Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 35

Cheapo Frklay. February 27. 137S on 3 Movies Taxi Driven Violence ends a fine ride Ft 4- i i 1 I it REMOVE THE eiUclysmle ending from Taxi Driver" and it would be one smashiugly good motion picture. As it stands, the film is beautiful to look at, exciting to listen to, but much too much to stomach. 'Taxi Driver" is a story of one of America's walking wounded.

A glamorized portrait of one of those violent creeps who shows up at a political rally dressed, literally, to kill with guns. "I want to work long hours," says Marine veteran Travis Bickle Robert De Niro as he applies for a night shift Job with New York's Dependable Taxi Service. TRAVIS IS scary he says that, because in narration he's already told us he can't sleep nights, that be often rides the subway just to kill time. Minutes later, Travis will let it all hang out. the goods.

Travis' story takes its most unexpected and exciting turn when he catches sight of a stunningly beautiful blond. Betsy Cyblll Shepherd, who I never tire of seeing play a heartbreak kid works in the campaign office of presidential candidate Charles Palantine. Travis spots Betsy as she walks into her street level office. Dressed in white linen, her long blond hair falling to her shoulders, "she appeared like an angel," says Travis. "They cannot touch her," he says in a voice that smacks of a telephone breather.

The line has a double edge: The scum can't touch her qualitatively, and be will not permit the scum to touch her physically. They cannot and they shall not BIBLICAL IMAGERY candles, crucifixion poses courses through 'Taxi Driver." Travis envisions himself as a messenger from God, sent to Earth to purify Times Square and Harlem. The picture's heavy hand and thundering self-importance is signaled from the very first frame as we watch steam from a manhole fill a street. A heavy chord of music fills the sound track; the kind of music that opened a couple of recent films "Rollerball," "Barry Lyndon" similarly filled with self-importance. For an exceedingly violent film, "Taxi Driver," oddly, is more successful when presenting comedy and positive emotions.

I've seen better gunplay than the "Taxi Driver" carnage, but I won't forget the humor of one campaign office scene, or the scenes in which De Niro picks up and has his first date with Cybill Shepherd, and an extended conversation between De Niro and a 12- i TRIBUNE MINI-REVIEW Hack violence "TAXI DRIVER" DlrtH4 Mtrtli swim, vrlttn tr PmI Sckrrt-tr, MfrmiiM tor MicMtl CMtawi, wic Mr- Mr HWTMI. KMK4 kr MICkMl (f JH1 Ptlll.M. Cntla nlHN ttt McClwt Cwrt 4 MiMr-tm tkMttrt. THB CASt Trlli liUM RlMrt fM Nil Iril JMit FMItr MIT CrMH SMkir Too AIMrt SMft Hanty Klttt Ova SattfiMM Sttvt PniK TM Wiur Ptttf Borl Ctorttt PtitrtlM Uwurt Harrlt TrituM phsrt kr Vtl Muaaa Members of the "East of Edens" troupe (from left): Jim Sherman, George Wendt, Miriam Flynn, and Ann Ryerson. Theater Momentum a Second City asset year-old hooker be tries to reform.

ABOUT O.VE-THIRD of the way through 'Taxi Driver," during that first De Niro-Sbepberd date over pie and coffee, I had a momentary thrill as I thought the film was going to turn away from its obvious violent layer toward an aggressive male-female love story. That" would have been special, but no such luck. Director Martin Scorsese "Mean Streets," "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" is more interested in getting back to street violence. The part he plays in the film reveals that: a cameo as a jealous husband who wants to take a shotgun to his cheating wife's face. Also, be lets his good friend, actor Harvey Keitel Charlie in "Mean play a freaked-out pimp who plies that preteen-age hooker with heroin.

Last week, I mentioned to a friend my objection to the violent second half of 'Taxi Driver" and my sense of loss over seeing a tough love story blown away by De Niro's love affair with a .45 caliber revolver. My friend objected, saying I wanted Scorsese to make another movie than the one be wanted to make. WELL, THAT'S right. As It stands, "Taxi Driver" is a powerful set of images, which, for me, have been mostly obliterated by a bottom-heavy piece of artillery fire. I turned away from the screen during the bloodbath.

But it's a strong picture, nevertheless. Director Scorsese is in full control of his camera, even if the violence he plays with overpowers him. I like the way he moves his camera in sweeping arcs, making his street characters surge with an energy that smacks of the feeling you get when you walk through Manhattan. The performances of De Niro, Shepherd, Keitel, and Jodie Foster so cute only three years ago as Becky Thatcher in the Reader's Digest musical, "Tom Sawyer" are first rate, though always bordering on the heavy-handed. BUT THAT'S due to the way Scorsese has edited his movie.

Just as he spikes that scene of steam-filled streets with the throbbing music created by the late Bernard Herrmann composer for "Psycho" and, recently, he similarly accents the big moments of leading performances by serving them up chunk-style, without much of a connecting flow. That imbues the film with too much importance. The violence that concludes the film also takes itself too seriously. And that's the general problem with this compelling and flawed movie. Gene Siskel "EAST OF EDENS" FIIIt-skwi CMMtfr mi It ttemt City.

rMK an 41rcM kr Btnurt fehllns, wild mile Wt Fn Kit, M4 ctorwfraMr ty Mt Mm), PimmM la Id ubwtt at Ml N. WMIt Wt4wvUr. FM. W74. THB CAST Ana Imw.

Mlriaa Firm. itaM Kanvana, Da DaPalla, Owrta Wendt, Eric Soanain, Jla tbtnaaa. You can hear the bile backing up in his throat when he says, as he drives his hack through Slime Square, "Some day the rain will come and wash all the scum off the street." The scum he's talking about isn't beer cans and candy wrappers. He's talking about people: New York's prostitutes, pimps, pushers, and street punks. "Taxi Driver" is an urban horror story drenched in lurid night colors: the blues and yellows of a porno moviehouse marquee, stoplight colors mixed with steam pouring out of manholes.

If the idea of a neon nightmare holds any appeal, "Taxi Driver" will be worth seeing just for a collection of intense colors rivaled only by the early Disney animation pictures. THE STORY of Travis Bickle is his story more than the typical Utxi driver's. The film is not a primer on the weird world of the hack operator, about which a good picture still could be made. Only through bits and pieces a couple of conversations among hacks at Manhattan's famous cabbie hangout, the Bel-more Cafe do we grab a sense of the craziness Implicit in a job where you pick up perfect strangers and expect them to pay you after you've delivered WHAT'S NEW since Wednesday is the 52d Second City show in the cabaret at 1616 N. Wells What's not so new includes the title, "East of Edens," which has belonged for years to a restaurant in a bowling alley in Skokie, plus the fact that some of the improv-bred material is, well, not so new, too.

Actually, it's both the best of times and some of the least of same for the off-beat idea Bernard Sahlins has built into a nightlife institution in Old Town. And the quality splits down the middle. Much of the first act is clever and funny and sweetly wise. The second half starts strong with a manicurist who has a job-related taste for the organic before the material turns quickly into waste. No.

52 boasts the cast which has, since No. 50, stopped negative comparisons with the demented Second City of the so-considered Golden Age. Led with beanpole splendor by Ann Ryerson, the septet Eric Board-man, Miriam Flynn, Don DePollo, Steven Kampmann, Jim Sherman, and George Wendt is endearingly slick even when its routines get flabby. THE REVUES recently have dipped more and more into the fertile culture cosmos for inspiration specifically the silly symphony and bozo ballet of past shows. By now, the bare set has been transformed with black outlines into a living canvas a la Mondrian.

Mona Lisa Flynn sings "Volare" after hours in a lovely scene in the museum. Boardman lampoons poetry in his entr'actes. Flynn and Ryerson fight operatically as music school roommates, and Channel 11 finally gets it from Kampmann for those incessant pledge nights. Liberal causes get a hefty knee jerk by way of a game show, but the rest of the '76 political parade is goofier 3 '-u -x on the news. If "Minah's Place" is the best Second City can do to George Wallace and Ronald Reagan, why not just let them do it to themselves? FLYNN DOES find something clever left to say about Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, but some of the finest moments come from less topical commentary.

Ryerson's hyperkinetic child with real life concerns becomes a leg-loony classic in a wistful, "Ask Your Father." DePollo has nothing to match his raven from the last show, but he does get a good religious moment by which to live laughing. Otherwise, we get a sledgehammer at Cheech and Chong even less amusing than they are, some predictable encounters In singles' apartments, yet another Catholic-Protestant church confrontation, and a father-in-law who calls his daughter's husband the gonadal counterpart to "Meathead" while turning attention to the skit as skit in a manner overly reminiscent of "NBC's Saturday Night." Like the cliche about Oriental food, I tend to enjoy these shows but not remember much about them the minute I'm out the door. But not to worry. It doesn't seem to have hurt China much either. Linda Winer Taxi Driver Robert De Niro GET-AWAY-GUIDE- -GET-AWAY-GUIDE -GET-AWAY-GUIDE- -GET-AWAY-GUIDE- -DINING OUT- -DINING OUT- DINING OUT- -DINING OUT- -DINING OUT- 1 Time at ATTENTION ii i.wiiiiim Mmmi mi 1 1 mm mii iwii iiwiniini in ff ulnMMDaliwnmroni in 1 -offir rTrrrTmiimnnifi i niaiiiiaiiiii in i ri iiiamii iiiiiim iiiiiiiiiiii i iiiiiiam hi i 1 i 1 1 Whether you're 2 people or 30, Vi of your party will receive dinner at Yj price in trie Brass Tree Room ALL LEPRECHAUNS! SALUTE TO THE IRISH at Ray Foley Restaurant.

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'til Closing DISCOVER THE UU; 5 OFF YOUR DINNER BILL American-Bohemian Cuisine SALAD IH.IHWI My 11 It 10 PH-SUH 1 to 10 PM IWJ Catch aH the action when the most talented young boxers in the midwest meet in the finals of the Golden Gloves on Friday, March 1 2 at the International Amphitheater. Prices: $8, $5, $3. For tickets, make checks or money orders payable to Chicago Tribune Charities Inc. Mail to Golden Gloves Ticket Manager, 435 N. Michigan Chicago, III.

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