Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 13

Calgarv Herald ENTERTAINMENT Editor: Mark Tremblay SATURDAY. JULY 7. 1990 B3 still benefiting from lessons learned 'early in his career as a member of Chicago's Second City troupe: "If you try to make the other actors look good, you your- sea will look good. Quick Change is the latest in a long line of heist movies a genre which in the past has in eluded such popular items as The Lavender Hill Mob and Topkapi. For Bill Murray and his cohorts in crime, robbing a bank is easier than escaping New York "Why are they popular? I think that whenever you go somewhere and see a lot of money that doesn belong to you, then you start daydreaming about having it for yourself.

It's like dreaming about a great- poker llllMHIMIIIII 1 I I hand. Murray believes Quick Change will find a audience in a season permeated with expensive blockbusters. A "A fi-f Hi I. "I just think people are really going to like it. I look at it and I think that it good.

The perfor mances are great, lhe script is funny. AND I don't think it has a mean bone in its body." Murray, a performer noted for his dark and sardonic wit, is happy at the thought of making By Jamie Portman (Southam News) LOS ANGELES a9 ill Murray seems decidedly lW gloomy as he ponders the state of the movie business. "What I don't like about it is that there's so much pressure to make money," he complains. Then the scowl suddenly vanishes as he comes out with that familiar, lopsided Bill Murray smile. He's about to take a potshot at the summer's most highly touted new movie.

"I mean you're seeing people have nervous breakdowns and doing extraordinary amounts of press because their movie opened to only $21-million business. They're really getting crazy about it." He doesn't mention the movie by name, but he leaves no doubt that he's talking about Dick Tracy. It happens that Murray also has a new movie called Quick Change coming out July 13. And like Beatty, he's doing triple service as producer, star and director. However, he's not having a nervous breakdown about it.

"Ours is kind of an underdog movie," he muses. The crooked smile re-emerges. "I mean, there are no commercial tie-ins. We're not giving away Burger King dolls and things like that!" He also notes that. Quick Change is coming out in a summer dominated by special effects.

"There are no special effects in Quick Change," he says proud- ly. "The closest thing to a special effect in this one is when my character blows up a security camera in the bank." The guy Murray's portraying is no intrepid hero out of the Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dick Tracy mould. For one thing, he's wearing a clown oufit complete with baggy pants, polka dot coat, red nose and painted grin in this sequence because it's his idea of a good disguise. Second, he's just an ordinary New Yorker named Quinn who's fed up with the system and who plots with sexy girlfriend Geena Davis and dim-witted buddy Randy Quaid to rob a bank of $1 million and start a new life in another country. And how does someone as a him in which the comedy is hilarious but never unkind.

Which brings him to the subject of comedy in the 1990s and the way it has changed. He notes that he was originally asked to host the controversial episode of Saturday Night Live that hired Andrew Dice Clay in his place. What does Bill Murray, one of ROUNDTREE: A pussycat shaft! Ex-supercop finds delight? as a doctor: ByLuaineLee Before you called the Ghost-busters, before Mad Max ever thought of righting the world, before they enlisted Robocop there was Shaft. Private dick and supercop John Shaft was a hero of He didn't take prisoners and.cuj-; ting corners was a way of life. Richard Roundtree, who flashed that tough character, across the screen in three movies-and a TV series, grins call him a pussycat.

He smiles because he knows it's true. It takes a real man to confess he earned his living as a model for several years and dreams of a career in football. At last Roundtree has found a. role that suits his character. As Dr.

Daniel Reubens on NBC's daytime drama Generations, Roun dtree doesn't put a choke-hold -on -anyone. "This is the first time in a long" time I don't play a cop," he "and the challenge is Dr. Reubens has a daughter. Roundtree has four, ages 25, 23," 2 Vi and a newborn baby. Roundtree always assumed he'd stay in feature films.

After; all, he's made nearly 20 including the three Shaft film's if A 'BOZO' WITH A GUN: A film in which the comedy is hilarious but never unkind the clown princes of the 1980s, think of an entertainer who has been denounced as a foul-mouthed racist homophobe but who nevertheless manages to sell out Madison Square Garden? "I think he has performing skills I really do," Murray says guardedly. "He is good, but I don't particularly care for most of his material. Will Murray ever tackle another serious dramatic role after his disastrous Razor's Edge a few seasons back? He smiles- "I was told by no less an authority than Roger Ebert that I should never do anything but comedies," he says. So what's coming up next? An item called Flatland Fable which is very definitely not a comedy. "It's a very complex story." Will he direct it? "Probably if I stay clean and sober!" conspicuous as a clown manage to get himself and the loot out of a bank surrounded by police squad cars under the command of zealous police chief Jason Robards? That's just one of the challenges deftly worked out by screenwriter and co-director Howard Franklin in this offbeat new comedy.

For Murray and his cohorts in crime, robbing a bank proves an easier hurdle than actually get ting out of Manhattan to the airport. In fact, most of the movie chronicles the hilarious mishaps they encounter as the streets of New York prove to be a horrifying obstacle course. "Everyone will enjoy this movie," chortles Murray. "But New Yorkers will enjoy it especially because they know how bad their city really is." Originally, Murray didn't intend to be involved in directing the movie. But when he couldn't find the right person to take charge, he and Howard Franklin ended up doing the job themselves.

"I thought it would involve four times as much work as acting. Instead it's more like eight times. And let me tell you, I had no private life when I was making this film." Then, Murray is quick to add that everybody got along making Quick Change. As an actor, he's More than just a travel adventure Artists make fresh links between people, nature on Oldman Expedition rn i Ft i "vw 1 II I' I LZ iNt LTZTm TZ i I I (1971, '72 and '73). "But what I have been featurewise, I wasn't getting- a-sense of challenge, a reward, so to.

speak. I come home so at, night after doing this show my wife has to scrape me off the--ceiling." His television shows include Roots (1977) and recurring roles on Beauty and the Beast, Arnerr and A Different World. Part -of- the reason he likes doing Genera-' tions is the regular hours which permit him time with the family. But part of it is the relief he feels to be free of the distress over the Shaft series for CBS in 1973-74. "I thought we were going to do a Shaft TV series.

But what we were doing the character was whitewashed, so watered down didn't recognize him. The experience was devastat-' ing, he says. "I remember sitting in my dressing room crying my eyes out like a baby because no one seemed to understand or want-' ed to listen or gave a damn about how I felt." Roundtree had married in 1964 and had two children. He worked as a clothing salesman in Manhattan. One of his regular customers suggested he try modeling.

He did model successfully and in 1967 earned a job with the Ebony Fash-' ion Fair, traveling to 70 cities in 90 days. It was the first time Roundtree had been west of Chicago and the first time he'd experienced a live; audience since the football games of his college days. By the time the Fair arrived in California, Roundtree knew he wanted to be an actor. In Los Angeles he was given the best advice he has ever had. "Bill Cosby I was lucky enough to meet him told me to go back to New York and learn my craft." He did.

Finally, several roles off Broadway "way off Broadway" brought him the audition for Shaft, a role he still treasures. Everything happened so quick-, ly that Roundtree didn't have time to adjust to the new splendor. He'd grown up in modest circumstances. "To be quite candid 1 got quite full of myself." he says. "Now I chuckle to myself when I see new kidri on the block and they have that sudden surge.

And I remember what hud happened to me. And I WHnt to say, 'Piano, piano, piano. Slow down, it's a long (Limine Lev if a California- bused freeluneer.) fcl''''-fr7'-7l' AT WATERTON LAKE: A glimpse of the south which will be altered next year by Oldman Dam body like Toronto sculptor Judith Schwarz encounters the monolithic Mormon temple on the hillside at Cardston, or how Boston-born Robert Blake 'sees' that same little town juxtaposed against the neighboring Blood Indian Reserve, and both against the backdrop of the Rockies." Lethbridge artist Jeff Spalding walks over to join us. He is Dur-rant's co-ordinating partner on this expedition, and the two of them briefly discuss logistics for tomorrow's leg of the journey. Like Durrant, Spalding knows how to turn dreams into realities.

In his role as director of the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Spalding has persuaded donors to give artwork worth $15 million to the gallery's collection during the past eight years. One of the artists on the 1988 glacier trek, Spalding worked with Durrant to get the ball rolling for this year's expedition. Though Spalding hasn't been directly involved in the political controversy surrounding the construction of the Oldman River dam, he shares Durrant's enthusiasm for making fresh connections between people and the natural environment, particularly a relatively unknown region of southwest Alberta which, after this summer, will likely be forever altered by the dam's floodwaters. There are historical parallels for this expedition. Durrant talks about the 19th-century "gentlemen travellers" from Britain and Europe who were the first tourists to visit the West.

He also cites the paintings and photographs of the Canadian Rockies made by artists sent out by the government and the Canadian Pacific Railway to illustrate Western Canada's beauty as an enticement to turn-of the-century emigrants and travellers. Durrant used these as the conceptual models fur his series of expeditions. The Oldman River region presented a sharper, more urgent focus; an opportunity to record a moment in time where the land and its people will never be quite the same, Here on the edge of the prairie, nearing the end of this geographic and spiritual journey, there is little sense of urgency. In fact, By Paula Gustafson (Special to the Herald) "What happens when 35 artists and outdoor enthusiasts share a 10-day expedition across southern Alberta?" David Durrant of Canadian Art Odysseys Society smiles at my question and pushes back the brim of his blue baseball cap. His hazel eyes shift to the riverbank where a group of artists sit sketching.

I recognize Calgary landscape painter Barbara Ballachey, and Tim Zuck from Midland, Ontario. Down river, photographer Robert Blake and some other members of the Oldman River Expedition are aiming their cameras at cutbanks and prairie flowers. Toni Onley, sucking on his pipe, is working on a watercolor painting. Overhead the summer sky carries threads of high flying clouds and birdsongs. "Well, as you can see, the artists make art," Durrant replies.

"But that's the obvious result. There's a lot more going on here, though it's hard to define, and even harder to predict." Durrant isn't being coy. This is the second national art expedition he has orchestrated. In August 1988 he led a group of 32 artists and mountaineers to the icy sweeps of Comox Glacier. For 1991 he has a sailing adventure planned.

A visionary dreamer with the mind of a strategist, Durrant is himself an original. Like the art being created on this journey, his expeditions are about discovering new territory and making fresh connections. He says he hasn't yet set any parameters. "That's why it's so hard to explain the expeditions," Durrant says. "The intention is to put together art, culture and nature.

"Sure, the expeditions are partly a wilderness type of experience, and partly group dynamics, but because the participants are mostly artists there's a synergy that makes the trip more than just a travel adventure. "For instance, there's the re-evaluation that happens whenever you move out of your comfortable, familiar surroundings and open up to a new cultural context; the responses when some or'4 Hi tin mull i Pholoi by Paula GuMafwn SCENES FROM THE 10-DAY TRIP: Historical parallels for the voyage of discovery "It's incredible how everyone has wanted to be part of this experience, and how generous they've been. If we counted up the dollars of all the things that have been donated, we're probably looking at $1,10,000 of support services and supplies," Spalding says. "That doesn't include the hun-Set OLDMAN, B4 ist's work maybe a year, maybe 10 years from now." What can be predicted is an exhibition in July, 1991 of the work of the Oldman River Expedition artists. Along with paying their own travel expenses, they have promixed to produce artwork commemorating the voyage fur the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge.

this fwlx a lot like summer camp, each day dissolving into the next, visual imprexsions tumbling one on top of another. "What you see here is the immediate," Durrant says. "In the longer term, we don't know what kind of spinoffs there might be. Images from this trip, an unusuul land form or a set of colors, might surface in each art GENERATIONS, at 12:30 E.m. on Ch.

3 and 4 p.m. on h. 9-6 weekdays..