Chicago Tribune du lieu suivant : Chicago, Illinois • 19

Chicago Tribune, Monday, June 16, 1980 Section 2 5 Kail! 'Wholly One more bland Bible parody is lost in the reeds Tower By Gene Siskel Movie critic tiy Aaron laoia -ev- v. ENTION "PARODY of biblical movies." and i I mini -i -mm n.H.i i liiiiiln il anybody can name about nine tenths of the TRIBUNE MINI-REVIEW: Babble "WHOLLY MOSES!" Directed by Gary Wele: written by Quy Thorites: photographed by Frank Stanley; MIM by Sidnty Levin; muelc by Patrick Williams; produced by Freddie FleUa; Cokimole release at the Cinema and outlying theaters. Rated PQ. Kli I I jokes in "Wholly an all-too-familiar comedy that proves the adage, "Never go to Ml EW YORK: Real estate sales people are tripping over each other, as they run around town trying find an apartment for THE CAST Dudley Moore Archangel, Harvey'Hereenal, John Housemen Zoey Zerelda, newmen Coco Dan Rather Soroeresa Madeline Kshn Beggar Lender Pharoah.M.....M...HM Richard Pivot Paul Sand Oevll. John Hitler Gilford DeLuise Jethro Pilchard S.

Shu tribute to old Hollywood movies, with a show-stopping a capella tap number. The second act glorifies the Marx Brothers, and one famous actress who saw the show and who had worked with Groucho told David Garrison he was more like Groucho than Groucho, and that she personally liked Garrison better! The big surprise along the Great White Way is that New York theatergoers don't seem to be interested in seeing Michael York (who replaced Richard Gere) In the performance I York seemed uncomfortable and ill-prepared for the role, and the play probably will close soon. MARK MEDOFFS Tony-winning "Chi! dren of a Lesser God" has been selling out since it opened. This sensitive, yet funny, drama about a speech therapist who falls in love with his deaf student Is brilliantly acted by Tony winners John Rubenstein and Phyllis Frelich (who is actually deaf). Medoff hopes to convince at least Frelich to star in the Chicago production next spring.

And producer Burt Sugarman paid $1.5 million for the film rights to the Medoff play before the Tony awards. BACK IN town becomes "Hollywood By The this week, with John Bclushl and Dan Aykroyd here to hype their "Blues Brothers" film and the entire cast of Allan Carr's "Can't Sop the Music" here for the film's Wednesday world premiere. Yon won't be able to turn on a TV or radio, or open your newspaper, without a mention of Aykroyd, Belushi, Carr, Bruce Jenner, Valerie Per-rine. director Nancy Walker, or the Village People. And auditions for 11-to-17-year-old boys will be held Wednesday at the Holiday Inn-City Center's Galaxi II Ballroom for parts in Columbia.

Pictures "Taps." The film will be' shot August through November at Valley Forge Military Aeademy in Pennsylvania. MORE THAN 8.008- fans saw the Oryn a film with an exclamation point in its title." (The Beatles' "Help!" being a possible exception.) "Wholly Moses!" is similar to Monty Python's "Life of Brian," released last year, which parodied the life of Jesus amid cries that it was blasphemous. "Wholly Moses!" is a satire of Moses' life and is unlikely to arouse similar protest. It's just not that biting. with "Life of Brian," the story involves mistaken identity.

Two Hebrew babies are placed in the bullrushes, one named Moses and the other, Herschel. In the film's only inspired scene, we see the two water-tight cradles floating down the Nile side by side. As the cradles approach the bathing ground of the Egyptian queen, one baby reaches out and pushes the other cradle down river. Very funny. From then on, all is predictable.

Baby Herschel grows up to be big Herschel (Dudley Moore from and he's an innocent bumbler. For example, he thinks God is talking to him and tries to put out the burning bush with his coat. When a little creek is diverted by a caravan, Herschel believes he has parted some water. He tries to cure a lame beggar, but the beggar is furious because he's been faking. THE PATTERN Of much of the comedy is to give Herschel and the people he meets modern lines to say.

It's supposed to be funny to see people dressed up in Biblical costumes say modern things. For example, Herschel meets an old friend (Dom DeLuise) in the desert. At the end of their brief encounter, DeLuise says in typical businessman style, "Let's have lunch." Far too many of the film's jokes are like that jokes that read funny on paper, but sink like a rock on the big screen. "Wholly Moses!" costars skinny Laraine Newman from "Saturday Night Live" as Herschel's girlfriend, Zerelda. (The film's biblical story is wrapped newlyweds' Mario Thomas and Phil She's subletting her current apartment from Sybil Christopher, the ex-Mrs.

Richard Burton, who wants it back in a few months. Mario and Phil's requirements are simple: they want a five-bedroom apartment on a high floor over "rooking Central Park, with at least one terrace and this is to buy, not to rent. In this town, that's like asking for the moon. TOUGH GUYS DO CRY. Dan Rather says in an interview in the July Ladies Home Journal.

Rather tells writer Cliff Jahr that after he made the first breakthrough in negotiations to replace Walter Cronkite on the CBS news, tie went directly home and had a good cry with his wife, Jean. (For a reported $8 million for five years, I'd cry, too!) Rather also relates how his journalistic curiosity led him to experiment with pot, acid, and heroin John Travolta has flipped over the N.Y. play "Mass Appeal" costar-ring Eric Roberts and Milo O'Shea, which marks the directorial debut of singer-actress Geraldine Fitzgerald. He already has seen it twice, and now wants the movie rights to the comedy-drama about s. a priest and a seminarian.

"A DAY IN HOLLYWOOD A Night in the Ukraine" now is a hot musical with at least a month's wait for tickets. The first act is Tommy Tune's dazzling dance pia Sports Hall of Fame during its two-week stay at the Daley Center Plaza. It moves Monday to WoodfieH Shopping Center for two weeks. Body Sculpture, a studio which offers "muscle toning and firming by electrical impulse," opens June 16 at 64 E. Walton St.

New York has a similar operation called "Bio-' Body," which has been doing turnaway business for almost a year. After months of negotiations, producer Barry Hope will present "Oh, Calcutta!" at Carnegie Theater beginning July 14. TICKER BITS: Erik Estrada and his wife, Joyce, reportedly are expecting a child in the fall. Also expecting twins are Joe Kennedy III and his wife, Sheila. An in-home party performance by the Flying Karamazov Brothers and a role as an extra in a feature movie are among the items being auctioned at Monday's Goodman Theater fund-raiser, with proceeds going toward refurbishing of the actor's lounge.

Happy birthday to Ramsey Lewis, Jack Albertson, and Erich Segal. And the man who brags that he runs things-. around the house, says Joan Rivers, "is probably referring to the lawn mower, the vacuum cleaner, and the washing machine." the device of Moore and Newman meeting on a Holy Land tour bus and discovering an ancient scroll. As they read it, the story of Herschel and Zerelda unfolds.) Newman is held in check by the mundane script that requires her to play a typical Hollywood love interest, which she is not good at playing. Her specialty is weird, contemporary roles ALSO IN THE cast are John Houseman, typically blustery as an archangel, using the same intonations as in his "Smith Barney" TV commercials; Richard Pryor in a four-minute cameo as an angry Pharoah; and John Ritter in a similarly brief turn as a rather laconic devil.

(A couple of Richard Pryor fans cornered me in front of the Cinema Theater to complain about how brief his appearance was in the film. They should have known from the many actors listed in its ads that "Wholly Moses!" was one of those "parade of stars" films.) The film's only redeeming feature is the comic pacing of Dudley Moore, who manages to undersell his droll sense of humor. Although most people know Moore only from his marvelous work opposite Bo Derek in "10," the British entertainer has appeared in other films (notably 'Bedazzled" and recently a cameo in "Foul and he's never been anything less than fine. His strength is that he's immedately perceived as likable, witty, and a bit sad classic attributes of a movie clown. Also, unlike exclamation-pointed "Wholly Moore doesn't push too hard.

1 Charlotte Ford updates manners A By Christine Winter Iff ONE EVER said you ha to be wealthy to be gracious, but it does seem as if the moneyed have one up on the rest of us when it comes to knowing how to eat squab at a 1 er wjip it. w. ik ft i -Mlii'iiiriiii T'' formal dinner party, or how much to tip the wine steward when dining out. That's probably why the bibles of etiquette are always written by heiresses with names like Vanderbilt, Post, and now a Ford: Formality just seems to go with the territory. Besides, with wealth conies recognition and a certain amount of authority.

Who would listen if some everyday working stiff suddenly threw down his ratchet and declared that it was only necessary to -use a wine cradle if you're serving a bottle of older red wine that you haven't had time to decant? It's not exactly the kind, of thing they stand around dis- cussing on the assembly line, but when you're deal- ing with Vanderbilts, Posts, and 'Fords, who knows? They're certainly not wasting their social hour discussing the latest 2-cent price bike on a gallon of milk. But there's more to modern manners than Just knowing when you can type a note and when it must be handwritten, and Charlotte Ford's foray into the world of socially acceptable behavior touches on a few of the touchier situations that very well might' occur in this era of almost-anything-goes. Her book, "Charlotte Ford's Book of Modern Manners" (Simon and Schuster, gets into a few subjects the mere mention of which probably would have given her predecessors in the social arbiter business a bad case of. the vapors. FOR EXAMPLE, she sets down guidelines en how to Introduce couples who are living together, homosexual couples, and a person "you don't want anyone to know you're with." She settles once and for all the touchy questions of how to handle the sleeping arrangements for unmarried couples who are guests, what to do when someone thoughtlessly lights up a joint without asking the hostess' permission, and how to be suave when you're living with one man and receiving alimony from another.

Also in for a strong updating are some of the ancient, chivalrous courtesies that once might have earned a polite male the title of gentleman but today could very well brand him as lmliberated. Mixed, in are the quaint throwbacks to that other era when "proper" and. "correct" were the buzzwords of the day: Notes on how to use a fingerbowl and mtroduo ing the household help to each member of the family still have a place in Charlotte Ford's guidebook. Ford hardly needs a book, even one designed to become a standard reference, to make a name for herself, although she often is defined in terms of the men in her life namely, her Henry Ford II, and her ex-husbands, Stavros Niarchos and Tony Forstmann. Through the years she has become a celebrated entity in her own right, as she goes about the business of being what her publishers describe as fashion designer, socialite, homemaker.

and now author. "I WAS RAISED a very tough, very formal, Btrict atmosphere," she recalls of life in Grosse Pointe, for a young Ford. "And that's when I got the background to sit down and write a book on etiquette. I would hate to see things go back to that sort of rigid atmosphere, but there were soma benefits to learning the whole bit, with fmgerbowls and servants. You always can fall back on it if yon ever need it "I know my daughter, Elena, fsnt going to five that kind of life," says the woman whose debut into society reportedly cost a quarter of a million dollars back in the '50s.

"But I insist that she have a for mal background like mine. Just in case she goes somewhere where she has to use it" But on the whole she recognizes that everything much more casual today than it was then, and she -approves wholeheartedly. "My life with Elena is completely different than my relationship with my parents. We have more time together, more chances to Just sit down and talk. We're together night and day.

My parents wen always busy, traveling or entertaining, and I cant remember any light conversations with them. Even at meals we would play educational games or some thing." BUT CASUAL DOES NOT mean a total disregard for the gracious way of doing things. "I don't think any of us want to go through an era like the '60s again, when everything was so terribly loose and unstructured. Proper etiquette is really just a matter of thinking of others." "I would never wear white shoes in November, or white clothes in the city; or velvet after January, but that doesn't mean it's not right. L-just hope that the guidelines in the book help others decide what's suitable when they can't make up their own Blinds," 1 V.

WMmmy ARRIVALS AT CARSOUS HAIRPORT: IIEAD-TURfllKG EIAII2 17AYG BY RIVIERA Hairlines mob headlines In Corsons Halrport, a new opendow shop where summer hairstyles are turned into something reallv SDecial with excitina Riviera accessories! Combs, heir rollenbarrettes, chignon sticks, bobby pins, cascades and headbands, 2.00 to To demonstrate how easy GO'S look hair can be, Riviera consultants Linda' Zlegler and Steve Bezerman will be In Halrport at the following Carsons storess State Street, Monday, June 16, 1 1 :00 to 3:00. Linda 2iegler will be at State Street, Tuesday, June lit Auy, Kandhurst, Wednesday, June 18, to Orland Squaw, Thursday, June. 1 9, 1 to Edens, Friday, June 20, 1 100 to 5:00, YoHdown, Saturday, June 21 1 to 5.00. See yw there! Hairpartand Dress accessories, first floor. State; merchandise also ot Gateway, Prudential and all suburban stores.

lAONDAy SJOfS HOURSi STATE STREET. 9.IS TO OO, H5EIIS AND EVESGRrBi HUSIDE, IAKEHURST, LINCOIN MALI, NORTH RIVERSIDE, ORLAND SQUARE, (SANDHURST, SOUTHtAKE MALI, WOQDMAR AND YORCTOWN WM TO W0 MSSXfS, WtNNEIKA, M0 TO WSXJ SUBURBAN STORES OWN StveN DAYS A WEEK, OPEN LATE MONDAY TO FRIDAY. i-i e. e. a.

a fjki "jar'.