Time Listings: Apr. 25, 1969

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(3 of 4)

SWEET CHARITY. This adaptation of the Broadway musical about a heart-of-gold "hostess" fairly bursts its seams with misdirected stylistic energy. Shirley MacLaine is a commendable Charity, and some of the tunes are catchy, but the result is sadly lacking in vitality.

RED BEARD is an Oriental Pilgrim's Progress in which Japan's Akira Kurosawa explores the psychology of an ambitious young doctor until his frailties and strengths add up to a picture of humanity itself.

THE SHAME. Ingmar Bergman tells a painful parable of the horrors of war and the moral responsibility of the artist. This is his 29th film and one of his best, with resonant performances by Liv Ullman, Max von Sydow and Gunnar Björnstrand.

3 IN THE ATTIC has echoes of both Alfie and The Graduate, but viewers may find themselves being won over by its own sleazy charm as it spins the unlikely tale of a campus Lothario (Chris Jones) whose best girl (Yvette Mimieux) develops a novel and strenuous plan to punish him for his infidelities.

BOOKS

Best Reading

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: A LIFE STORY, by Carlos Baker. The long-awaited official biography offers the first complete and cohesive account of a gifted, troubled, flamboyant literary figure who has too often been recollected in fragmentary and indulgent memoirs.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Through flashbacks to the fire bombing of Dresden in World War II, this agonizing, outrageous, funny, profoundly rueful fable tries to say something about the timeless nature of human cruelty and self-protective indifference.

URGENT COPY, by Anthony Burgess. In a collection of brilliant short pieces about a long list of literary figures (from Dickens to Dylan Thomas), the author brings many a critical chicken home to roost.

REFLECTIONS UPON A SINKING SHIP, by Gore Vidal. A collection of perceptively sardonic essays about the Kennedys, Tarzan, Susan Sontag, pornography, the 29th Republican Convention, and other aspects of what Vidal sees as the declining West.

EDWARD LEAR, THE LIFE OF A WANDERER, by Vivien Noakes. In this excellent biography, the Victorian painter, poet, fantasist, and author of A Book of Nonsense is seen as a kindly, gifted man who courageously tried to stay cheerful despite an astonishing array of diseases.

THE MILITARY PHILOSOPHERS, by Anthony Powell. The ninth volume in his serial novel, A Dance to the Music of Time, expertly convoys Powell's innumerable characters through the intrigue, futility, boredom and courage of World War II.

TORREGRECA, by Ann Cornelisen. Full of an orphan's love for her adopted town, the author has turned a documentary of human adversity in southern Italy into the unflinching autobiography of a divided heart.

THE SECRET WAR FOR EUROPE, by Louis Hagen. As he explores the development of espionage agencies and replays many a cold war spy case, the author presents a detailed view of politics and espionage in Germany since 1945.

THE MARX BROTHERS AT THE MOVIES, by Paul D. Zimmerman and Burt Goldblatt. Next to a reel of their films, this excellent book offers the best possible way to meet (or revisit) the Marx Brothers in the happy time when they had all their energy and all their laughs.