The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 2

THE AGE, Friday, June 11, 1976 HOME NEWS THE ARTS RAILWAY SLEEPER SLABS edited by JOHN STEVENS CINEMA 'hif win AM nw timber $2.50. Dalivarlu all suburbs ftd gum suppliM. Bricktr Chaltanham 95 1420 AH 836 6169 Woodstein on the Watergate scent COLIN BENNETT PERSIAN CARPETS Special Queen's Birthday Holiday AUCTION SALE MONDAY, 14th JUNE, 3 p.m. RAILLf HALL Tyrone Sift, Yam. (rtr 55 Commtrci! Rd-l Keeping you posted on the PO wags When people keep telling me how bad Australia Post is, I say to them, "Where's your sense of humor?" INSPECTION: Mwidav.

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MelQOurne, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide. Tel. 379 2325. I I lOBTOE chell is given his fuming moment as a telephone voice. Inevitably, the film does have an element in it of the old Hollywood vision of the Press; hold the front page and all that.

But the director shoots with maximum realism on locations, or facsimiles of them: the Post reporters' room, all glaring white light, in violent contrasi to the scurrying silhouettes outside in the night streets of Washington. Not to mention the dark garage where Woodward's top-secret contact, a shadow mischievously nicknamed Deep Throat (who, it's said, could have been anyone from a CIA man to Martha Mitchell), fed him tantalising cat-and-mouse pieces, of the jigsaw. And Pakula is adept at subtle deep focus, used for irony in a linal scene wherein Nixon is sworn in for a second term on a foreground screen while, behind him. Woodstein bash away at their machines, beginning to destroy him. All is made as exciting as possible under the circumstances.

The circumstances being that most of the revelations were aural, not visual a few words or sometimes a telling silence on the telephone, which is an instrument that can kill tension. 4 in so many stories of detec-tion, that tension does drop slightly in the middle stages of a long film, when Woodstein are momentarily stuck. It is ihe Haldeman business that saves it as drama. The reporters overreach themselves on the strength of their hesitant sources of information, and the White House briefly counterattacks to challenge their credibility. The fiim ends where Nixon's troubles really began, the moral being thrust home with typewriter and teleprinter letters in gigantic close-up, smashing out the sequence of the Administration's downfall, the keys amplified to sound like an army of truth on the All the President's Men is really, a semi-documentary about baring facts, the processes of investigative journalism, the slog of phone calls, the hangs-up and slammed doors, the rebuff and the evasion, and the hurried denial that comes before any accusation.

And documentary is the best way to tackle a story that's so incredibly close, if it is to be made into entertainment at all. So it's a handicap that two film stars, rather than unknown faces, were deemed necessary to mime Woodstein's astonishment as each new fragment of thread in the pattern is revealed. Characterisation is totally unimportant, however; and the two actors play, it straight, sans heroics, concentrating on the stunning business in hand, the only business that really matters. VO self-respecting journalist can help being gripped by the story of how junior reporters Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post uncovered the news story of the century, the conspiracy behind Watergate. So perhaps we are not the most objective judges to recommend Alan J.

Pakula's reconstruction of their book, All The President's Men (Capitol). Still. I cannot imagine the layman failing to be held, as in a vice, by this detective story of terrier-tenacity by the young team (here impersonated by two stars, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman), colleagues who apparently did not even like each other much. After the weird little news item appears in 1972 that five burglars have been arrested in Democratic headquarters, we watch Woodstein (as they came to be known) probe, dig. ferret and worry their story in endless phone calls, refusing to stop the questions when the voices at the other end grow nestitant or cold.

Back they go regularly, to report to superiors, the Post managing editor (Jason Robarls) and his strong henchmen (Jack Warden, Martin Balsam), who debate at editorial conferences whether to encourage or even sack them. Pakula and scriptwriter William Goldman navigate us with -J ffr Vou ill minin QAine(Qffer II on ofi.r. 4(6 and vou Irff deln.r in tlw inlfpalua art. Dustin Hoffmann as Carl Bernstein and Robert Redford as Bob Woodward. clarity through the maze of ramifications, so that a multiplying list of names (Hunt, Colson, Stans, Sloan, Segretti, Mitchell.

Haldeman) mean something. W'lSELY, Nixon and company are kept at a distance, never impersonated. They are simply video figures on a screen the President beaming, Ziegler denying, Kleindienst defending, Agnew ranting although Mit Leading up to the Expovin '76 exhibition. "The Age" announces a wine offer two specially chosen dozens of fine Australian wines from Selected Estate Wines of Australia Pty. Ltd.

One dozen is for drinking, the other for keeping. OZen. 7A Drinking It's not just booze and skittles These 12 26 oz. bottles are ready for drinking now, but manv have potential for further improvement. S24.50.

OZen Keeping A savage sitter for children A Malvern man telephoned the other day He had paid $1.50 to have his mail held while he was on holiday and when he returned there were two posted parcels waiting in welcome on his front doorstep. He couldn't see the funny side of it. Two days ago Colin Bennett, our film critic, received by mail an invitation to a new film at the State Film Theatre. The joke was that the show took place on March 26. On the evidence of the postmark, the envelope had been speeding its way to him from Melbourne Post Office for nearly three months.

Hilarious. But the experience that tickles me most is that of a friend of mine, one of those eternal optimists, who posted off a $25 money order to the WA lotteries with two stamped addressed envelopes. The letter was posted last Friday so it was a bit uf a shock to him when one of the sell-addressed envelopes turned up in the return mail on Monday morning empty. Quick action Suspecting the worst he made a panicky dash to the post office and hurriedly cancelled the money order. It cost him $1.

The fee for the money order had been $1. The cancellation fee was another $1. Believing he was now $26 in credit he ordered a second postal note but was told, no, that would cost him $25. Plus the ordering fee, another $1. I wish 1 could have seen his face as they kept asking for one more dollar.

The lottery ticket has cost him $54.08. including stamps, although he should be refunded S25 "in due course" on the first money order provided it has not been stolen. Never mind, he keeps saying, he'll win the big one this time. It doesn't seem to occur to him to wonder whether epistle number two will actually get there. If it didn't now that's what I would call a real laugh.

Widows led TELEVISION is a barbaric These 12 26 oz. bottles are probably superior in potential to Dozen A. They are pleasant drinking now but will improve even further with time. $28.50 Wine is not available over the counter, so allow for up to 28 days for delivery, which is free in the metropolitan area (03 area code in current phone book). Add SI delivery fee for anywhere else in baby-sitter.

In one even Victoria. (Sorry. No deliveries interstate). TV JOHN PtNKNEY Prices include this specially prepared descriptive brochure hich gives details of every ine in each dozen TheAge Eipeviti Privilege ine Offer. Bo 345E.

0 Melbourne. 3001 Please send ne- A Price $14. St Went Price SM.59 Plus I 00 per down if outside melropeiiun area. cessfully to navigate a perilous street, shooting out windows to right and left. TVEWSPAPER, HOLLYWOOD x' REPORTER, reveals that wide-open Australia is now America's biggest market for TV and cinema film.

In recent months. Australian stations have been screening between 58 and 64 per cent, foreign product. This compares, invidiously, with Canadian TV's import maximum of 20 per and Britain's 14 per cent. Australian networks now spend about $30 million yearly on US film alone. This obliges them to make economies locally.

For the week from tonight till Thursday, HSV-7 will, again, show no first-run Australian drama. GTV-9 will screen one hour (Luke's Kingdom, made in 1974): Only ATV-0 will meet, and exceed, the two-hour drama minimum required (but not very seriously) by the Broadcasting Control Board. Channels rear them in the belief that shattered skulls, comically broken bodies and yelps of pain are synonymous with the cartoon form. As the Czechs and the Canadian film board have shown, animation can intrigue, and stir a sense of wonder, without resorting to a single "zap!" or If Road Runner slowed down a little his followers might glimpse the flowers by the wayside. QN CURRENT AFFAIR (GTV9) Bob Hawke accused Mike Schildberger of being a "100 per cent, apologist" for the Fraser Government.

Plainly, Hawke doesn't watch ACA often. Producer Schildberger's programme has been as tough on Fraser (particularly over the Medimess) as it ever was on Whillam, in his first mad months. Hawke pecks notwithstanding, Schildberger continues suc ing it can teach an unshielded infant more about murder, rape, greed and lust than his forebears might have learned in their first 14 years Despite numerous experiments, no psychologist can unequivocally say whether the brutal box. the savage nursemaid, warps children or merely arms them against the shocks that life will bring. But most so-called children's shows, from Batman to Daniel Boone, do peddle undeniably pernicious messages: that force solves most problems; that brutality can be funny.

Paradoxically, these fascist philosophies are most heavily concentrated in cartoons produced for younger audiences. Typically inhumane is GTV-9's Road Runner show which, during a single half-hour this week, depicted 77 devastatingly violent acts. During this light-hearted programme, a coyote was dyna- Cheque Money order fl Postal Order "OiasfiCtafe Total Charge mited, had his head mashed by a boulder, was crushed by a truck, flattened by a van, and hurled from two cliffs. In another sequence, a rooster was machine-gunned, KO'd with a hammer, and later, stunned by an anvil. Elsewhen, a cat was set alight, drowned and concussed.

Of course, few small people take such scenes seriously. But what might, subconsciously, register is nightly repetition of the notion that fun and cruelty are flip-sides of the same coin Children are losing out aesthetically, too. My payment is enclosed by Nam Delivery Address (not 0 Box) P'Code I ih (o pav bv Diners Club My Diners Club No is Valid fill Signetf Important- all cheques must be crossed and marked not negotiable and made out to Selected Estate Wines of Australia Pty Ltd us a merry dance Five drinks only were allowed visitors to yesterday's cheese and bubbly opening of a sober driving campaign, because that is the number that will bring you to the verge of the .05 breathalyser limit. It was a joint exercise by the Road Traffic and Safety Authority (ROSTA) and the Retail Liquor Merchants' Association, who want you to keep drinking, but at home. There seems no doubt liquor is the biggest road killer but we sometimes feel we would like to hear more from the authorities about the lesser but more costly problems, such as bad roads and lighting, insufficient police and inadequate traffic control.

ROSTA, (or instance, looks like taking years to fully implement the excellent Metcon system- When Metcon was hastily introduced ROSTA found it would not work without the erection of Give Way to Right signs. Each Give Way to Right sign ultimately was to be renlaced by a set of traffic lights and last July ND was told by ROSTA it hoped the whole job would be done by the end of the year. Do you know how many Give Way to Right signs have now been replaced by traffic lights? One. Antonioni will put them in the picture With the Communist Party tipped to become the biggest political force in Italy after the June 20 general election, campaigning has spread to Australia. For the first time our 500,000 Italian migrants are being asked to intervene in an election at home.

The major Italian-language weekly II Globo in a lengthy editorial splashed across Page 1, appeals to readers to write, cable or telephone relatives at home "in defence of ITiis is standard practice in Italian communities in the US and Canada. In this election, expatriate Italians there have poured tens of thousands of dollars into the anti-Communist campaign and are flying campaigners home in charier flights- For Melbourne's Italians the political balance will be restored somewhat by the talk to be given on Access Radio 3ZZ tonight by the visiting film director Michelangelo Antonioni. The Press-shy director, known for his Left-wing views, will tell his audience that both popular and bourgeois voters had reacted against a disastrous and dishonest Government whose administration has led to the manipulation and exploitation of power. Mixed reviews for our ballet WQZ7a.es Bank will pay you up to Contrary to the expectations of many, the Australian Ballet Company's performance of The Merry Widow shown on television on Wednesday night was not the Washington performance. It was the edited film of an Australian performance last year.

A GTV-9 spokesman said yesterday the channel had never claimed the Washington performance would be shown and if you read the advertisements carefully you will see that strictly speaking he is right. One "Premiere Special. The Merry Widow. Satellite coverage of arrival of famous guests, including President Ford for the premiere of the Australian Ballet's gala Another "While President Ford watches the Australian Ballet so can you. Channel 9 proudly presents the Australian Ballet Company's performance of the Merry Widow.

While you are watching the entire three acts performed, President Ford will be watching it live in Washington's Kennedy Actually this is not quite correct, since 8.30 p.m. in Melbourne is 5.30 a.m. in Washington and even had the President attended we would have hoped he would be snugly abed by that hour. WASHINGTON, June 9. The Australian Ballet Company's production of The Merry Widow, which opened at the Kennedy centre last night, has received mixed reviews.

The Washington Post described is as "a great big wedding cake of a production. "Those who like their entertainment light, fluffy and sweet, with plenty of glitter and trimmings, may well find it a satisfying theatrical confection. Clearly the warmly enthusiastic premiere audience took it to heart. "Despite the presence of Dame Margot Fonteyn in the title role and the considerable expertise of the Australians, it is not much of a ballet, it is really hardly a ballet at all, but rather an operetta in which some decorative dancing has supplanted, if not quite replaced, the singing voice." The Post also said that while it is an achievement for Miss Fonteyn to be still dancing at 57, the role of the widow "asks a kind of celerity and agility that are no longer The Post review praised the "gorgeously detailed sets and costumes," the "generally excellent cast" and said the choreography had many attractive touches and just the right spirit of effervescent "But the company is plainly capable of better things," it said. "It's a pity we won't see more of them." The Washington Star also said the production, which will run for two weeks, was better as an operetta.

"The extravaganza that so calls out for sung words is posing as a full length ballet and Fonteyn, try as she might, is posing as the great ballerina she once was. The result is unfortunate all the way round. "The Australian Ballet Company has many fine young dancers, a few of whom were able to display both their considerable technique and some acting skill, though the pantomime here was theatrical rather than, stylised and balletic." The Star review concluded: "Sir Robert Helpmann conceived and staged the production. Ronald Hynd did the technically undemanding choreography, and Desmond Heeley created the sets. "Each in his own way did a disservice to these performers, but perhaps Heeley most of all.

The stage design gives the dancers so little space to work in that they are forced to squeeze past each other in the ensemble pieces, and to move perilously close to the front of the stage where, it seems, they are preparing to sing. "If only they had." an ntHa Train critic gets signal Brilliant return for expatriate THE HAPPY DAYS OF ROCK 'INT ROLL TODAY FROM 3 P.M. iinisicl Roger Holmes is the pianist who came out of the cold of Hamburg to give a warm recital at the Assembly Hall last night. He has always been one of our most noteworthy expatriates who have established themselves on the European scene. Now he has acquired With an Interest Bearing Deposit at the Wales, the return on your money is definite.

You can plan your finances with certainty, regardless of fluctuations in interest rates elsewhere. Ask at any branch of the Wales for full details. DEATH OF SURGEON Mr. William Eric Hughes-Jones, noted surgeon and former president of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, has died after a long illness. He was 74.

Mr. Hughes-Jones, who did his medical training at the Royal Melbourne, served the hospital for more than 50 years. He was 25 years on the board of management and president for five years from 1968. He was instrumental in development and adoption of a master plan for the hospital's building operations and guided the creation of the renal unit which pioneered kidney transplant operations in Australia. Mr.

Hughes-Jones Is survived by his wife, Florence, and two married daughters. He will be buried at Box Hill Cemetery after a short service it his Camberwell home today. The president of the Former Train Travellers' Association, Mr. D. Ailon, was seen defecting one day this week.

Quizzed on his lapse, Mr. Aiton, who also happens to be the Douglas Aiton who writes scathingly of trains in this newspaper, regretted that circumstances had forced him to catch his hist train in many months. A side benefit, though. Is that he is able to tell fellow ex-travellers first hand that nothing much has changed on the good old rocky reds. The part of his journey from Richmond to Flinders Street took 15 minutes.

But what troubled him was that the other passengers tolerated the delay without a murmer of "People are getting so used to bad service we are in danger of losing members," he laid. considerable maturity and poise. His programme and its conception was a significant achievement. Like a good character actor he set each composer in the frame of his style, not only In the obvious requirements of specific technological skills but in the casting. He gave the Berg sonata its due passions and Isol-dian wails showing a flexibility of invention within the traditional tribal "law" of keyboard romanticisms.

The Mozart sonata in flat K.333 was beautifully thought out and well defined and the melodic shaping of the andante had just the right amount- of bel canto. In the Debussy Etudes he displayed the versatility of his interpretative THE AGE Prices Recommended end Maximum only MONDAV-FRIOAY Vlotorla and Southern NSW 120 BV AIR: ACT, NSW. Inel. Cooma and rok.n Hill, rlabene. Oold Coaat, Supahlne Coaat, Sth.

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