The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 38

ARTS -THE 38 Boston Evening Globe Thursday, October 3, 1974 'Harry Tonto' a touching, candid film PUtMMTKTWtmUITt CUnTFHiatDS CUnTFHiatDS "Harry and Tonto," at the Cheri, is a gentle, I movie about an old man and his I marmalade cat leisurely traveling from the East to the West Coast. Despite occassional sentimentality, 'it says more about con-1 temporary American life than any movie I've seen -in a long time. While it may sound like a Disney rip-off from John Steinbeck's "Travels with 'Charley," "Harry and 'Tonto" directed and co-written (with Josh Greenfield) by Paul Mazursky, is a simple, straightforward, engaging and, yes, a lovable movie. And, although I'm not supposed ito admit it, there is one Tepisode in it that brought -me to tears. Harry Coombs (Art KEVIN KELLY Carney in a performance of subtlety and insight) is a widower living with his cat Tonto in a drab Manhattan apartment building marked for demolition.

With a stubborness equally matched by his intelligence, he's the building's last hold-out, King Lear defending his real estate. But, ranting injustice, he is bodily evicted by the police in his easy chair. He goes to live with a middle-aged married son, in a crowded house in the suburbs, and, when that doesn't work out, decides to visit his divorced daughter in Chicago, then moves on to see his bachelor son in Los Angeles. He's accompanied by Tonto, who is leash-trained and at home in a traveling' case, although case is lost after a funny incident on a bus. Harry starts out intending to fly but changes to the bus when the airlines tries to X-ray Tonto's case then switches from the bus to driving in a $250 used car.

Since Harry is inquisitive, gregarious and non-judgmental, he makes friends easily and his trip turns into an odyssey. He sees things he neved imagined, shares experiences he never dreamed. What happens along the way is a constant surprise, to him as well as us. He picks up a pair of hitchhikers, a Jesus freak and a runaway '15-year-old girl, who stays with him for a long part of the trip. He meets a beautiful hooker who says she's been with men much older than he and spirits him off to a $100 vaSrT' quickie, all to Harry's amazement.

He meets a-modern day Medicine Man who sells vitamins and Waring Blenders and, forced to spend a night in jail for drunkenly urinating outside a Vegas casino, he meets an aged American Indian who casts a spell and cures him of bursitis. Mazursky creates all these characters almost casually, reveals them in shrewd, quick strokes, and not one of them is a cliche. His background is almost as detailed as Altman's in "California Split," but the perception is softer, the mood exuberant rather than melancholic. The scene that moved me the most is a meeting between Harry and the girl with whom he had his first affair, 50 years ago. He wanted to marry her, she turned him down, went off to dance in Isadora Duncan's troupe in Paris.

Later he heard she returned, married a dentist, settled down, and he decides to find' her, that is if she is still alive. She is and she lives in a Rest Home. Harry goes to visit Jessie and she doesn't re- member him. In fact, she is on the edge of senility, and she confuses him with a Parisian lover named Alex. The sadness in this scene, the awful threat of madness or just "confusion" that awaits us all, is both profound and heartbreaking.

Jessie, old and bulky, stare-eyed and shoeless, asks Harry to dance and together in the Day Room, as the camera pulls back, they rock back and forth, the ache and loss of a lifetime between. Very beautiful. Mr. Carney's performance, quirky, outgoing, is lively, plainly and simply real, natural, unforced. Geraldine Fitzgerald is wonderful as Jessie, and there are memorable performances by Ellen Bur-styn, as Harry's four-times-divorced, cynically' chic daughter; Larry Hag-man, as his ruined "playboy" son; Joshua Mostel, as his philosophically questing, far-out nephew; Chief Dan George, as the Indian; and Melanie May-ron, as the runaway girl.

The music by Bill Conti is, alternately, a comic and dramatic and nicely used (a burst of "Love Is a Many-Splen-dored Thing" for Harry's involvement with the hooker). Harry, by the Art Carney is Harry, a septuagenarian adventurer and Tonto is friend and confidante. way plays a singing game with Tonto, mimicking old vocalists and asking Tonto their identity. I guess I don't have to add that Tonto is played by a tal Organist Guy 4. mi in immaculate program BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, SI IJI OZAWA Sir TONIGHT AT 8:30 pm SEIJI OZAWA conductor JULES ESKIN cello BURTON FINE viola Rival: Li Tombiau it Couporlo Lorln Risk: Tin Cloud Missingir (first Boston Symphony piriorninci) Slnujj: Don pxoti SYMPHONY KAIL 266-1492 rct.

DG RCA records- Baldwin Piano 'THE LONGEST YARIT 536-2170 1 Htm com (sun 482-1222 200 JTUUt ST. mSmmm 'Harry and Tonto1 is a Mt and on dthoibestmovta of 1974." starrinf ART CARNEY 536-2170 mm iKcnu CEHiti "THE ODESSA FILE" iihVMr.ut.vt 7 The most majpiifirrnt pirturcoor! 227.6676 237 WISH sr. DOORS OPEN AT 9:30 A.M. A GUIPPING. EXCELlENUr MADE FILM.

WOSTHY OF HITCHCOCK AT HIS BEST. THE CAST IS EXCEtLANT" (OSTON HERALD AMERICAN AMERICA'S MOST GLAMOROUS SEXIEST FEMALE SUPERSTAR! Oct's say it flat out- jU ii AoTiV i I tZEf 426-2720 it3 mmi st. Things are really popping on the waterfront. Ever since The Winery first popped up, diners have been popping in. And things will be popping more than ever during October.

Because Wheatstraw, the great new musical group that won your warmest warm-weather applause, has popped back into town to play it again. So take in a grand new restaurant. And some grand new sounds. Pop in. To The Winery.

-rrr 1 QSgm. in) jpra ented cat named Tonto, whose personality is less showy than TV's Morris but who's far nicer. "Harry and Tonto" is a lovable movie. Bovet da Bergamo." The Liszt piece works very well on the organ, and the birdcalls are more convincing than some of the real ones in the Messaien organ pieces; St. Francis, who communicates mostly in recitative, seems a tedious fellow.

The Moretti piece is like an overture to an unfamiliar and inferior Rossini opera all of the mannerisms are there, but not the tunes. Bovet's virtuosity was remarkable, and people laughed out Ipud. For an encore, Bovet offered an improvisation on the hymn tune "Salvation," "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind," and it soon became apparent why he has won several prizes for this skill. There was very little of the standard kind of padding you usually hear. The whole tune came through in the pedal a couple of times, but mostly Bovet explored the implications of the opening intervals and rhythms with considerable ingenuity and wit.

All three kinds of people in the audience were smiling and applauding at the end. MIT taps Habraken Dutch architect Nikolaas John Habraken has been named to head the MIT architecture department. He will succeed Donlyn Lyndon when he resigns next August. 'LOEwsIBBfyl'N KENMORE SQ. AT U.

262-1303 1 i mon fi ipm" I CARROLL pgi I JCLAUDINE I lifcerty By Richard Dyer Globe Correspondent Three kinds of people turn up at organ recitals people who like organs and talk about stops and chiff and things like that; people who expect somehow to be edified; and people who like music. Fortunately Guy Bovet, the Swiss organist who opened a series of recitals on the Fisk organ at Harvard's Memorial Church Tuesday night, plays for the third kind of people. In the first half, Bovet offered the "Dorian" Toccata and Fugue of Bach and six short pieces, by English composers Pur-ceL, John Stanley, and Samuel Wesley. Bovet's playing was technically all but immaculate, and his registrations were highly imaginative: I didn't notice anything "inexpressive" about the instrument this time. The second of the two Wesley pieces was especially attractive, a pastoral dance with some, nice echo effects; Bovet played it with considerable rhythmic freedom and lilt.

Then came three unfamiliar Romantic works Liszt's "St. Francis of As-sisi Preaching to the Birds" (better known as a piano piece), an "Adagio per Flauto" by Vincenzo Petrali, and the "Sinfonia Concertante" of Felice Moretti, identified on the program as "Padre Davide SWEN SWENSON JL I IS Rl ff? wlH I lBl night Iran 5PM I 1 lCNt I "HITCHCOCK IS FINALLY NOW PLAYING 2:45 5-nn Tin a.c 355" and Deutsche Grammonphon Records "SECRETS of SWEET SIXTEEN' 12:50 3:45 8:35 1:25 HUS "SWING WIVES" 11:20 1:11 1:11 7:50 CTMfcMA-CSMfcMA)- provocative powerful entertainment" Tin Pat Mitchell MOIIV a of Ulimi 2:15.4:00 5:45.7: It? foutfern touse TIMELY AND FASCINATING" Friedman, Heal Paper Eirtllirning wondwiui immr cokvihik ekemle oiucTior A Levitan. Phoanlx 1 TONITE I MATS. WED. 1 SAT.

2 P.M. I I NOW THRU OCT. 12 I Trinity Square I I Repertory Company lady AUDLEY'S i SFrRFTxuSci SDOOf "You'll loveit! NOW THRU SAT. OCT. 12 ALL EVES.

1 JO MATS. THURS. I SAT. 2 P.M. SEATS AVAILABLE THRU TICKETRON YPBS A aW flofl Boston Return! SAMUEL MAYES cellist with Luise Vosgerchian, pianist Friday, October 4 8:00 P.M.

JORDAN HALL FREE no tickets req'd. "Samuel Mayes. In my opinion, Is a truly outstanding artist and on of the finest violincellists before the American public today." Eugene Ormandy MOON "Extraordinary" Globe i CHARLES PLAYHOUSE 76 Warrenlon Boston STUDENT RUSH! The Boston Muoica Viva Richard Piltman, conductor longy School of Music One Follen Cambridge OCTOBER 8 at 8:30 p.m. George Crumb NIGHT OF THE 4 MOONS Roberto Gerhard LIBRA John Harbison 6 DUMB SHOWS (World Premiere) Barbara Kolb SOLITAIRE Jan Curtis, soloist Tickets: $4.00, Students $2.00 for both chair and rug area on sale one hour prior concert. For information: 666-9222 mm 1 1 i "DREYFUS IN REHEARSAL' SHINES WITH SOUL AND HAS THE MAKINGS OF A MEMORABLE EVENING IN THE THEATRE THE SEASON WILL HAVE ONE OF ITS MOST UNUSUAL PLAYS BLESSED WITH A WONDERFUL SENSE OF HUMOR REMARKABLY WELL PLAYED" Kevin Key, Gott "WARM, KINDLY, AMUSING AND VERY OFTEN VERY DEEPLY A SERIOUS PLAY ON A SERIOUS SUBJECT BUT ITS MOOD IS LIGHT AND GOOD HUMORED.

RICHNESS OF THE PLAY IS IN THE WARMTH OF THE THE ACTORS AND ACTRESSES ARE AMONG THE BEST IN AMERICA, YOUNG AND OLD, AMONG THEM SAM LEVENE AND RUTH MISS GORDON CUTS INTO SOME OF THE BEST SCENES WITH THE KNIFE EDGE OF HER C0MEDIC LEVENE, ONE OF THE BEST OF ALL AMERICAN COMEDIANS Norton, Herald American MJ "AIRPORT 1975" 482-1222 fcV 2M STUHT ST. Lastcall for our Saturday Series There's still time the rest of this week, to be exact to pick up tickets for the Boston Symphony's Saturday Series. Just pick up the phone and call us at 266-1492 for subscription information. Or better still, drop over to Symphony Hall and sign up in person. Of course the musicians who make up the Boston Symphony Orchestra are 107 sound reasons to join.

So while there's still time, subscribe. Act now. This week. Join us for our Saturday Series. There are 107 sound reasons to join the Boston Symphony.

Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Colin Davis, Principal Guest Conductor (53 I uT JtLTiI LAST I I itlwjll DAYS! I omtiMLir ntsmifj i sfichculw limn MD FULL SfiBEOPHONIC SOUHO lj32SI) I (IACON IT. 8BJ 111 REHEARSAL LAST 6 DAYS! CHARLES GRODIN CANDICE BERGEN 'THE 542.700 111 STUtlT ST. Tiin win 1 i 1 1 rea'xarif iii "Trljt7TTttf7lW i II- JUOOIRNAUTII RCA wow Baldwin Piano.