The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 57

Eos Angeles (Times LOST SATELLITE A Setback for Cable TV W7 JtLW ORANGE COUNTY PART IV In Three Parts FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1979 By LEE MARGULIES TIlMt Staff WrttK The hot topic of conversation at the 11th annual Western Cable Television Convention in Anaheim has been the mysterious disappearance of RCA's newest communications satellite, which was to have been used exclusively by the cable television industry. In introducing one of the opening panels at the Disneyland Hotel Wednesday, moderator Gene Cook noted that the topic was supposed to be, "What's New on the Bird?" (bird being a nickname for satellite). "It's been changed," he told the audience, "to 'Where the Hell Is That, of course, is the question of the week, and RCA and hundreds of space technicians were still trying to determine the answer Thursday. They lost track of the $20 million, one-ton Satcom III on Monday, four days after its launch. A Turner Alternative One answer was offered by Ted Turner, the colorful and outspoken owner of TV station WTBS in Atlanta, which is distributed to cable systems by satellite, and the founder of a new cable operation which intends to launch a 24-hour-a-day TV news service June 1.

He suggested that, considering how ABC, CBS, NBC and the National Assn. of ALL AGLITTER-Against a background of shimmering Christmas tree lights, 2 -month -old Fellissa Ferrill gets an introduction to Santa at the Original Christmas Store. Her mother is Rinka Ferrill. Times photos by Don Kelson SHOPPERS, SPECTATORS DRAWN IN DROVES Christmas Store: a Winter Wonderland CRITIC AT LARGE Spielberg's Pearl Harbor By CHARLES CHAMPLIN Tlmtt Art Editor I yield to no one in my fondness for the restorative and curative powers of vulgarity. It is the natural bulk, the unrefined bran fiber, among movies.

Think of "Blazing Saddles," which did more for campfires than the marshmal-low; think of "Animal House," with its endearing if jaded young charms. Steven Spielberg's "1941" is another matter. It has the winsome appeal of scrofula and croup rolled into one. It is the most conspicuous waste since the last major oil spill, which it somewhat resembles. It is a platinum-plated Erector set which distracted parents have urged the tots to destroy for want of anything more creative to do with it.

"1941" is a dictionary of destruction. Planes crash in flames, lofts collapse, a house topples into the sea and a Ferris wheel, and a tank. A decade's worth of Cal Worth-ington leftovers are crunched into scrap, engendering very little jollity. The heavier destruction is to the human spirit. The script by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale from a story they concocted with John Milius is populated not with zanies but with gargoyles and cretins.

The male approaches look like attempted rape and the female responses, in unmatched sets, are equally predatory. It is all subsophomoric stuff. College humor at its best has a sort of blind and defiant innocence, a dinner table daring. What characterizes "1941" is its abiding cynicism, which arises, however, not in a considered contempt for the world's follies but out of an apparent indifference to and withdrawal from anything but spliced celluloid. It offers a nihilism based not on a rejecting rage but on an arrogant indifference to values.

The setting, of course, is California in the panicky days following Pearl Harbor. A Japanese submarine, co-commanded by Toshiro Mifune and Christopher Lee as a German general, is trying to make a symbolic strike against Hollywood. John Belushi (continuing his remarkable attempts to lift slobbery to an art form) is a wildcard fighter pilot chasing imaginary squadrons of enemy. Warren Oates is an Army officer awaiting the invasion somewhere east of Bakers-field. Robert Stack as the real Gen.

"Vinegar Joe" Stilwell is eating popcorn and weeping at "Dumbo' as the world goes up in cannisters of smoke around him. By SHEARLEAN DUKE Timet Staff Wrlttr ORANGE Walking into the Original Christmas Store is like walking into a full-length, Technicolor fairytale film from Disney. Suddenly you're surrounded by twinkling lights, colorful decorations, Santas, reindeer, wise men, elves and tinsel. There's even a make-believe forest of Christmas trees complete with tiny, child-sized, turn-of-the-century animated tree trimmers and carolers. There's a life-sized Nativity scene, a winter snow display, angels, icicles, bells and wreaths.

You name it; if it has to do with Christmas, you'll find it at this, unusual store which is open only during the Christmas season. When it opened Oct.20 in the City Shopping Center, more than 20,000 people trekked in and out of the store during the first two days. Congestion got so bad that store owners decided to charge $1 admission on weekends to cut down on the crowds. Why all the fuss? "People seem to think of it as a fantasy land," said Bill Lyon, marketing consultant for the Texas-based store. Store owners have gone to a lot of trouble to create just such an illusion.

With items ranging in price from 29 cents to $20,000, the store is much more than a holiday boutique that sells colored lights and tinsel. For example, that life-sized Nativity scene carries a price tag of $10,500. And the winter wonderland, complete with Please Turn to Page 39, Col. 1 1 1 jyi i i yr PRICE IS RIGHT Shoppers check items on sale for as little as 29 cents. The life-sized Nativity scene, however, carries a price tag of $10,500.

It includes 57 pieces, each of them carved by hand. WHERE IS of the satellite that just vanished. AP Lei photo CASINO THE BOTTOM LINE Harrah's Woos Quality 'Customer' Ned Beatty is a householder asked to accommodate an anti-aircraft gun in his backyard and Lorraine Gary is his hysterical wife. Dan Aykroyd is a dumb GI and Treat Williams is a smart but rapacious GI. Slim Pickens (who like Stack and the other old pros deserves a Good Conduct medal for valor in hard circumstances) is a captured rube who outwits the whole sub, no large feat.

The youngsters populate the standard Hollywood plot-boy beats girl, girl beats boy, all change. Tim Matheson, lately of "Animal House," is an Army captain in quest of Nancy Allen as Stilwell's kinky secretary. Dianne Kay is a USO hostess in flight from Williams. She prefers Bobby DiCicco as a jitterbugging zoot suiter who turns out to be an OK guy. Wendie Jo Sperber is the beefy girl who chases Williams.

There are several familiar faces: Elisha Cook as a cafe patron, Lionel Stander as an air raid warden, Murray Hamilton (the mayor in as an airplane spotter. Iggy (here called Ignatius) Wolfington plays the real Meyer Mishkin, who I presume is Spielberg's agent and should sue if not. It may be that the young crowd which found merit in "Grease" will embrace "1941" with its faces from television. But two hours of demolition seems more apt to be, for nearly everyone, a crashing bore. In the unpreparedness and the unattractive panic in California just after Pearl Harbor there would have appeared to be ample material for a sharp-pointed satire.

But the film's point of view, insofar as it has one, is a sort of undifferentiated contempt that guns down everything in sight for the sheer sport of it. Aykroyd makes a long tank-top speech stitched together of all the cliches of patriotic wartime gore, but it is too lead-footed to succeed as irony, and it has the effect of demeaning dangers and sacrifices that were real enough. By some bizarre and unuseful inversion, the film metaphorically seems determined to rescue the firing squad instead of the innocent victim. If "1941" is angering (and you may well suspect that it is), it is because the film seems merely an expensive indulgence, begat by those who know how to say it, if only they had something to say. There is an irony in that "1941" measures empty against the high ambition of "Apocalypse Now," of which John Milius, coauthor and executive producer here, was the first author and principal inspiration.

But if "1941" reflects the way we really are, we should surrender to the ayatollah and be done with it. John Williams' score is heroic and brilliantly recorded. Rated PG, "1941" opens today at the Cinerama Dome and other theaters. Broadcasters have lobbied in the past to hamstring cable television's development, perhaps they pooled their resources to buy "some missile system to shoot down the satellite." "I'm only joking," Turner quickly added. Beneath the humor, however, is concern about what the satellite's loss means for the cable industry, which has flourished in recent years because of such communications satellites.

They make possible the national distribution of programming at far cheaper rates than more traditional delivery systems. The initial reaction many people had was, "oh my God, we've lost 24 channels," said Thomas Wheeler, president of the National Cable Television Assn. He was referring to the fact that Satcom III was to have had 24 transponders, or channels, beaming programming to cable systems. Please Turn to Page 36, Col. 1 By LEE GRANT Tlmtt Staff Wrlttr LAKE TAHOE-Sammy Davis Jr.

had once again filled the showroom at Harrah's here. In fine voice these days, he dutifully sang the tunes most requested "Candy Man," "Mr. Bojangles," "What King of Fool Am began eight days hosting the 20th anniversary of the hotel's showroom. Holmes Hendricksen, a Davis fan for sure, was, however, keeping an eye on something else. While the packed house screamed out requests for "Bojangles" and laughed at Davis' Yiddish shtick, there was something way more important to a clutch of nearby observers than an entertainer performing at peak.

"Sammy brings in very much the quali ty customer we're interested in," sak Hendricksen, executive vice president foi entertainment in charge of acquiring talent at Harrah's Reno, Lake Tahoe and the new hotel planned for Atlantic City. "Personally, I love him, we're close friends but look at his influence in the casino. When Sammy's here, the quality of olay soars. "And we are, after all, in the casino business, not the entertainment business." Hendricksen and a slew of other Harrah's executives gathered last week at the Lake Tahoe hotel to participate in anniversary activities that included a different star each night performing with Davis, all of whom had appeared there over the years. This is an organization in quiet transition, a merger under way with Holiday Inns Inc.

When founder Bill Harrah died in 1978 at age 66, a group of men he trained took over the reins. They included Please Turn to Page 32, Col. 4 SOUTHLAND BOOM Newsletters Proliferate THE VIEWS INSIDE By PEGGT BITCHEY Two years ago Dottie Walters of Glen-dora volunteered to write a newsletter and send it to the 20 friends and business associates who had gathered for a speakers association meeting. Today, she is editor and publisher of Sharing Ideas (Among Women Speakers and Their Friends), a profitable newsletter with more than 1,000 'AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' Fats Hits the Aquarius By DAN SULLIVAN Tlmtt Thmtar Critic Fats Waller is playing L.A. again, not at the Zanzibar Room but at the Aquarius Theater.

The show is called "Ain't Misbe-havin' and it should be running until nylons come back. Did somebody say, Who's Fat Waller? Only the greatest entertainer who ever sat down behind a piano, that's who. And "Ain't Misbehavin' isn't just Fats. It's Fat's whole crowd. Style? High life? Tell me about it.

What's remarkable about the new arrival at the Aquarius-we'll get to the question of whether it has opened or not in a minute-is how much more it manages to accomplish than most song-and-dance shows, without once forgetting to be a song-and-dance show. Like Fats, it keeps a steady left hand going under the stuff on top. You can think with it, jive with it, or jive-now-think-later. First and always, it's a five-star salute, Please Turn to Page 55, Col. 3 lLr BOOKS: Robert Pinsky's "An Explanation of America" by Kenneth Funsten on Page 7.

MOVIES: "The Jerk" by Kevin Thomas on Page 56. MUSIC: The Orchestra by Leonard Feather on Page 62. STAGE: "Sweet Bird of Youth" by Lawrence Christon on Page 53. TELEVISION: "The Duchess of Duke Street II" by Cecil Smith on Page 38. "Disney's Wonderful World" by Charles Champlin Jr.

on Page 38. What's Doing in Orange County on Page 50. AND OTHER FEATURES For nine months Paul Schatzkin deliberated about leaving his job as a videotape editor on the "Barney Miller" show to enter the notoriously overcrowded publishing field. Finally Schatzkin took the financial gamble and, operating out of his Mt. Olympus home, he is reporter, editor and publisher of an economic watchdog newsletter called Strange Times.

Newsletters-specialized publications issued to subscribers or organization Please Turn to Page 25, Col. 2 Beauty Page 35 Bernheimer Page 55 Bridge Page 15 Comics Page 73 Jody Jacobs Page 2 Dr. Solomon Page 6 Stage Beat Page 64 Television Pages 38, 69-72 SWITCHING HIS MEDIA Paul Schatzkin left a job on the "Barney Miller" mow to publish the Strang Times, an economic newsletter. Times photo bjr Judd Gundtrson.