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Mfl HHJ . ^N^^HHBH^bbbSHI e. n . ^BHHrVRH^MnHEeWTn I I kiffi"^fld.' ^ Br i^hIBI W SHVtlJR a^^^^8H^^|R Jmm|HHBHF Hp <\njp^HjHHp^ ^?* P.V . " *. ' Til Barbara Harris and Bruce Dern star in Alfred Hitchcock's worst film called "Family Plot." This forgettable travesty is from Universal Pictures. Mr; ,j f i f\- >' imam.- l r i i.v.qrv^M -. . >.?? tVf ..,H r .-l3e[ :/, .; ,! j i r.t n i, - i. v ? . t Mmsrsssasti WML. 8-TRACK TAF wjBSEj Mk (DOES NOT INCLUDE CUT-< HPldim if CM* / OR OVERSTOO P* IhN b Mm"/ SELECTIONS) 933 Main St reel Store Hours Weekdays 10 a.i Hitchcock fails 'Family PI By Sam L. Irvin Jr. Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot is one of the larger cinematic disappointments of the 1970s. On a level, of pure entertainment, it offers nothing--not even an interesting story. On an avant garde level, the film falls even shorter, lacking the ingenuity that has, uniii now, maae any Hitchcock film worth seeing. Based on the book The Rainbird Pattern, the story centers around a fake medium Blanche (Barbara Harris) and her accompliceboyfriend-cab driver Lumley (Bruce Dern). A client of Blanche named Julia Rainbird (Cathleen Nesbitt) has offered $10,000 to the norcnn u/hn pan 1 rvViae II IWUV^ I1V/1 UUO U sister's illegitimate son who was disowned by the Rainbird family upon birth. Miss Rainbird wishes to apologize and will her entire fortune to him upon her death. Blanche and Lumley set out to find the now-grown man, whom they eventually track down as being a shady jeweler named Adamson (William Devane). Adamson has been involved in kidnapping wealthy people and demanding jewels as ransom. His accomplice in these deals is the lovelv Fran (Karen Black) who does most of the dirty work. When Adamson and Fran find Maysles to Columbia Museum of Art in cooperation with Greenville County Museum and the Joynes Center of Rock Hill nrpspnt* tho Independent American Filmmakers South Carolina Circuit made possible by grants from the ^ National Endowment for the Arts ?AND II r\ i i T v m m. - 7 p.m. I I lot' disap Blanche and Lumley snooping around, they mistake them for investigators uncovering their own evil profession. By the time Blanche and Lumley finally catch up with them, they do find out the truth about the kidnapper-jewel thieves. After victoriously capturing the criminals, Blanche finds the missing jewel with a surprise debut attack of authentic extrasensory perception. U.. 4 ? i iic av:i cunjJid y uy x^i iicm JL A* 11 man is full of half-baked cliches and rampantly lacking in suspense and substance. Presented entirely tongue-in-cheek, Lehman found it approrpriate to commit such inexcusable blunders as allowing Blanche to turn to the audience at the end of the film and give us a iirmlr wAiirv. One scene has Lumley and Blanche careening down a mountain side road in a car with no brakes. Instead of playing for suspense, Lehman has emphasized a comic treatment where Blanche keeps trying to grasp Lumley for security, which only causes his driving to he worse This sun posedly funny sequence painfully goes on three times longer than a very polite audience felt fit to laugh at. The only mystery here is why on earth Hitchcock ever chose a story like The Rainbird Pattern and accepted sucn a poor screenplay appear on and the S.C. Arts Commission. The circuit continues its 1976 series with Albert Maysles showing his films, Salesman, Meet Marlon Brando and Cristo's Valley Curtain. The films will be shown at 8 p.m. Friday at Belk Auditorium of USC's College of Business Administration Building located in the 1900 block of College Street. The public is invited and reserved seat tickets must be picked up at Columbia Museum of Art by noon Friday. Admission is free. OFFER GOOD FOR 1. 2. 3. 4. 5 OR DINNER SERVED MON. THRU SAT. 4 PM-8:30 SUNDAY?11 AM-8.30PM * LUNCH SERVED 1 1-4 P.M. Mori.-Sat. $199 VALID ANY DAY THRU MAY 3.1' (not valid for banc DBBHDBSD pointing * ! treatment as the Lehman atrocity. It actually seems like a rough cut of a rejected "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television episode. The pace is as slow as Hitchcock is old, and there could be a connection here. The actine is onlv fair with Harris giving the best, but overdone performance of Blanche. Black is completely wasted in a nothing role that provides her with no more than a couple of pages of dialogue and a couple of nice Edith Head costumes. ITo iro 1 1 < ? pjt l/hiionay wdD llllCIIUfU IOr this part, but had to back out at the last moment because of pregnancy. Dunaway must be greatly relieved that She had to cancel her contract. The photography was appallingly blase, and the print was i so aarK tnat even the light scenes seemed to have a black haze over them. The music by John (Jaws) Williams was far too h#?aw fnr tho J -V. ?^ silly proceedings. It is evident that even Hitchcock knew this because in many scenes, the score is turned down to a lower-than-normal volume. If it were not for Hitchcock's name on this film, Family Plot would not even be considered. We hope it will be forgotten, and Hitchcock will be remembered for his earlier efforts. film <r* ireuit Perhaps the most successful and most self sufficient of independent filmmakers are the Maysles Brothers-Albert and David. Through smart distribution of excellent feature length Hnr?mentarif?s in the earlv fifls these two filmmakers have built a strong center for urban based independent filmmaking. Salesman was one of their earliest works. It exists as a document because the Maysels knew their subjects and gained their trust. ^ if# ^ EACH 6 PERSONS TAX PM ^\l 976 \ jueis) FOREST ACRES 2120 BELTLINE BLVD. Phone 782-6367 IWIMHtUHBmi