Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Nov. 22, 1971, edition 1 / Page 3
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Monday. November 22. 1971 The Daily Tar Heel I I Carr reviews Ne w series axe NBC and CBS have already cancelled strengthen their respective prime-time schedules, and among the new programs are "The Sonney & Cher Comedy Hour," a Don RickJes situation comedy, and another Jack Webb public -servant melodrama. NBC has axed "Sarge'" "The Funny Side," "The Good life," "The Partners," and !!The D A-" Producer Jack Webb will supply one of the new series, "Emergency," an "action drama" based on the adventures of the Los Angeles Fire Department's medical rescue team. Although it's scheduled to premiere Jan. 22, "Emergency's" cast has not yet been chosen. The other new NBC series, "Sanford & Son," is essentially a black "All in the Family," with Redd Foxx as a black junkman and Demond Wilson as his presumably militant son. NBC has apparently conceded defeat in its attempt to wreck ABC's strong Tuesday night schedule, and will move its one strong Tuesday show, "Ironsides," back to Thursday as a lead-in for Dean Martin, while "James Garner as Nichols" will be switched to 10p.m. Tuesdays, beginning this week. The earlier part of NBC's Tuesday programming will be filled by various specials on all kinds of subjects. CBS, meanwhile, has discontinued production of "The Bearcats" and "The Chicago Teddy Bears." "The Bearcats," which had occupied the 8-9 p.m. Thursday sjot, will be replaced by "Me and the Chimp," (shades of "The Hathaways") a new series with Ted Bessel, and "My Three Sons," which moves from its late-night Monday slot. "O'Hara, United States Treasury," will move its starting time back a half-hour to 8 p.m. Friday, replacing "The Chicago Teddy Bears." "The New CBS Friday Night Movies," also moves back a half-hour, and will start at 9 p.m., while the new "Don RicklesShow" takes oer the 10:30 time period. Because of Sandy Duncan's illness, "Funny Face" has been discontinued for the year (although it will return next season). Another CBS Saturday series, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," has been moved into Dancan's slot, and "Arnie" is being switched from Monday to occupy Moore's old time period. Filling the Monday night gap left by the switches of "Arnie" and "My Three Sons" will be "The Sonny &. Cher Comedy Hour," which diew respectable ratings as a summer replacement earlier in the year. The NBC shake-up will take effect in January (except for the Nichols-Ironside switch), while CBS says that the premiere dates of their new shows "will be announced shortly." Thanksgiving rolls around this week, and on television that means parades and football. ABC is the only network not planning to cover the parades, but they do have the Nebrasda-Oklahoma "game of the decade" slated to begin at 2:45, and at 8 p.m. the Georgia-Georgia Tech game will be broadcast. The other two networks, however, will be competing against ABC with professional football. NBC will begin its broadcast of the Kansas City Chiefs-Detroit Lions at noon, and CBS follows at 3:30 with the Los Angeles Rams-Dallas Cowboys contest. Among the good movies on local television this week are Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" which will be shown this afternoon at 5:30 on Channel 28, and another Sherlock Holmes feature, "Pursuit to Algiers," on Channel 5's Tuesday late show. Leaven Cabal 'JUL Billy Jack, the narrator of "Billy Jack" informs the audience early in that film, is a "half-breed Indian and a war hero who hated war . . . No one ever knew where he lived"; in fact, no one knows much of anything about Billy, except that he champions the poor and the downtrodden, frequents a "holy man" who is preparing him for a "sacred initiation ceremony," and always seems to show up in clean linen. Billy is the Batman of the flower set. Written by Frank and Teresa Christina and directed by T. C. Frank, "Billy Jack" is about the irrational hatred an Indian "freedom school" arouses in a near-by-small town. Billy, the unemotional loner who wsits tall in the saddle, is the school's protector. You've seen him before. When townsmen start abusing Indian girls in an ice cream parlor, Billy suddenly appears and turns their taunts into embarrassed gulps and foot-shuffling. Later, when he takes the almost requisite beating, he strews the town square with his attackers until one of them knocks him out from behind. It would be exaggerating to say that "Billy Jack" tells a story, but loosely it chronicles Billy's growing impatience with the townsmen's brutality. When the ichool's head-mistress is raped and Billy's ly LLP H W rl ,, : rl .f. nf. f t 111 r ' pTpl AMFM STEREO SYSTEM iLLJ $229 1 II j 'Kenwood KR2 120 AM FM Sleffo Receiver 169 95 III I GWfrd 40B Automatic Changer 44 50 Iff I . - - GHTrd Bl Matching Walnut Pa 5 50 III I lL f3 ' ADC 220XE Elliptical Cartridgf 22 00 I 1 'ADC 404A 2 Way Speaker Systems Pr 1 55 00 I ''tyJ 9 9 9 To," ' P'asl pately 351 95 WA " ' 0h-afl!"l J FREE t2" Stereo Record Musical V "S vijLy nrtMiin Excerpt from JESUS BOlMUb! CHRIST SUPERSTAR with the purchase of this system' TjWRITE FOR OUR NEW BIG NAMEF x5 L ( WHOLESALE PRICE CATALOG! feif Ls Ift VZl ( 1 1 iXh U HIGH FIDELITY V4 l 1 dfC l M WHOLESALERS Mail check, money order, or u'llll )l ll 10530 Detrick Ave! charge with Bank American) I VvVUtA L "Tn-m- 'n'J.H, ll 20795 cartons! Your order will S-'S 3 0 1 -949epromp t a tten f a v .V y v v I .v seven series in a mid-season attemot to V. 79 O d acK: insincere Indian friend murdered for romancing a white girl, Billy is finally goaded into eliminating the villains. He vows never to be taken alive, but eventually surrenders on condition that the school's continuance be guaranteed; and the head-mistress tells him "a big eastern lawyer" wants to defend him free. Clearly the Christians are aiming at a pre-teen audience, and there's nothing wrong with this. The problem is not that "Billy Jack" is simplistic, but that it's shallow and insincere. Sincerity, in a work of art, is a function of the intensity and coherence of the artistic whole, and these words have no meaning here. It it was no longer edifying to watch hippies flash peach signs to Middle America in "Medicine Ball Caravan," it's downright painful in "Billy Jack." So too are the obligatory scenes in which folksinging children pacifically defeat the police, or win over doubting adults merely by radiating goodness. And though the freedom schoolers stage some enjoyable guerilla theater skits, it's all really beside the point. The same is true of the Indian "rituals" that figure prominently in the film. Billy becomes a "brother to the snake" by letting a rattle snake bite him B roadways examines (Hie following is an exclusive interview with Harold Prince, generally regarded as the leading producer-director in American theatre today, reprinted by permission from The Cavalier Daily, campus newspaper of the University of Virginia. Since Mr. Prince began his Broadway career in 194 at the age of 25 with "Paiama Game, " his shows have included "Damn Yankees," "West Side Story," "Fiorello!, " "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, " "Fiddler on the Roof ( which is the longest running musical in Broadway history), "Cabaret, " "Zorba. " "Company, "and "Follies. " Five times his productions have won the Xew York Drama Critics Circle A ward for best music al of the year, seven times they have won the Antoinette Perry ("Tony") Award fur best musical, and twice Mr. Prince has won the "Tony "as best director of a musical. Hie interview was conducted Oct. 29 in Mr. Prince's Xew Yrk City office by Cavalier Daily features editor and senior drama critic Steve Wt lis. ) First of all, Mr. Prince, there are a lot of people who don't know vshat a producer is. Could you briefly describe in your own words what you do? Well, a producer, which is only half of the job that I do, is concerned with finding a property to present, raising the money for it, assigning the director often if it's just an idea he has in mind he has to assign the writers - sometimes all the other creative people, i.e. the set designer, lighting designer and so on. It really depends on how much of the creative burden the director can or wants to take on himself. So it is both a businessman's job until it has used up its venom. Then, delirious with the poison and a millifier he's been given, he becomes a visionary. An ancient Indian sage who one met Jesus speaks through him - and his works, remarkable, echo the sweet inanities of John Lennon's "Imagine." Imagine a brotherhood of man? Sure, why not. What next? What is even more depressing in this kind of film is its immature sexuality. Billy and the teai her supposedly are in love, bat they never touch. Young Posner, the film's major villain, rapes the teacher, strips another girl, tries to pick up a third, and is finally found in bed with a thirteen year-old prostitute. The thought of all this clearly would make Billy Jack's flesh shudder, if it could shudder. Nothing is ever said, but the point is quite clear: sex is something you do against someone else. Tom Laughlin, as Billy, is adequate in a stony way. Delores Taylor, as the teacher, looks about twice Billy's age more a big sister than a girlfriend - and is the lanky, saccharine-voiced school-marm of popular imagination. T.C. Frank seems to have learned how to direct by watching television, and his style is marred only by an occasional fancy carera angle which calls attention to itself. c Jinan and a creative man's job. But, as I point out, I think of myself primarily as a director. I detect in your work a recurrent underlying theme of moral and social degradation, to a large extent in Cabaret" and "Follies,' and to maybe a lesser extent in "Fiddler on the RooPand "Company." Do you see this in your w ork? We live in a period of moral bankruptcy from which we are emerging; that was inevitable. The very first play I directed from scratch was "She Loves Me," which was all hopeful and optimistic and filled with love. It did not succeed at the box office, though in my estimation it succeeded very' well indeed on the stage, because we were entering the period which became just endless self-flagellation, a period of sort of almost shocked discovery that we were no longer going to be naive, that a pretty girl is no longer like a melody, which is what "Follies" is about, and that the country has lost its innocence. From that period now seems to be emerging a period in which "She Loves Me" would be appreciated, a period where we're searching for an ethic for moral values. I would think that since I feel that, my work will reflect it. What are your present feelings about Broadway? If it's not dying, which I think you agree it's not, it's certainly changing . . Everything's changing, all the arts are changing. Television's forced it, films have forced it. We must provide something which is more uniquely living theatre than what we used to. They're paying fifteen bucks a head for musicals and ten bucks for straight plays and eight bucks for off-Broadway and so on. Sure, they have to get something that they can't get for free on television. But more than that, our audience, after all, is better read, more educated, more philosophically and psychologically oriented, more intellectual. "Hair" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" are two shows which attract a youth audience, whereas most of Broadway is patronized by the middle-aged, affluent society. Now, both of these shows are based sort of on fads. Do you feel that it's necessary to capitalize on fads in order to attract a young audience to theatre? No, because "Company" attracts a young audience and so does "Follies." "Hair" is truly innovative and has influenced everyone's work right now, I think. The same does not hold for "Jesus Christ Superstar." T nmu -i JiJiiiiiM-L,,---,, l, L.. ,ju w J J i- .,jiriJi.iijiirii rw m Christmas Card Sale! Stretch that dollar and extend your greetings! The Intimate Bookshop Open evenings The Year of the Dictionary! The New Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary -$75. Webster's New 20th Century Dictionary unabridged -Was $49.95; now $19.95! The cheapest ot the great and the greatest of the cheap! The Intimate Bookshop open evenings US SCM HOT CHOCOLATE cc Z) CD C) LU z o o o ALRI6HT, ThiETfZee, I'M 60tX6 TO HIT you MTU A L0N6 , SOMBf I n a-7 or- - - t i , k r' i r , I I f H0U DO tfOJ LIKE IT? ) J ii 1 i i i 71 Nj arold Prince gimg What do you feel is the main thing keeping youth awy from the theatre today? A slow process of winnowing away which probably occured when they were bora. I mean, they've never been exposed to theatre, the way I was from the age of six on. So they have to come to something that their parents didn't wean them on. I think that that, plus the cost, plus the formality of what theatre going was, which is certainly no longer going to be true. In other words. I think it's becoming an informal experience. I go to theatre in blue jeans and a sweater. There are those people who lament the absence of ritual, glamour surrounding theatregoing. They may be right, but it's too late. If the theatre depended on that, or returned to that, I'm afraid it really would be in trouble. Well, how do you feel then is the bet way to attract youth? Put things on the stage that interest young people. It's that simple. There's nothing else you can do. Things, little things, qualitative little things: make tickets available at half-price for people carrying ID cards. I have a section of seats for $2 at "Follies," sure. But, generally, those tickets reach people who are theatre enthusiasts in the first place. So really what you have to do is simply put things on the stage that grab them. And money isn't really the problem, the reason that people choose to make it for not coming to the theatre. Those of us in college w ith an interest in theatre are trying like hell to develop and nurture audience enthusiasm. Do you have any suggestions to guide us from your professional viewpoint? No. I'm not terrificly disposed to organized education theatrically. My predilection is towards experience; in other words, doing shows, reading plays -you don't need anybody to guide you in the reading of a play. The more plays you read, the more you learn by osmosis - it's all an intuitive process. There are things to learn in the craft, and God knows I respect them as much as anyone, but mostly they are learned again by experience. The academic, the book learning process with respect to theatre is something I measure with a degree of cynicism; and as for the atmosphere of sort of self-congratulatory producing that goes on in little theatre, 1 think it stifles the learning process. I really think what you have to do is do a lot and expose yourself to as marty" professionals as possible. Many of the colleges are now allowing as how there's Crossword Puzzle ACROSS 3 Latin conjunction 4. Spoken 5 Sharpen 6 Noblemen 7 Hurried 8 Urges on 9 Conjunction 10 Season 12 Hypothetical force 14 Experience 17 Grant use cf 20 Cries like cow 23 Worid organization (atbr.) 24 Cooled lava 25 Emmets 27 Rtj 30 Lampreys 32 Expires 35 Earthenware 37 Sleeveless cloak 33 Hoarder 1 Native metal 4 Eore 6 Iron 11 Sharp reply 13 Stew 15 Man's nickname 16 Tern cf endearment IS Parent (colloq.) 19 Printer's measure 21 Diving bird 22 Totals 24 Ox cf Celebes 26 Agreement 28 Seine 29 r."aie amends 31 Want 33 Note of scale 34 'Walk 35 Levantine vessel 33 Note of sca'e AO Sluggish 42 Harvests 45 Van's name 47 Antiered animal 49 Barracuda 50 Cffsprirg (pi.) 52 Woody plant 54 Babylonian deity 55 Printer's measure 56 Gift 59 Note cf scale 61 Mend 63 Moves skJe'S 65 Kind cf hat 66 Man's nickname 67 Poem DOWN 1 Ang'oSaxon morvey 2 Soften in temper Dutr. by jjcli, IF I UK TRAPPED ENEMY USES AKD THf SM IT TA5TEP PRETW 7 , 1 I Jul RUri it D0UJN TO A50UT THE THREE YfirRP UKE, ANP THE LST VOO TAfce- NO PROBLEM, 3D.! SHOULP THRCU6H THEZ SCONPARY. IT JN f-OK 7HE TOUCHDOUJy ItHealtre mere to be learned from people who do it professional!) than perhaps from ur.s. That 1 HOT ar.v wav cr.::;izi-.g the learr.ir.f ct c!a:cal theatre history, the exposure to theatrical material which g:es you a foundation, a frame of reference in contemporary terms. But it does cr.ticie the who experience of putting on a play in a highly enclosed, protected, uncritical atmosphere. There are several thousands of people getting drama degrees every year. Now in other professions you have businesses coming to the schools offering interviews to prospective professionals. Yet the theatre doesn't do this. Now, in college you learn the theory of acting, the theory of directing. Yet as you indicated, there is that gap between theory . and experience. How do you bridge this gap" You come to the protewonai theatre and work. Professional theatre doesn't mean Broads a. M;r,c! ou. I've left Breadwav out of th except for now. an J I'm only mentioning Broadway to clarify in case anvbodv suddenly decides that's what I'm saying, that the theatre exists on Broadway. I do not say that at all. But I do think that the professional theatre is what you then have to come to. I'm alwavs looking for talented people. And m the seventeen years since I've been producing very few really potentially gifted, exciting people have passed through; I get a lot ot letters, and then I meet people, and perhaps less than the number of fingers on one hand have been really valuable. And in even- instance when they have been we've kept them on and they've worked here and gone on to produce or direct or whatever it is they want to do. Most people just want to be successful. How do you feel about critics? The same anvbodv in his right mind feels about them: they're necessary. Without critics vse would have no audiences. Somebody ha to say something to make people go to theatre. It's lamentable but accruate. more so in our country than in some others. As a matter of fact, it's very interesting that in some countries w hen a critic likes a play, no one goes; when he doesn't, they all go. I'm thinking particularly of Rumania, where I was this summer, in Bucharest, that's exactly how they treat their critics. But not irtiour xauntryrOn the other hand, we -tend to pr8iJe them and give them awards ''"St the end of theirvareers for their faithful service to the theatre. It's all garbage. Copyright, 1971, The Cavalier Daily Answer to Saturday's Puzzle rjRtRiAiP uit iaikje in t t A id i r i vn ATI N 3 TIA'R TL1G ElTlS I IB ft A'S'C sTAiLjv oTi T OE IBiPiE'MMA 'iV;eifttjl D'E QT6 R N 'A rnsiA.c i L ! T O D o o SlTlE IUIlTa R L F AN E'DIIO P f Pf AC, 39 Pressed 41 Armed conflicts 43 Toiled 44 Samt (atbr.) 46 Indefinite article 43 Web footed birds 51 Mast 53 W.fe cf G'3int 57 Bene of body 58 Touchdown (att' ) 60 Peer Gns's mother 62 Hebrew letter 64 Behold! m iil 22 'Wi 19 20 W2I V,'U 23 2 &. 24 25 26 27 28 IP17- zwr 37 wz lLlL 1X1 t-i-L 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 V- 61 6? x63 64 W WLWL 1 1 ' ' 1 i 1 1 1 1 United Feature Syndicate. Inc. BEHINS I DON'T &?fOf ThAT' REALLY AVJCK0F ACCrViUVfNT TEMrWJRt 6000... X UtcE THE WAY 11 THE TREE" THMfCS -i tf -Ki 4 m
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Nov. 22, 1971, edition 1
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