Daily News from New York, New York • 70

i jjL) if" 'TFCdDW (J (I(inD ss Sr. 1 By KATHLEEN CARROLL 0 who was responsible for TVs Emmy Award-winning prison drama, "The Jerkho Mile," and he clearly has a bright future ahead of him. Loaded with striking night shots of back alleys and glittering skyscrapers, "Thief" has an all-pervading atmosphere of gloom that suggests it could have been the work of a European director, someone who is as much a master of his craft as AntonionL FRANK HAS DEFINITELY mastered his craft and "Thief" is practically a demonstration-reel on the art of safecracking, with the camera concentrating for minutes at a time on the sophisticated tools of trade. In one scene, 'Frank and his partner send sparks flying as they, blast away at a vault with their welding equipment The scene, accompanied by the Tangerine Dream's electronic music which helps suggest tension, finally ends when an exhausted Frank, ignoring the loot a dazzling pile of loose diamonds, acknowledges his accomplishment by allowing a brief smile of satisfaction to cross his dirt-smudged face. James Caan fully demonstrates his own acting skills as the fearless Frank.

Rattling off the special lingo of his trade (the characters' speech is completely authentic, but one almost needs sub-titles to translate everything but frequent four-letter words), Caan gives a fiercely intense performance as the defiant Frank 'whose dreams of a comfortable retirement are disrupted when he agrees to work temporarily for Leo, the head of a fencing operation who, after supplying Frank and his new wife (Tuesday Weld who is quietly effective even though her part is extremely sketchy) with a black market baby, refuses to let him off the hook. In his first screen role as Leo, Robert Prosky is a memorable movie villain, a cruel, calculating man THIEF. JamM Cun, Tuesday Weld, Willi Nelson, Directed bv Michael Mann. At Cinerama 2, Gemini, esth St. East and Say Cinema.

Running lima: hour, minutes. Rated R. His clothes are by that high-priced Italian designer, Giorgio and he is fond of boasting about his ring with its perfect three-carat diamond. You would expect to see him turn up on Rodeo Drive, but Frank tends to haunt banks instead of fancy stores. The reason? He happens to be a professional thief, but he would never stoop to ripping off a private home.

Frank is strictly big-time. Having received his job training from a fellow-inmate in Joliet prison, he has become so adept at boring through expensive safes with the latest in electronic drills that he can expect to pull down as much as $200,000 for each of his gem hauls. Frank now owns a used car business in downtown Chicago and he is frantically trying to fashion a whole new life for himself. He has already picked out a blonde cashier whom he hopes-to convince to become his wife. Then, he figures, it is only a matter of buying a house in the suburbs and acquiring a child and Frank will have achieved the kind of normal existence he used dream about in prison where he made a collage out of magazine photographs as a substitute for a family album.

This safecracking Sammy Glick is a true existential hero and the self- propelled central character in "Thief," a blunt, -street-smart movie that invades the private turf of Chicago's top-drawer thieves and their mob-linked fences, recreating their subterranean world with compelling realism. The movie marks the feature debut of a new writer-director, Michael Mann, Willie Nelson and James Caan in Thief who, with his Cheshire Cat grin, can transform himself into a benign father figure when the situation requires it, only to expose his true viciousness a few seconds later. The casting is impeccable. Willie Nelson is convincingly weary in his bit role as the dying con who truly represents a. father figure to Frank.

John Santucci gives a particularly scathing performance as a corrupt cop trying to muscle in on Frank's action, having apparently based his portrayal on his own experiences as a high-line thief. "Thief" winds up with an all too predictable shoot-out, but Mann executes the bloody finale with such a dramatic flair that one can only admire his skills as a filmmaker. VS. A. JIM LOWE FLIDDAY'3 GJJDE V- i it 'ST 1 41 i you ask a full-blooded triviot what the most important day of the year is, chances are he or she will overlook Christmas, New Years and the Fourth of July and go for Oscar Monday, which falls this coming week.

In wild anticipation of that formidable occasion, I dedicate this week's quiz. 1. In what 'Academy Award-winning film did what actress say, "Fasten your seat belt, it's going to be a bumpy 2. What actor beat out Clark Gable for Best Actor in 1939, the year the King appeared in "Gone With the 3. Where -was the first Academy Award ceremony held? 4.

This year a composer with four losses for best musical scores has been nominated for best song, People Alone," from "The Competition." Who is he? 5. What was the first song ever to win an Oscar? '6. In 1935 three actors were nominated for Best Actor and none of them won. Who were the three, what was the movie they were in and to whom did they lose? 7. Who was the first actor or actress to win back-to-back Oscars for top acting honors? And for what movies? 8.

Who racked up the most Oscar wins? 9. Who was the first (and only) person ever to give himself an Academy Award? 10. OK, triviots, for the Nostalgia Oscar. Match 23 vjnQQedH 'Rose' By DOUGLAS WATT ROSE. Play by Andrew Da vies.

With Glenda Jackson. Jessica Tandy, Jo Henderson, John Cunningham, J.T. Walsh, Beverly May, others. Directed by a Ian Dossor. Scenery by John Cunter.

Cewumet by Linda i-lsher. Andy Phillips. At the Cort. The question this morning is: Why go all the way to England for a dud when there's such an abundance of bum new American plays to choose I thought I could watch and listen to Glenda Jackson in aimost anything. But "Rose," a British-, import which came to the Cort last night, is next to nothing.

A free-form or loosely-structured (take your pick) play by Andrew Davies, it has been optimistically scheduled for a 12-week stand. The British actress, who is repeating a role she created in London last spring, that of an open-minded married schoolteacher stuck in a Midlands town, is a fascinating actress, and so is Jessica, Tandy who is co-starred as Rose's plain old mom. And if you don't listen too hard to what they say, the interplay of their voices and gestures can arouse your admiration. BUT THE PLAY is mostly about Rose, with the several other characters very much secondary ones. Rose, flooded in white light (the entire play is in white light, a condition favored by the late Tyrone Guthrie), talks to us or to an imaginary group of small children she instructs when she isn't taking part in scenes with one or more (mostly one at a time) of the rest She aspires to be a "head teacher," but her free and easy way with the kids is against her, as is her perfectly understandable wish to be addressed by her maiden name, Strong, rather than her married one, Fidget She'd like to fool around.

In fact she does so one night with the school's young new "primary advisor" (J.T. Walsh) after a long and boring description (obviously intended as a high point) about the futility of such a liaison that the poor fellow, must endure in a wine shop before moving her out to the back seat of his car (they can't go to his place; he's married, too). Besides smilingly suffering the admonitions of the -school's headmistress (Beverly May), Rose listens to the sordid details of her friend Sally's marriage to a habitually sozzled songwriter (Guy Boyd) who can drink comfortably off his five "standards." Though what Sally has to report is dull as what everyone else has to say, Jo Henderson gives a very skilled and. -persuasive performance in her single scene. IT IS OBVIOUS that the author, who has nothing.

fresh to telL us. ui this account of a bush-league Jessica Tandy and Glenda Jackson in fading bouquet occasional smile as it plods along, is a man heart and soul in favor of women's rights, which while not exactly an arresting viewpoint is a commendable enough one. However, it is just as obvious that Rose or Glenda Jackson's Rose, anyway doesn't need a great deal of outside help. Actually, she's too bright or perhaps too clearly coolheaded, for her own good For example, when she has confessed her infidelity to her husband Geoffrey (John Cunningham), he does the sobbing; she just sits there unblinkingly waiting him out I can understand why an actress would fall for a part giving her full command of a stage. But what I cannot understand is the callous stupidity of Broadway merchandising that accounts for such an import as "Rose." Particularly when Peter Brook's remarkably intimate and engrossing production of "Antony and Cleopatra" with Jackson and the.

heroic Alan a Royal Shakespeare Company production of just a couple of seasons back, might have knocked Broadway dead for at least 12 weeks. But such are the dreary values of the marketplace. The fluid staging is by Alan Dossor, who directed the London production. Linda Fisher's costuming is excessively dull. John Gunter's original set has been recreated, the representation of a gray, and cheerless' assembly hall with- a curtained stage (unused) at the back and many doors extending down the side walls, the latter raised or lowered to allow furniture units to be trundled on or off.

Practically everything about the movie with its Award-winning song: "Captain Cary "The Way You Look Tonight" "Thanks for the Memory" "The Last Time I Saw Paris" "Swinging on a Star" "Mona Lisa" "The Lullaby of U.S.A." "Going My Way" "Hello, Frisco. Hello" Gold Diggers of 1935" "Swingtime" -The Big Broadcast of 1938" Broadway' You'll Never Know" "Lady Be (Answers on page 15)' Jim Lowe is a radio personality who can be heard daily over the evening has a finished look except the play itself. Madame BoVav.and whosediatogue raises..