Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 147

ffe7D prison farce evelM By Joseph Gelmls Lewis Van Bergen Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in 'Stir Crazy blackening his face and teaching him to walk black "Stir is full of paranoia and panic behavior individually and in tandem As they are marched with other new inmates to their prison cells and the reality of their desperate predicament reduces them to hysterics Pryor and Wilder take turns having nervous breakdowns and giving each WWW STIR CRAZY (R) An out-of-work playwright and actor are framed by bank robbers and Imprisoned Zany slapstick romp might have been tedious without the expert mugging and comic timing of Oene Wilder and Richard Pryor who play it like Laurel and Hardy Oo To Prison Before his near-death from severe burns Richard Pryor had made another movie with Gene Wilder called "Stir and it opened today at local theaters Because we know yet what kind of work Pryor will be doing now that he has found God and has been born again "Stir has a special significance for those who take their comedy Beriously Pryor and Wilder are one of the most amusing comedy teams in contemporary movies That was evident when they had to share the screen with a railroad train and Jill Clayburgh in "Silver It was really a movie about Pryor and Wilder being kept apart by a screenwriter In "Stir Wilder and Pryor play respectively an out-of-work playwright and actor framed for a bank robbery in a provincial southwestern town where NewYawker is a dirty word The local hanging judge sentences them to 125 years in prison "Stir is a prison movie in which all sorts of from the melodramas of the 1930s to the modem expose of brutal are turned inside out for laughs The prison humor begins even before the heroes reach prison when they are first jailed before trial Pryor changes his walk and manner swaggering and scowling trying to look Baaad Act tough he whispers to Wilder or the cons will treat you like a sissy Wilder tries but just not bad got the arrogance the stride the rhythm Directed by Sidney Poitier "Stir provides Pryor and Wilder with innumerable such excuses to do what they do so well together to do variations on a theme They react with the same awareness of what has to be done but with differing skills in their ability to do it The Walking Baaad se- -quence is the same basic gag they used in "Silver when Pryor was trying to sneak Wilder past police by reviews Stir Crazy (R) Popeye (PG) Tess(PG) Numbers it end of each listing present the movie theater that his the corresponding number on the timetable which appears on Page 9 PREVIEW NEW ON LONG ISLAND aCHURH TOE (28 38 41 57 84 13 1M ISO 172 189) (PG) FGPEYE Overactive underwhelming musical strains to bring the sailor man of comic strip and animated cartoons to life Robert Altman directs from a Jules Feiffer script Songs by Harry Nilsson Shelley Duvall is cute as Olive Oyl Robin Williams in his movie debut is better than his material The scene-stealer is grandchild as the lost mannered performer in the film (30 34 17 41 46 68 94 113 117 138 154 187 178 180 (H) STM CRAZY An out-of-work playwright and actor are framed by bank robbers and imprisoned Zany slapstick romp might have been tedious without the expert mugging and comic timing of Gena Wilder and Richard Pryor who play 8 like and Hardy Go to Prison" (28 73) (PG) STEEL Race against time to complete a skyscraper on schedule Filmed during actual construction of Kincaid Towers in Lexington Kentucky Lee Majors plays a skittish ironworker struggling to overcome his fear of heights With Jennifer O'Neill Art Carney George Kennedy (28 38 40 41 57 84 83 98 118 124 172 189) REVIEWS WWW (PO) AIRPLANE! Zany spoof of the "Airport" disas-ter-in-the-air movies Mildly amusing hyperactive gagfest that's easy to take and easy to forget With Robert Hays Robert Stack Lloyd Bridges (13) WWW (R) ALL THAT JAZZ Medical musical about a dir-ectorchoreographer whose dissipations lead to a confrontation with death and a caustic review of his life Dazzling dances photography editing Provocative ambitious pretentious format Roy Scheider is brilliant as Bob Fosse's semen persona in the semi-autobiographical film (Some nudity) (40) (fl) AMERCAN GIGOLO A glossy view of the sordid world of an LA male prostitute who becomes chief suspect in the kinky sex murder of a client The characters am unsympathetic the film all style no heart Richard Gem Lauren Hutton star (Nudity) (7 (PG) TOE AWAKERNG Archeologist is bewitched by 3500-year-old Egyptian queen whose makes for such a dull movie the viewer risks paying to be put to sleep Chariton Heston Susannah York Stephanie Zimbalist (83 97) (R) BOOGEY MAN THE A haunted house with a broken mirror whose shards make people do nasty things Susanna Love Ron James and John Carradine (19) WWW (P) BLOOD FHKL A Sicilian widow tries to avenge the murder of her husband Instead unwillingly she attracts two passionate love rivals a rich and confused Socialist and a gangster m- turned home from America next page other psychic first aid while the shot-gun-toting guards fume Wilder is a Buperb farceur Pryor a first-rate writer and stand-up monolo-gist They have an affinity that brings out the best vibes in each other They are accomplices but civilized not antisocial outlaws in a barbaric world of criminals and corrupt lawmen That bonding and the gentleness of their relationship is part of what makes their slapstick more than shtick Their affinity is chemical They share a state of mind speak a common language They can communicate as much by the traditional body language of the circus clown as by the wit arid wisdom of Shakespearian clowns In a crisis their eyes bulge their rubbery mouths become sheepish grins or twisted Bilent screams Or they stutter some word in disbelief a word that allow itself to be uttered and named a "Woo of minds struck childish by fright The plot of "Stir i irrelevant It has something or other to do with Wilder being a natural born bronc buster who agrees to ride in a rodeo competition fin: his prison warden because his cellmates have a scheme to break out during the show If Wilder and Pryor work fin: you enjoy their mellow tomfoolery in "Stir If they don't you Without them the movie would be nothing The movie is R-rated for profanity and a brief scene with topless dancers WW POPEYE (PO) 'Overactive underwhelming musical strains to bring the sailor man of comic strip and animated cartoons to life Robert Altman directs from a Jules Feiffer script Songs by Harry Nilsson Shelley Duvall is cute as Olive Oyl Robin Williams in his movie debut is better than his material The scene-stealer is grandchild as the least mannered performer in the film Being immersed for nearly two hours in the claustrophobic comic strip world of is like being trapped in a stalled elevator or a doomed submarine with raving lunatics without fresh air Help your nervous system signals your brain get me out of here Written by Jules Feiffer directed and in the process reportedly altered and trivialized by Robert Altman was shot on the coast of the island of Malta where the mythical seaport of Fairhaven was built With its impossibly tilting shantytown shacks steep streets beached ruins of ships the set is the real star It is file comic strip frame a playground a stage a hive on and within which the supporting cast swarms and Altman choreographs his customary collective frenzy succeeds in shaping flesh and blood with costumes and makeup and sound effects into the characters among them Wimpy the hamburger junkie Olive Oyl and her parents who run the town boarding house Bluto the presiding bully who shakes down the timid townspeople for taxes in the bmm of the absent commodore But the characters are forced to repeat and embellish their mannerisms ad nauseam grandchild who plays baby is the most endearing character in the movie because the most natural He looks tv-3 i c-t on Page 10 I Part 117 Paul Dobliy (Wimjfy) Shelley Duvall and Robin in 'Popeytf.