ChanRobt

We thought we were so hip then, but the sixties are making the fifties look pretty sophisticated. And guess what--in a lot of ways, they were.

Cactus Flower evidences all the symptoms of the reaction middle aged men had to the sixties. I.A.L. Diamond, who adapted this to the screen, was Billy Wilder's longtime collaborator. The Apartment, Some Like It Hot--they worked. But this screenplay sounds like Neil Simon on a succession of very bad days.

Ingrid Bergman takes a weak part as a middle-aged spinster nurse and still manages to come off well. In fact, the only time this picture comes alive at all is when she's there.

And why the hell is Matthau's dentist chasing Goldie Hawn when he's got Ingrid in his lobby? Did we ever think Goldie was cute? She's skinny, sexless, doe-faced, and overly made up with terrible kewpie doll makeup. Other than her age, her assets are not obvious.

Ingrid seems to have on no makeup at all, and her classic features along with classic style outclasses Goldie this was to Sunday.

The scenes all drag, the jokes almost all stretch hard for a laugh. And the neuroses underlying this are all so redolent of middle-aged men of a certain era confronting the supposedly free-spirited flower children poorly exemplified by Goldie.

I thought she was funny on Laugh-In, but I'm sure I don't want to see the old tapes now.

As an embarrassing, but revealing, period piece, as sociology and archaeology, Cactus Flower may have some value to social historians. As a movie, it has nothing to recommend it but Ingrid.

One of the dumber scripts around. The dramatic conclusion to the story takes place off screen and is merely described in a police report. (Girl shoots gangster dead for threatening her boyfriend [Rooney] gets killed herself in the fracas.

Some good musical numbers--mainly Satchmo singing "A Kiss to Build a Dream On." Rooney and Demarest are actually both good being Rooney and Demarest.

But as an L.A. period piece (released in '51) it's fun to see the Sunset strip and other locations. Particularly if you grew up around here. There are a lot of movies from that period, made on a low budget with crummy scripts. But fun to watch for their money-saving use of locations and for their natural noir ambience.

About Schmidt is a highly intelligent, compassionate, and

insightful depiction of a man confronting his mortality and the

emptiness of a life that suddenly doesn't seem to have added up

to much.

It also manages to illuminate with brilliance and restraint the

loneliness and of an eviscerated American landscape and of the

sterility of lives bereft of self-understanding.

Nicholson, too, is unusually restrained. And both his performance

and the final effect of this picture are enormously moving.

Perhaps you'll have to be well into middle age to experience the

full poignancy of "About Schmidt". But it would certainly have to be

affecting for most people of intelligence and sensitivity.

And, by the way, I forgot something rather important. This movie is

also very funny.

If you're old enough to remember L.A. in the early fifties, this is particularly fun. Lot's of location stuff, downtown, Long Beach or San Pedro. And the bank robbery takes place in Beverly Hills on Camden or Roxbury Drive, just below Little Santa Monica Blvd. Edgar G. Robinson is great as always. It's a cousin to Noir, lots of great faces and character acting. They couldn't afford a lot of sets, or any star beyond E.G.R., which is part of the charm of the movie. And if you like Detroit when it still had character, you'll love the great early fifties cars.

If you're just looking for a nice, healthy turn-on, Sensual Friends is actually pretty good.

Story line is dead simple: three young, attractive, prosperous married couples who are old friends spend weekend together in posh Santa Barbara style house. One extra single girl, recently broken up with her husband, and also in the clique, adds extra interest because all the guy friends have long lusted after her.

Dialog, story-line, and acting, though hardly brilliant, are several cuts above everyday slam-bam porn. The actors are all quite attractive--no tattoos or body piercing or cheap clothes. And the sexual chemistry between and among them is good, the sex scenes are nicely staged and erotically convincing. The girls event take their shoes off.

It's well photographed, but doesn't try to be artsy-no vaseline lenses. Guys look like they're sincerely heterosexual. And the girls, sexy but not slutty, look like they're having a genuine good time--not faking.

So either these people really are good actors and actresses--or they were actually having a fun weekend.

This is an absolutely exquisite movie. It portrays a part of the Civil War rarely if ever seen on the screen. And does so with an astounding authenticity.

The characters are evocative and involving. The sense of time and place is breathtaking. You are made to understand more acutely than I ever have by a film the special cruelty of a war between countrymen.

Ride with the Devil seems to be a sleeper so far. I hope it attracts a wide following