No, there's always gorgeous Vivian Leigh in frothy, corny TOVARICH, Dane Clark (replacing Jason Robards) in A THOUSAND CLOWNS, and Gertrude Berg in DEAR ME, THE SKY IS FALLING to convince us that life is a delight. A THOUSAND CLOWNS, by the way, is a marvellous exposition of individuality and "you've got to know what day it is." Seldom does such a funny evening carry so many penetrating ideas (by Herb Gardner, creator of the Nebbishes). I have seen it three times and each time gathered greater freedom of the soul.

THE CAGE is a modern number of exceeding frankness by the NYC Ballet. A tribe (animal, insect, human?) of females requires initiates to kill a male. The choreography is so graphic one feels he has just witnessed a lesbian orgy. APOLLO, danced by Jacques d'Amboise, is a performance of outstanding beauty and excitement. D'Amboise is utterly masculine, as beautiful as only Apollo should be, and, I have from an authority, too happily married to encourage our dreams. C'est la...

FREUD's fine reviews had not prepared me for the excellent film it is. Most significant is the fact that a movie has probed deeper into the sexual theories of the "first analyst" than last season's Bdway play, A FAR COUNTRY. This is amazing since Bdway can, and generally does, exercise greater license in its use of vocabulary, images, and the expression of ideas. FREUD is never 'sensationalism," but it is candidly written and directed. Since both play and film were based on Freud's experiences during the formulation of his basic concepts, the cases are similar; but, whereas in A FAR COUNTRY the emphasis is on a heterosexual problem with only objective reference to parental influence, in FREUD even the · heterosexual maladjustment, in the primary case, is affected by strong subjective Oedipus and Electra, influences. The film smoothly and frankly handles oral fixation and the full impact of infantile sexuality. One case concerns a boy who is so "Hamlet" it's frightening; another more significant in the doctor's "breakthrough" into the subconscious is of a girl who is not only very "Electra," but who also dreams of snakes, staffs, and towers; the third important study is of Freud, by Freud, and involves not only a serpent bracelet of his mother's but the inclusion in a dream of the Hamlet type boy whose symptoms had so threatened Freud when he first observed them. Clearly, these cases lead to the Oedipus theory and are tastefully presented by a disceming director who knows just how much to "give away" and how much to mask from those who won't quite understand. The film offers material for empathetic self-analysis but is not bogged down in pretentious (or "sick") psychoanalytic mumbo-jumbo. You should see it.

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CURRENT CAMPS: Brendan Behan, author of THE HOSTAGE (see Jan. REVIEW) is in town (Gawd halp us!) and showed up the other night at the play singing, swearing, and interrupting throughout, was called to the stage for curtain calls, and sang a most vulgar ditty....A line in BEYOND THE FRINGE goes something like, "Why go to movies to see narcotics; adulttery, incest and perversion? You can enjoy all that at home!"... Ohe lawyer, specializing in certain cases, is leaving his card in certain men's rooms-a timely reminder. ... There's a wind-up-doll joke about one of NY's actors: "You wind it up, and it cruises the front row."

In May: "Men on Canvas"... with illustrations!

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