Coral Gables Historical Archive
The Times
Saturday, May 15, 1976, page 11 (of 26)
The page
The text of this pageRead by computer from the scan, so some words may be wrong. The page picture is the original.
What's Happening
12 TIMES/GUIDE Weekend of May 15/16, 1976 What's Happening
Big names wasted in violent, senseless film
movie review ... erica meyer The Missouri Breaks is a disappointing movie, perhaps because the names Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson lead us to expect too much. The film is a routine western. Nicholson heads a gang of horse rustlers and Brando is the "regulator" sent in to round them up. Sideplots involve Nicholson in an affair with Brando's boss's daughter and set Brando up as an Irish character with a cold heart and a penchant for bird watching and lavender-scented bubble baths. The movie is terribly violent. There isn't more than one-night's television worth of death, but each death is savage and the savagery is unnecessary even within the context of the film. The Missouri Breaks are a set of rugged hills and overgrown prairies in Montana near the Missouri River. Here Nicholson and his gang steal horses and relay them to other areas to be sold at $20 a head. Here Nicholson's girlfriend, Jane (played by Kathleen Lloyd) lives with her father, the judge who hires Brando. The scenery surrounding the people is vast and beautiful, but the shallowness of the characters and the flimsiness of the plot are hard elements for a set of hills and a wide river to overcome. Miss Lloyd and Randy Quaid turn in better acting jobs than either Brando or Nicholson. Miss Lloyd makes Jane a far cut above the usual whey-faced western maiden. She is tempermental, naive, vulnerable and strong-willed. She is also the only likeable person in the entire movie. Quaid, whom I remember fondly as the young prisioner in The Last Detail which also starred Nicholson, is pretty good. As a young rustler, he is gangly and appealing. Chewing on his hat string as he watches his buddy slowly choke to death on a hanging rope, Quaid's expression is the only anti-violence comment voiced - except Ms. Lloyd's later objection that the hanging should not have been so slow and the body should have been cut down before a week was out. Nicholson's portrayal would be accepted as a bit above average if every regular movie-goer didn't know so well what greater heights he is capable of. Given that he didn't have much to work with here, Nicholson sluffs off the role with a few grim facial closeups and a laconic bitterness permeating every action. The rustler is sardonically humorous with his comrades, reluctantly romantic with his girl and very slow with his revenge. Brando is far sadder to watch. Nicholson at least gave the underlying feeling that he knew the plot was hollow; Brando takes the whole thing seriously. Dressed in lavish leather fringes and riding a horse laden with heavy fur blankets (during a western summer?) and hand-engraved weapons, Brando mumbles to himself and even in moments of crisis seldom shifts facial expression. It is hard to tell, with both Nicholson and Brando, how many of the problems with Missouri Breaks come from lazy acting jobs, from Arthur Penn's direction or from a weak script. It may be both men were acting their little hearts out and the movie simply couldn't prove it or support it or deserve it. That is my suspicion. There is a lot of swearing, a lot of killing and one quick shot of a dying man's bare bottom. The only sex is either minor romping or graphic but totally clothed. This isn't a movie for children at all and with other new offerings in town this week, it is a lesser entertainment for almost anyone. The only element that kept me absorbed was a sure hope that eventually the movie would fire and begin DOING something. It had the potential and wasted it; nothing caught. A string of nasty killings does not a movie make. I left the theater angry. Brando Nicholson
Players 'Porter' shaped up into fun show
play review ... r. lawrence tobin Cole Porter was one of the first composers to have an evening dedicated to his work, even before the nostalgia craze was so rampant. A bunch of performers, well known in their own right, took it upon themselves to create "The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter." As done orginally, the show was part tribute and part spoof, not just of the composer but of the personalities identified with so many of his works. Kaye Ballard's rendition of "Down in the Depths" a la Mercer needed no introduction or explanation. By contrast, in the current effort by the Players Repertory Theatre to recreate the show, Wendy Dillion's colorless performance of that number is beyond the rescue of any patter as is Ed Lupinski's totally misinterpreted rendition of "Gigolo." Other than these two gaffs this company manages to intrude successfully some of its own values into the patchwork of chiefly lesser known Porter songs mounted on a set by Lyle Baskin which together with Barbara Bogusk-i's costumes evokes an appropriate, '30s to '60s atmosphere. Flora Lerman is clearly the comedic savior of the evening with her hilarious treatment of "Primitive Man" and "Something for the Boys" to mention only two, along with her many supporting bits. Dillion redeems herself with "Tale of the Oyster" as does Lupinski with "I Happen to Like New York." Dan Duckworth is full-voiced and funny in his solo number "The Life that Late I Led." Given the basic bent of its talents this is probably one of the greatest challenges the Players has every undertaken. You've got until May 30 to see it.
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