The Montreal Star from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 19

McCabe and Mrs Miller (ft) youtur (2) Reviews in foriefi cz I Bananas Woody Allen is Woody Allen is Woody I Allen in this lunatic farce about (among other things) revolution in a banana republic (York) The Conformist Bernardo Bertolucci's extraordinary operatic adaptation of the Moravia novel set In Fascist Italy Starring Jean-Louls Trintignant Stefania San'S drelll and Dominique Sanda A superb film (Place VUle Marie) DsatkinVenice Luchino Visconti's lush romantic adaptation of Thomas 1911 novella is marvellously beautiful but finally more Proust than Mann Writer Aschenbach (Dirt Bogarde) is now a composer modelled after Mahler A film of ravishing surfaces but little depth (Place VlHa Marie) Husbands lesson for one dollar The customer got a worth of lesson but it was a rare bird that leave the studio without signing up for an extensive expensive course As far as I know the dance studio chains have long passed their peak but while the harvest was there they reaped it and for a number of years Some years ago during one of my few flights away from newspapering I set up business as a theatrical press agent and it was in this benighted role that I tangled with Sigma: Carlos The signor was Brooklyn-born and his real name was Pasquale Petrocelli Carlos had been an upholsterer by trade and was a shade over five feet in height standing on a Manhattan phone book But he could dance like Astaire and Gene Kelly combined and with a partner Camille (nee Sarah Solomon of the Bronx) Signor Carlos had carted off a couple of Harvest Moon Ball trophies at Madison Square Garden in New York and ditching Camille somewhere along the line came to Montreal and set up first one sfhdio then another and then another Before long the tiny Sicilian was giving the big dance studio chain fits so much so that they sent the brass up here from their Chicago headquarters and tried to buy Signor Carlos out But Carlos having any Instead He decided he -needed a press-agent-adman and hired me Our asso- elation lasted the better part of a couple of years and the pay was generous until the bubble burst when through a series of Carlos' fool financial manipulations which included raising Ms own salary out of sight the business went bust and the good signor fled town But while it lasted parts of the Job could be compared to occupying one of the padded cells at SL Jean-de-Dieu The little man was constantly holding study sessions with his hostesses when they weren't teaching bludgeoning them Into selling more courses ami at bigger prices The studio finally sold a "lifetime" course for something like 86 000 and If I recall correctly the lucky pupil was past retirement age But this was a day iff celebration and Carlos puffing out his chest said to me: This Is what happens when a guy runs a business right With my studio I don't want no regulations" Even the dance studio business ran Into slack periods and It was during these dry spells that Carlos would puli promotion stunts: such as giving away brand-name ladies' and rasa's wrist-watches to everybody signing up for a $150 course of lessons The watches retailed at something like 863 and Carlos got them for $17 a copy 1 But the Icing on the cake and this was near the end iff the run was when the signor suggested I do a 18-page booklet illustrated on one page with footprint charts of the seven popular dances and on the page opposite a set iff instructions by Carlos written in my best prose We had ordered a run of 10000 for distribution and Just when the boric was ready to roll the printer called me and told me we had nothing to fill the back outside cover I decided to fill the back cover with testimonials which ran something like this: Dear Signor Carlos: How can I ever thank you? For years I was a wallflower unpopular and working at a humdrum ill-paid job Girls passed me by-But then I took a Signor Carlos dance course and today I am happily married with three beautiful children and am executive sales manager of Consolidated Widgets God bless you Signor Carlos! James A Frammis Montreal There were seven such testimonial letters filling the back cover and when the booklet arrived from the printer's Carlos rushed into my office "Good grief" or something he cried "Where did you get these and where are the I told Carlos that the letters were figments of my conniving imagl nation that no such file existed His face foil momentarily then he brightened "Well write some morel" he shouted Way way back around the early years I of the current century when I was a Junior member of the so-called "privileged" class one of the damndest annoyances ever inflicted on a kid was attendance at dancing class Once a week our mothers would scrub our necks slick back our hair choke us into Eton collars and velvet suits and dispatch us to Miss Gladys School of the Dance for Select Young Ladies and Gentlemen Better to have been born in a log cabin and in abject poverty as far as we were concerned For it was at Miss Meatball's dance school that we learned to hate little girls and this antipathy which was shared by our pigtailed adversaries lasted until puberty when we were to find out that girls grew up to amount to something But dancing class while it lasted was pure hell The dance jage really took hold along about 1912 when a slick couple Vernon and Irene Castle (Mrs Castle Invented the boyish bob) became the darlings of society with their performances of such ballroom routines as The Texas Tommy The Grizzly Bear and The Castle Walk The Castles' Turkey Trot was really something to see too and they also introduced the Hesitation Waltz and the One-Step a sprint affair that would leave Jesse Owens gasping for breath My dad always booked a cottage on the Maine coast for the summer and I remember when I was about nine years of age the Castles played an engagement at one of the beach resorts They were Glamor-Plus and while we youngsters couldn't execute the steps we' still cheered our par' ents onas they valiantly attempted to duplicate some of the Vernon and Irene Castle grace Vernon Castle died in a plane crash in 1914 Mrs Castle trained and took on a new partner but the new dance team soon faded from sight The Castles however had definitely popular- 7(4S Sat 14 Vr fc MeOMhaa WUaark A AMi MOONSHINE WAR I Cart SiUy(Mnh) KaOtnua BREWSTER McCLOUD raai 2)30 Sm 7i45 Mm -Tw 4 Vri Danila Mitcham WAT WEST A Y0IIN8 WARRIORS I LAIT 2 1 John indulgent but inter- eating film about middle-aged men who begin to realize that their lives are slip-' ptaqg by (Verdi) van the Terrible Part II One of the greats of the Russian cinema by Eisenstein (Hall Building Sir George Williams University Aug 8 7 pjn) I Juste avant la nuit Another exquisite intellectual chiller by Claude Chabrol about a man who gets away with murder but can't live with the fact (Elysee) KluU Sharp portrait of a terrorized call girl (Jane Fonda) elevates Allan film into a superior murder mystery (Palace) 9th WEEK! McfenaJ Davis ized social dancing and if a boy didn't learn the fox trot and the waits he pined away on the sidelines In fact while a cadet at New York Military Academy in the early 1920s this hitherto sluefooted reporter learned to dance up a storm dazzling the local peasants while on furlough from school with his footwork at the the dansants which were held in that lovely day and age at the Mount Royal Windsor and Hits Carlton hotels And when Rudolf Valentino introduced the Argentine tango in Ibanez' The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse we pomaded our hair and gave our own sleek menacing interpretations of the Valentino choreography The dance definitely was in for a long run of public acceptance and aside from the nightly dancing at the cabarets and in the homes there were ballroom teams being starred everywhere and at big money When I was discussing with a young friend the possibility of doing a Sideshow on the dance phenomena which' lasted well into the 1950s my New Wave confrere pointed out that nobody but nobody dances anymore How right he is! For what passes for dancing today is a semi-cannibalistic set of gyrations and bumps and grinds that have little to do with the rhythm and cadence of the music and even less with grace But what kept social dancing alive for a time and at the same time might have put it to death was the emergence and takeover of the supermarket chainstoie-type dance studios These studios sold lessons ami courses on a planned "come-on" basis and while they taught competently the courses were sold on a sort of packaged-psychology basis designed to dredge every last nickel out of the student "Be Popular Learn to Dance" the ads read ottering a trial A TOTAL SUCCESS 2444 MONTREAL II A beautiful but sometimes pretentious outdoors saga about a small-time card dealer and an opiunvsmoking madam directed by Robot (MASH) Altman Starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie (Cote des Neiges) Mrs Miniver William Wyler's academy award-winning film which follows a family's struggle during the German blitx in England With Greer Carson and Walter Pidgeon (Van Horne) Mouehette A film by Robert Bresson with Nadine Nortier and Jean-Claude Guilbert (Cinematheque francaise Pavilion of the Arts Man and His World Aug 8 and9) Une Partis ds Campagne By the French master of the cinema Jean Renoir (Cinematheque francaise Pavilion of the Arts Man and His World Aug 10 and 11) rotemkin Sergei brilliant 1925 film which revolutionized the concept of editing A must for anyone even vaguely interested in cinema (Hall Building Sir George Williams University Aug 11 7 pm) LeProces Orson Welles directs Jeanne Moreau and Anthony'Perkins in this adaptation of the Kafka classic (Cinematheque francaise Pavilion of the Arts Man and His World Aug 12 and 13) the Matter With Helen? Bizarre tale of disturbed mothers who ruil a dancing school in Hollywood with Debbie Reynolds and Shelley-Winters Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Poor boys can succeed too in this charming musical fantasy adapted by Roald Dahl from -his own book Directed by Mel Stuart (Seville Fairview) 18yrsi ADUD5 starring: JOE DALLESANDRO in color Chfe and highly innovational -THE NEW YORK TIMES last a perfect film from the Los Angeles Advocate organ HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY finest a minor FAMILY TODAY magazine 30 MINUTES FROM MONTREAL 5 I sun Aim a te "01 WOMEN" jj tubs auo lOi and CURIOUS I8ywd I I I HIGHWAY 401-20 QUEBEC-0NTARI0 BORDER SAT AUO 71 inrwo MULES FOR SISTER also INFORMATION 210 MSSES CANCELLED XYnrfto llaiiliol Join us on Morgan Family Days at La Ronde 1 10000 free entry tickets pick up yours at the Sporting Goods or department in any Morgan store Every Wednesday Morgan welcomes you to La Ronde and offers 40 to 50 OFF on all rides for everyone Free gifts distributed every hour by Bozo the Clown bicycles cassette tape recorders transistor radios cameras barbeques So come join in the fun of the Morgan Family Day every Wednesday all summer long! Family days now through August 25th A NIGHTLY 1 730-930 SUNDAY130-330-530-730- 930 TXX HONnm STAX NEWS AND RSVIKWAIXUST ml 19.