The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 65

--t -r- May 2 1, 1975 Oxmninrr-Page City Lights poetry t.s 4 brave attempt mth 'Day of the Locus Poet Charles Bukowski will read from his work in a City Lights Poets! Theater program at the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Associa- tion gym, 555 Chestnut Stv Saturday, May 31, at 8 p.m.'w-i Tickets at City Bookstore and Bookstore in Berkeley. jf i reproduces the mob hysteria of a gospel meeting in a tabernacle run by an Aimee Semple McPherson evangelist, played by Geraldine Page. Another marvelously-realized episode shows the. accidental collapse of a huge studio set during the filming of a "Battle of Waterloo" spectacle. It's a film one can admire for its stunning manship (especially Conrad Hall's fine cinematography).

But it leaves the viewer cold, more or less like last year's disappointingly lifeless adaptation of that other modern classic, "The Great Gatsby." the most highly acclaimed film of the year warren beatly julio goldie hawn IESTIICHD In vn iJiiiiilmt I'h turps A IVrskv Bruihl Vista hralur Jim. lucky, hll rut COlUMeiA HCIUAIS AND Maud AISINrATIOl A 8VISTA FEATURE fil'lW'''i in (i.l Exclusive San Francisco Engagement TONIGHT at 7:15 ajid "THE DAY OF THE LOCUST." Para-mount Picture presentation produce by Jerome HeMmae, directed by John Schleiinter, icreenpliy by Wild Salt, (rem Nathsnael West's noveli photofrs-phy by Conrad Hill, mutlo by John lerry. With Donald Sutherlond, Keren lick, lurtess Meredith. Wllliem Atherton, Seraldine Pi, Richard A. Dysart, Be Hopkins, Pepe Soma.

Billy tarty. Rated (tor restricted audiences). At th Chirardelll Cinema. i Schlesinger weren't foreboding all of World War II with his Hollywood saga. The film is by no means an unmitigated failure.

It's done with awesome technical skill and fastidious attention to period details. A fascinating sequence (only alluded to in the book) Plus Twigay in pa Plus Rene STRE I AND CAAN a1 HnmMMwwtl KAREN BLACK, as would-be actress Faye Greenertoys with William Atherton, a studio scenic designer. STEREOPHONIC SOUND San Francisco Engagement 2:00, 4:30, 7.00 and 30P.M. or Harg. Mats, in is tnqagament 3 has none of the allure Faye had in the book.

Homer Simpson, the sexually repressed Iowa accountant who falls in love with Faye, is exceptionally well played by Donald Sutherland. But the role is so poorly delineated, so Homer comes through as little more than a dim-witted boob. Faye's father, the ex-vaudevillian, Harry Gree-, ner, is stridently overplayed by Burgess Mere-' dith, whose death scene reaches an embarrassing' level of gross melodrama. William Atherton is monotonous in the observer role of Tod Hackett, the studio scenic designer whose mural of "The Burning of Los Angeles" signals the climactic apocalypse. The mural, incidentally, reeks so much of Picasso's "Guernica," one wonders if Lee O.

Sankowlch and Jack Anderson 'A Tour de Force; it certainly deserves a long run!" Eichelbaum, Examiner 'Don't misi it!" -Eason, KGO Playing Tuesdays thru Sundays Montgomery Playhouse 622 Broadway, San Francisco Box Office Phone 788-8282 Ticket! also at all major agencies, Group Rates: 776-7614 Student Rush CURRAN THEATRE AVAILABLE Stars in iratami USALL ffmrnn A IP; TODAY No fassas 7 10 mm IN Exclusive all Plus: Tonicjht bare-boned, even cruel, exposure of the principal characters, who have little depth or appeal. The shabby atmosphere of the Hollywood bungalow court known as the San Bernardino Arms has been splendidly recreated. But the inhabitants hardly seem human, particularly Faye Greener, the most unappealing of the lot. The narcissistic would-be actress and sometimes whore is played by Karen Black as a tough, trashy, abrasive gold-digger who Auberjonoli' "IMAGES" Today Proud 3SO, 7:00,10:35 'Images' 1:30, 5: 19 ft 8:50 Proud' 6:30 10:00 W' 8:20. Barg.

Mats. Wed.iSat. til 5PM $1.50. HIS LIFELINE By Stanley Eichelbaum "The Day of the Locust" has reached the screen iii an oversized epic treatment that isn't, I'm afraid, the masterpiece some critics say it is, though it's impressive for the magnitude of director John Schlesinger's boldly panoramic treatment of Nathanael West's classic novel about the seamy fringe of Hollywood in the late 1930s. Schlesinger's ambitious film, which opens today at the Ghirardelli Cinema, is a work of singular interest 'and importance, since nobody was brave enough to film West's pithy, cynical, virtually uncinematic 1939 novel before now.

The book showed the dark, seedy, grotesque side of Hollywood and dealt with the losers who migrated to Lotusland with "dreams of beauty and romance," only to find boredom, loneliness, frustration and slow death. While the film is generally faithful to the novel, it shakes the life out of West's vivid menagerie of losers, so that it becomes impossible to involve ourselves in their futile dreams and disappointments. The film, moreover, is overwhelmingly depressing and runs 2 hours, or longer than most people need to read West's sparely written tale of comic horror, which ends with a frightening apocalyptic vision of a bloody riot at a movie premiere. The losers, who've turned into locusts, rise up in a symbolic act of vengeance and destroy the- spurious Great American Dream Factory. Schlesinger gives us a riot that's both spectacular and hideously real, although it was meant to be a surreal apocalypse and not the long, drawn-out disaster which is carried to such excess, it looks like leftover footage from "Earthquake" and "The Towering Infer-no." The overblown sequence has a lethal effect on the story, which has never really touched us because Schlesinger and his Waldo Salt, have concentrated on the sideshow aspects of West's nov el, capturing none of the human element that might elicit sympathy for the characters.

Schlesinger and Salt went through the densely allegorical novel with entirely too literal an eye. They found no balanced format, or equable focus, for the layers of savage satire that pervade the sour, bitter story. Undeniably, this was a tough book to deal with. There are no heroes, just losers, who are seen in relentlessly disparaging perspective. To see them in a big-scale film is like, watching Tod Browning's "Freaks" in a remake by Cecil B.

DeMille. by the assassin he huntea. "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams" "WOMAN" at Wiihei at anil A A AC Atoll MY AWAHI) YVIKNFJlK i HI'STDOCUMEMAUY 1 THE SAN FRANCISCO or. GOOD SEATS i incredible Stone, S.F. Chronicle HEARTS mi MINDS RAINBOW PICTURES Presfntation Iron) Warner Bros A Warner Commumcitions Company TONIGHT at 7:00 and SAM I 7k "THE MOST EXCITING MOVIE OF THE YEAR.

IT MAKES AN EVENING OUT SOMETHING SPECIAL." -Stive Arin. KMPC nclncarnalinn Itw Technicolor 'Urn -V I 7M, Plus Twiggy In 'Proud' 8:45 12:15 'W at held I. 3- From trw mtaowtui Btt-MIrl FRIDAY AND AT THEATRES It DRIVE-INS THROUGHOUT THE BAY AREA i.Vii'-4 a 589-79651 I SOUTH SAN 'The Stepford Wives" "California Split" "Stepford Wives" at 2: 10, 6: 15 and 10:20 "California Split" 12:15, 4: 15 and "Freebie and the Bean" 12: 10, 4: 15 8:20 John Wayne in: 2:15, 6.20, 10:25 The radiant singing-dancing comedienne NANETTE FABRAY "BREAKOUT" and "SPIKES GANG" "Breakout" at 1:05, 4:35 and 8: 10P.M. "Spikes Gang" at 2:50, 6:25 and 10.00P.M. 4 Ww.K OK.jfc, 9 v.

Jf. Tf "RANCH0 DE LUXE" 1:55. 5:20 and 8:55 "TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3" ft at: 12:05, 3:30, 7:00 and wmmw Schlesinger's film tends to be diffuse, choppy and unwieldy. It veers shakily between romantic nostalgia (burnished sunsets viewed from the Hollywood Hills) to hard-edge realism (2,000 extras tearing Grauman's Chinese Theater to bits in the riot sequence). The sensitivity that distinguished Schlesinger's previous work Cowboy," "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," etc.) gives way to Royal Bard troupe to play UC in June "Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain," a recital of verse and prose, will open the Royal Shakespeare Company's three evenings of drama beginning Thursday, June 5, at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium.

"How Shall I Compare Thee?" a collection of Shakespeare's lovers, and "He That Plays the King," an anthology of the Bard's tragic and historic kings, will be presented Friday and Saturday, respectively. Curtain times are 8 p.m. HELD OVER! 6th Smash Year! SankowichGolyn Vn lixt present Tonight at 8:30 pm The Little Fox Theatre. 533 Pacific, San Francisco B.O. Phone 434-4738 Also Tiiketron, Macy's it leading agencies Croup Ratn Call 776-7614 BOX OFFICE (415)982-2343 Group Rates 776-761 4, 412 Broadway, San Francisco Broadway, S.F.

398-0800 May 30 2 SHOWS 7:30 10:30 SURPRISE ARTIST i NORMAN CONNORS JEAN CARN 'EDDIE HCNDCRSQN urn now -stui irsta MAY 31 8:00 JIMMY SMITH BOBBT KUTCHERSON chhus an JUNE 1 8:00 JOHN HANDY III U.I mn KHUN MICHAEL WHITE uroup naiei rr i A 1 776-761VS' Yfcndcrjul Town also starring GEORGE GAYNES with JACKKRUSCHEN MARY WICKES and MARTI ROLPH Been CURRAN BOX OFFICE I 445 GEARY STREET 673-4400 Eveitififi 1:30, Men. thru Thirn. J3.75, 5.00, 8.75, 10.00, 11.75 Fri. and Sat. $5.00, 6.00.

10.25, 11.50, 11.75 Matinees 2.30. Wed. $3. 25, 4.252nd Ba Ic. on ly Sat $4.25, 5.00 2nd Bale, only BANKAMERICARDMASTER CHARGE HONORED CLOT the george kennedy VONETTA McGEE JACK CASSIOY A MALPASO COMPANY FILM vi' mi 9M ti wmiii vimt tm mfiun Sim mi ti Wivuntu jow muun InicM If Cinar IASW0M KlhcU lr 0KM UVI li.ijir, htM liCHMO I UIUEI Mil I'llWH 1 m.i KUK'M A vl irt )J a iiift 1.19 i in .3.

4 m7 -m 4 RESTRICTED Tlie Second Greatest RaJLLStiDT CPLMAi CND From the same troupe who brought you EL GRANDE DE COCA COLA STARTS 92 1-12341 756 -3240 CHESTNUT ftSTEINER 1 Serramonle 1 Daly City mta 1 I FkjenntlieW)rld in rrrnrr nn uii I rii KOREffl KHDfOlD mm 1 jcjku ftf 14 fm TONIGHT AT 8.30 THE HIPPODROME VJHEATRE i M. CtttHf I unrci 23 2M btaiZ FRIDAY JWaloo Pepper f'The film is a stunning visual it ranks with Antonioni's finest work and confirms our TONIGHT faith in his genius. -Stanley EUhethaum; S.F. Examiner M.SO.XT k-n ce NTUHY COMPLEX- I'h-atant Hill Jack Nicholson ENTURY 25-un (- iDWOOD CITY Hrdu-ttod Vit N'ON CITY D.f. nl'i'i Olv Maria Schneider SJuthVllktAll Ml few CSGiaQCKCHINm Michelangelo On Broadway Theatre, 433 Tonight at 7 4t Tickets: all leading agencies.

A I'ffcW mL fliiiiBilMii ttnitad Artnm PG, Exclusive San Francisco Engagement Antonioni's I tooay to: IA9 MATS WEDSAT TIL MM )T He DUN fJ.M TICKGTft A4-SO AVAILABLE BA llllllll PHOtil WinncnElien Buntyn. Plus Pamela Sua Martin OUR TIME 1: t. A0 MUTSWIDsAf t. km jtAn ivt ttiNDav (la a. jut van Ntat aT- aaiaT a mm, ACADCMT AWAHU UCE DOESNT LIVE HBE IINIYMORE (in STEREO SOUND i iiimrT" inm i FERNANDO REY BERNARD FRESSON --v -fif Ri Dl Us A I At "1: 1 1 IV i "-n" SHOWN WITH: MICK JAGGER 'PERFORMANCE' ORPHEUM THEATRE 1192 MARKET SAN FRANCISCO ncitTV $4 st.

est Ktmm ft men. kh. tkiuj tscr. tu etPKiw tmutk hi ifna nu-im aVt 1.1 ,1 TT RESTRICTED ULlfPTTini STARTS TODAY LUMIERE ONE WEEK ONLY! California at Polk 885-3200 VCALL IntMIKt mwr FOP l.fTiH.