The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 45

tLH Montreal, Thursday, September 3, 1981 A CHARMING RESTAURANT There's a day and night difference at the Troika Montreal's Russian restaurant. Elegant dining and Russian musicians in the evening an Interesting and more than reasonably priced menu at lunch time, try tnemootn. 2171 Crescent 649-9333 THOMAS SCKNtmACKH 'Vy -x. 1mm i A h.bi JJ i vv IPm If If i Sooc reveals cube's secrets A Hungarian architecture professor called Erno Rubik came up with what he thought was a simple plan to help his students in Budapest recognize spatial relationships in three dimensions. The good professor's gizmo became known as Rubik's cube and it went on to put the pet rock to shame.

Over nine million cubes have been sold in North America over an eight-month period. But a member of the Stanford University chemistry department is spoiling all the fun. James T. Nourse bought a cube as a Christmas present for someone in 1980. He became enthralled with it and kept it for himself.

The cube consists of 26 smaller cubes. Once you start playing with the cube, it is very difficult to re-establish the cubes in their original position, which is the object of the exercise. Since there are 45 quintillion different positional possibilities, very few people have ever managed to solve the problem. Except for James T. Nourse.

Not only did he solve it for himself, he's decided to share the secret with the whole world in a book called The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube. The book comes complete with hints, shortcuts and expert moves in a five-step method guaranteed to solve all cubes. iSferv Ax, Jr i Legendary fashion and perfume queen, Gabriella (Coco) Chanel (left), will be played by French actress Marie-France Pisier in 'Chanel'. 9 'K Montrealer Pam Tait, who describes herself as "a bored housewife whose talents and charm are in danger of shrivelling up through underuse and inadequate challenge," sent me the wishes she's hoping will be granted by the CTV show Thrill of a Lifetime. Pam would like to see Craig Russell perform and have dinner with LILY SCHREYER Dream wardrobe hated French politics and the French.

"On the other hand if the movie is successful in New York and Los Angeles, the French can't say no." The movie's producer is American independent Larry Spangler, who was obliged to wage a lengthy court battle over copyright of the name Chanel in the movie's title. Spangler won; the Swiss conglomerate which owns the House of Chanel lost. Disciplined about work, Chanel vas unlucky in love? was also very sentimental." The director noted that actress Pisier is considered cool and intellectual by the French. She happens to have graduate degrees in law and political science. i "In this film she demonstrated a much wider emotional range.

Everyone on the set was surprised at how brilliant she was. "She knew six months ahead that she was going to do the role and did a tremendous amount of research on Chanel." The movie's over-all design is by Jacques Saulnier, the production designer of Mon Oncle d'Amerique and costumes are by Rosine de Lamarre, who worked with the legendary French director Rene Clair. The director of photography was Ricardo Oromovitch, who came to the film straight from shooting a new movie for Costa Gavras. Canadian Press Chanel Solitaire sounds like the name of a new perfume created for loners. Actually, it's the title of a forthcoming movie, directed by Montrealer George Kaczender, about the late Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, legendary arbiter of modern fashion and founder of a multi-million-dollar perfume empire.

It is slated to open in the first week of October in 13 cities in the U.S. and shortly after in Montreal. Playing Chanel is petite French actress Marie-France Pisier who happens to be the same height as was the tiny Coco. Well-known in France for her roles in Francois Truffaut's Love at Twenty, Stolen Kisses and Love on the Run, Pisier is probably better remembered by North Americans for her comic role as the bitchy wife in Cousin, Cousine. Chanel Solitaire's international cast also lists Karen Black, Brigitte Fossey, England's Timothy Dalton and Rutger Hauer, the young Dutch actor who appeared in Sylvester Stallone's Nlghthawks.

Although Chanel Solitaire was made in France by some of that country's top cinema talent as a French-English co-production, North American audiences will get to see it first. terest in France, Kaczender says, that he was able to get France's top cinema talent to work on the project. The screenplay is by Julian More, an Englishman, whose screen credits include the musical Irma La Douce. Shot in Paris and the chic resort town of Deauville, the movie takes place in the first three decades of the 20th century and deals only with Chanel's early life. It begins with her childhood in an orphanage the influence, say fashion historians, behind her high-fashion "poor little girl" look.

It traces her conquest of the world of haute couture and, of course, her famous romances. Fanatically disciplined about her work, Chanel was capricious and unlucky in love. Although she had many love affairs, the movie concentrates on her greatest romance and the greatest disappointment in her life. The one man she might have married, a suave, wealthy Englishman named Boy CapeL was killed in a road accident. Capel is played by Dalton, whom moviegoers may remember as Vanessa Redgrave's husband in Agatha.

'Tough-minded when she had to be but also very sentimental" .4 him afterwards. She also wants to accompany Yves Moreau's dance company to New Zealand and to design a wardrobe for Lily Schreyer, the Governor-General's wife. Best of luck, Pam. But don't tell me tell the folks at CTV. People: Montreal actor Danny Freedman has come a long way.

He played a telephone repairman who discovers a crime on the CBS soap opera The Guiding Light and, if you watch closely, you will see Danny as a dancing usher (circa 1932) in a Radio City Music Hall scene from the movie Annie. Bob di Salvio's digs in Old Montreal are becoming the home-away-from-home for the film community. Ulrich Edel, the German director of the film Christiane the heroin-ridden epic that's opening tomorrow in eight theatres in Montreal, documentary filmmaker Harry Rasky, Pierre-Alain Jolivet, the director of the film Black Mirror, American producer Robert Sickinger and sultry actress Carolyn Maxwell have all been dropping by to convince di Salvio to try the film business. Di Salvio is the pioneer who originated the Night Magic club in Old Montreal. Literary Laurels: The new Danny Thomas autobiography will be entitled Upstairs from Mrs.

Feldman's Bakery which is where Thomas resided during his childhood in Toledo Watch for the publication of comedienne Phyllis Diller's new book. It's called The Joys of Aging and How to Avoid Them. Thomas Schnurmacher can be heard dally at 7:20 a.m. and 5:20 p.m. on FM96.

4T 1'- Kaczender, best known for In Praise of Older Women, the highest-grossing Canadian movie of 1978, is a Hungarian-born director with a long list of Canadian screen credits. Now the 48-year-old director is back iri Montreal after almost a year in France making Chanel Solitaire. "It's more lavish than anything I've ever done and I think it's far better. "I worked with a subject that easily lends itself to dramatization and the setting and the period is also visually beautiful: the hats, the full dresses the style Chanel demolished." Chanel died in 1971 at the age of 88 while working on her new spring collection, refining the look of the 20th-century woman she had created in 1918. And for today's moderns it might be interesting to note just a few of the fashion trends Chanel started: the sweater look, pants, dinner pyjamas, the trench coat (she wore the first), the little black dress, the blazer and irregular hemlines.

She also made it chic to have a suntan, wear bangs and enormous shell-rimmed eyeglasses and mix real jewels with fake. The subject of Chanel stirs so much in Chanel was not a darling in France. She wasn't a patriot" For Kaczender, Chanel Solitaire is "a tragic romantic love story interwoven with a woman's career story." Shades of Mildred Pierce, he was asked, and all those rags-to-riches, tear-jerking Joan Crawford vehicles of the 1940s? "No, the character has flaws emotional flaws that prevent that characterization," Kaczender replied. "Chanel was tough-minded when she had to be but she "It's too risky to open the film in France," says Kaczender. "You never know how the French will react to a film that is made about a French personality in English by an American.

"Also, Chanel wasn't a darling in France. She wasn't a patriot. "She always preferred England and GEORGE KACZENDER Directs 'Chanel' Arts agencies resist federal 'trade mark' program NEWS ANALYSIS 1 4 1 us- By JAMIE PORTMAN Southam News OTTAWA The Trudeau government's high-powered Federal Identity Program is in danger of being short-circuited in the area of cultural policy. Ottawa is determined to make Canadians more aware of the federal government's presence in their lives. Or, as Treasury Board president Donald Johnston has expressed it, "We want citizens to know what we do and more specifically what we can do for them." But some federally-funded arts agencies are balking at what they see as dangerous attempts to undermine their zealously-preserved (independence from government control.

"It's a very delicate matter," says one Canada Council official. Johnston, the minister responsible for implementation of the program, says the aim is to provide consistent "visual identification" of the various organizations which comprise the federal government. But is it desirable for such agencies a3 the CBC, the Canada Council and Ottawa's Na- ual productions, in displays and exhibits. Most operations of government have had no choice but to comply, and those that have been procrastinating have had pressure put on them through deputy ministers. But some agencies, by reason of their charters, are exempt and don't have to comply.

This factor, however, hasn't deterred the government from exerting pressure on them to adopt the word-mark voluntarily. If they resist, they run the risk of offending a cabinet which is totally committed to the symbol and which also holds the funding purse strings of stubborn agencies. Some cultural agencies among them the National Film Board and the National Museums Corporation belong in. government categories which force them to use the word-mark. But the CBC, the Canada Council and the NAC are exempt, and unenthuscd about pressure to comply voluntarily.

The CBC's attitude is that It already has its own familiar logo. The National Arts Centre, although vulnerable because it is directly funded by Communications Minister Francis Fox's department, has decided not to comply in spite of several meetings on the issue between Fox and NAC board chairman Pauline McGibbon. "We adopt the wordmark, and where does it stop?" says one NAC official. "On letterheads, documents, house programs, the two million subscription brochures we print annually, on our ushers' uniforms? How far does it go? The symbol doesn't explain the real nature of our relationship with government. We have our own independent board of trustees." Similar reservations exist at the Canada Council, the country's most important cultural funding agency.

It hasn't yet decided what to do, but it could well have the most to lose if it adopts the wordmark. One school of thought in the council sees no threat. Another school does see a threat arising from the public's subsequent perception of what the council represents. It was deliberately set up as an independent entity, by a Liberal gov ernment of the day which saw that the council's credibility in the artistic community would depend on its independence from political influence. Subsequent governments have not always honored that principle.

The wordmark is being used so widely that if it also shows up on council materials, the public will perceive the agency as just another arm of government. Result: The agency will have trouble refuting charges of political influence. Concerned council members see the government pressures as the thin edge of the wedge. If government becomes more visibly identified with council activities, how can it avoid becoming embroiled in council controversies? The issue may seem innocuous to an outsider, but its outcome could affect the freedom of the nation's artistic life for generations to come. Furthermore, the cultural community hasn't forgotten recent efforts of the federal Liberals to force cultural agencies to promote the government's particular concepts of federalism and national unity.

tional Arts Centre (NAC) to be perceived as instruments of government? A good deal of attention is being given to the way in which the CBC, the NAC and the Canada Council are responding to government efforts to win compliance to what is perhaps the key element of its program the Canadian government's trade mark, the "wordmark." The wordmark is not new. It consists of the word "Canada" with a flag symbol over the final and was designed back in 1965 for the promotion of tourism. More recently it has been used in government advertising. Now the Treasury Board is spending $7.8 million to saturate the country with the symbol. It wants it on letterheads, calling cards, press releases and publications, on signs and government vehicles, in audio-vis DONALD JOHNSTON In chargeof program.