The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 11

THE BALTIMORE Monday, May 28, 1973 Bl We live here Theater Films Music Television Art Comics SUN iMMim hhiuiu.hi jw.ii muwimu immmmwv.mmmi)mm)mMmmwmmmmMmm.m Polish community. proud of works, resents the jokes iw 4 i if r-v Vv t-M 5 fft nip fiimriiiFii.uiiifflHfli i nKiTMiiiiBinimwi i i fiffi-faft f-umtitw "f-r-r f-ffrr-rifH' r-W'f'-'iirw By, WELDON This is the first of two articles on the Polish community in a series of weekly discussions of Baltimore neighborhoods It was like a Polish wedding festivity. Nuns and priests joined others in the polka and krakowiak when 450 guests celebrated the ordination of the Rev. Ronald Pytel on a recent Sunday night in the school hall of Holy Rosary church. Several hours earlier, this neighborhood boy had been raised to the priesthood in the first ordination ever held at Holy Rosary, one of three Roman Catholic churches for Baltimoreans of Polish background.

Since 1927, its massive stone facade has loomed over the intersection of Bank and South Chester streets in East Baltimore. Now, in the evening, the priest's father, Peter Pytel, a clothing cutter, was in charge. Mr. Pytel (pronounced pittle) and his wife, both of them trim and radiant had spared nothing to make the party a fitting crown for the proudest day of their lives. They had engaged the mothers club of the parish school to cater a lavish banquet, and Father Ron's grandmother, 77-year-old Stanislava Kulesza, had made all the kielbasa (Polish sausage) as well as pastries originating from recipes brought from the old country.

An orchestra had been hired, for Polish music is cherished by the young priest, himself a skilled accordionist and persuasive, though amateur, singer. His neighbors had seen round-faced, taffy-haired Ron Pytel grow up, go through Holy Rosary parish school and leave for Catonsville to begin the training that would lead him to his priestly vows. From 1969 to 1971 he had pursued those studies in Rome. In an interview, Father Pytel recalled how his old area looked on his return. The Rev.

Ronald Pytel, just ordained in Holy Rosary Church, embraces his brother Michael. At far right, from right to left, are their father, mother and grandmother. Working out with the boys a bit huge Doesn't it make you furious to have their eyes follow you when you walk across the floor and make remarks?" "I'll tell you the truth, Gloria, the only remark anyone ever made to me was in a restaurant when a waiter told me I was dragging a piece of tissue on my shoe." "Oh, come on," she said. "Haven't you gotten pinched in the elevators?" "Only in the doors," I said. "Well, I for one will be glad when women will whistle at men in tight sweaters, and Lloyds of London will insure Burt Reynolds's hairy legs, and we can replace Dean Martin with Maude and have scantily clad men stand at her WALLACE So much he had treasured as a child he found, intact the warmth and strength of the people and their faithfulness to special religious customs dear to Poles.

But, he said, his absence abroad had given him "different eyes" with which to view his old surroundings. "The neighborhood was dirtier" than it had been when he was growing up. "There was a lot of trash in the streets. The white marble steps were black. I wasn't used to seeing such disarray." Further, a few familiar sights were missing.

Where were the babushkas once so commonly worn by oldei" women in church? They had all but disappeared. Yes, there had been changes in Pd-lonia, the affectionate name Poles give their neighborhood in any American city. Back from Rome, Ron Pytel became more sharply aware of the different peoples who had been moving into the area in recent years. He noticed Puerto Ricans. He saw more Appalachians than he remembered, and there were Lum-bee Indians who had settled there.

Yet certain traditions were as strong in the personal lives of Polish Americans as they had always been. One was an insistence on an immaculate house, inside and out. Frank Ras, a 61-year-old shipyard worker, who has lived in the 400 block of South Washington street for more than 50 years, expressed it this way: "Some of the homes in old Polish town may not be pretentious 'on the outside, but inside they have gracious living." 1 By nature, Poles are home-owners, everyone in their community will tell you, and they keep up their places. This, indeed, is characteristic of ethnics in general, doubtless reflecting the urge to feel rooted in a new and strange land. In listing attributes of the people, a See WALLACE, B3, Col.

1 HOWARD they illustrate the fear that the unaware often have of the retarded imagining him a potential rapist, a man with the brain of a child who goes around seducing innocent victims. Actually, according to Dr. Debuskey, "they retardates express more passivity than normal people and are more likely to be seduced than to seduce." Joanne Borger, psychologist for the Baltimore Association for Retarded Children, agrees. "The retarded aren't any more promiscuous than anybody else; probably less," she believes. "The thing that makes it look otherwise is that their behavior repertoire is very limited.

The behavior may be O.K. in one case but not in another." So the question of motivation arises. Do those who favor sterilization favor it as a means of protecting society, or would it be a means of protecting the retardate from society? There are many factors to be considered, such as the retardate's ability to care for a baby in the event that he or she would become a parent; the amount of suffering a young retarded girl might go through in pregnancy and childbirth (Some in the lower IQ range are extremely upset by menstruation); the possibility that the child of a retardate would also be retarded; the cost to the state to care for the child of a retardate providing the parent(s) cannot handle it; and the complete Irreversibility of the procedure of sterilizing. Contraception is preferable when possible, but most methods are not practical because they require motivation or regulation to be useful. Such is the case with birth control pills, diaphragms and condoms.

The implanted intrauterine device (IUD), while possibly annoying the retardate with increased menstrual flow, is still the most preferred, at 98 per cent effectiveness. The retarded boy poses the greater problem. Until the time when a reversible vasectomy can be perfected, sterili-See HOWARD, B6. Col. 1 Sterilization for the mentally retarded? now appearing here reflect good points of creators5 other works anymore even after they installed the bright lights." "Oh, I shop the Evildo all the time," I said.

"You do? What happened?" "Nothing happened. In fact, since they installed the bright lights, sex crimes have been reduced 31 per cent." "The rules of the game are changing," said Gloria. "Men are going to know what it's like to be undressed with a glance to have people pant over you and to be regarded as a helpless toy." I sat there numbly. How could tell Gloria I wanted to work out with the boys for a few more years? done without aren't spurting from somebody's chest. Billy the Kid, as any veteran Western fan surely knows, was a young outlaw who, after a short career of murder and mayhem, was himself shot by an 'old-friend-turned-lawmen named Pat Gar; rett.

With the help of screenwriter Rudolph Wurlitzer, Peckinpah has endeavored to give their blood-soaked saga the quality of a folk myth similar to that striven for by Arthur Penn in "Bonnie and Clyde." For this purpose, he has acquired the services of Kris Kristofferson, who plays Billy; James Coburn, who plays Garrett, and Bob Dylan, who both appears in and provides the musical background for the picture. Kristofferson proves to be a capable, as well as engaging, performer. Coburn achieves another of his understated, teeth-gritting portrayals which, while emphasizing the formida-bility of Garrett, does little to illuminate him. As for Dylan's contribution, it Is not likely to add anything, from either the acting or composing standpoint, to his stature. Nor, for that matter, will the film do much for Peckinpah, beyond making him richer.

Among the several area theaters where "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" currently is appearing is Cinema II, one of two new auditoriums that opened in the same building last week at Columbia. It has reclining seats, a carpeted lobby containing the usual vending ma-" chines and an air of comfort and prosperity. By ERMA BOMBECK A group of women in the female rights organization in Utah found a way to stop men' from ogling them when they went to the water cooler; They got together and let it be known they were running a survey among themselves to decide on "the most pat-able fanny" among male employees. My friend, Gloria, was. ecstatic.

"It serves them right," she said. "Ndw they know how it feels to be symbols of sex. Two films and bad By R. II. GARDNER In his "epic" theater, Bertolt Brecht developed a technique aimed at turning off, rather than on, the emotions.

A Communist, Brecht regarded drama as a teaching tool and felt that arousing the spectator's emotions impeded communication, with his intellect. Bernardo Bertolucci, who shares more with the German playwright than simply a pair of initials, seems to hold the contrary view. Having started out as a Communist, Bertolucci except for "Last Tango in Paris," his most recent film consistently has concerned himself with political themes; but his treatment of them is so "poetic" as to approach surrealism. The combination intellectual, concepts deliberately clouded by oblique handling creates a dichotomy that prevents his work from being as satisfying as it might if only he could make up his mind whether he is primarily a philosopher or an esthete. This is not to imply that philosophical concepts should be presented in a dull, dry manner or that artists should not have a distinct style.

But the style, where ideas are concerned, should bolster, rather than confuse them. Otherwise, it is necessary to decide which is more important, the communication of ideas or the arousing of emotion; and if it is the latter, the artist should discard the ideas and go all out for emotion. elbow with a drink. I mean, you've got to be tired of standing around being a love goddess?" "Oh, I am! I am!" I said. "Would you believe I spent $700 in beauty supplies and cosmetics last year trying to be just one of the boys?" "Women have minds," said Gloria ignoring my remark.

"And it's time men realized it. Instead, we have to be afraid to wander around the streets at night?" I lifted afraid to night?" my head suddenly, "Who's walk around the streets at woman," she snapped. "We "Every aren't safe in the Evildo shopping area other sources, the son further learns that the intended victim was to be Mussolini, but that someone in the plot devised by his father and the three friends at the last minute informed the police. Bertolucci's principal gimmick in telling this story is the scrambling of present and past through a series of flashbacks in which the actor playing the son (Giulio Brogi) also plays the father. As the climax approaches, the son begins more and more to identify himself with the murdered man even to attending a performance of "Rigoletto" and sitting in the same box.

The denouement which professional ethics forbids my revealing, poses the question: What precisely distinguishes a traitor from a hero? It's an interesting question and, despite the trick ending and other typical Bertolucci touches, it makes a generally engrossing film. The performances, including Alida Valli's, as the mistress, are good; and the camera and color effects, as customary with this director, are fascinating and lovely. Back to blood After an excellent non-violent film and a terrible moderately violent one Sam Peckinpah has, with "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," returned to the bloody ways of his "Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs." There is hardly a scene in which gobs of the stuff by virtue of the concealed catsup pouch, an invention the film industry could well have A By JANE The special problems of the mentally handicapped child have taken a new place of importance in the Twentieth Century, with technological advances increasing the number of lives being salvaged and with the increasing awakening that the mental retardate is a human being, not an animal to be closeted, shunned by society. Among the problems being met by the medical profession and other segments of society are those of education, habitation, integration, recreation, and controversial topics such as the question of sterilization of the mental retardate. The question of sterilization has been a matter of concern with parents and professionals for many years but, to the credit of the medical and legal professions, no specific guidelines for this procedure have ever been established.

It remains an individual matter with the child (when possible) and the parents making the final decision, not doctors, courts or social workers. The legal and moral aspects of sterilization recently were discussed in a series of lectures at the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, entitled, Whose Choice?" In the opening lecture of that series, Dr. Matthew Debuskey, associate professor of pediatrics at the Hopkins, emphasized that there is no clear yes or no to a general question on sterilization. He pointed to one less enlightened attitude toward sterilization which many feel reeks of Nazi Germany: "If they want to engage in sexual activities, then we'll have to sterilize them all." Fortunately, those professionals who are directly concerned with the retarded find this blanket condemnation absurd.

Their reply is: "If you can say such a thing about one group of people, then who is to be the next group? Tomorrow society will want to sterilize everyone who has asthma." Both arguments are exaggerated but Unfortunately, the one film in which Bertolucci does this is, in my opinion, his worst. "The Spider's Stratagem," which he created for Italian television and which is now appearing at the Playhouse, is not as pretentious as "The Conformist" and not as nebulous as "Before the Revolution," but it suffers from the same unnecessary confusion. Again, the plot based on a two-page story by Jorge Luis Borges is fundamentally simple. A young man returns to the provincial town where, some 35 years before, his father allegedly was murdered by Fascist gunmen. The event has acquired the mystique of a legend among the primitive inhabitants and his father that of a martyred patriot.

The main street now bears his name, and his bust and tomb occupy places of honor in the city square and cemetery. The protagonist, who for reasons never clear seems reluctant to become involved, has been summoned by his "official mistress" for the purpose of discovering and punishing the murderers, presumably still living there. Pursuant to this end, she gives him the name of three of his father's former anti-Fascist friends, also one she considers a good possibility for the chief murderer. From her, he learns that his father's death was nothing If not theatrical. He was shot in the back while attending a performance of "Rigoletto," after being warned by a gypsy that he would never emerge from the theater alive.

From.