Photo courtesy Columbia Pictures

Audrey Hepburn as Maid Marian and Sean Connery as Robin Hood in a quiet scene from Robin and Marian.

REVIEW

Sherwood Forest, 20 years later

by Stephen Underhill

A legendary character for nearly 400 years, Robin Hood, like Peter Pan, never grew up. His career and life always remained frozen in the period of youthful guerrilla warfare against Bad King John and the terible Sheriff of Nottingham. Robin and his merry (perhaps gay?) men, and Marian too, always returned to the refuge of Sherwood Forest, there to remain, timelessly, until story-tellers called them out again to rob the rich, give to the poor, and generally set things. to rights.

Robin and Marian, from Columbia Pictures, is director Richard Lester's and writer James Goldman's affectionate but iconoclastic sequel to the traditional story. In it they try to show what must really have happened after Robin sueceeded in his mission to restore Richard the Lionhearted to his throne. Richard, of course, bored with ruling," returns. to the Crusades, and takes Robin and the faithful Little John with him. Marian is put aside, like the toy she was, while the men go off to do men's work.

Actually, the picture begins nearly 20 years later. Richard is still at it, sacking cities and slaughtering heathen, but Robin and Little John are getting a mile bit fed up. Refusing a direct, but insane, command from their king, who is fatally wounded in the course of doing it himself, the weary pair are imprisoned and expect to be killed. Fortunately, Richard dies first, and they are released to go home.

Returning to old haunts, unkindly dealt with by the years (the famous camp site is a shambles), Robin and Little John are reunitedwith a distrinctly aged Friar Tuck and a down at the heels Will Scarlett. The rest of the band has dispersed, and Marian, they find, has entered holy orders, becoming the Abbess of nearby Kirkley Ab-

nd,

bey. Will sings for Robin some of the songs associated with his name, to which he uselessly objects, "But I never did any of those things."

Learning that the old enemy, King John, has ordered all the higher clergy to leave England, Robin immediately determines to rescue Marian. It is quite a job, since she says she doesn't want to rescued, having renounced her love for him and being set on martyrdom for her faith. The Sheriff of Nottingham, carrying out the king's command, once again finds his favorite quarry spoiling for a chase. Thus, the game is afoot, as another legendary character (Sherlock Holmes) was wont to remark.

The rest of the film is in tension between the shameless romanticism of Robin's and Marian's rekindled love affair, and the bathetic spec-. tacle of men too old for that sort of thing once again playing at hare and hounds. The one unparalleled achievement is the demonstration that medieval England was a messy, dirty, dangerous, and-above allpoor country to live in. About. medieval economics and methods of warfare Lester has no romanticism at all. The village fair is more fleas than market and the armored knights are bullies to whom "Chivalry" means that you bash in the head of anyone less protected.

Perhaps to avoid the possibility of a sequel to this sequel, Lester and Goldman arrange things so that Robin, Marian, and the Sheriff are killed off at the end. As if to pay for her indecent haste in shedding her habit and vows, Marian poisons both the wounded Robin and herself. They have had their glorious Indian summer of love and battle, and so goodnight, before they (or we) have to face the ludicrous spectacle of an apostate nun and a superannuated: warrior setting up housekeeping under the trees.

der

In all fairness, the performers (Continued on Page B16)

Page B14 GAY NEWS May 1976

ON RECORD

by Michael Mascioli

(Continued from Page B13).

SHORT CUTS: Despite a heavy concentration of mediocre material on Word Called Love (Rocket), Brian and Brenda Russell have the potential of being the best male/female duo (a combination which has suffered in recent years due to the prominance of such teams of the Carpenters and the Captain and Tenille) since Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. But Brian's bass voice provides color that even they didn't possess. If the title tune isn't released as a single and properly promoted, someone at Rocket is asleep at the control broad. And "Highly Prized Possession" is nearly as good.

Since, let's face it, disco will fade sooner or later, it strikes me as distinctly shortsighted (not to mention commercialistic) to record an entire album of it, particularly if it is not top-notch disco, which is the case with Penny McLean's Lady Bump. (Top-notch disco, in case you're wondering, is the Manhattan Transfer's "Clap Your Hands".) The problem, quite simply, is that. McLean's voice is thin, with neither the texture nor the skill to sustain interest for longer than one song at a time. Amid trivia such as "Lady Bump," "The Wizard Bump," and "1-2-3-4....Fire!" only "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (disco-fied, naturally) is prominent, simply because it is such a time-tested standard that nothing short of a treatment by Helen Reddy could muck it up.

The Steve Gibbons Band's Any Road Up (MCA) contains the sort of standard and sub-standard hard rock that a hundred better (and) even some lesser) groups could put across equally competently. Only "Spark Love" and "Standing on the Bridge" give any indication why SGB was the only band ever to open for the Who and get called back for an encore.

From their earliest days as Bob Dylan's back-up, The Band was one. of the first groups to blend country/folk into the rock idiom. On Northern Lights, Southern Cross (Capitol), they continue their identifiably mellow sound (thanks in large part to Garth Hudson's lustrous organ) and sharp, twanging harmonies. "Hobo Jungle," "Forbidden Fruit," and "Acadian Driftwood" stand out.

For Chrissake, don't Americans have enough problems without having Atlantic Records saddling us with Michel Polnareff, the French Barry Manilow? Banality is the keynote here, with schlocky arrangements (ever die of a violin overdose? well, brace yourself), soggy lyrics, and tunes so stale that the inside of the album jacket smells like a root cellar. Notable only is his accent-or lack of one-which, I fear, may strengthen his candidacy for popularity among those who don't know any better.

I'm still reeling from surprise at Roxy Music's fifth album, Siren-surprise because, having read some of the titles on debonair lead singer Brian Ferry's solo albums ("Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "These Foolish Things," "Help Me Make It Through the Night") I naively expected nothing less than a Sinatra-smooth (prime Sinatra) voice in an electric-rock setting. What I found, though, was some very macho talk-singing in (Continued on Page B15)

REVIEW

Taxi Driver significant glimpse of lower depths

by David A. Nardezzi

"Is there any decency left in New York? Why does the night bring out all the scum? Why doesn't a rain come that will wash all this scum off the streets?" These are some of the unanswerable questions plaguing Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro), a nobody struggling to be somebody, in the Columbia Pictures release, Taxi Driver. 1

Travis is an average man, trying to make something valuable of his life, who can only land a job driving a taxi through the streets of New York. His frustrating encounters with people who don't give a damn pimps, hookers, junkies, street gays ("fags"), hardhats, and small-time politicians-begin to corrode, then finally break the shaky framework of his sanity.

His personal life revolves around a diary and his infrequent letters to his parents until he stumbles upon Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a political campaign worker as lonely as he is. Their attempt to pool their limited emotional resources and forge a relationship ends in disaster, which further embitters Travis, pushing

him from disgust to hatred. Seeking help to ease the wounds of his rejection, he consults "Wizard," a fellow cab-driver (brilliantly portrayed by Peter Boyle), who can tell him only that he should start in again.

Travis becomes a gunshark and finds his way deep into the heart of New York's slums. There he finds. Iris, a 12-year-old prostitute in the clutches of an uncaring pimp. His encounter with Iris triggers the gripping, extremely violent climax of the film, when the taxi driver's bitter rage boils over and all civilized controls are abandoned.

DeNiro is perfect as Travis, far surpassing his Academy Awardwinning performance last year in The Godfather, Part II. Shepherd is commendable as Betsy, and Jodie Foster's portrayal of Iris is the best acting by a child since Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon.

Directed by Martin Scorsese (whose previous credits include Mean Streets and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver is a compelling drama of urban anomie that will remain significant for years to come. Like Joe and Easy Rider, it is an important film treatment of major moral and social questions.

Photo courtesy Columbia Pictures

Peter Boyle as "Wizard" and Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle take a break from work in the small hours of the morning in Taxi Driver. ENTERTAINMENT FEEDBACK

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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest LP enough to triple its 100,00 units sold pre-telecast... Jaws became gold (1 million units sold) via Best Original Score... Barry Lyndon LP is the nation's number one Classical Album and shows strong pop potential... Keith Carradine's Best Song Award for "I'm Easy" sparked 100,000 units in April (after selling only 75,000 since July 11)...

Speaking of awards, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Paul Mazursky's Next Stop Greenwich Village, and Jerry Schatzberg's The All American Girl are official U.S. contenders in the 30th Annual Cannes International Film Festival... with eight more slots yet to fill, Arthur Penn's Missouri Breaks is a possible choice... some unexpected non-contenders include Bergman's Face to Face, Hitchock's Family Plot, MGM's That's Entertainment, Too, Robert Ender's Hedda, and Helen Strauss' Sara... Hedda was filmed in 1974 and Sarah is yet to be completed... both films star twotime Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson...

20-year old Isabelle Adjani, whose lead in Francois Truffaut's

Story Of Adele H got a welldeserved Oscar nomination, has just completed Roman Polanski's The Tenant... future projects include Andre Teclune's Borocco (on location in Amsterdam), Polanski's high-adventure film The Pirates with Jack Nicholson, and Sydney Pollack's Bobby Deerfield with Al Pacino...

Liv Ullmann's performance in Bergman's Face to Face is deservedly being cited as the best by a woman in a movie since Jane Fonda's in Klute . . . she portrays a psychiatrist cracking under pressures of modern living...

Arthur Penn's Missouri Breaks has distribution in every major U.S. city beginning May 19... it stars Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando in what is predicted to be the most electrifying film of the year...

Earth, Wind & Fire just made their film debut as the singing group in That's The Way of the World... pix features Harvey Keitel and Ed Nelson in leads, with Bert Parks in cameo... it was released by Bryanston, Inc., which just distributed five other thrillers including Symptoms, Teenage Graffiti, Here Comes The Bride, and Last Stop on the Night Train..