Daily News from New York, New York • 147

rf.t fi 1 6-' Icy Jo.iiio'j bill iii, 1 ill; riuoiH jtiS'iih .7 "SUNIU NVSrtIULYrSS; 1968 S7 Screen McCullers Novel i By WANDA HALEi ROBERT ELLIS MILLER, formerly of television, has directed only three pictures, including "Any Wednesday," a kooky comedy with Jane Fonda and Jason Robards and "Sweet November," a tender, kooky drama with Sandy Dennis and Anthony Newley. Every director dreams of his first picture going into Radio City Music Hall. Robert Miller achieved that distinction and had something to crow about when "Sweet November" made the big movie palace. Miller's third effort, "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," adaptation of Carson McCullers' emotionally moving novel, starring Alan Arkin, will not go into the Music Hall. Opening on Wednesday, the fM? tf's'" Vk, This Week's Openings MONDAY Carnegie Hall Cinema "The Seventh Continent," Vrus-Pasfaric.

Loew's Cine "Kiss the Other Sheik," Mastroianni-Tiffin. WEDNESDAY Showcase theaters "5 Card Stud," Mitohum-Martin. Warner Penthouse and Murray Hill "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," Arkin-Locke. and for three years they pondered casting and cutting the long novel down to screen size. As Miller said, "It had to be tightened and changed from literary to dramatic, else the picture would have run 22 hours instead of two.

Tom Ryan took his script to Miss McCullers, at Nyack, and sat fearfully expecting some resentment for the changes, while the author read it. When she had finished she said, 'These are my people of 30 years ago brought up to And that was a great compliment." Last year, Hyman called Miller and asked him to direct the picture, and virtually -left the casting to him. Alan Arkin, because of his intelligence and sensitivity, was chosen to play the pro-togonist, Springer, a deaf mute, who rents a room in the old rundown Southern home of the Kellys and befriends their adolescent daughter, Mick. Sign Language "As soon as Alan accepted the role, long before we started shooting location at Selma, Alabama, he took lessons in sign language. His teacher is the son of deaf mute parents.

Alan reached perfection, which isn't amazing because he knew he had to and had the will and patience to do it. Alan is wonderful; his great talent filtered through to the other players. He was their inspiration." Besides Alan Arkin, there are two more deaf mutes in the story. Miller grimaced and said, "Being the director I had to learn to communicate with my hands in order to do the daily cutting and helping with the editing. The toughest thing I ever tackled.

"Selecting a girl to play Mick, we found Sondra Locke in Shelbyville, Tenn. She'd won an award for acting. In her first picture, Sondra took to direction beautifully. She had a difficult role to portray, a young girl who has to leave school to take care of her crippled father, "i Alan Arkin, playing a deaf mute boarder in a Southern town, write a not to his landlord' daughter whom he ha befriended. Scene is from "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," movie verion of Carson McCullers' novel.

Film (tart Wednesday at Penthouse Theater. Robert Ellis Miller Film director Warner Arts production will have the distinction of being the first movie to appear at the Penthouse Theater. This is one of the triplets, all under the same roof of the old Warner Theater building. The other two are the Orleans and Cinerama theaters. "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" also will be presented at the Murray Hill Theater.

Kenneth Hyman bought the Carson McCullers novel on a varied assortment of people in a small Southern town, got Thomas Ryan to write the screenplay mother and younger brother. Sondra began as a semi-pro and wound up a pro." When Miller went on location he had cast the professionals, such as Arkin, Laurinda Barrett, Chuck McCann, Biff McGuire, Percy Rodriguez and Cicely Tyson. Unassigned were many smaller roles, including Mick's boy friend, Harry. "One day a group of male students from the University of Alabama appeared in Selma, hoping to be cast as extras," Miller stated. "Among them I noticed a face that appealed to me.

I called him out and asked if he wanted a part in the picture. The 19-year-old, Wayne Smith, looked at me with amazement and said, stupidly, I repeated the question and he stammered a 'yes and that's how Harry was cast. In his first film, Wayne was an amateur who wound up a semi-pro." For a small role, a young Negro boy, a deaf mute, was needed. Arkin has seen a Negro boy at a sign language school' in Birmingham. Miller said, "Alan got in his car; drove to the city and brought back Horace Oates Jr.

He had a wonderful face and I knew he was for the part. When I asked him with my hands if he would act in the picture, he burst into tears. Now he has enough money to go through college." The director said, "Young people with little or no experience are so much easier to handle on location than within the limited boundaries of a set. Enclosure seems to frustrate them. In the open they are more relaxed, much freer, take direction better." Miller said the company moved around Alabama but did most of the shooting in Selma.

"It is a town with much of the old Southern beauty left, old houses and tree-lined streets. There are both whites and blacks in the picture and we ran into no racial problem whatever. We loved making the movie there." ZOOMING in tomorrow is a film that Sidney Glazier found in Yugoslavia, a political satire and fantasy about three children who run away from home and find another world on an unoccupied island. The film, by scar-winning director, Dusan Vukotic, is "The Seventh Continent," opening at the Carnegie Hall Cinema. Glazier proclaims it to be a sumptuously done movie in Cinemascope, East-mancolor and an enchanting fantasy of children's rebellion against stupid adults.

The three small stars are Tomislav Pasa-ric. Iris Vrus and Adbulaie Seek. Also tomorrow we have that Italian sex symbol, Marcello "Mastroianni, play-uiir house with American doll, Pamela Tiffin in something called "Kiss the Other Sheik." There is another blonde doll, Italian Virna Lisi, who captures Marcello's fancy in the import released here by M-G-M. This one inaugurates a new theater, Loew's Cine. 4s' 'V Tnete tIlree runaway fh'fVv' j5 peak their mind about adult I 'lm "The Seventh y-f1 StK 'm Continent," which opens lomor- I row at Carnegie Hall Cinema.

Kiss the Other Sheik," (tarts imported film, tomorrow at Loew's Cine..