Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois · 1

STAMPS COINS TV RADIO GHucago Sriliunc SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1969 ENTTIlTmilENT 5 FEATURES Insfds... Carol Kramer! marathon inter view with Gig Young vu only fitting. Gig's latest movie ii about marathon dancei during the depression. . . . Page 2 Is alienee on the way out? Find out what music critic Thomai Willis has to say about this age of mechanized kitchens, power lawnmowers, and transistor radios. . . Page z Category doesn't have much to do with the quality of dance companies, and two that could be termed off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway are the subject of With Robb Baker. . . . Page I Features . . . The theme was turn-of-the-cen-tury, but the guests at this fabulous New York ball wore almost any, kind of costume including uncovered underwear. Bill Cunningham reports In words and pictures. ... Page 11 ,'Tm going to keep my baby" Is the decision from a growing number of unwed mothers. Mary Merryfield Interviews social workers, and the unwed mothers themselves. . . . Page 11 Let Christmas slip up on you again, didn't you? And now you need some ideas for whipping up las t-minute decorations. Jeanne Smith and her Live & Learn contributors oblige. . . . Page 13 v; r i a c x , , --v X ,t.V 7 r" S , ' 1 ( ' ?7V sr -. J-v-" ! y ' v -i ; ' 1 " a A new concept in entertainment will be presented at the Chicago Stadium Christmas night when the "Disney on Parade" show will have its world premiere. Many famous Walt Disney characters will come to life, including Mickey Mouse and Cinderella and her prince. The production will run thro Jan. 4. Bob & Carol Etc. Explores the New Morality of Today By Gene Siskel WHEN Boh, Robert Culp returns home from a business trip, he discovers his wife Caro! I''" Wiod has bcn sleeping with Horst, her iemiu instructor. What's more, Horst is still in the bedroom. Bob blows up as any cuckold would, but then a curious thing happens. He laughs, kisses his wife, walks in the bedroom, shakes Horst's hand, and gives him a drink. ' This is the new morality and the subject of '.'Bob & Carol k Ted & Alice," 3 v V A Dyan Cannon and Elliott Gould in "Bob & Carol & Tod & Alice." the best comedy of the year. Bob and Carol have just returned from a week-end at the Institute, a psychological resort where the guests play games like "being honest" rather than shuffle-board. At the Institute, Bob and Carol learn that one's feelings are neither right nor wrong, but that they merely exist. One should learn to recognize those feelings, express them, and decide if they are worth retaining or changing- Up at the Institute, Bob and Carol become believers in being honest. When Movies they return to their Los Angeles home, they become apostles. During a restaurant dinner with their friends Ted Elliott Gould and Alice Dyan Cannon, the maitre d' says he hopes that everything was satisfactory, and Carol startles him by asking if he really cares. "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" would be a very funny movie if it stayed at this level. But it is much more than that when couples begin to deal with how they relate to their spouses and the other couple. The advertising tag line for the film is "consider the possibilities," a line designed to titillate you into thinking about wife-swapping. Actually the line has something to say of more importance, for it is possible to view and appreciate the movie on the basis of its portrayal of the possible relations of two couples. How do the husbands feel about their wives, the other man's wife, and each other? Feelings exist, whether they be feelings of love, envy, lust, inferiority, or indifference. These feeling are seldom acknowledged, rarely talked about, TRIBUNE MINI REVIEW Best comedy of the year "BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE" . PraftcM H Liny Tackw, tfrtcM t PmI Man iky, wrltlM ky Tidwr ml Mamtr. tfntiirapM If Cmrtot I. Lmi, cdmtli rtlttM, M (M UitlM Artliti fliMtar. TH1 CAST Riktrt MP Canl NttiH WN4 Ttd Blllttt Owl Ailc om CamM Injtimtt ortap Ltaar rtfa Mallam . Ptycklatriil DaoaM P. Makki and almost never acted upon. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice do all three and the result is a poignant comedy. One of the best tests of the worth of any film is what are you left with after leaving the theater. After seeing "Bob & Carol & Ted 4 Alice," a couple would most likely exchange wry smiles and, depending upon their degree of honesty, begin to talk about their physical and spiritual relations. The acting in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" is eminently tender and believable. Elliott Gould, Barbra Streisand's estranged husband, Is the most outstanding. Together with Dy.in Cannon, Cary Grant's former wife, Gould has the best scene in the film. They have just learned that Bob had an affair with another woman, and Alice is distraught for Carol. Ted is more interested in intercourse that night, and Alice is too upset to satisfy him. Their verbal exchange, where a disgusted Alice tells him to go ahead and "do anything; TD' lie still." and a disgusted Ted threatens to "go for ' a walk" is at. once delightful and, devastating. Miss Cannon has the toughest job to do, for she plays a female heavy. She's not as attractive as Miss Wood, whose beauty is startling, nor is she as frivolous. That she is able to make us care about what happens to her is a special achievement. Director Paul Mazursky has a refreshingly simple style. No flashbacks. No slow motion. Just a simple delivery of an entertaining story. , . Vest Pocket Series Livens Interest in the Theater WHAT KIND of name for a subscription program is Vest Pocket series? - Not many theatergoers these days ever have owned a vest, tho they probably have heard that a vest pocket was a cozy place to put one's theater tickets. that is not the derivation of the name of the interesting new Vest Pocket series which has been introduced to Chicago with "The Boys in the Band" at the Studebaker. This is a subscription plan, dreamed up by the Nederlander brothers, who have been building a respectable chain of legitimate theaters based in their old home town of Detroit, meant to bring the important off-Broadway productions to "the road," to play in intimate houses. The project's name derives from the fact that the Nederlanders, who operate Detroit's big, luxurious Fischer theater, one of the handsomest in the land, took over a small movie parlor in the motor 'city, remodeled it into a legit house, and renamed it the Vest Pocket theater. ' The Nederlanders, scions of an old Detroit -theatrical family, are Joseph, who works mainly out of that city, and James, who handles much of the affairs of something that may be growing into a nation-wide empire. The Nederlanders, as AU State Amusement company, now have theaters in Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, and Phoenix, and are at work on another in San - Francisco- " Their. Chicago houses are the McVick-ers and the Studebaker, but sot all the Vest Pocket plays will be staged in their By William Leonard own houses. In fact, none will be presented in the spacious McVickers. The schedule for the inaugural season calls for four plays. In addition to "The Boys In the Band" there are to be: "Little Murders," "Dames at Sea," and the double bill of "Adaptation" and "Next." Also semi-promised was "and maybe, 'Oh! Calcutta!' r' You can bet against that. . "Little Murders," Jules Feiffer's "sick" comedy describing the big American city as a concrete jungle where man eats man, flopped after Theater seven performances on Broadway in 1967, but was much more successful when it reappeared off-Broadway last January. "Dames at Sea," presented at the Bouwerie Lane theater a year ago this month, is a spoof of the movie musicals of the '30s. Tunes include titles like "Broadway Baby," "That Mister Man of Mine," "Choo-Choo Honeymoon," and "Good Times Are Here to Stay"-which will give you an idea. "Adaptation" was written by Elaine May, and she directed both it and the other one-acter on the same bill, "Next." Her opus is a tapestry of the game of life as it might be played on a day time television game show. "Next," by Terence McNally, is about a middle-aged man subjected to the indignities of red-tape examinations m connection with Induction into the military. If all these offerings get here (and there is no reason to believe they will not, "Dames at Sea" probably will play at the Studebaker. The other two, smaller in size, probably will be seen at the Civic. That Chicagoans have faith in the Vest : I f I Robert Christian (left) and Page Johnson in "The Boys In The Band," opening Vest Pocket series presentation. Pocket series is attested to by the fact that four thousand or more theatergoers subscribed even before "The Boys in the Band" opened at the Studebaker three weeks ago. This is the kind of project we are happy to see. It's not too ambitious, It doesn't promise too much, it makes good sense, it will brighten ' the Chicago theater scene, and the public seems to believe in K. ' 1 ,. -,. i ...,-. ...... .... . . i .. .. .. .... .... ... .. r ;: If jT , if ' : ' ! iJo.. i i 1 j y HI. Si - - hv i i - i 5 1 . . if i . J L. t- j S J . .' ! ; -' f :V 1 1 f 'V'.j A ' I" Some of the entertainers who will be appearing in Chicago hotels and supper clubs New Year's Ere include, from left: Esquivel! with his orchestra and chores in the Empire room of the Palmer House; Franx Bcntclcr and his Royal Strings in the Consort of the Continental Tlata hotel; Maria Marlene In the French revue "Vive Paris Vive" in the College Inn of the Sherman House; Nelson SardcllI ifl the Camellia Ilouse of the Drake hotel; Dirry Gillefple to the London House, and vocalist Janet Evans at Mister Kelly'i.