The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 94

Doa Angeles States June 21, 1979- Part IV 17 MOVIE REVIEW Muppets Invade the Real World RODERICK MANN Peter Fonda: A Rebel No More "I realized eventually it didn't make any difference how passionately I spoke out about things," says Peter Fonda. "People were going to go right on polluting the ocean and fouling the air. So I stopped talking about it Peter Fonda, once the enfant terrible of the Fonda familythe man who insisted he wanted to be dumped into a hole in the earth when he died, not buried in a coffin sits at breakfast in Beverly Hills looking spruce and handsome. The hair is no longer untidy; the clothes although he still favors jeans no longer look as if they were fished out of some mission barrel. And as the director of the new movie "Wanda Nevada" in which he stars with Brooke Shields and which has already opened to considerable success in the South, Fonda finds himself no longer treated as a talent only to be tolerated, but one to be actually encouraged.

He finds it all rather amusing. "I've made 22 films and played 22 different characters in them," he says, "but people always tended to see me in the same way as some kind of maniac coming over the crest of a hill on a motorbike with a joint in my mouth." No longer. True, he still roars around on a 700-pound BMW motorbike. True, he still cares passionately about man despoiling the earth, but he has learned the hard way that people don't want actors to preach, only to perform. "I'm afraid that's true," he says.

"Because of some of the things I said in the past, people here did tend to think of me as a bit of a weirdo. So, when they were sitting around thinking about actors for a particular role, they didn't automatically think of me. But then there was a time when they didn't think of sister Jane either, so maybe there's hope yet." Meeting and marrying Portia Crockett a descendant of both Davy Crockett and Louisa May Alcott changed his life considerably. "Falling in love does tend to take away your anger," he says with a smile. "People say to me: 'We don't seem to PETF.

FONDA maybe there's hope yet." hear so much of you anymore; you and your You know, they were yours, "I've learned that if people don't want to care, there's not much I can do to make them. But the truth is I worry about all the same things I worried about years ago." His new film "Wanda Nevada" in which he plays a gambler who wins a 13-year-old in a poker game features his father, Henry, as an old prospector. Peter loved working with him. "People keep asking me: 'What's it like directing someone like And I reply: 'It's easy-because he knows exactly what he's For years now there have been reports that the three Fondas intend teaming up in a movie together. The favorite idea seeks to be that they would all star in a historical drama about a family living through the Revolutionary War, with Peter directing.

"And it may still happen," says Fonda. "But only if we get a script we all like. Otherwise, it would look as if we Please Turn to Page 22, Col. 1 BY CHARLES CHAMPLIN Tlmw Arti Idltor Jim Henson's Muppets may just be the happiest, most inventive and successful addition to the world's treasure trove of fantasy since the original Disney characters a half-century ago. The Muppet television show is currently seen in 106 countries, making Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy as universal as Mickey, Minnie and Donald.

Now the Muppets have starred in their first movie, handily titled "The Muppet Movie." It opens Friday at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and, as you might well expect, it is hip, funny, technically ingenious, fast-moving, melodious, richly produced, contemporary and equally and utterly beguiling to grown-ups and small persons. As you might well also expect, the Muppets shamelessly steal every scene from their flashy fleshy costars, including Charles Durning as a wicked fast-food franchiser (frog legs, leading Kermit to envision thousands of frogs on tiny crutches) and Austin Pendleton as his incompetent assistant. Among the guests are Milton Berle as a used-car dealer, Mel Brooks as a mad scientist, Richard Pryor as a balloon-seller, Bob Hope as an ice-cream man, Dom DeLuise as a lost agent and Orson Welles in a triumphant one-line performance as a mogul named Lew Lord. (The movie was financed by Lord Lew Grade, a not-unrelated fact.) But it really is the Muppets' movie. They invade the real world, ride a bicycle, drive cars, stroll through a fairground, shoot it out on the dusty main street in the tradition of "High Noon." Like the Disney animation, the perfection of the Muppet puppetry is so complete that it is impossible not to accept these felt creations as feeling beings.

And it takes something like an act of will to think about the wizardries required to make the action look so real. How in blazes can Kermit ride a bike, with a car pursuing him and a steamroller looming in front of him? trained him on a three-wheeler first," director James Frawley says evasively.) How can he croon atop a bar-stool, a la Sinatra? (Mirrors, maybe.) The story by Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns makes the movie about the movie, starting and finishing with a raucous (and, again operationally ingenious) studio preview for cast and friends. The movie within the movie tells how the gang came together and found its perilous way to Hollywood from the peaceful swamp where DeLuise shows Kermit a Daily Variety casting ad for star frogs. Hotly pursued by the evil frog-vendor, Kermit rescues Fozzie Bear from the dance hall where his dancing act has bombed out badly and they team up with The Great Gonzo and then with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem and with Miss Piggy, fresh (as always) from her triumph in a beauty contest judged by Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen (to whom the movie is dedicated).

Paul Williams (also glimpsed as the dance-hall pianist) and Kenny Ascher have provided a bright and singable set of tunes. Chief among them is Kermit's ballad of hope and THE MUPPET MOVIE' An AssoclatBd Film Distribution Releesa. A Sir Ltw GradaMartln Starger Prauntatlon. Producar Jim Hanson. Exacutlva producar Martin Stargar.

Dl-ractor Jamat Frawlay. Script Jarry Juhl Jack Burnt. Photography Isldora Mankoliky. Editor Chrlt Graanbury. Production dailgn Joal Schlllar.

Music and lyrics Paul Williams, Kanny Aschar. Coproducar David Craatlva consultant Frank Oz. Muppat parrormars: Jim Hanson, Frank Oi Jarry Nelson, Richard Hunt, Dava Goals. Faaturlng Charlas Durning, Austin Pendleton, Edgar Bergen, Milton Barla, Mai Brooks, Jamas Coburn, Dom DaLulsa, Elliott Gould, Bob Hop Madallna Kahn, Carol Kane, Clorls Laachman, Stava Martin, Richard Pryor, Tally Savalas, Orson Wallas, Paul Williams. Running tlma: 1 hr.

34ft mln. MPAA-ratad: Ganaral. aspiration, "The Rainbow Connection," which he sings early and late, plucking his own accompaniment on the banjo with, it can now be revealed, radio-controlled fingers. There is a love song, "Never Before, Never Again," done by Johnny Mathis, and some rousing up-tempo things, "Movin' Right Along" and "Can You Picture That" among them. Once or twice the pace falters, and ballads of love and lonesomeness cause unrest to stir in the Muppets' moppet fans, but action is never far away and in an extraordinary last bow by the cast, there are something like 250 Muppet figures keeping 137 Muppet performers up in arms, so to speak.

Success, of course, has not come overnight. Henson coined the word Muppet 20 years ago, had his first important break on a late-night TV show in Washington, which led to the "Today" and "Tonight" shows and a five-year string of appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" before Sesame Street" made Muppets a household word. Like Disney himself, Henson obviously has a clear and uncompromising vision of the Muppets and their world, and the know-how to make it work brilliantly. He has assembled an able and dedicated staff, notably Frank Oz, the voice of Miss Piggy and several others, including Fozzie Bear, Animal the Drummer and, from "Sesame Street," Grover, Bert and Cookie Monster. A few industry skeptics are not sure audiences will pay to see what they can have for free on television.

What is remarkable about "The Muppet Movie" is that it is an opening out into the larger world, yet the Muppets are not only not dwarfed by all outdoors, they dominate it by their verve, charm and spunky character. Rated "The Muppet Movie" is the best summer movie treat a family could hope for. Soviet Film 'The White Ship' to Be Shown at Beverly Cinema "The White Ship," a Soviet film from the republic of Kirghiz, will be screened Saturday at 2 and 4 p.m. at the Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd. Based on a story by Chinghiz Aitmatov and directed by Bolotbek Shamshiev "The White Ship" won first prize in the ninth U.S.S.R.

Film Festival. Information: 559-7451. STAGE NOTES Taper Gets New Plays, Plus Simon BYSYLVIE DRAKE Tlmas Stiff Writer MATINEES AT WALK-INS BELOW Three plays new to Los Angeles and two new to the world will constitute the Center Theatre GroupMark Taper Forum's 1979-80 season. New Theater for Now, the Taper's on-again, off-again experimental program which spawned "Zoot Suit" and under whose aegis this year's elaborate Playworks Festival was staged, will not be included in next year's season. According to artistic director Gordon Davidson experimentation is "expensive" and, in the coming year, will be concentrated in the Forum Lab.

The startling news is that the prolific Neil Simon, who has turned out a play or musical at the Ahmanson each year for the past three years, is defecting, perhaps temporarily, to the Taper. His new play, "I Oughta Be in Pictures," will be third in the production schedule (Jan. 17-March 2 and will be directed by Jack O'Brien. How come the move? "It's just that I love the Taper," Simon explained. "The Ahmanson is such a large theater, though I must say my plays have always played well there, and 'I Oughta Be in Pictures' is an intimate piece.

Gordon and I have been talking for a long time. It doesn't mean I'll never go back to the Ahmanson." But it does mean it won't be in the next couple of years. tax Offka Opaas JM MA Saw Starts at Dusk CHILDREN UNDER 12 FREE! Not only is Simon doing "Pictures" at the Taper, but he also started to write it while in the middle of writing an 1890 Russian farce in which he got stuck. "I needed to move on to something else, so I wrote he explained. "But now I'm thinking we'll do the farce at the Taper next season." Simon, who hates to describe his plays I could do that, why would I write told us the main character is a 50-year-old writer, down on his luck and living in a West Hollywood bungalow.

The daughter he hasn't seen since she was 3 walks in at 21. The play is about how they help each other "take the next step." The season kicks off (Aug. 23-Oct. 7) with "Talley's Folly," a Lanford Wilson play that is part of a cycle he began with "Fifth of July." It just had a brief run at New York's Circle Repertory Theater. The two-character love story, set in the '40s is coming to us intact with Judd Hirsch (last seen locally in Simon's "Chapter Two" at the Ahmanson) and Trish Hawkins under the direction of the Circle Rep's artistic head, Marshall Mason.

"I knew if I ever wrote the play it would be for Judd," Wilson said, from Sag Harbor. "When I was writing 'Fifth Please Turn to Page 18, Col. 1 OIN THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF CINE-FI AT DRIVE-INS () BELOW Your AM Car Radio Is Your Speaker, (If No AM Car Radio, with Ignition Accessory Position-Bring Your Own AM Portable.) HOLLYWOOD LONG REACH LAKEWOOD CINERAMA Pr-nW. Tonlftht H-MI Oil D0ME THE MUPPET MOVI RIVOLI 5th St 4 Long Bert. B.

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