Daily News from New York, New York • 101

'Deal of the Century': a scam By KATHLEEN CARROLL Yz TESTAMENT. With Jane Alexander. William Oevane. Directed by Lynne Liftman. At the Baronet.

Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes. Rated PG. I AROL WETHERLY uses a Jane Fonda Workout tape to wake herself up in the morning, but DEAL OF THE CENTURY. With Chevy Chaw, Siaourney Weaver. Directed by William Fried-kin.

At the RKO Warner and Gemini Twin. Running time: I hour, 38 minutes. Rated PG. EAL OF THE Cent ury," William Friedkin's satiric "this gift" Or that moment of pure desperation when Carol falls to her knees in despair while gazing at a giant funeral pyre only to feel a comforting hand on her shoulder. She stands up and falls gratefully into the arms of the town's Catholic priest the two of them exchanging a passionate kiss out of a need for some human contact Jane Alexander exudes maternal warmth and strength as Carol, who displays incredible courage as she is forced to cope with the increasingly agonizing situation alone.

Her touchingly restrained performance should easily earn her an Academy Award nomination. William Devane manages to endear himself in just a few scenes as the husband. Ross Harris is most appealing as Brad, who grows up in a hurry, becoming "the man he will not live to be." Roxana Zal is just as sympathetic as the teenage daughter, while Lukas Haas steals all his scenes as Scottie. The reactions of the townspeople do seem a little too stoical at times, unless one accepts the idea that they are simply numb with shock. But even so, "Testament which is based on Carol Amen's short story, "The Last Testament" is a haunting, emotionally devastating movie.

residents of Hamlin, a small California town that somehow remained intact after the initial explosions of several nuclear missiles, must now endure everyone's worst nightmare. They are faced with the dreaded prospect of trying to stay alive in an atmosphere which is already slowly killing them with lethal doses of radiation. What makes "Testament" so exceptional is that Littman records the day-by-day after-effects of this nuclear disaster with such quiet restraint, avoiding the standard theatrics and the hysterical pitch of most movies that attempt to deal with this fearful subject Surprisingly enough, no one actually dies on camera. But the scenes that involve other characters' responses to the loss of a loved one are far more shattering than any deathbed dramatics. In one such scene, Carol is seen stitching some sheets together.

The camera slowly pulls back to reveal that the sheets are part of a shroud which she has wrapped around her "first born." Such scenes are not easy to shake off. Neither is the extremely -moving conversation in which Carol tries to explain the desire for intimacy that occurs when two people fall in love to Mary Liz, who is now poignantly aware that she will never experience she immediately wins the audience's affection in "Testament" by ignoring Fonda's terse instructions and doing a few lazy arm exercises while happily remaining in bed. On the other hand, her husband, Tom, is such an exercise buff that he's out riding his racing bike with his oldest son, Brad. Mary Liz Wetherly, meanwhile, is playing the piano with the solemn dedication of a serious musician. Scottie, a totally irresistible 4-year-old, is preoccupied with his favorite electronic games.

That night, Carol finds herself unable to sleep, having been suddenly struck by the realization that Brad has only a few more years before he'll be eligible for the draft Director Lynne Littman manages to introduce the Wetherly family in such a way that they seem delightfully real and refreshingly normal. They are a prime sample of a contented American family, and their terrible fate is all the more difficult to take. For the unthinkable actually happens in "Testament" Carol and her children are watching "Sesame Street" when the TV set goes blank. Carol's immediate reaction is to have Brad check the plug. But the picture suddenly reappears and, instead of listening to an alphabet lesson, they stare in total disbelief as a San Francisco broadcaster announces in an unusually frantic voice that "radar sources confirm explosions of nuclear devices." He warns against using the telephone and the screen goes blank.

As Carol instinctively reaches for the children, a blinding flash of light fills the living room. The Wetherlys, as well as the other sf h. Carol Wetherly and children wait out an inevitable death after a nuclear disaster. blast at the multibillion dollar arms and aerospace industries, amounts to a cheap shot. The current arms buildup fully deserves to be attacked through the use of satire, but it requires someone with the savage wit of Stanley Kubrick to pull off this kind of comical critical assault' Kubrick's "Dr.

Strange-love: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was loaded with the kind of scathing black humor that made it possible for audiences to laugh at the frightening possibility of some loony public official triggering an accidental nuclear holocaust. "Deal of the Century" may tackle an equally disturbing issue, but it's just offensively silly, an exasperating mess of a movie that disintegrates on the spot. For what it's worth, Chevy Chase plays a hard-nosed, hopelessly self-centered huckster who travels to such global troublespots as Trenton, N.J., using his high-pressure tactics to sell weapons to anyone who is willing to pay his price. After failing to complete a mul-timillion dollar transaction with some lame-brained leftist guerrillas in a third-rate banana republic, he lucks into an even bigger arms deal involving the sale of a remote-control bomber the Peacemaker to the coun-: try's defense-minded dictator. The new aircraft, which looks like a flying Batmo-bile, all but mows down the entire staff of the Pentagon during a.

demonstration test. The company's aggressive marketing director, played with voracious intensity by Vincent Edwards, then orders his new hot-shot salesman (Chase) to try to palm off the faulty "drones" on the Latin American dictator. The Chase character is such a despicable lout that he even tries to persuade his business partner (Gregory Hines) to put off becoming a born-again Christian until he helps him cement yet another dirty deal. The half-baked script is riddled with holes. Friedkin is clearly desperate, for the jokes become more forced.

This crude, tasteless comedy is one deal that is worth passing up. Kathleen CarrollJ 'Experience Preferred': the summer of '62 EXPERIENCE PREFERRED BUT NOT ESSENTIAL. With Elizabeth Edmonds, Ron Bain. Directed by Peter Duffell. At the Embassy 7M St.

Twin. Running time: I hour, 20 minutes. Rated R. IXPERIENCE Preferred but mvm Not Essential" is a cozy, delightfully chatty British com Griffith, Sue Wallace and Elizabeth Edmonds) edy about a shy young student who -learns some basic lessons about life by getting into the swim of things as a waitress in a seaside hotel. It's the summer of 1962 and Annie, a wide-eyed innocent of 18, played by Elizabeth Edmonds, plunges into her new job.

The hotel is full of dizzy employes who, while carrying out their duties, fire away at each other with comical lines. The most irresistible of all is Mike, a lanky young chef from Scotland, who bubbles over with good humor. He is immediately taken with Annie, whom he woos with fancy dinners while biding his time until she feels ready to make love to him The other waitresses, all of them working-class women, are having man problems. Doreen shares a double bed with Paula, who makes love to her waiter boyfriend in the same bed every night while Doreen tries to block out the sounds. Ivan, a homosexual waiter whose dresser is cluttered with photographs of the royal family, has a habit of sleepwalking and he turns up in toddles around in high heels and suf- fers her first hangover before happily g-accepting Mike as her first lover.

She also manages to walk away from him the end of summer which, considering how sweet and funny Ron Bain is in this role, seems a terrible shame. "Experience Preferred does not Annie's attic room almost every night wearing nothing more than a dazed expression on his face. Arlene, who ran away from home at 34, is forever crying in the soup because she is pregnant Her one hope is to persuade her middle-aged boyfriend to take her condition seriously on the faint chance that he might then propose. The movie breezes right along thanks to director Peter Duffell's light touch and its well-chosen cast. Annie, who is anxious to acquire "a past" after becoming friendly with the hotel's glamorous man-killer of a receptionist quite measure up to the high-quality comedies Girl" and Local of that adorable real-life Scots man, Bill Forsyth.

But this jaunty movie displays the same sort of daffy spirit and, as such, it is quite impossible to resist Kathleen Carroll.