The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 103

CALENDAR Television Listings Friday, April 6, 1984 Part VI MOVIE REVIEWS I FILM CLIPS ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Allure and Terror of Freedom in 'Moscow on the Hudson' I Ift freedom and today's American immigrant experience. There is enough magic-enough original and deeply touching characters, portrayed by new and wonderful actors in the first half or perhaps two-thirds of "Moscow" to carry you over its rocky final section. There, the film suddenly turns flatfootedly didactic, an earnest tract on the virtues of citizenship. In Moscow, Ivanov watches warily as three Soviet citizens protesting the treat-' ment of Jews in Russia are hustled away into unmarked cars. His job, his friends and his beloved family, particularly his spectacularly irreverent grandfather (Alexander Beniaminov), are what bind him to the Soviet Union.

His best friend is Anatoly (Elya Baskin), one of the circus clowns, and dangerously outspoken. The two practice a rough-and-tumble English when they are together, and the sad-eyed Anatoly terrifies Vladimir by confiding his plans to defect when the circus reaches New York. (The film steals its own suspense by opening with Vladimir already in New By SHEILA BENSON, Times Film Critic In Moscow, teddy bear-like circus saxophonist Vladimir Ivanov (Robin Williams) must pay graft to the KGB to keep his job, has to stand in blocklong lines for gray toilet paper the texture of mimeograph paper and must live with five others in an apartment, without privacy enough to court his fiancee. In Manhattan, defector Ivanov cannot get a job as a musician, has to stand in blocklong immigration lines and, initially, lives with five others in an apartment in Upper Harlem. This is freedom? That is one of the questions raised by "Moscow on the Hudson" (citywide), Paul Mazursky's engaging seriocomedy on the nature of personal Robin Williams stars in "Moscow." York, thinking back to the incidents that led to his precipitous leap to freedom.

Presumably, this prologue is to allay any audience restlessness that it would be reading subtitles forever, since in all the Moscow sequences everyone speaks Russian.) Co-writer Mazursky, with Leon Cape-Please see' MOSCOW! Page 19 HOLLYWOOD COUNTS ITS BIG BUCKS By MICHAEL LONDON, Times Staff Writer Spring fever has hit Hollywood. February and March, tradi: tionally backwater months in the movie business, have spawned several hit pictures racking up what are lovingly referred to as "summer numbers." "This spring could revolutionize the industry," says Jack Brodsky, 20th Century-Fox executive vice president for advertising, publicity and promotion. "We may be back to seeing movies released 12 months out of the year." Industry logic has held that moviegoers, especially teen-age movie-goers, turn out in hit-size numbers only during summer and Christmas. But that rule doesn't explain "Footloose." with ticket receipts topping $50 million, or "Splash," more than $30 million, or "Police Academy," which has passed $20 million in just two weeks. And the usual crop of teen-oriented Easter-vacation pictures is still to come.

(Last year at this time, the biggest-grossing spring release was "High Road to China" at $17 million, followed by "Spring Break," $13 million and "The Outsiders." $11 million.) "What we're doing this year is exploding a myth." says Brodsky at Fox. which released "Romancing the Stone" last weekend to ticket sales of $5.1 million a big figure that almost pales beside the $6.5 million gross for Warner "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle." "The real surprise is that so many films are working big at the same time." says Barry Reardon. Warners president of distribution. "This means we don't have to wait until Please see FILM CUPS, Page 17 -rah, 1 1 comfort the boy, whose lack of response only intensifies their own condition. "The Stone Boy" is a compassionate, clear-eyed depiction of how this family and their son gradually learn, mainly by trial and error, to pick up the threads of their shattered lives.

It isn't easy how could it be? and it's especially hard for this particular family, which is pure, proud American Gothic. They're plain-spoken, rural people, accustomed to communicating directly, even bluntly on all matters-except emotions. They're not nearly as sophisticated as the family in "Ordinary People," but they're just as culturally conditioned to repress their deepest feelings. Presson's mother (Glenn Close) knows that her family is not providing the support Presson so desperately needs, but she can't help herself. The best she can do is at one point to confess to her husband (Robert Duvall) that she has urges to wander off, just as her own mother once did.

Duvall, however, is even more frozen than she. Not even Presson's older sister (Susan 'The Stone Bo Odyssey of an Emotional Deepfreeze By KEVIN THOMAS. Times Statf Writer At the very beginning of "The Stone Boy" (UA Coronet and Beverly Center Cineplex). a quite literally stunning film from a short story by Gina Berriault, tragedy strikes so swiftly and unexpectedly that we are as shocked as its victims. A young Montana farm boy (Jason Presson) rouses his older brother (Dean Cain) from sleep to get in some duck hunting before their daily chores.

They're making their way through a barbed-wire fence when Presson's shotgun gets stuck and goes off, killing Cain. Presson is so traumatized that he can't even run for help, but goes on to pick the peas by himself. His family is so numbed they can't Robert Duvall in "The Stone Boy." Blackstone) is much help. In time, Presson goes off to live temporarily with his maternal grandfather (Wilford Brimley), who somehow manages to possess and Please see Page 19 AUREUO JOSE BARRERA STAGE REVIEW 'THE GENIUS' GENERATES THAT TRUST-ME EQUATION 0 0 fa I WEEKEND GUIDE 4rf: Family Style It's all in the family at Cal State Fullerton, where a show of works by artist couples opens at 7 p.m. Saturday.

"Face to FaceBack to Back" features figurative sculpture by James Surls and Charmaine Locke, paintings by Judith Simonian and Milano Kazanjian and multimedia works by Jo Harvey" Allen and Terry Allen. Also opening this weekend are shows of William Brice's paintings at L.A. Louver Gallery in Venice. Annie Leibovitz's photographs of celebrities at Koplin Gallery in West Hollywood and "The Dutch and Japanese Series." Jim Lawrence's painting and sculpture, at Cirrus Gallery downtown. Music: Keyboard Variety Pianist Lee Luvisi will appear with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, led by Gerard Schwarz, tonight in Wilshire Ebell Theatre and Saturday at Ambassador Auditorium.

Luvisi will be soloist in music by Mozart and Copland. Two prominent locally based pianists will play recitals Saturday night: Daniel Pollack in Marsee Auditorium, El Camino College, and Charles Fierro, in a MacDowell program at the Campus Theatre, Cal State Northridge. Ragtime specialist Joshua Rifkin will join conductor Gunther Schuller and a chamber ensemble in "An Evening of Ragtime" Sunday night in Ambassador Auditorium. Dance: Lubovitch Premieres Four local premieres will highlight performances by the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company tonight and Saturday in Wadsworth Theater. "Adagio and Rondo for Glass Harmonica" music by Mozart) and "Big Shoulders" unaccompanied) will be unveiled tonight, with the latter repeated Saturday; "Tabernacle" (music by Steve Reich) and "Nine Person Precision Ball Passing" (A.

Leroy) will receive premieres on Saturday. Pop Jazz: Playing the Blues Old and new blues are the weekend hallmark: The young, acclaimed Robert Cray Band comes down from Oregon to open for John Mayall Saturday at the Palace, while the older generation is represented by Brownie McGhee and Elizabeth Cotten tonight at McCabe's. And Mink DeVille, at the Palace Saturday, adds rhythm to the blues. Also of note. Local rockers Dave Alvin and Chuck Dukowski and performance artist Linda Albertano are among the acts at McCabe's poetry night Sunday.

Jazz highlights: Ernie Andrews tonight and Saturday at Le Cafe, Shelly Manne Trio tonight at Carmelo's, Ollie Mitchell's Sunday Band Saturday at Carmelo's, Lenny Breau Saturday at Hyatt on Sunset. Stage: 'Greek' Comedy Savage humor is on a rampage in "Greek," Steven Berkoffs explosive retelling of the Oedipus myth and the hit of last year's season. This year it's touring the state, again presented by L.A. Theatre Works. It plays tonight at Cal Poly Pomona (714-598-4488), Sunday at the Pilot Theatre (827-0808).

More comedy is on hand with T.S. Eliot's rarely done satire "The Cocktail Party," opening Saturday at Room for Theatre (818-509-0459). Dennis DeBrito's zany "Like One of the Family," featuring Paul Winfield, has extended its run at Theatre West (850-1805) through May 13. And an evening of whimsy and farce, English-style, is offered in Peter Shaffer's "The Public Eye" and "Black Comedy," opening tonight at the Ahmanson (972-7654 Movies: Long and Short of It Be one up on your friends Monday night by attending screenings this weekend of the entire roster of Academy Award-nominated short films and documentaries at UCLA's Melnitz Theater. The animated and live-action short films will be shown tonight from 7:30 to 9:30, with all nine documentary shorts and features scheduled Saturday from 10 a.m.

to 9:30 p.m. There's no admission charge and no reserved seating, but the shorts and docs are often the most interesting and provocative of the Oscar-nominated films. "Bedazzled: The Films of Stanley Donen a series saluting the director of some of Hollywood's finest musicals and sophisticated entertainments, starts tonight at 8 in the County Museum of Art's Bing Theater with the showing of "On the Town" 1949) and "Deep in My Heart" (1954). On Saturday an Ingmar Bergman retrospective, said to be the most comprehensive presentation of the director's work ever assembled in the United States, gets under way at 1 1 a.m. at the Monica Fourplex.

Compiled by Calendar writers. and if you like where he stands on nuclear weapons and government secrecy, you probably will. Others will find his story a bit too tall to take seriously. A brilliant young American scientist (Andrew Robinson) has exiled himself to a mediocre British university. Supposedly he has come to do pure research.

He's really burying a secret. He has discovered an equation even deadlier than equals mc squared and he doesn't want the U.S. defense establishment to get wind of it Please see'THE Page 12 By DAN SULLIVAN, Times Theater Critic Genius, in one view, is the infinite capacity for taking pains. In another view, it's the ability to take gorgeous imaginative leaps and leave the details to the lab. Playwright Howard Brenton has the latter kind of mind.

Brenton's "The Genius," which opened Thursday at the Mark Taper Forum, is a brilliant proposition for a play, but its paper work reveals gaps. Trust me, Brenton keeps saying, Andrew Robinson, left, and Ralph Drischell in a scene from "The t1 If SKY'S THE LIMIT AT UNIVERSAL'S PARTY By DAVID STANTON About 25 years ago, the Universal Studios commissary was looking for a way to pick up business when an MCA vice president came up with an intriguing gimmick: Let the public dine with the stars. Universal would let Gray Line Tours buses onto the lot if all the tours stopped at the commissary. The result was a 400 increase in Gray Line's business in three months and the subsequent birth of what was to. become the Universal Studios tour.

Today, the tour is one of the five most popular man-made tourist attractions in the world. It awaits the arrival of its 40-millionth visitor sometime this month. And Thursday it celebrated its 20th anniversary with all the pageantry of a civic institution. Mayor Tom Bradley, 20 giant-size candles made of balloons and a dozen celebrities from Universal movies and television shows were on the lot for the singing of "Happy Birthday." "Ladies and gentlemen, what a great day this is," Bradley said. Other speakers at the afternoon luncheon included Sid Sheinberg, president and chief operating officer of MCA, and Rebecca Holden, honorary mayor of Please tee UNIVERSAL, Page 18 not made available for preview on the April 15 installment of "60 Minutes." In an introduction this Sunday.

Morley Safer of "60 Minutes" declares that Nixon speaks with "astonishing candor" in the interviews. "We had never heard a President speak that way on the record." You can attribute that to self-serving network hyperbole. For Safer to assess Nixon's candor, he would have to be able to see inside his head. Yet the first two half-hours are fascinating. There is nothing here that will rearrange history.

And a preponderance of it seems to duplicate Nixon's published memoirs. Transferring the words to TV, however, gives them a power all their own. The very scheduling of the taped talks by CBS has itself become a heated media issue, for the interviewer is not a member of the CBS News staff, but non-journalist Frank Gannon, a former Nixon White House aide who later helped the former President work on his memoirs. What's more, the CO minutes were bought from Historic Video Productions for a reported $500,000 and culled from 38 hours of Nixon Gannon conversations that were made available to CBS. That means that the network's only editorial control was in selecting the excerpts and shaping that material for its own use.

All else was controlled by the originator of the talks. Please see NIXON, Page 24 Frank Gannon interviews former President Richard M. Nixon. HOWARD ROSENBERG THIS TIME NIXON FACES A FRIENDLY INTERVIEWER INSIDE CALENDAR ART: The Galleries. Pages 4 and 6.

FILM: "Antarctica" and "Hard to Hold" reviewed by Kevin Thomas. Pages 6 and 8. Writers Guild's 1983 awards. Page 2. VIDEO: The men behind "The Homemade Comedy Special." Report by Patrick Goldstein.

Page 18. STAGE: Stage Beat by Don Shirley. Page 18. TV: Tonight on TV and on cable. Page 20.

First came the old Richard Nixon, seen by his foes as scowly, jowly, bitter and paranoid. Then came the disgraced Nixon, forced from the presidency by Watergate. And now, from out of the shadows, back into the hot lights of prime-time television, comes. The new Nixon. No more sweaty upper Up.

This Nixon is relaxed, confident, at peace with himself and his old enemies. At least that is your initial impression watching him on separate half-hour Interviews to be aired next week on CBS (Channels 2 and 8), back to back, in part, with the network's "George Washington" miniseries. Gradually, however, a familiar Nixon emerges. The first Nixon interview is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sunday on "60 Minutes," the second at 8 p.m.

Tuesday on "The American Parade" and the final segment the only one.