The Minneapolis Star from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 31

Weekend The Minneapolis Star Friday, Oct. 31, 1980 TONIGHT SAT. NTTE 8 P.M. MAGNOLIA JAZZ BAND From San rancisco 'Stunt Man9 makes mischief, 'movie mask9 I pAvtaurojl Ktr IT ADI VtrV I it j. )VK and 5C you, the natural response is to resent being manipulated; here, as in "The Sting," the response is exhilaration in discovery, and perhaps admiration for the filmmaker's technique.

what makes it such an enter "The Stunt Man" COMING NOV. 21 22 TEE EAST COAST ALL STARS FOR INFO CALL 452-1868 EMPORIUM OF JAZZ MENDOTA eniov the warm Hinincr mmgalow Inn. in rysta SUNDAY VIKING HOME GAMES LAKE R0 CRYSTAL serving the finest fffffp7 FOOD COCKTAILS ou will thoroughly atmosphere at the Bungalow Inn. The ideal spot for an appetizing noon lunch or a leisurely evening dinner. Our friendly waitresses make vou feel right at home.

Remember, for superb, "re- iaxea aining it tne OPEN BUSES TO AU. GOPHER we can do," hollers Cross, swooping across the heavens, "he would be a happy man." Lucky is confused by Cross. He first of all appreciates being hidden, but in time discovers that this is not the same as being sheltered. As a stunt man, Lucky has to leap from towers and tirop off roofs. They are breathtaking stunts, and make for some of the most exciting sequences in the movie (Cross' and Rush's movie).

It's all the more so because Cross has a penchant for "crossing" his employees. The movie he's making is about war, and in order to capture genuine terror on film Cross is not above letting Lucky rip through a canopy that the young man had been told would catch him. It's perfectly safe, even if rather mean. And it makes Lucky wonder how much realism will be required to satisfy the director when he shoots the scene that killed the first stunt man. Add to this the fact that Cross' girlfriend and leading lady (Barbara Hershey) has fallen in love with Lucky, and you have a situation that warrants wariness.

While viewers will identify with Lucky (because his head is spinning nearly as fast as ours), they will also harbor suspicions of him because it is still unknown why he is on the run. (And Lucky looks pretty sinister being played by Railsback, who portrayed Charles Manson in CBS' 1976 "Helter Skelter." If any of this sounds straightforward on its face, bear in mind that this is only one face. A new way of sizing matters up lurks at every turn in this energetic film, practically at every cut and Rush does some wonderfully bold ones. The film swoops and careens like Cross' crane. The reason it's so daring: The hand on the controls is firm and knowing.

Many times when a movie tricks tatning minor masterpiece. It opens with a chase scene. Two squads of police are closing in on a man wanted for a crime that is not revealed, but that (to judge by the coldblooded looks of fugitive Steve Rallsback) is most likely in the league of people-eaters like Ed Gein. Railsback is fleeing across a narrow bridge when an immaculate, vintage automobile pulls over, apparently to pick him up. But at the last minute, the driver shoves the fugitive onto the road, does a U-turn, and roars back as if to run him over.

Instead, he swerves off the bridge and into the river, leaving the fugitive staring into the water after the vanished car. It is an eerie, silent moment (and film students are tempted to compare it to the classic short about death and film techniques, "Incident at Owl Creek None of the familiar standard A Steve Railsback tin Featuring TINY OVSHAX at the Piano Fri. Sat. Nites 52 ot BASS wmsm, Wllllli'mk HURRY! Ends October 26. NEIL SIMON'S "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" Don't miss this one.

Rated "Extraordinarily funnv. and yet also charming, by the New York Times. LIVE 8 PM Fri. and 3 PM Sun. Matinee TICKETS: $6 $7 $7 $8 Sat.

RESERVATIONS: 553-1 155 COMING NOVEMBER 6 make waves, just applause at this American tap-dancing musical comedy. battleship full of laughs. ABC-TV. "DAMES at SEA" By Ptayzra ftrrs Productions. RADISSON INN PLYMOUTH Highway 55 at U94 Plymouth, MN (612)553-1600 You won't great It a CADISSCN playhouse Director Rush asks why Selling film was best stunt umi null Ma MHMnKpi jj I 11 UHTI.

I ,1 JI.UH.JUU industry. It might be ego. Maybe because they turned it down once, they didn't want to change their minds. "There could be other reasons. Like when somebody goes to a movie, it's as though they're betting four or five bucks that they're going to like the picture.

They put it down at the box office as sort of a voucher that 'I am ready to be "When a studio executive goes to see a movie like this he's saying, 'I hope I don't like this thing, because if I do I might have to make a decision that will cost me my Job. Miumpolli Stir Suff Writer On the one hand, there's "The Stunt Man," a joy buzzer of a moviesudden, deceptive, and a little On the other hand, there's "The Stunt Man" a filmmaker's genuine jewel. It has, Imbedded in a sterling action-adventure setting, a gem of a story that changes dimensions and acquires new surfaces with the changing of the light. Between the two hands, there's a movie with something to please anyone. "The Stunt Man," which opens today in the Twin Cities, is a splendidly complex creation you don't have to think about to enjoy.

But few people would be able to resist thinking about it. Director-writer Richard Rush has knit a pattern of psychological mischief so neatly into this film that it cannot be pulled loose. Nor should it be. That mischief is the real fun of this film 4 O'Toole Hurt gives inside view of outcast (Hurt, from Page 4C) the character and the scene as it's possible to be." Whatever Insights Hurt brought to the role were not a result of delving into the considerable material available on the real John Merrick. "I generally don't do a lot of research," he said.

"The business is to pretend to be who you're playing, and there are thousands of ways to do it. For me, the Inspiration has got to come from the script. I've got to be as true to the writer's idea as I can imagine." Before his memorable portrayal of Quentin Crisp, Hurt made it a point to meet Crisp only briefly "because it would have been too easy for me to just mimic him." The role made a star of Crisp as well as Hurt. At 68, the former clerical worker and artists' model became an internationally known critic and lecturer, but Hurt is not sure Crisp was pleased with the characterization. "You will never get a direct answer from Quentin.

Ever," Hurt said with amusement. "After the screening we set up for him, I asked, with great trepidation, Quentin, what did you he said, 'it's a lot better than real life because it's so much Hurt's next appearance will be in Michael Cimino's $42 million Western epic, "Heaven's Gate." Hurt plays a Harvard classmate of Kris Kristofferson in the film, to be released In November. By then, Hurt begins work on a film for the Disney studios tentatively titled "Wind to the West" and based on the true story of two East German families who escaped to the west in a oaiioon mey constructed themselves. After that, Hurt's schedule Is free. A clergyman's son who grew up in various parts of England and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he is -optimistic that his reception as "The Elephant Man" will bring him an attractive offer or two.

"I have no Idea what's coming up," he said, "but if 'Elephant Man' is really successful, there should be something. Just now, it's wait-and-see-pudding." STORE I I ALL YOU CAN EAT PEPSI rfl m.n tAlHIONflO lllill I orra tarns nov. is. CM aU v. -m i Director Rlclurd Rush Producer Rlchtrd Rush Executive Producer Melvin Simon Screenpliy Rlclurd Rush Book-- PeulBrodeur EH Croej Peter OToole Cimeroo Steve Railsback Nina Franklin Barbara Hershey Sam Allen Goorwttz Jke AlexRocco Denlae Sharon Farrell Twentieth Century-Fox dlstrlbutet "The Stunt Man," a Melvin Simon Production rated for robustnest, now showing at the Skyway Theater In Minneapolis and Cina 4 In St Paul.

The advance screening of this film was made available free to The Star by Twentieth Century-Fox. cops-and-robbers actions that elapsed during the previous five minutes seemed very familiar, and certainly not reassuring. The camera seemed always slightly off-balance, the editing, more than a little desperate, almost hectic. And now, out of the sky over Railsback's shoulder! floats a helicopter. Dangling from it Is a man with a movie camera.

In the pilot seat sits Peter O'Toole, staring steel-eyed at our man on the bridge, who wisely sprints away once more. O'Toole, we soon learn, is Eli Cross, a film director whose leading stunt man has just driven off the bridge and drowned. To avoid a scandal over the death, and because he takes a peculiar shine to the boy, Cross assigns the stunt man's identity to the fugitive, and dubs him "Lucky." They're a twisted pair, Lucky and Cross. The director is a mysterious, but grand, autocrat prone to sweeping flourishes of language and movement. We often see him careening around the set aboard a platform that swings from a crane like a wrecking ball and proclaiming what he loves about the deceptive nature of "movie "If God could do the tricks that book blockbusters and made-for-pigeonholes-movies, it took him the better part of the nine years he spent on "The Stunt Man" trying to raise the $6 million he needed to produce it independently.

For light entertainment, after all, it Is remarkably dense. And he acknowledges that "the talent of reading and interpreting screenplays is something actors have, writers have, and that many studio directors don't have. "But," the director continued, "everybody knows how to look at a movie. That's what's puzzling me." "The Stunt Man" is a hard movie not to recognize as wonderful. Yet the same studios that declined to finance it, also declined to distribute it, even after preview audiences in Seattle and California acclaimed it and proceeded to set box office records.

Twentieth-Century Fox finally picked it up and is promoting It satisfactorily, but for a while it looked as though the movie was going to die. Rush, whose last picture, "Free-bie and the Bean," was successful, can't understand It "I think it might be that that old dependable thing called greed has somehow been replaced. It used to be you could rely on that. And now I'm not sure it's what's running the is coming to the Metropolitan Sports Center OCT.30-NOV.1 THREE MAJOR CONCERTS DAILY SEMINARSI featuring THURSDAY p.m. Barry McGuire Dave Boyer John Fischer "Cruse Family The Wittys FRIDAY 6:30 PJSh Imperials Jerry Lucas Doug Oldham Bill Pearce Stephanie Boosahda IMPERIALS Full One Hour Concert October 31 SATURDAY Andrew Culverwell Leon Patillo Danniebelle Hall THREE-DAY TICKETS $7.60.

$9.50 $12.50 ONE-OAY TICKETS $3.50. $4.50 $6.00 EVEKySUNDl 099 i Professional thinkers were dissecting reality as a concept decades before it ever came up at a Hollywood story meeting. Today entertainment speculators talk about "concepts" at their meetings the way underwear manufacturers probably talk about the widths of elasticdiscussing in dispassionate, JrQ A Rush practical terms how thin they can make a product and still leave the public feeling comfortable. So Richard Rush wasn't surprised that, in this era of comic Auditions Th St. Paul Clown Club Inc.

has openings for any person 18 years and older who Is interested In becoming a clown. The club will help with makeup and costume. For more information and a Clown Club application form, call or write Bob Klrkwold, 3526 Ebba White Bear Lake, Minn. 55110 (777-0595). The Storyulers are looking for an actresssinger (lyric soprano or light mezzo, aged 18-28) for their holiday show "The Red Shoes." Auditions for this paid position will be at 3:30 p.m.

Sunday at the Playwrights' Center, 2301 E. Franklin Ave. Interested persons should prepare a ballad and contemporary comedy piece. THE Guthrie's Christmas Carol MINNESOTA CHORALE BENEFIT Dec. 2 8 P.M.

$1250 $1500 (PARTIALLY TAX DEDUCTIBLE) For Tickets: 333-4866 Carriers for The Minneapolis Star EARN THEIR OWN SPENDING MONEY. For more information call COUPON Regular-Cut PRIME RIB DINNER plus Dessert ana Beverage Regular-Cut Si I 1 a if mm- rrimt: niu All-You-Can-Eat Salad Bar Baked Potato Warm Roll with Butter Choice of any; Dessert A complete meal at one low price Choice of any except miiKj CelwbU HlkU-4ll C.irI A. N.E. A kCika smith Of RrookiTB Park Brooklya Blvd. Beverage -1 Oa wilaa Shoppla Caatar) (Aoraa fro.

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Baaa Laka Boad (Navt ta Crratal Stata Baak) Offer good all day Sunday only. At Participating Steakhouse Cannot be used in combination with other discounts. Applicable taxes not included Ponderosa is open from 11 OO am daily. St. FaalPhalaa Park (Aajaeaat to Phalaa Park VtSA ftf good ftt til paiuUpAuuj Tsimi'I Kwt TU Kims kuj fhLnl Cvuyvil..