Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 114

On Movies 1 Sex and the Single Girl Doesn't Go by the Book By Mike McGradv Ask yourself tin's liow would von liked making a movie out of something called and the Single I low would you have liked transferring Helen Gurley- Brown's sexual primer for sopliomoric secretaries to the screen? IIow would you have built a script out of such nuggets of fem-ininj advice as beautiful and smell Or beautiful apartment is a sure Or highly recommended: little suppers in sexv little It have been easy And considering Hie ti-k Warner Brothers did the only sensible thing they kept the title and threw away the book They id a few idea sessions and then dumped the whole mess in the lap of author Joseph Heller and allowed him to add his special brand of insinitv There's still enough in the way of college humor to upset the moralist Still enough in the way of plot inanities to alienate us pure drama lovers But and this is a big but the new movie and the Single is not as bad as it should have Iktii not as bad as we had every right to expect it to he You'll liugh The slapstick has been well blended with sitire by director Richard Quine some good enwinble work by Tonv Gurtis and Njtilie Wood as the title characters Count Bade playing an uplieat Neal I lefts score And finally there are some fine jabs at the worlds of nrginicd psvehiatry magazine publishing traffic i l'lth wedding anniversaries and most rewarding of all Helen Guriev Brown We open on a hoard meeting of Stop a magazine that his learned the dolljr-value of sensationalism got to keep getting worse in order to get Circulation is zooming mainly the scoopstcr (Curtis) has written an expose of noted sexologist Dr Helen Brown (Njtalie Wood' implying that she speaks but not from experience kid lias been giving flying lessons juJ site's neser been off tlie Tony nines in for great personal praise from bis pul-luhcr the Chief (Fdvvard Everett 1 Im ton): "If thcic is a dirtier mind thin yours in the whole fill I if magazines or a nature more vulgar well I just know where it is" Wc cut (iiicklv to' the Institute whcic Dr Brown is upset In- the article She nr Doesn't that raises the uglv specter of her virginity She turns to psschialiist Mel Ferrer for some scientific advice lie says "I am tlie Institute's psvihia-tiist and I know tint slicks jud stones will biejk your Ixjiics but Curtis assigned to follow through mi his sump conics to Dr Brown disguised as a patient lie feigns a try at suicide and Dr Brown delivcis this scientific 'momentary: that a naughty tiling you did trying to kill It's nutty It's not for children And eventually a great many things happen some of them imohing llcuiy Fonda Lauren BicjII and a lovely young singer Iran Jeffries The insanities crime to i logical conclusion in a wild C'haC sequence involving everyone in the plot as well as a speed-happy taxi chiver an ice (icam vender a variety of expendable autos and a cop (airy Storcli) who has his cycle shot out from under him jul goes hciwik (basing cuavonc to the airxut Storcli is 1 ist seen at the liiporl shouting want all moving vehicles everywhere to halt ha cry-one everywhere is under And ilimhing into the police psycho-wagon he points at a disappearing jetliner and says "Driver dlow that Any movie that ends on the line "Driver follow that well it's a big step up from the inik Other new films: TI1H PLEASURE SEEKERS Or the single gills and sex Trio of typical Anieikiu girls (onus to Spain and meets iiewqrijH'mieu Spaniards publishers nuriied men and other exotic types bind romance trorddr an! uhimitcly love Film is aimed at the clche seekers Panicli Titfin Aim-Margiret Gird Iyiley Anthony Tram insi Color GUNS OF AUGUST Barbara Tu liman's 1xx seller the story of Europe bcfoie and during tlie 'irxt World War Ins been carefully rescan lied ami presented in painstaking th tail Iciigthv documentary proves once agiin that war is lu-ll Missing: tlie excitement of a fresh point of view the spuk of originality I'ritz Weaver irrilo Tonv Curtis Researches Natalie Wood 's ji This Week's Openings nmadwiv Alice" Tomorrow at lie Billy Rose A new ji'iy Jv Edward directed bv Alan Schneider and stilling Sir loin Gielgud and Irene Off-Rroadway "Balict in tliv Today at (lie Orpliemn Rii Reoyiii mu-iei! adapt it ion of "A Midsummer Night's Drenn" with Jolccii 1 odor and Carol Glade Willi a Wednesday at tlie Renata A jtliv In- Dons I eing with Virginia Downing Jenny and ledie Redbud i sr Film Gives Clear Picture of Racial Conflict fight his minister father ail Uncle Tom and nssoitcd mill foremen and toughs who want him to nb'Cixc the amenities of social custom Then lie begins to feel that imriiige is a trap that cjisnarcs Negroes win) must eiubue humiliation boy answer me from white bosses for tlie weekly paycheck He relicls Firt against the bosses Then against bis wife It is in the scenes with bis alcoholic father (Julius Harris) and the father's common-law wife (given a strong peiformince by Gloria Foster) that Duff secs where his frustration hate and self-pity will lead him Misdirected resentment made his father abandon Duff a a child and Duff leave liis illegitimate son in turn He stops running returns home with hi sou promidng to some trouble in that tow Film Is Restrained Tlie film is oddly restrained neither too impassioned nor especially cool or hip which makes it seem perhaps a trifle too long Yet it is precisely this feeling of culm that makes it such a totally credible fine and true picture There are no contrived gimmicks like the interracial marriage in Potato Two which proved to be an irrelevant prelude to a far-fetched child custody tear-jerker And finallv one of the best things alxmt the leisurely unfolding of the central plot of But a is that it releases our attention occasionally from the actors so we can look at the desolate backdrop of poverty Like the striking tur-rcted towns and castles incidentally included in the distance of medieval religious paintings these bleak landscapes may be the images that remain longest in mind when the film is over Bv Joseph Odin is Whenever a movie about Negroes opens there arc alwavs a few or (oimncutators who try to siv something nice ahrnt it win) overpraise or bend over Inckwards to find merit in it because of a misplaced generous impulse Since a drama is good or bad for reasons other than ideological it is a plcisu'e to report that But a new movie alwnit Negroes deserves any praise that it gets Not that it i a fliulcss film or a great one It tends to exaggerate so tliit all the white acton are or become villains It never really gets away from The Froblcm Rut it transcends the social consciousness melodramatic or tear-jerker categories with deft handling liy new filmmakcn Michael Kociner (director -scriptw liter) Robert Young (tamerjman-scriptwritci) and Luke Bennett (editor) The movie's strength is that it forcefully shows how it is in a typical redneck Sou them town Tlie script dwell on message on propaganda No sermon here alrout how deprivation racism and breeds uioic violence frustiation bate or do-feat The camera shows all that eloquently in sordid squalid street and shantytown location shots of vacant-eyed men and listless children living alongside junk heaps on the outskirts of civilization Nobody iui to talk much about prejudice bias or the noble traditions of the South The story of Duff Anderson (Ivan Dixon) the Negro cx-CI trying to live in tlie Southbut refusing act tlie to white men get is personal and explicit enough Duff the misfit marries (Abbey Lincoln) has to Monday December 28 1964 Abbey Lincoln Is Kinbraccd in But a Man 3.