Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

bin tent By David Baker FRm Critic From its sublime opening scene, a flashback in which a mannequin is torn limb from limb by four white stallions running in four different directions, to its exquisite climax, wherein the walls of a pyramid come crashing aown around our gorgeous but intellectually neutered heroine, Franklin J. Schaffner's "Sphinx" is a howl. It fails so totally and is so funny in doing so that the only recent movie it can be compared with is "Airplane." i y\ )a w \ h\rrv3 Frank Langella comforts "Sphinx". \ KZIBB WMrr'.'' .-^^XHSEHnil( V The boc Columbia's two finest publica ^ the S C. Book Store and the Hi Book Store, have in their I greatest band of marauding pii in North America. They plunder, they rob, they | pilfer and when they're finished merrily and board their diam ship, floating to the Caribbean t< loot. Once at their secret link of ii meet with the leader of the caneers, named the "pirate ] where the booty is divided and buying new, over-priced, unstun Nwhat is the origin auseating creatures? Very sir in years ago, a local Columbia dvertised seeking employees --- ainmer linx' John Byrum, the infamous hack writer who most recently plundered Carolyn Cassady's eccentric novella, "Heart Beat," now has taken Robin Cook's 1979 best-seller, mediocre as it is, and turned it into a preposterous 1980s version of "The Perils of Pauline," complete with every overworked cinematic convention of the past 50 years. THE SCINTILLATING Lesley-Anne Down, her hair cropped short and died a shade of red so blazing that even Lucille Ball would envy it, plays a lovely young / II ipMHfer i wH| jj|p" ^Mfflk : i^HP^ .xX# Lesley-Anne Down in ykstore\ ition outlets, small, developi ,, .. A _ r A a jssen House ^ tuPy 01 mai s< employ the the hands of son rates known the Florida k( they stole a va pillage, they disguised as sm i, they laugh suits and secure ond-studded Not two yeai a count their started skyrocl^ book-selling. Tl slands, they South Carolina | book buc- one-eyed cha publishers," questions with a invested in The amazing i riy tomes. is that nobody f?1 Lfnuar li'on ?vfvi . UVC of these looked exactly t riple. About back in a ponyU newspaper their shoulder. - for some hila F.ntfliehujnmon namoH l?Vi?n ?* viiiuii itumvu jut ivn Baron. She's an Egyptologist by trade, even though she has never before visited Egypt and she doesn't know the first word of Arabic. On her first sightseeing trip to the Land of the Pharoahs, Erica wants to get in a bit of research for a paper she's writing about an obscure Egyptian architect named Menephta. Polaroid in had, she sets out to discover the real Eygpt, but the darndest things keep happening to her along the way. Fat, greasy Arab men continually bump into her, while homy little Arab boys launl ner, touch her and pinch her shapely derrierre. The little boys who don't want to fondle Erica throw stones at her and the men who don't collide with her pull knives on her, toss her down stairwells, smear her make-up, muss her hair, soil her clothing and shoot at her. The Arab women in the picture all lie to her. ON A ROUTINE souvenir hunt, Erica witnesses the murder of a crusty old blackmarket dealer. Horrified, she runs through an open-air market, knocking over dozens of vegetable stands. Even when a path clears for her, she careens about, destroying people's wares, screaming incomprehensibly and just generally providing the Arabs with something to laugh at. On another memorable excursion, this one into the Valley of the Kings, Erica is thrown into a tomb. There, she trips over mounds upon mounds of unwrapped mummies and is attacked by bats. Upon escaping, she is made love to by Frank Langella, double-crossed by Maurice Ronet and laughed at by several more Arabs. Is it any wonder she can't get her research done? And if you think the situations Erica gets into are hilarious, you'll split your sides ovsr the dialogue she utters as they unfold. A few examples: 'I WAS JUST checking to see if the labels have been ripped off the mattress." (Erica to the hotel bellboy, after he's discovered her |y?i ng bookstores here in town, ilf-same paper found itself in ne hideous bums hanging out ?ys. As soon as they saw this, n and headed to Columbia | art businessmen in pinstripe d the jobs. *s passed when the prices ;eting in the two places of i he owners were no longer g gentlefolk but grisly, grimy, 1 raptnrc ~ ~ 1 U V VV1 O W II\# UII?WCI r"i| single response: "Ay." aspect of this whole charade suspected the pirates had b ry worker in the two places | he same with their hair tied ail and a parrot perched on People never even noticed see File, page 9 ;V jK&: ; Eavotn/naist Las/v-Anrm Dr / i ? ? r fwo witness a murder in "S m " Lesley-Anne Down is thre discover the secret of an an* hiding under the bed from an imaginary thug.) "My God, they're biiiig!" (Erica, upon first glimpsing the pyramids.) "I don't like having my face slapped, even when I am hysterical." (Erica, after slapping the face of a man who's just slapped her in an effort to stop her from screaming.) With lines like that, it's amazing that the performers and the rest of the creative Dersonnel could havp takpn "Sphinx" seriously. But every scene, no matter how small or insignificant, is played absolutely straight. In that By rum's script gives the viewer so many opportunities to poke fun at, i** | ll This ghastly pirate prepares cents to pay for a book. Note s,du )wn is forced to be quiet by phinx." atened by John Rhys-Da\ cient Egyptian tomb in "Spt and even talk back to, the characters, "Sphinx" should < well become the next i "Rocky Horror Picture j Show." SCHAFFNER'S DIREC- ! TION, as always, is stoic, but Michael J. Lewis' score * heaves and blares, booms J and thuds with every attempt on Erica's J'fe or wellbeing. And with each c glimpse of a pyramid, a ! mosque, the Sphinx or the Nile, finger cymbals ting, as ? if to acid an air of mystery to . all the splendor. 1 There is no acting in the picture. Down screams and c whimpers her way through s one convoluted scene after [ another, while Langella ? flares his nostrils and Ronet a l : :vV ; to draw a sabre against a si the long hair. (Photo by Chi ft imb BP H :5. ' \ n i s f ? ' <1 " v s & : # ; >:: -s , x ? .] 1 Jr: 1. l~ * % : Maurice Ronet after the fies as he attempts to linx." raises and lowers his iyebrows (sometimes one and then the other, iometimes both at once). John Gielgud is on hand only ong enough to have his hroat slashed and his head I )ushed through a plate of ?lass. He should consider limself lucky. Because bad movies are a lime a dozen and true hoots ire becoming hard to find, ilms as wretched as this ,hould not go unseen. In fact, his one has to be seen to be >elieved. "Sphinx" may be mtlandishly stupid, but it's .eldom dull and a funnier >iece of trash you're not roino fn fin/4 -1 nytime, at any price. tudent who lacks three P Lowell)