Film

Ken Coupland

ly that even the mere threat of danger or violence (and the film gets violent) has a heart-stopping credibility.

Foreign production has its own reward; Petrie could take advantage of the talents of Stephane Audrane (strangely uncredited; were there billing problems?) and Mathieu Carriere, who plays a visiting missionary with his mind on positions he'd like to try out on Sutherland, and who contributes a touching cameo in a scene where, in bed with the unwilling boy, he reveals the

hidden anguish of a man of the cloth who's tormented by his vows of chastity.

The film's underlying premise, which we only come to understand at the end, is that the seeds of shocking violence are rooted in the same domestic hardship that test, and ultimately prove, the young hero's strength of character. An achievement of this maturity and depth bodes well for Petrie's future production. Let's hope he has a chance to pursue his vision in his adopted homeland.

Labor of Love

The Bay Boy✩✩✩2 At the Cannery

Put a respectable (Raisin in the Sun) if somewhat undependable (The Betsey) director together with a project that's dear to his heart and, in fact, autobiographical, and the result is a small miracle of filmmaking from director Daniel Petrie.

Canadian-born, Petrie struggled for years to get this story of his Maritime boyhood up on the screen; not surprisingly it didn't happen from Hollywood, but was made as a Canadian/French production, and filmed in Petrie's home town of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

Petrie wisely takes his time establish Time Warp

ing the tale of a teenager growing up in a desperately poor Catholic family during the Depression; the absolute rightness of young Keiffer Sutherland (son of Donald and a dead ringer for his dad, though he's far prettier) in the role has a lot to do with how well he succeeds. Liv Ullmann plays the boy's mother, who bakes pies and takes in lodgers to make ends meet, while his father, ACT's Peter Donat, tries to put his failed bottling business back on its feet.

While all this may not sound exactly glamorous, The Bay Boy's sure-footed script, limpid photography, and finely shaded characterizations make it stunningly effective. Petrie has established his story and the people in it so assured-

✩ZEZZO⭑S

PRODUCTIONS

The Heavenly Kid

At the Galaxy

It's 1960 when Bobby Fontana (Lewis Smith) buys it in a daredevil game of chicken that goes one further than the classic confrontation in Rebel without a Cause; the idea is to bail out at the very last minute before the cars hurtle over a cliff to certain destruction. Bobby fails to bail out, and finds himself speeding through the night on a subway train filled with other passengers who are also, it turns out, dead.

Bobby ends up in Midtown (purgatory to you mortals), styled in urban contemporary (natch), and he's assign-

presents

1st ANNUAL

ed to a bike-riding, grizzled ledgerskeeper who informs him he won't be going Uptown (you're catching on) until he receives his assignment.

Now this is rather fresh, funny business, but Kid takes a nosedive when Bobby gets the assignment to straighten out a present-day "wuzz" (how would you spell it?). The movie. turns into the standard high-school wimp-turns-on-tormentors re-run we've endured ad nauseam. Sorry guys, but the timing is wrong; Back to the Future beat you to the story by several first runs, and half a dozen plot twists.

As it happens, Bobby's been called. back to prove his capacity to love in this case, the wimp, Lenny (Jason Gedrick, who's his son as it turns out) Continued on page 16

MALE STRIPPER CHAMPIONSHIPS

ALSO FEATURING

4th annual

Ms. Nude America

1985 PAGEANT

with...

"Waylon Flowers and Madam"

Tickets Available At All

BASS, Ticketron

SATURDAY EVENING AUGUST 10th, 1985

8:00 P.M.

SAN FRANCISCO CIVIC AUDITORIUM

August 1, 1985 Sentinel USA 15