The Ottawa Journal from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Page 33

y- Monday, December 19, 1977 33 Star ars ACES HIGH, dale. Frank Daley Aces High a little flat winner. 1 Directed by Jack At the Elm- i The British film industry is in the doldrums days Sir Lew Grade's operations excepted and they have taken to doing co-productions with other That Is not unusual and will get more common what with the shortage of risk capital- in England. Aces High is a British-French co-production but its action and story are completely British. Although this is not a big-budget film there is a long list of name players in Aces High testifying to the employment situation in the movies at the moment.

All-star lineup Malcolm McDowell, Canada's Christopher Plum-mer, Sir John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, Simon Ward, Peter Firth (who has the lead in Equus) and Ray Milland all have roles in Aces High. The story is of England's Royal Flying Corps at the front during the First World War. Pilots were being sent up to combat experienced German squadrons with only 14 or so hours of solo flying. Malcolm McDowell plays the commander of the British air base and his second in command is played by aging officer Plummer who has "shown too much" In his friendship and compassion for the youthful flyers. It is a tale of air battles and frightened men.

McDowell has compassion but hides it under a veneer of professionalism; Simon Ward plays a flyer whose fear is so great he suffers from neuralgia and finally goes mad; Peter Firth is a hero-worshipping new flyer whose inexperience is a problem for both McDowell and Plummer. Nothing grabs The film attempts to be compassionate about the plight of these flyers but it never succeeds in being anything other than an emotionally cool discussion of the problems of the warfare of the time. Some of the aerial sequences are well done but nothing in the movie grabs us and holds us with any power. McDowell as an actor seems to be snarling or at the very least sneering all the time; that suited his role in A Clockwork Orange but he has difficulty being considered sympathetic here. Plummer turns in a nicely judged performance, low-keyed, observant and full of physical detail, but he has little room to maneuver emotionally and like the other actors occasionally falls victim to apparent posturing.

They are not posturing but the interrelationships are so icy that it appears that way. There is simply nothing at all gripping about Aces High. It is an interesting subject and the actors arc good ones but his project just never gels off the ground. Sommerville Housea newish Canadian production operation which has been quietly investing in and making films for the past few years is "coming they have announced a $20 million program of seven films to be made in 1978. All the films will be made in Canada Sommerville claims that it will, in one icll swoop, account for about 40 per cent of Canadian film production next year.

In recent years Sommerville has been associated with films such as The Odessa Flie, The Klansman, The Story of and Conduct Unbecoming while they established close ties with international producers and distributors. "Now our negotiating stance is strong," says president Rosemary Christensen "and we are in a position to pick those properties we feel have the most potential for commercial success." Three almost finished The company will have three films completed by the end of this month. One is Blackout, a suspense thriller starring Jim Mitchum, (son of Robert), Robert Car-radine, Belinda Montgomery, Ray Milland, June Ally-son and Jean-Pierre Aumont. The second is P. Flyer, an adventure story about the trucking industry starring Peter Fonda and Canadian actress Helen Shaver.

It will be directed by Canadian Peter Pearson (who directed The Rowdyman and Rituals). The third film, Violet, Is a true story set In France in the 1930s and traces the development of a troubled girl who murders her father and attempts to murder her mother. This Is a Franco-Canadian production. It will be directed by Claude Chabrol, one of France's leading directors. Plans for 1978 Include an Halo-Canadian co-production.

Operation Ogro directed by internationally acclaimed Gillo Pontecorvo, (Burn, The Battle of Algiers). It deals with political assassination in Spain and stars Donald Sutherland, Michael Sarrazin and Genevieve Bujold. The Runaway is another film in production. It Is a love story starring Canadian actress Susan Clark and William Holden. It will be shot in Toronto and Ireland.

Dr. JeckyH and Mrs'. Hyde Is expected to star Raquel Welch and Roger Moore, the new James Bond. And A Man, A Woman and A Bank is a comedy starring Donald Sutherland and Shelley Duval, who recently shared the best actress award at Cannes with Canadian Monlque Mercure. Finally, Good Morning Midnight will star Glenda Jackson, two time Academy Award By Claude Adams Journal Washington Bureau WASHINGTON It had to happen.

Star Wars, the ultimate fantasy that wasn't supposed to "mean" anything, has suddenly become the ultimate message movie. CrypiO-fascists, anarchists, fundamentalists, students of Zen and other, have pounded on the film, seeing it as everying from an indictment of big government to a portrayal of Judeo-Christian rivalry. French critics view it as a reflection of U.S. callousness toward the crises of modern life, embracing fantasy over fact. The Libertarians, a California group, have translated Luke Skywalker into the archetypal anarchist.

Star Wars is also being touted as a portrayal of the ancient Japanese ideal an old master taking the young warrior under his wing, accompanying him Into conflict, and then giving up his life for him in the best Zen Buddhist fashion. None of this is unusual by Hollywood standards, at least not since Arthur Schlesinger's essay on High Noon, the western classic, as ah allegory of American foreign policy in the 1950s. Vietnam war But the latest, and most compelling, theory is that Star Wars, the biggest box-office success in history, is actually a disguised statement on the Vietnam war. Sources close to the production of the film admit that Vietnam had some influence on the over-all story line and the special effects. "I don't think we would ever have gotten the film made if 20th Century Fox had known there was anything socio-political in it," says Charles Lip-pencott, part of the Star Wars production team since 1975.

"In fact, I don't think it's going to do us any good now," Lippencott added in a telephone interview from California. Without completely subscribing to the Vietnam theory, he said the story was conceived by director George Lucas in 1971, after Lucas unsuccessfully tried to secure the direction of the film Apocalypse Now, the first big-budget Vietnam combat movie due to be released soon. Star Wars, like Vietnam, was and violence and fantasy the fantasy of large-scale aerial bombing detached from actual death and destruction thousands of feet below. Indeed, Lippencott said, the action scenes in Star Wars, notably the combat by computer and the highly-technical The movie that was supposed to be pure fantasy is now claimed to be brim full of 'messages' dogfights, owe a great deal to the U.S. effort in Vietnam, tar Wars, he added, "deajs with a rebel force against a large government.

It deals with a farm boy (Luke) I know this is all bizarre for Americans, they would resist this very much." Director Lucas, himself, in his few public interviews, has maintained that the movie is nothing more than "homage to the Saturday matinees of his youth." But Lippencott, who has known Lucas s'nee they attended film school in New York.City, said that the two men discussed the Vietnam inspiration privately during the making of the movL and agreed not to publicize it. No realization "Star Wars is so transplanted that most people have no realization that part of it is about a Vietnam situation," he says. "My own view is that it deals with the fact that someone who is politically disinterested can be forced to become involved, that one has a responsibility to fight against totalitarian governments in one form or another." The film went through five re-writes between 1971 and 1975. During this time, the United States public consciously turned turned away from Vietnam as a national embarrassment of profound proportions. Perhaps for this reason, one critic has remarked, the film "floats so lightly across political nerve endings that were rubbed raw at the beginning of the decade." But keen observers, who don't abandon themselves to the intergalactic fantasy, might watch the final battle in space and recall the flak suppression and bombing raids over North Vietnam.

One writer who watched the movie paralleled the final-reel action to the experience of U.S. combat pilots speeding through the narrow air tunnel between the MiG fighters above and the flak from the anti-aircraft batteries below. Lippencott also spoke about the "disembodiment from reality" in these missions, where the pilot never sees what he is strafing. While creating the special effects for the battle scenes, Lucas apparently watched film footage of aerial qpmbat since the First World War. Lippencott recalls seeing the documentary Mills of the Gods, an award-winning film made by Canada's Beryl Fox about strafing missions over Viet- -namese jungles.

Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in disguise with Chewbacca I fill HIII I nJ CLK Princess Leia played by Carrie Fisher Fox, he said, demonstrated how easily one "could get sucked into believing there was nothing but jungle down there beneath the bombs and all the technology." This kind of fantasy found its way Into Star Wars, even though Lucas did not drop any overt clues along the way. EVen though the movie has pulled in more than $200 million at the box office already, Lippencott said the producers are uneasy about speculation that Star Wars may have a serious underlying message. This, he said, might alienate older movie-goers who have not yet seen the film. But whatever the merits of the Vietnam theory, it is easily more welcome than that of U.S. fundamentalist preacher "Frank Allnut who claims In his book The Force of Star Wars that the film portrays the age-old conflict, be-, tween Christians and Jews.

That's one that the makers of the most popular movie ever made arc hoping will go away. II wF Vk-W life! Artoo-Detoo John Travolta's stardom was destined, he believes TORONTO (CP) John Travolta believes he Is destined to become a super-star and says he would have made it even without his role as the thick-skulled Vlnnie Barbarino in the television series Wefcome Back, Kotter. Travolta, who was In Toronto to promote his first starring movie, Saturday Night Fever, is a serious actor who has acted on and off Broadway for. the last seven of his 23 years. In the movie, Travolta plays Tony Manero, a working-class Brooklyn kid who lives for disco dancing and although the character Is much like Vinnie, Travolta Is not worried about being typecast, "Actually I like the challenge presented by roles which are rather similar," he said.

In the television series, Vinnie walks heavily and seems Incapable of doing or saying anything graceful. The movie's Tony is the opposHe. Trayol-. ta lost weight and spent months learning disco dancing. The movie is based on a 1976 article in New York magazine called the Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night by Nik Cohn.

Travolta tried to buy the story when It appeared. "It turned out Robert Stigwood (the movie's producer) had already bought it, but then he turned around and offered it to me as part of three-picture deal. The other movies are Grease, due out in May, and a movie with Lily Tomlin. "We've tried to keep It as close to the original story as possible," Travolta said. "Nik Cohn, who has seen the movie, says we didn't miss anything, that all the original values are there and that the character I play is as close as possible to the main character in the story.

"The truth Is, right now, I can do anything I want to," he said. "After I do the Tomlin film I can go back to Broadway." "I don't mean to sound cocky I was thrilled to get the part of Vinnie Barbarijjtt; too," he said..