The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 21

The Boston Globe Wednesday, March 9, 1977 1 HI 3WEEKS Svlna ONLY March 14 thru April 2 Jtotft "FULL OF LIFE! CaflOt ALLEN. EQUAL TTHiBt I0ST0N CEKTft FOI THE UTS ui mmin sr. mstm CCiV iimck -ap CHARLES PLAYHOUSE CABARET EASY CHARGE 2MM ukmcmumks amusau USTtCMMSt TBI 74 Warranto" I ColoiialcIlg5atr6' st; Jse8 JL 3 L4lci si- 1 REVIEW MOVIE 'V-'" VT Cousins sells Review Associated Press NEW YORK In a move he said was aimed at assuring long-term continuity of leadership at the Saturday Review, Norman Cousins has sold the magazine to a group headed by Carll Tucker, 25. The 61-year-old Cousins, Tucker, and Tuckers father-in-law, broadcast executive R. Peter Straus, made the formal announcement of the sale at a news conference yesterday.

Tucker, who will succeed Cousins as president of the magazine while Cousins retains the post of editor, declined to identify the other new owners. He described them as "a small group of family and others." After graduating from Yale in 1973, Tucker worked as a drama and book critic for the weekly Village Voice and freelanced for the New York Times maeazine and the New Republic. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Tucker said he planned no staff changes but he and Cousins hoped to bring the magazine out weekly. The journal of essays, reviews and reporting now comes out every two weeks and has 521,000 sub Boston Symphony Chamber Players at Jordan Hall: Sunday, March 13 at 4:00 pm progrmindides: Moart: Divertimento No.

2 in B-flat for two clarinets and bassoon K. App. 229 (K. 439b) Takemitsu: Quatrain Schubert: String Quintet in guest artists: TASHI Peter Serkin, piano Ua Kavafian, violin Fred Sherry, cello Richard clarinet Tickets: $5 (sold out) S4 an $3 are available at the JORDAN HALL BOX OFFICE Next concert in the series: SunJay, April 17. ssi1 tvvx.y jf in II I'Tllii'ilHilitilllwn I mi I Pictures Presents Spiegel-Elia Kazan Film' Art Carney and Lily Tomlin under siege in "The Late Show." Two stars steal 'Show' Lasffycooii Romance Technicolor A Paramount Releasel STARTS TODAY Got.

Or. FRAMINGHAM CINEMA RT.9-SHOFPE.SWID. 235-8030 BRAINTREE CINEMA 848-1070 SHOWCASE W0MIR.N 227-1330 599-1310 scribers. A Sam It's the way Wells approaches a chair with a missing seat in Sperling's apartment, the way he sits on the edge of the chair and tries to pretend the seat isn't missing. It's the way Sperling describes her crazy boyfriend as a "tuna." You wonder what the hell being a "tuna" is like.

It's the way a gangster who's being covered by a man with a gun talks compulsively about his shaky marriage he sounds as if he's composing a Dear Abby letter. It should be pointed out that Benton doesn't exactly neglect the prerequisites of the genre. There is a scene involving a refrigerator I can't be more specific without shuddering that connotes Hitchcock at his most wicked best. And Benton has his Raymond Chandler dialogue down cold. "There are a lot of ways to play this but in the game I play you go by the house percentages," explains Wells.

Benton even has the temerity to put in a car-chase, the most hackneyed device in today's crime movies, but he gets, away with it by giving it a little twist. The strength of the film is in the chemistry between Carney and Tomlin, however. Carney's Wells is your favorite uncle, a shy, conservative man with a limp and a hearing-aid and an abiding curiosity as to why young women can't wear dresses once in a while. Tomlin's Sperling is a woman forced by circumstances to be on the fringes of life but who still has her dignity and doesn't want anyone to forget it. She's that rare woman who's had affairs but isn't available.

Buoyed by their success as a detective team, Sperling suggests that she and Wells team up on a more-or-less permanent basis. Wells can't handle the suggestion because he's always been a loner. By the time he realizes he might need Sperling more than he thinks he does, Sperling isn't sure she wants him. She doesn't want to be "holding up my side of the conversation and yours as well," she explains. The dynamic is like -that in this film: Perceptions change.

And that's the charm of it. PGfSS SACK CHARLES Conk. St. PEABODY CINEMA Paramount A mar FAYE SACK PI MTKK OUTI VI IV .9 1 VI JJ THE LATE SHOW A film written and directed by Robert Benton. At the Sack Cinema 57.

Rated PG. By Bruce McCabe Globe Staff "The. Late Show" is a quite engaging, quite original trifle, It's conceived as a detective story along the classic lines but is taken over by brilliant acting and brilliant direction and it becomes a very nice love story. First things first. "The Late Show" establishes Lily Tomlin as an actress of the first magnitude.

Good as she was in "Nashville," she was only warming up for this role, which is that of a California fruitcake named Margo Sperling. Tomlin invests all her genius in this role, fleshing it out into a study in vulnerability. It's the most fully realized characterization of a woman I've seen in ages. In many films, there comes a moment when you're aware that what you're seeing is going to be good or bad. (The indifferent is harder to discern.) In this film, the moment occurs near the beginning.

Ira Wells, an aging private eye cunningly played by Art Carney, is leaving the cemetery where he has just buried a friend, another detective (Howard Duff) who was brutally murdered. Wells is approached by Sperling who goes into this lunatic request that he hire himself out to recover her kidnaped cat. Cat? Wells makes a simple motion with his hands which conveys perfectly what he thinks of Sperling and her offer. It's so right that you realize immediately you're going to be in good hands. "The Late Show" is best enjoyed as a story about relationships, not as a detective story.

Robert Benton, an intelligent, sensitive scenarist and director, isn't any better than most of us at contriving the kinds of plots that depend on double- and triple-crosses for their implications. What he's good at is the gesture, the gesture that conveys reams of intelligence about his characters andz their character. REVIEW MOVIE LThe Comics in The Boston Globe provide a laugh, or perhaps just a slight grin to ease the tension of the day, every day. Have you seen The Globe today? For home delivery dial 929-2222. METRlVGOLDWYN-MAYER pmtnlt WILLIAM PETER ROBERT DUNAWAY HOLDEN FINCH DUVALL, NETWORK INJjONOR OF OUR 5th ANNIVERSARY TiaMiii lliia ail Mill imi ilmiliii I COCKTAIL WITH YOUR DIN Mil FOW 2S I (Boston OnM Lmt Ona to Pmon 1 AKU-AKU BOSTON uuness myneaan hesuunm 390 COMM.

AVE. Tel. 536-0420 FREE Validated Parting on pramlM In th SomwMt Gwag. Opti islil 4 AM ii Friday Satarin Oltor Good Thra April ISIh wei The ballet written for a Queen's coronation by Jerome Robbins the man who gave you "West Side Story" and "Fiddler On The Roof." Appearing in March with four more remarkable ballets: "Classical Symphony," "Hamlet," "Flowering Into New Battles," and the earthy, exciting "Coat Dance!" The Music Hall, Mar. 10-13 Tickets $12.50, $10.50, $7, $4, $3 ORDER NOW: 542-3945 weekdays 104, Sats.

10-2 with BankAmericard or Master Charge tickets also at The Music Hall, 268 Tremont St. (no checks or credit cards), and the Boston Ballet Ticket Office. 11 riprpnHnn ti irfnit nmrni imtc college outlets; ARTSBoston vouchers honored at Boston Ballet i ickct urrice. information at 542-3945. REMAINING TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT MUSIC HALL FROM 10 A.M.

TIL The Boston Ballet THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS AN O'CASKV A A A A A A A A A A TODAY at P.M. LAST PERFS 'TRAVESTIES is brilliant, holdsyou awestruck" KEUY-GIOBE JOHN WOOD TOM ST0PRARD PETER WOOD NOW THRU MAR. 12 EASY CHARGE 42M3U AHtMCANEK'KSS IHMERSCLUI HlSTCftCHMGC Colonial atre 1MBOYUTONST. Wh2tM NIK Tonight At 8 P.M. NOW THRU MAR.

27 ONLY! "GREAT STUFF! VERY, VERY FUNNY!" Kevin Kelly, Botton Globe Directed by Pot Carmichael Reservalions Call: Next Move Cafe-Full Bar 7 'HI 1 A.M. Discount Parking at Prudential Next NXove Theatre q.S58oyi;ion Slteet, Boston. Mosj. 02115' BOX OFFICE NOW OPEN! March 14-March 26 "Rip-roaring portrayal of Teddy Roosevelt!" Time Magazine JAMES WHITMORE BULLY AN ADVENTURE WITH TEDDY ROOSEVELT Group Sales Call Toll Free 800-223-7565 The Shubert Theatre 265 Tremont Street. Boston 426 4520 4 lcllini Casanova HIS I IK" I I NUIMt I AM.

I III A UNIVERSAL RELEASE TECHNICOLORS ProducedbyJKUDliKl I'ANAVISION RESERVED PERFORMANCES Mon -fri. 2 00 4 8:30, Sal. Sun. 8.00-4il4-8J0. Tickati available at rite box oflicacr by mail.

STARTS TODAY! BCACOH Hill I Bon it Iremorit IJ38IIO mm Ml the KB A The funniest movie about ART Also sUrring BILL ALLEY A A A A A- Br MOOT CHAYCTSKY MUU United Artists opn it 12:30 1 sowcase1 showcase c.iSVc.TT W0BURN DEDNAM DANVERS 337-M40 t)3-)M M3-3HM mcestWcMTnest, and most touching youH ever see blackmail, mystery and murder. 'Wizards' short on magic I I The picture is full of ingenious paradoxes that wind up as incoherencies because Bakshi's script is so slovenly "I have a terrible time spelling but a wonderful time visualizing images," the director confessed to an interviewer. This is a movie about the need to destroy movies, but nothing is made of that. Avatar's main weapon is flower-power and his subjects think like Bucky Fuller "the only true technology is nature," one of them says. So the final encounter between the two brothers comes as a nasty and cynical surprise: Avatar is as brutal and violent as Blackwolf and we're apparently supposed to have forgotten all of the talk about how love has entered the lists against weapons and technology.

"Yellow Submarine" ordered things better. Ilw bohtoa Fortunately, Bakshi tells some of his story with more visual than verbal distinction. The fabulously floral regions of Avatar are too-obviously Disney-derived, but Blackwolf's realm is one of dingy, buff colors, slashed across by bloody reds and it doesn't look like its models. i rsii doer epn at rw.WsT Ar I SACK IACK CINEMA NATICK KOUTI 9 537-S40 United Artists CHERI J36-2ITO SO DAL TON ST. Of SHfRATON-OSTON om sHomis wid SHOWCASE WCBURN 8HOWCA8I DEDHAM tACl CINIMA DANVERS LllfRTT TRII MAll Uvpi-rtory Thc.viiv "Hilarious thti' Frieditiati.

Real P.itvr "Furiously Funny" C. irolyn Cl; iv. Boston Phoenix 1 Sr WIZARDS A film by Ralph Bak-shi, at the Sapk Chen. Rated PG. By Richard Dyer Globe Staff "Wizards" is a film for Ralph Bakshi, poised uneasily between his past and his future.

Bakshi made his name with tough-talking streetwise city-sentimental animated features like "Fritz the Cat," "Heavy Traffic" and he is now embarked on a 14-year project to animate J. R. R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. "Wizards" tries to have it both ways.

We're in the world of futurefiction and mythic oversimplification: two wizard brothers, Avatar the Good, and Blackwolf the Nasty, battle over what's-left of the world thousands of years after a nuclear holocaust. Blackwolf1 motivates his hellishly mutant legions by showing them Nazi propaganda films that he has found amid the ruins of former civilizations; it is the mission of Avatar and his companions to invade Blackwolf's domain of Scortch and smash the projector, the "dream machine." But though we are in the world of the future and of non-human characters, the main figures incongruously talk the same lingo we recognize from Bakshi's earlier films Avatar is pure Grossinger's stereotype; the bra-lcss half -fairy Elinore talks like a hooker and sings Andrew Belling's awful theme-song like Nancy Wilson. CARNEYand LILY TOMLIN LATE SHOW" MACYd EUGENE ROCHE TONIGHT at 8:08 CHARLES PLAYHOUSE 76 Warrenton Street 426-6912 Quik-chcirge 426-6210 OutTown. Harv Sq Student Rush ARTS' Vouchers accepted "A Mew Year's Eve ptirly you won't want to miss!" tUl 1V11N Written and Uirettedby XUDHiX 1 DliiN 1 Ul Color byMGM" UulnhutrU ly WAKNliH bKOS A WAKNBUCOMMUNICATIONSCOMPANY The images are remarkably detailed, and Bakshi can set them moving in complex and fascinating ways, combining live action with animation and vividly lurid color sense to make memora- ble battle sequences. But at other times he seems to be skimping on cost and effort: the camera moves but the images do not.

Just like the fable. A. Exclusive Engagement 6.15-8.00-9.45 200 Stuart near Park Sq. 482-1222 y.IV'. recommended (or adults.