Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 26

liiouies DETROIT FREE PRESSFRIDAY, OCT. 7, 1983 3C A light and tasty 'Romantic Comedy' 1 Good idea gets lost in 'Daniel' In the '50s, Rochelle and Paul Isaacson were electrocuted after being charged and found guilty of conspiring to steal atomic secrets for the Russians. Fifteen years later, their two children inherit a substantial trust fund. Daniel (Timothy Hutton) is a married ROMANTIC COMEDY-' nxaxixm Area theaters Jason Dudley Moore Phoebe Mary Steenburgen Frances Sternhagen Allison Janet Eilber Kate Robvn Douglass Leo Ron Leibman Directed by Arthur Hiller, produced by Walter Mirisch and Morion Gottlieb; screenplay bv Bernard Slade, based on his stage play; photography by Dayld Walsh; music by Marvin Hamlisch, Carole Bayer Sager and Burt Bacharach. PARENTS GUIDE: Rated PG, mild protanity, sexual Timothy Hutton plays Daniel Isaacson in "Daniel." graduate student Jfy DANIEL cuicia 1 1 1 1 () Area theaters with a small son; Susan (Amanda Plummer) an anorexic anti-war activist whose sanity is right on the edge.

Susan wants to use their inheritance to start a foundation for political studies, named for their parents. Timothy Hutton Amanda Plummer Lindsay Crouse Mandy Patinkin Edward Asner Ellen Barkin Harris. Directed by Sidney by E.L. Doctorow. Photo-Bartkowiak.

Edited by Peter Rated strong language, Daniel Isaacson Susan Isaacson Rochelle Paul Isaacson Jacob Ascher Phyllis Isaacson Produced bv Buril Lumel; Screenplay graphed by Andrzej Frank. PARENTS GUIDE: graphic violence. By DIANE HAITHMAN Free Press Associate Movie Critic Bernard Slade's Broadway play, "Romantic Comedy" opened in 1979, the same year Neil Simon's romantic comedy, "They're Playing Our Song," opened. Actually, Slade might as well have called his comedy "They're Doing Our Play," because the plays are almost indentical. Sophisticated, trendy and New York-y stories of frustrated love between two narcissistic, insecure but adorable showbiz misfits with music by Marvin Hamlisch.

Now, "Romantic Comedy" is a movie (which we could call "They're Playing a Movie About Doing Our Play" but let's not). It's the story of successful playwright Jason (Dudley Moore) and not-so-successful playwright Phoebe (Mary Steenburgen), who begin a writing collaboration on the day of Jason's wedding to someone else-On the same day, they fall in love. THE EVENTS are predictable but diverting it stands to reason that Jason would come to prefer Phoebe, a sweetly insecure flake with a gypsy-freak wardrobe (like "Our Song's" Sonia Walsk, she even wears used costumes from old Broadway plays sometimes) to his beautiful, sophisticated but boring wife. And it stands to reason that things couldn't be that quite simple. It takes everyone nine years to work things out and they're all pretty good at summing up each other's character in one-liners that are less poignant and funny than they purport to be, in settings that are expensive and chic.

Slade's touch is a little lighter than Neil Simon's, and there are enough little surprises in the plot to keep it from being repetitive or dull. Still, this probably wasn't a much better story on stage than it is on screen and Hamlisch doesn't mind including swells of music-box tinkly music at the moments that are supposed to be most moving. Mary Steenburgen and Dudley Moore take their time getting together in "Romantic Comedy." Catharine Rambeau movies Both the smiles and tears are so well-calculated one resists doing either, just to avoid being manipulated. MOORE AND Steenburgen do make an attractive pair, though. Even though Steenburgen is not the first and will not be the last to play the endearing but spaced-out heroine, she's wears that funny hat well.

She takes her comic plight seriously, and her character never succumbs to cuteness. There's a certain intelligence and wit beneath the bargain-basement clothes. And Moore, who plays an alcoholic again (remember manages to be almost as attractive as he is supposed to be even without the sad nutshell biography Slade writes in to make sure we understand why he's such a confused and arrogant heel. However, he probably could communicate his escapist desires better without exchanges like: "Is getting drunk the answer?" "No, but it makes you forget the question." "Romantic Comedy" is like croissants and tea light, tasty and amusing enough, but not what you'd really call food. At one point in the movie, Moore says grimly: "When you're writing comedy, and it flops, the result isn't failure it's embarrassment." The results here aren't a failure, either it's just a little embarrassing when a trivial movie about one-dimensional people becomes so totally fascinated with itself.

Maybe it should have been a musical. 'Sean Connery is as exciting as ever in the best Bond movie since 'From Russia With Love'." pat Collins cbs news I mwmmri who were also convicted of espionage, electrocuted and left two orphan children it has to be about something. Too bad Sidney Lumet couldn't have narrowed the movie's focus. What does parental execution do to sensitive, politically aware children, say, with the focus on those children? Or, how are families destroyed, and how do the ripples of their destruction spread? Watch the way Daniel deals with his wife; he clearly is incapable of trusting anyone, and he's not likely to improve. What does that mean for his children? And their children? AMANDA PLUMMER as Susan Isaacson plays madness brilliantly; sometimes she's so ugly it makes you queasy, and Plummer is not an ugly woman.

Ed Asner as the Isaacson's lawyer underplays effectively; Lou Grant isn't even around. As Daniel's wife, Ellen Barkin walks away with the show every time she's on-camera; like Asner, she avoids over-acting, so she becomes as important as a quiet voice in a room full of screamers. But Mandy Patinkin needed to be sat on part of the time. He's OK in the scenes of political catechism with Daniel, but he's all nervous amateur comedian in the prison scenes. And Hutton is shrill, his blue eyes forever ablaze; instead of caring about him, we want to send him to a nice beach for a week or two.

Plummer is intensity itself, but she's supposed to be, and Hutton's best scenes are with her. "Daniel" was a good idea. But it browbeats us like a tract; it's self-righteous and rhetorical and full of expository speeches; and worst of all it doesn't make us give a damn. Daniel, who is determinedly apolitical, does not. And so "Daniel," Sidney Lumet's picture from E.L.

Doctorow's novel, "The Book of Daniel," begins. From there on in, it's all tense close-ups, awkward flashbacks, implied legal nifnawing, old May Day labor marches, political rallies full of Paul Robeson songs (you'll get sick of those, too), and Daniel's anguished gimme a scream search for the Truth. Of course, at this late date, nobody's quite sure what the truth was. And Daniel never asks the obvious question: "Listen, do you think my parents were guilty of selling secrets to the Russ-kies?" Although he talks to old family friends and enemies, goes through mounds of evidence, reads through all the court records, he never asks anyone that question. After awhile, you feel like coaching him: "C'mon, Danny, ask her what she thinks." EVEN THE lighting brings us down.

If the scene's set in the '50s, it's sepia; if it's in the '60s, it's just dark and dreary. It's hard to believe even communists would put up with an entire house in shades of puce. Maybe this is the way Lumet wanted everything to look, or maybe it's cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak's doing. "Prince of the City" and "The Verdict," both his, were full of murk, too. It's maddening to see such a potentially fascinating subject wasted.

But "Daniel" gives us no entertainment, no enlightenment, no pleasure. It doesn't even succeed in making us care very much. Although everyone connected with "Daniel" has emphasized it is not about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg ft fl 1 I 1 1 How film differs from histor 1 who is a neighbor.We are told the; dentist names the Isaacsons as principals after his own arrest. HISTORY: The main accuser was David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's: youngest brother. Greenglass testified he gave Julius Rosenberg notes and sketches in January and September 1945 on the design of the implosion-principle atomic bomb which was exploded over Nagasaki.

Ethel, he said, typed his handwritten notes in September. Before the trial he had denied any complicity by his sister. Greenglass served 9' years of his 15-year sentence. He was freed in 1960. MOVIE: One child is a girl, who becomes involved in anti-war demonstrations during the Vietnam war, and later advocates revolution.

The older, child is Daniel. HISTORY: The Rosenbergs had two sons Michael, born in 1943, and Robert, born in 1947. Michael earned degrees from Swarthmore, Cambridge University in England and the University of Wisconsin. He is now a professor economics. Robert earned degrees from the University of Michigan and taught anthropology; he now is studying for a career in law.

The real sons use the surname Meeropol. They were legally adopted in 1957 by Abel Meeropol, a New York Times NEW YORK Much of the movie "Daniel" derives from the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for atomic espionage conspiracy in 1953. How close is the film to history? E.L. Doctorow and Sidney Lumet, executive producers of "Daniel," say the Rosenberg case inspired both the film and Doctorow's 1971 novel, "The Book of Daniel," on which the film is based. But they assert: "There is no attempt here to be historically accurate." Some of the differences: MOVIE: Paul and Rochelle Isaacson both went to City College.

Paul was a uniformed pro-Soviet soldier in World War II. After the war, Paul is the operator of a radio sales and repair shop in Queens, a borough of New York City. HISTORY: Julius Rosenberg was a City College (N.Y.) student and graduated with a degree in engineering in 1939. Ethel Rosenberg went to work after graduating from high school. In the war, Rosenberg was advilian electronics inspector for the Army Signal Corps.

After the war, he became the co-owner of a Lower East Side machine shop with Ethel's brother, David Green-glass, and two other men. MOVIE: The accuser is a dentist, L3kA writer, and his wife, Anne, a teacher mi "'i 1 00 7 15 9 45 12 10 7 15 9 40 12 00 7:15 9 40 12 00 ll ir 1 00 3 30 7 00 9 3011 45 1:40 4 25 7 10 9:45 10 00 12 15 2 30 4 45 7 00 9:30 7:15 9 40 12:00 7:00 9:25 T7 mm i 1:45 4:15 7:00 9:35 1:00 7:15 9 40 12:00 1:00 7:15 9:45 12:00 7:15 9:40 12:00 i NOW SHOWING TONIGHT AT 7:40 9:55 TONIGHT AT 7:45 9:55 TONIGHT AT 7:15 9:25 drive-ins mw il mM inan-miMt i i ir'w1 1 ii ii i lji tlL Jliri.