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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (June 9, 1975)
n n mi l " "' III I Ill oi pone puy rais Saturday matinees on Sheldon ticket By Greg Lukow If somebody ever puts together a film on The False Myth of the Hollywood Hero, The Great Waldo Pepper would be a must. The movie is slick and hollow to the core, but on this one theme t ranks with the best of them, probably right alongside Errol Flynn's charming, mischievous General Custer in They Died With Their Boots On; William Wellman's white knight, Buffalo BUI (morally aquitted of charges from both buffalo and the Indians); any one of dozens of those "dirty little Nip" War War II movies that use to be called patriotic; and yes, appropriately enough, even a movie like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Appropriately enough because both Butch Cassioy and Waldo Pepper were made by the same people. William Goldman writing, George Roy Hill directing and Robert Redford starring and featuring has usual, neutral stare. Goldman's main purpose in movies sc?ms to be iconizing Redford (He'll get another chance in Redford's upcoming All The President's Men). Hill is a polished, hip yet empty headed, middle-of-the-road director who last year won an Oscar for The Sting. Hill is capable of making interesting movies: Slaughterhouse Five) yet he's never come anywhere close to transcending his , material. Redford is, of course, Waldpo Pepper, a character the movie would have us believe is a 1920s barnstorming, daredevil pilot; one of the last of the real heros with the flippancy and derring-do to turn his tail on all the rules and federal commisions that were trying to regulate his true love of flying. Waldo is. a dreamer whose mentai landing lights are turned when he thinks of how grand and glorious it would have been if he had been the one who had actually gone head to head in a famous World War I dogfight with a , legendary German ace named Ernst Kessler. At the beginning of the film Waldo inserts himself in the story and tells it to a captivated, freckle-faced, Nebraska farm boy. The kid is entranced with Waldo's mystique and the movie's hero worship is at a peak before the ' film is ten minutes gone. But midway through the picture, one of Waldo's friends (or rather an old acquaintance, since Waldo has no real friends, only flying companions, idol worshipers and an idle lover) says to him, "You're not a bad sort Waldo, but you're dangerous." Its a telling line that says more than the movie wants it to. Underneath the outer facade, Waldo Pepper is a real bastard; a thoughtless, careless, hotshot who can make an audience (both those within and outside the movie) laugh and cheer simply because he looks like Robert Redford and is being offered up as a free-spirited, rebellious, hero. They forgive his sins because at regular intervals he appears in a wide array of casts and bandages which serve a token . proof that his impetuosity has not gone unpunished. Waldo Pepper is one of very few movies still filmed in the old Todd-AO, wide-screen processes and so it does have an impressive, wide-open spaciness to go with whatever other minor virtues it . possesses. The dialogue zips along with structured inanities like Redford saying: "There are so many amazing pilots around who can do so many incredible feats with their airplanes." Whole sequences seem to reel off purely for the existence of snappy, kicker lines. One of the choicest corns after Waldo learns he wit! be grounded unless he gets a license He retorts: "Are you going to license the clouds and the rain?". Finally Waldo goe west, becomes a Hollywood stunt flyer, and, in the land where dreams are manufactured as easily as they are in this movie, he finds himself working on a silent movie with his old hero-nemisis, Kessler. For the makers of Waldo Pepper, Redford's final antics serve to ridicule the De Mille-like director and his shallow, movie-making madness on the ground below. But director Hill has "gone Hollywood" more than any of his contemporaries and the creators of Waldo Pepper think exactly like the makers of that same, shallow Hollywood movie, it's all a lie, just like the spellbinding story Waldo told to the young, freckled farm boy. Filmgors searching for an alternative to downtown movies will find the answer in the summer Sheldon Film Theather where they will be able to view such diverse subjects as Jack Nicholson Charlie Chaplin, Indian peasant outcastes and Trigger. All are part of the various programs assembled for the summer schedule by the Film Theater's Director, Dan Ladely. The main series will feature selected films that were critically acclaimed when released but not widely seen because of lack of either distributor or public support. Included are Mean Streets (1974), Martin (Alice Doesn't Live Here 'Any More), Scorsese's drama of New York City's Little Italy; Costa-Gavras' controversial political film. State of Siege (1972); and the Harder they Fall (1973), starring Reggae-music star Jimmy Cliff. These films did not have short-lived runs here in Lincoln but the other four films in the series have never been seen in town. They are A Free Woman by Volker Schlandorff (shown with this, will be a short by independent film maker Coni Beeson entitled Women); another German film, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, directed by Rainer . Werner Fassibinder; Reed: Insurgent Mexico, a historical and political film from Mp.-xicn- and The Kina nf Marvin Gardens, starring Jack Nicholso", Bruce Dern and Ellen Bursty n and directed by Bpg (Five Easy Pieces) Rafelson. , Charlie Chaplin returns this summer with presentations of City Lights and Modern Times, both originally shown two years ago in the Film Theater's successful Chaplin series. City Lights was made in 1931 and is considered to be the Little Tramp's most tender and beautiful film, while Modern Times (1936) has many memorable scenes (in which ' (Continued on pg. 12) j ft Jf0mmm.m : '.J i . wim 1 '"" " , ' f , JS'S It : ru K ; I!' ' OTnfwt - r i ; ; . .J'v - -T il i y -- 4 m k. r , . i - . '' V, ' 1 f I it I J " Ml: J , ! Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and, of Theater's Saturday matinee series. course Trigger wiil b among those featured in the Sheldon Film r Season Tickets $10.00 Individual Tickets $3.00 Box Office House . 1:00 to 5:00 P.M.M-F HOWELL THEATRE 1 2th &R Lincoln, NE - 472-2073 PORTRAITS A musical look at midwestern generations ' STEAMBATH An adventure in cosmic humidity ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL An experiment in deceptive finesse PRIVATE LIVES . A case of sophisticated high jinks PRESENTS tterfl I I i n In Rotting Repertory From June 27 Through September 6. Every night at Eight O'clock (excepting Sunday) si k t.a VJNwSpT- 'iff ilfl f If nobrQGlto ropcrtory .thootr to be announced 1 PERSHinc flUDiTORiumaincom 0 p.m. Sunday. June I5tfi ticfetssSjOO odvonco $6.00dcofshouj , In Lincoln PERSHING AUDITORIUM Box Office MILLER & PAYNE Downtown & Gateway BtreSiwiGN n Omaha TIJEDAISY THE DAISY pTJLsJbTK" HOMERS Old Market Bel-Air Plaza page 7 summer nebraskan