The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 112

CALENDAR Orange County Television Listings Angel Siimco Friday, May 30, 1986 Part VI RANDY LEFFINOWELL Lot Anf elei Tlmei HANDS HAS A HEAD COUNT, BUT NO SUMS i IN. -r-jj I YiT i 5 Cannon Menahem Golan, right; Yoram Globus, back to camera. FILM CLIPS AT CANNES, MALAISE GOT TOP BILLING By JACK MATHEWS, Times Staff Writer During the flight to France for the Cannes Film Festival earlier this month, the movie showing in my unlucky cabin was "Rocky IV." On the last night of the festival itself, curiosity drew me into a back-street theater for a preview glimpse of Cannon Films' upcoming "Invaders From Mars." A worse set of bookends for the festival of festivals you couldn't order. Yet, considering what unreeled in between, they seem grotesquely appropriate. Nothing on the Cannes competition program was as bad as "Rocky IV" (few films probe such depths) or "Invaders From Mars," which is a misguided attempt to spoof a 1953 science-fiction thriller of the same name.

Still, taking the 20 Gold Palm candidates and holding them up to Cannes' traditional view of film as social art, they were a withered lot It was suggested that the absence of major American stars the ingredient that energizes Cannes and gives it its uniquely festive atmosphere merely plucked the feathers off the entries and held their naked little bodies up to unusually cruel scrutiny. But Cannes regulars say the festival has been degenerating for the past several seasons, both as a competition event and as an international market The market still thrives, and will likely remain the prominent gathering spot for buyers and sellers. But the no-frills, no-thrills business markets held annually in Milan, Italy, and Los Angeles are clearly diluting Cannes' importance. And the films? Last winter, festival President Pierre Viot was in Los Angeles, searching (and searching) for ripe candidates for his festival. It was Viot's first search party, and he acknowledged his surprise at the spare pickings in Hollywood.

There were few films to see, he said, let alone films with Cannes credentials. the Movie" might have "Trouble in Mind" was a film Viot liked, but it had already been accepted for competition in another festival, he said.) There are the obvious problems with the studios' films. It's the wrong time of -year for the few serious pictures they deign to finance these days (production schedules for potential Oscar contenders are timed for fall releases). Also, the Gold Palm as prized as it is everywhere else is of no marketing value in America. Still, in better times, Cannes managed to find and sign some great American films, and many of them have won the top prize "MASH," "The Conversation," "Scarecrow," "Apocalypse Now," "Missing." The malaise may simply be a reflection of political and social moods.

Film, like any other art, mirrors its time, and despite the troubles in the Middle East and Central America and South Africa and elsewhere, there is a sense of calm in the Western world. Particularly when contrasted with the '60s and '70s, Please see MALAISE, Page 6 By DENNIS McDOUGAL, Times Staff Writer Combining official police counts and their own on-line head count, Hands Across America officials came up with their final guess-timate Thursday that 5,442,960 people actually stood in last Sunday's transcontinental line but those same officials still have no idea how much money they garnered. Four days after the event, Hands organizers continued to use the same pre-event estimate of about $20 million in total contributions, even though other estimates of the number of paying members who stood in the line would seem to put the total over the $30-mil-lion mark. At least half the participants paid the minimum $10 to stand in line, according to Hands Across America press spokesman Dave Fulton. "There's nothing more specific than that," said Hands deputy project director Jane Mackin.

"I'm sure you'll hear just as soon as we hear." After expenses, all revenue is to be contributed to organizations who aid the homeless and hungry in the United States. Organizers were only about 40,000 participants short of their 5.5-million goal, but, as expected, the biggest problem was getting them distributed evenly along the route. Ideally, 1,320 people would have held hands in the average mile, requiring a minimum of 5,480,640 Americans to hold hands over the route from New York to California. But in reality, people stood where they wanted to stand, leaving gaps all the way along the route. According to Mackin, ham radio operators who called themselves Hams Across America, were stationed along every five-mile segment of the route.

In addition to the information they fed back on crowd counts, each of the Hands Across America state offices sent "mile marshals" to every mile along the route to count heads, Mackin said. That data, combined with official police counts, gave Hands officials the final figures, she said. Another 1.5 million participated in "off the line" events, such as Hands Across Boston, which drew about 6,000 participants and raised about $100,000 in pledges, officials said. All told, between 6 million and 7 million actually participated in some kind of hand-holding ritual during the 15 minutes of Hands Across America. About half that number paid or pledged to pay a contribution of at least $10 to stand in the line, according to Fulton.

He said 5 million preprinted, postage-paid envelopes also were handed out to paying and non-paying participants alike along the route last Sunday. The toll-free pledge telephone number (1-800-USA-9000) also will be in operation until the end of the year. Expenses and pledge expectations have been modified several times since Hands creator Ken Kragen first announced his project last fall. The num-Please see HANDS, Page 12 been ready then, but it wouldn't have been quite right.) The studios, Viot said, showed little interest in having their films considered, and some of the promising independent features were ineligible for one reason or another (Alan Rudolph's POP BEAT T.S.O.L. REACHING OUT TO BROAD AUDIENCE ORANGE COUNTY WEEKEND GUIDE Pop: From the Panhandle Texas rock and country rock will be heard in a quartet of concerts spread throughout Orange County, all on Saturday.

At UC Irvine's Crawford Hall, hot young Texas guitarist Charlie Sexton will kick off the Southland swing of his U.S. tour. At 17, Sexton is already a veteran who has played with Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Don Henley and Joe Ely. The Tail Gators, at Safari Sam's in Huntington Beach, is another Texas outfit fronted by former Leroi Brothers singer Don Leady, ex-Fabulous Thunderbirds bassist Keith Ferguson and drummer Gary (Mudcat) Smith, formerly with the Charlie Sexton Band. Lone Justice lead singer Maria McKee and guitarist Ryan Hedgecock will be breaking in a new band at the group's show at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

Sharing the bill at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre with Welsh rock band the Alarm and Southern California's T.S.O.L. will be the Long Ryders, another Los Angeles band blending rock, country and western elements. Art: Photography Figures "Postures," Marsha Burns' photographic series of male and female figures standing, sitting, leaning and reclining, will be on display through July 12 at Susan Spiritus Gallery, 522 Newport Newport Beach. The exhibit also includes Jacqueline Thurston's "Dioramas" and Lisa Toby's "Hand-Colored Works." The gallery is open Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Theater British Scandal "What the Butler Saw," a British farce about moral misconduct and what people will do to avoid a public scandal, opens today at the Gem Theatre, 12851 Main Garden Grove. Tally Briggs plays the naive secretary and Robin Hubbard appears as the predatory psychiatrist in Joe Orton's comedy, which runs through June 28. Plays Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m. Music: Baroque Fare Organist Ladd Thomas will open the sixth annual Corona del Mar Baroque Festival with a program of solo and concert works at 8 p.m. on Sunday at St.

Michael and All Angels Church. Vivaldi, Handel and Bach will be among the composers featured in a concert of baroque music by members of the Pacific Symphony, Keith Clark conducting, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. Mezzo-soprano Kimball Wheeler will perform Handel's "Ombra Mai Fu" when she appears with the Orange County Chamber Orchestra under Micah Levy's direction at 4 p.m. on Sunday at the Loyola Marymount University in Orange.

Mozart, Borodin and Corelli will also be represented on the program. Film: Say Amen Documentaries by German director Werner Herzog on two very different American preachers will close out the UC Irvine Film Society's spring series on native and foreign views of life in America. "Huie's Sermon" was filmed in Brooklyn during a Sunday service at a black church, while "God's Angry Man" zeroes in on Rev. Eugene Scott, the flamboy-abnt television evangelist The program begins at 7:30 p.m. in UCI'S Social Science Hall.

Film maker Lynne Tillman will discuss her 1984 film "Committed," about troubled movie star Frances Farmer, at a screening of the film Sunday at UC Irvine in conjunction with the Newport Harbor Art Museum's Contemporary Culture series. The event will be at 7 p.m. in UCI's Humanities Hall Room 178. For additional cultural and entertainment events in Orange County, see Page 23. Compiled by Randy Lewis, Sherry Angel and Chris Posies.

riding a wave of career momentum. The Irvine Meadows show is the latest and biggest in a series of important opening slots the Orange County-Long Beach-based quartet has landed this year. Among the others were shows with the Cult at the Santa Monica Civic, with the Damned at UC Irvine and with at the Universal Amphitheatre. After the Cult concert, the group was signed by International Creative Management, one of the world's largest talent agencies. The group's latest album, "Revenge," is scheduled for release June 20 on Enigma Records under a new national distribution arrangement Enigma signed with Capitol Records.

The title Please see POPBEAT, Page 19 out" is a matter -of approach and attitude not bookings. "All a band works for basically is to get your music known," said lead singer Joe Wood during an interview earlier this week at a Long Beach pizza parlor. "To write music to get known is to sell out. But to have people enjoy the music that you write is a totally different thing," said Wood, who was joined by bassist Mike Roche, guitarist Ron Emory and drummer Mitch Dean. "Playing in front of a lot of people is not selling out," Dean said, "as long as the integrity of the music is there." After years of playing local clubs and taking periodic self-financed tours to various parts of the United States, T.S.O.L.

which stands for True Sounds of Liberty) suddenly appears to be By RANDY LEWIS, Times Staff Writer It's a time-honored tradition in rock, from Bob Dylan to Johnny Rotten to for fans to cry "sellout!" any time a performer who's well-known in one musical genre tries to reach a wider audience. So the members of fetwaiiiiia T.S.O.L., who have ORANGE played every dingy bar COUNTY and club on the Southern California punk circuit over the last five years, are prepared to encounter some criticism when they move up to ultra -respectable Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Saturday to open for the Alarm and the Long Ryders. But to the four musicians, "selling DEBORA ROBINSON It w. MOVIE REVIEW NOT-SO-SNUG IN 'TIGHT QUARTERS' By SHEILA BENSON, Times FUm Critic In the wry sexual comedy "Tight Quarters" (today at Goldwyn Pavilion Cinema), the place is Budapest; the time is the present; the milieu is the fringes of society; the problem three in a bed. Or possibly four, if you count one wife, one husband (forcibly separated from his wife and only recently paroled), one boorish lover and the State, a many-faced presence in the private not to say intimate lives of its citizens.

Long-legged, sloe-eyed and un-nervingly self-possessed, Eva is at the center of the triangle. When she and Charlie were together, they made a real couple, volatile tempers or not. But when he was put in the slammer for 28 months, as a result of a bar brawl when one of his attackers pulled a knife, Eva became lonely. Then depressed. Then restless.

Enter the pugnacious Michael, long in the sideburns-and-leath-er-coat department, not too swift in the upper story. But very possessive about Eva. And in a city where years-long delays for housing are standard about her apartment. Released from jail, Charlie comes back to the ugly cement housing unit where his name still appears on the lease and makes his stand: He wants his wife and he wants his apartment. Maybe not even with equal fervor he's not going to be talked out of a roof over his head, no matter what.

He moves back in, over Michael's Please see Page 32 Film maker Carlton "We were able to portray blacks as real human beings, not as Hollywood, minstrel-show caricatures." BLACK FILM MAKER STILL BATTLING STEREOTYPES Theodore Roosevelt in Evanston, 1903. HOWARD ROSENBERG TEDDY ROOSEVELT DOCUMENTARY'S ROUGH RIDE TO ABC Here is the story of Harrison and Marilyn Engle's seven-year itch. In 1979, Engle decided to make a documentary about Theodore Roosevelt, the nation's 26th President. It took almost three years to get it funded, a little more than a year to get it made, another two years to secure a national TV outlet, almost another year to get it on the air. And now, finally, happily, thank goodness, "The Indomitable Teddy Roosevelt" arrives at 7 p.m.

Sunday on ABC (Channels 3, 7, 10 and 42), sweeping into your home the way the roughest of the Rough Riders swept up San Juan Hill. The two-hour program is a stunner on two levels. For one thing, it marks a rare network acquisition of a full-length documentary from an outside source. The persistent Engle, best known for his film tributes to Please see ENGLES, Page 28 INSIDE CALENDAR ART: A campaign is under way to launch "Artscene" on KOCE-TV. Story by Herman Wong.

Page 22. The Galleries. Pages IS and 22. FILM: Reviews of "Signal 7," "Jake Speed" and "The Crazy Family." Pages 4, 6 and 8. MUSIC: Organist Ladd Thomas will open the Corona del Mar Baroque Music Festival on Sunday.

Preview by Chris Pastes. Page 20. POP: The Paladins reviewed by Craig Lee. Page 14. RADIO: AMFM Highlights.

Page 27. RESTAURANTS: Au Bon Temps de Saigon in Stanton reviewed by Charles Perry. Page 19. STAGE: "Camelot" at Cypress College reviewed by Cathy de Mayo. Page 20.

Stage Beat by Don Shirley. Page 14. TV: Tonight on TV and cable. Page 26. By HERMAN WONG, Times Staff Writer Forty-three years ago, Carlton Moss wrote "The Negro Soldier," a wartime documentary film that many still regard as a milestone in helping to break down racial stereotypes.

But Moss, still fa! i il an active film ORANGE maker, and a COUNTY Comparative Cul- ture Program lecturer at UC Irvine, contends that Hollywood's portrayals of blacks remain grossly distorted. His bleak view is shared by other black critics, even though black-theme productions such as Steven Spielberg's movie "The Color Purple" and NBC-TVs top-rated "The Cosby Show" are flourishing as never before among major commercial studios. "Nothing's really changed in four decades. Little has been done in truly examining blacks and other minorities their cultures, their differences, their struggles to know what it is to be a minority in this society," said the 77-year-old Moss, in a recent interview at his UCI office. His assailing of Hollywood stereotypes is at the core of the "Minorities in Films" course Moss teaches each fall at UCI.

(His other courses include those on documentary films and the current class, "The Motion Picture in Contemporary American Please see MOSS, Page 21.