The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 135

The Week Ahead4L Readers' Comments5L ArchitectureIOL Sunday December 25 1983 The Miami Herald Section asaas Stapleton has lived the parts The saga ended Bond was back twice The Right Stuff There goes the movie year The critic who reviewed some 250 films has found his Top 10 adult perspective Grownups had a chance to laugh and to cry and they get that chance so often at the movies Francis One From the Heart the candy-cane musical that ruined Zoetrope Studios finally slunk into town for a four-day run two The Outsiders and Rumble Fish played to modest but enthusiastic crowds If there was a theme in 1983 it might well have been not much for a whole year The bright spots included the rerelease of two classics by Alfred Hitchcock Rear Window and Vertigo (which opens today) the forays into the new cinema of post-Franco Spain Evening Performance Rapture Bilbao Valentina Segovia Escape) and the word that a Miami Film Festival will indeed be staged in 1984 And Scarface for all its faults failed to scandalize the town Most of the films failed to move us much at all But there were moments and here are some of the best briefly re-called: 1 THE NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS Early in this nearly magical movie an old man plays a practical joke on his neighbors in a little Italian town It is late in World War II Italy is no longer a functioning partner in the Axis and the townspeople await the arrival of the Americans as they would the dawning of Christmas morning The old man cranks up his Victrola puts on The Battle Hymn of the Republic and briefly fools everyone But the Americans have not come the Germans have mined the town and the people are split on a course of action Some believe the German assurances of By BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic It was not and this is beginning to have a familiar ring such a great year for movies The Right Stuff came and went trailing its promotional literature behind it an artistic mediocrity and a box-office dud Flashdance was the big hit a surprise even to its distributors who perhaps had underestimated the American appetite for froth in what are perceived as hard times There are omens here: No astronaut movies are planned and no adaptations of Tom Wolfe But many movies about striving dancers and kids-from-nowhere who got to make are likely just around the corner This year George Lucas finished Star Wars and Christopher Reeve said goodby to Superman It was the year in which two James Bond films Octopussy and Never Say Never Again with both big Bonds Roger Moore and Sean Connery opened though not in competition (Moore who has the benefit of the would have won it handily) It was the year in which the male-deflowering movie from the sleaze of Class and My Tutor to the near-art of Risk Business became a subgenre and the year in which perhaps in counterpoint the teen slasher movie fell off (The latter trend came not a moment too soon and not in time to spare us the spectacles of a woman giving traumatic birth to an adult-sized extra-terrestrial in Xtro and a girl being raped by a tree in Evil Dead) The Big Chill and Terms of Endearment two slick and well-crafted movies found their audiences and told us something about Hollywood in the Both were thematic frauds and neither will be long remembered but each was a success if for no other reason than their By CHRISTINE ARNOLD Herald Theater Critic She is both tough with her own tragedy and sensitive to the sorrows of others Onstage and on the tube she is funny as funny can be privately she is a bright and articulate woman well acquainted with the serious side of life She can convincingly play characters as disparate as dingbat Edith Bunker and admirable Eleanor Roosevelt From such conflicting qualities comes the complex actress who is Jean Stapleton Conflict she says also breeds the humor in George he Show-Off in which Stapleton and costar Orson Bean will open the season at Palm Royal Poinciana Playhouse at 8:30 pm Tuesday Stapleton is abundantly familiar with The Show-Off which bowed on Broadway way back in 1932 This is the sixth time she has appeared in the comedy and it will be her longest run in the show particularly if it winds up on Broadway at this point more a possibility than a probability While doing the show this fall Stapleton had to deal with a personal tragedy Director William Putch whom she married in 1957 died Nov 23 at age 60 of a heart attack She had the fortitude to perform on the night of his death during the run in Syracuse NY and she speaks of his contributions to The Show-Off with both strength and fondness Only once in the tense of one of her comments was the newness of her loss evident had a very great understanding of the period of the play a feeling for the and Stapleton said recently by telephone from Syracuse characteristic of his work that you see the touch He allows such freedom for an actor to invent he gives a gentle guidance why the play is still developing The Show-Off written in 1932 and set in suburban Philadelphia in 1926 focuses on the conflict between Ma Fisher (Stapleton) and her son-in-law Aubrey Piper (Bean) It is said Stapleton a case of opposites attacking regard Ma Fisher as a gloomy pragmatist Aubrey is a cheerful dreamer incorrigible poles apart Their conflict is the essence of the play When anything is presented to Ma Fisher she responds negatively painting the darkest But do not think Stapleton said that Ma Fisher makes the play gloomy Nor that The Show-Off is a theatrical relic never known such a play for evoking laughter as this one I think that George Kelly is an unsung great American playwright and that this is his best play a beautifully constructed play so rich in character never had any prejudice about good plays whether they were old or new I seek a good new play but there many around I think we should bring out our best plays and do them from time to Once when Stapleton was playing a different part in The Show-Off comedian Joe Brown was playing Aubrey ostensibly Actually she said play kind of went out the because Brown played himself She believes that performance may come as a sur- Please turn to STAPLETON 4L Slipping moviegoers a new Mickey Ill animation building off Dopey Drive artists have re-created a screen legend: Mickey Mouse local screens with a rerelease of animated feature The Rescuers The focus is on Scrooge appropriately portrayed by Uncle Scrooge Mc-Duck a world-class miser created by artist Carl Barks for Walt comic-book line and previously in just one obscure film Scottish-accented but un-ducklike voice is provided by Alan Young who is best known as the owner of talking horse The cast is fleshed out by Donald Duck (voiced by 79-year-old Clarence Nash the original Donald) Goofy Jiminy Cricket Minnie Mouse and sundry lesser characters from the Disney stable all playing characters not themselves Director Burny Mattinson who joined Disney just as Mickey in 1953 said the story is taken from a Christmas record released in the saw the album and said what a great At the urging of his wife he suggested Christmas Carol Please turn to MICKEY 41 By WILLIAM ASHTON Special to The Herald BURBANK Calif The hallways are covered with small black-and-white drawings of Mickey Mouse Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge all laid out carefully on automobile-sized boards that lean against the walls The offices are filled with more storyboards representing unfamilar characters from the planned Basil of Baker Street Intent young people are working on animated films notably the ambitious Black Cauldron now several years in the making But the talk is about Christmas Carol the first new Mickey Mouse film in 30 years This is Walt Disney animation building The house on Dopey Drive The task of bringing symbol back to life has fallen to a staff of young animators and other craftsmen Vocalizing falsetto is Wayne Allwine 36 A tough assignment: The last guy who did Mickey Jimmy Mac- donald (recently retired) succeeded Walt Disney as the voice in 1947 Allwine makes a living as a Disney sound-effects editor enhancing live and animated films with just the right sounds (Disney has a library of 16000) and practicing the arcane art of (matching the sound of footsteps to filmed action) His career as Mickey began in 1971 when Macdonald then boss was unavailable for a local television show was asked if I could do Allwine recalls went in the other room and Formerly a professional musician and amateur actor Allwine reprised the Mickey role for Mickey Mouse in 3977 and dubbed over Walt Disney for a brief speech in the 1982 state-of-the-art rerelease of Fantasia Allwine was the first person tested for Christmas Carol and is now voice When he does the high-pitched voice of Mickey he even moves like the mouse He is generally paid scale for his mousework The $4-million Christmas Carol based on the oft-filmed Dickens tale was scheduled for release at Christmas 1982 but a 216-month strike by animation workers delayed it principal animation had been done but inking and painting was still Allwine said Mickey playing the part of the beleaguered Bob Cratchit really the star of the half-hour film which is on Mickey the $4 million mouse.