Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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'Hopsc< By David Baker Gamecock FMm Critic Backstabbing among members of the Central Intelligence Agency has been the subject of many movies, among them Three Days of the Condor and Marathon Man, but the first comedy to poke fun at America's most despised organization is Ronald Neame's Hopscotch, an $8 million adventure that will be released to several hundred theatres this September. The picture's major selling point is that it will reunite Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, the team that ,made Howard Zieff's House Calls one of the most successful films of 1978. in Hopscotch, Maunau portrays Miles Kendig, a CIA man who leaves the agency to write a book exposing some of its more secret practices. Chapter by chapter, he mails his potential best-seller to his former employers, who decide that Kendig must be stopped. What follows is a funny and thrilling chase across two continents, with Kendig leading the way. * In addition to Jackson, Matthau's costars in the picture are Ned Beatty, Herbert Lom and Sam Waterston. 'The moment you \ personality like Matthai part, you can start thi ferent' kind of film.' D After three months of filming in England, France, Germany and Washington, D.C., the cast and crew of the film (minus Jackson and Lorn, who finished their scenes in England) arrived in Savannah, Ga., to wrap up principal photography. According to Hopscotch publicist Edna Tromans, Savannah was chosen for a filming site not because part of the action takes place there, but because the flatness of the land in and around H HHyKSMi ->trh* rpn Savannah is well suited for aerial filming. The movie is based on Brian Garfield's 1975 Edgar Awardwinning novel, Hopscotch, and Garfield, who also wrote Death Wish, concocted the original screenplay. Even so, when Edie and Ely Landau, the film's producers, first sent the script to Neame, he turned it down. "I rpfnspd it " Npamp saiH "because I didn't, at that time, think the script was as good as it should be. Some three months later, however, my agent called and asked me if I'd be interested in making Hopscotch if Walter Matthau were to play the part. I said, of course. That puts an entirely different complexion on the thing." "The moment you think in terms of a personality like Matthau playing the principal part, you can start thinking of it as a different kind of film. It came to me as a kind of CIA thriller, but it's finished up as a very light ? and I hope highly entertaining ? romp about the CIA. It's not an Escape From Alcatraz.'1 Neame, whose previous credits include The Poseidon Adventure, The Odessa File and Meteor, went on to say that Matthau's participation in the project was inthink in terms of a i playing the principal nking of it as a 'dif /rector Ho ward Zieff strumental in getting the other actors involved. "It had a great deal to do with getting Jackson," he said. When she kne\v that Walter was doing it, Jackson said, "I'll do it just to be working with him again." Beatty and Waterston said they felt the same way. 44I was very interested in the prospect of working with Matthau," Beatty explained, "and I also was very pleased with the prospect of i^?l Hi: ;-; tthorn Gnights" nites M at wBRI^HMmnm^H^^^^K' &< ;i?>.i ^>P&| Actor Walter Matt I working in England again. I had worked in England on Superman and I enjoyed it a great deal. And I like to work." "I've always loved Matthau's work," said Waterston. "I knew him ages ago when I was an apprentice in the theatre and I'm very happy now to be working with him." Neame said that one thing certain to set Hopscotch apart from most comedies is the ' background music he's chosen for it. "We're choosing music from I Mn7flrl anr) Rnccini " ho coi/1 I "because Kendig loves opera ? sings opera all the time!" Neame admitted, however, that if the film is a hit, it most likely will be because of the casting. "They (Matthau and Jackson) are awfully good together. I would love to see them form a team like Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. I think they could make lovely comedies together if they go on. "If nno non firirl cnmo it?uiil luii iiiiu gome imuviioi for them, of course." ?i Steven The figurative/landscape work of Jai by no means the impression such ter conjure. Nor should the additional not smanship, sensitive color and prov< positions heighten the image of meti< dered grass bathed in luminous sunl Steven, the world has fragmented. L puzzle pieces cut from the real world ai wind, they have re-aligned themselves order. Such is the recent work by USC pro! Steven in McKissick Museums' East ( drawings and nine paintings produc summer months expose but fleeting another arena. A place in which all thin \ place in which every form is energiz and color and texture. Heavily stylized, Steven's work fu siderably more effectively when it emb eccentricities.. When it, for instanc special ambiguities rather than clarifie ic iho naoo in tka turn larfloot naintirirtc io vwi,v ?" u,v i"w ,n,svi?i "Souther^ Gnights'' and "Southwestern former has numerous contradictions < scale, like cloud forms that reduce in siz< distance, and apple trunk palm trees th flattened leaves. Another paradox of Steven's work is qnftKty the otimerous small intricate brightly colored areas that ultimately < "fVfc Oil I ^ .LliaU; CM W . . 11111 | -:--pi' pp^^ v- 7 lau (above) andDirector Howa 's eccenti Ties Steven is ability or willing! ms generally image. It is not t ions of craft- viewing a Steven jcative com- few inches, when culously ren- six fe^t in either d ight. No, for ike so many This is not to in nd cast to the from a distance, i in a different appealing when < entire composite . , scured horizon lii essor James color all surge int< Jallery. Nine rusi /vttAM ~ ? ???' cu "?ct uic M3>3 SUC't'C>SlUI glimpses of entirely to the cl gs are equal. paintings on disc ed with light traditional plane portion of the wori the intricate bad inctions con- reduced to simple races its own a haiflKtanc Ac in loet tiaor'c tsy iiviguivaio < tii IUOI j vat c s them. Such Art, Steven is agi in the show, and they still renr Dhase."The tings. "Romanti< )f space and medium size di e but never in Sabastin" series.' at explode in lacking any of tt color he is certai "Lingering Lor the seductive three drawings, s ily crafted or his fragmented st] destroy one's The show will cc 1 iCKSOn . jKSfcv HE :. . , :, ;. rd Zieff (below) ' ? - p Hasifg t ^j^dfl^H^^BBHfiHBSSEsHGB^BBHflBKmS&iB ricities tiess to view the picture as a total mcommon at all to see individuals painting from a proximity of but a the work itself may be as large as imension. nply that the works do not function in fact, they are considerably more >ne forces the eye to embrace the )n. The repetition of motifs, obles and highly contrasting areas of d play when one stands back. / I works in mis collection, and due arity of space, are the five small o dancers. Here Steven allows the of vision to cut across the lower i k; combined with the single dancer, (grounds (full of ambiguities), are backdrops. i show, at the Columbia Museum of lin showing colored line drawings, tain less interesting than his pain- v ; Interlude" is a series of six swings that recall his "Saint Pa mtia tKncA urAi*ftrt? oaaim n/kMU?*i<v<4 V II1V, vnvov nui no .lCTHI I.UIIU IVCU, ie inventive utilization of space or nlv capable of. *> iging" is a more recent series of ind show convincing evidence that yte of depiction is evolv|ng,;.N%\>vt^ rniinue through Feb. 20.