SEVENTY was a vintage year for bad movies.

But not just any bad film can make our annual "20 worst" list. If these vastes of celluloid have anything in common it is their psycho-chemical similarity to a thumb in the eye. Some films which were very bad are not on this list. They are omitted because thru one telltale sign or another they indicated that their makers were not interested in doing a good job. Thu immediately includes all films with Annette Funicello.

Well, here they are, the 20 worst films to play Chicago in 1970. They are bad because they made me angry, usually by pretending to be something they were not. Needle ready, here are the balloons: 1. "Ryan's Daughter" pretends to be a love story and it is. But not among Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles and Christopher Jones.

Director David Lean took 188 minutes and $13 million to proclaim his love for sand and clouds, and definitely not people. The trees have the most intelligent dialog in this one. 2. "VVUSA" pretends to be a warning signal that the Far Right is taking over Texas radio stations, and as Texas goes so goes the nation. But the real warnings are being served to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

If they insist on making films such as "WUSA" and "Winning" the 11th worst in 1909 Newman should pray his eyes don't turn brown, and Miss Woodward should pray his eyes don't turn away. S. "Little Fangs and Big Ilalsy" pretends to be about winners and losers, 10. "The Owl and the Pussycat" pretends to be 1970's adult entertainment but misses the mark by 20 years. Barbra Streisand swears and George Segal is a handsome bookworm, but nothing will make this dated Beauty and the Brains script go.

Drugs in the High School How widespread are they and what aren't the parents doing right? Page also on the inside. Mod 'Merchant' Ugly, Chilling Page 2 Rex Reed Takes a Studio Tour Page 3 Fie on High Society Page 8 11. "There's A Girl In My Soup" pretends to be 1970's family entertainment but misses the mark by 20 years. Goldie Hawn keeps the Doris Day legend alive, a feat which, as a humane act, ranks just below the incarceration of a Rudolph Hess. 12.

"Song of Norway" pretends to be 1870's family entertainment but misses the mark by 20 years. I'll bet you a fjord 19. "The Bird with the Crystal Plum-mage." pretends to be a psycho-shocker but accomplishes its thrills by having its characters go up darkened staircase after darkened staircase after foggy street after foggy street. 20. "Move." I can't even remember what this Elliott Gould movie pretended to be.

Talking with Julie Eisenhower Page 9 I jL tt Ti HT FT IT jR 1 ft Cry'? mf 1 II i Jjfl'MA 'i ii' Ifa muni il mill i aiirir ml i mMrf Mfc.inpi.--i..i,4 lHlnHii.iii In the 13fh, Ufh and 1Sth worst movies of the year Anthony Quinn drinks with Anna Magnani Secret of Santa Ann-Margret and a horse i.