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'Dawn of the Dead' a Gruesome Gem

Ten years ago, a little horror picture called "Night of the Living Dead," made by Pittsburgh-based film maker George A. Romero as his first feature, surfaced on the exploitation circuit without any warning to become a key cult film of the past decade and a genuine horror classic.

In essence, what Romero did with formidable skill was to trap a group of people in a Western Pennsylvanian farmhouse besieged by rapidly increasing numbers of the "living dead," those who have recently died only to come alive moments later as flesh-eating ghouls, and then let matters take a relentlessly logical course.

Romero went on to produce TV documentaries and variety shows, publish books and make a couple of features, none of which had the impact of his debut film, but now he's brought his zombies back in "Dawn of the Dead" (at various theaters) as a way of projecting an apocalyptic vision of America that is as ambitious in scope as it is terrifying. "Dawn of the Dead" is one of the most genuinely original American movies of this or any other year. It's also one of the most gruesome, and emphatically not for the squeamish.

In "Night of the Living Dead," there was the suggestion that the zombies, which can only be stopped by a bullet in the brain or by being consumed by fire, had been revived by radiation from a satellite that exploded during a probe of the planet Venus. This time, Romero offers no explanation for the grisly epidemic as he picks upon a pair of Philadelphia SWAT officers, Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott Reiniger), who escape from the city in a traffic helicopter with Roger's friends Stephen (David Emge) and Fran (Gaylen Ross).

This quartet of determined survivors soon commandeers a vast suburban shopping mall, struggling bravely and ingeniously to rid it of the living dead and settling down to a life of seemingly inexhaustible luxuries. How will they cope with this sealed-off, sybaritic existence? How long, indeed, can they stay sealed off from the world? And what of others outside who've managed to escape the legions of the living dead?

Romero makes the answers to these questions matters of the utmost suspense as we come to like these four intelligent, sane individuals--and the film hurtles along, never flagging in its two-hour course.

Aided by his resourceful cameraman Michael Gornick and by a rich and varied score by the Goblins with Dario Argento--Argento is the well-known Italian horror director--Romero displays a remarkable sense of disturbing imagery and taut, intensely cinematic structure. The shopping-mall setting is truly inspired, emerging as a metaphor for a burned-out consumer society without any nudging. The entire film is a succession of stark images: processesions of zombies wandering around the mall in jerky, robotlike movements as canned music floods the immense interior space, a sole skater--Fran--on an otherwise deserted ice-skating rink, seldom-seen sunsets contrasted with the entirely artificial world of the enclosed mall.

Because "Dawn of the Dead" (Times-rated: Adults only--for violence) is in color, its great quantities of blood and guts--there are some entrails sequences that bring to mind Herschel Gordon Lewis' infamous "Blood Feast"--are more transparently faked than in the black-and-white "Night of the Living Dead." The film's terror does not come so much from its Grand Guignol effects as from George A. Romero's outrageous absurdist view of the universe that he projects with such breathtaking force.

One-Armed Foe for Samurai

One of the most successful film series ever is the Zatoichi movies starring veteran actor Shintaro Katsu as a blind samurai.

Like all long-running hits, the Zatoichis thrive on variety. So from time to time Katsu, who is his own producer, has pitted himself against other popular oriental screen heroes.

He persuaded Toshiro Mifune to play opposite him as Yojimbo, that scruffy, wise sword-for-hire Mifune essayed twice for Kurosawa.

And now in Number 22 of the series, "Zatoichi Meets His Equal" (at the Kokusai), Katsu squares off with Chinese actor Wang Chu, star of a Hong Kong-produced, record-breaking series featuring a one-armed swordsman who fights with a broken sword, fantastic leaps and fierce karate chops.

The screenwriter's task, of course, is to maneuver such heroes into a duel. It is accomplished here by having the Chinaman ambushed on his way to visit a Japanese priest friend and then mistakenly believing Zatoichi is somehow implicated.

Since samurai films are notoriously complicated, it's not all that simple. Indeed, this handsome Daiei release is likely to puzzle the unitiated, despite English subtitles, but samurai fans shoould be able to follow the story fairly well.

As usual with this series, "Zatoichi Meets His Equal" is well directed (by Yasuda Kimiyoshi) and replete with superbly choreographed (But very bloody) swordplay. Katsu is convincing as always, Wang Chu is handsome and athletic though rather wooden in expression. Of special note is the able, endearing performance of beautiful Yuko Hamaki as a wily, good-hearted prostitute.

Swordsmen in 'Zatoichi'

In the mythology of Japanese movies the confrontation in "Zatoichi Meets Yojinbo" (at the Kokusai Theater, 3020 Crenshaw) is as momentous as King Kong going up against Godzilla.

In this, the 20th instance that Shintaro Katsu has played the invincible blind swordsman, he finds himself up against none other than Toshiro Mifune.

Mifune created the character of the scruffy bodyguard, the man who offers his services to the highest bidder but invariably ends up on the side of the good, in Kurosawa's slightly differently spelled "Yojimbo" in 1961 and has been playing him more or less ever since.

Even though the plot of "Zatoichi Meets Yojinbo" is terribly hard to follow, despite adequate subtitle translation of dialog, the premise is clear enough to allow the movie to be satisfying entertainment for fans of Japanese films.

What we have in Katsu and Mifune are a pair of town tamers, which means that the only really burning question is whether they'll end up on the same side or if not, how a duel between these two certified heroes will be resolved.

As this well-matched pair of clever peasants, both portly Katsu and Mifune are in fine form playing with relish and bringing the best out in each other.

Although Zatoichi's feats of swordplay would be wonderous for a man with 20-20 vision, Katsu, here an eloquent mime, makes this seemingly incredible character amazingly convincing.

"Zatoichi Meets Yojinbo" is a handsome, action-filled movie, expertly directed with both humor and poignance by Kihachi Okamoto in what is perhaps his best job to date.

The settings have a shabby look of authenticity, the color is exceptionally well-modulated and the score by Akira Ikufube, one of the finest composers in films, sets the mood discreetly.

'Swept Away... Unusual'

"Swept Away... by an unusual destiny in the blue sea of August" (at the Avco Center Cinema No. 2, Westwood, Wednesday) is a bittersweet, comedy in a timeless classic manner that combines elements of "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Robinson Crusoe" in a highly contemporary context.

Ironically, lots of women may well hate this scintillating film--even though it was written and directed by a woman, Italy's Lina Wertmuller, one of today's leading film-makers who won international acclaim with "Love and Anarchy" and "The Seduction of Mimi."

Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato, the charasmatic stars of those two films, are once again teamed to deliciously hilarious and finally heart-tugging effect. This time the exquisite Miss Melato is an utterly self-absorbed rich woman on a month-long cruise with her husband (Eros Pagni, another Wertmuller favorite) and another couple aboard a large yacht. One of its crewmen is Giannini, a Southern Italian Communist and therefore especially sensitive to Miss Melato's endless right-wing chatter and condescending ways.

Out of borden, Miss Melato, on one very calm day, asks Giannini to take her on a ride in a rubber raft with an outboard motor. Of course the motor conks out, and soon the ill-matched couple are lost at sea.

Eventually reaching a tiny island, Giannini turns the tables ono the still-arrogant Miss Melato, taking out his wrath against the bourgeoisie upon her. Summoning up every grievance he can think of from the high price of gas to the poor quality of television programming, he gives her a slap for each offense on his very long list. Still unsatisfied, he further insists he become a veritable god to her as he makes love to her forcefully enough to be described as a rapist.

What's this, a woman film-maker endorsing rape? Hardly. That "Swept Away" proceeds with such infallible logic--and such consummate wit--permits it to be both a caution against the dangers of carrying women's liberation to the extreme of destroying utterly the relationship between man and woman and of pushing social and economic inequities to the point of inciting revolution.

Yet Miss Wertmuller in her wisdom looks beyond her beautifully orchestrated interplay between the enternal battle of the sexes and equally chronic class warfare to express a philosophical sense of life's absurdities and to attack specifically society's unrelenting tendency to alienate people rather than to bring them together.

Oncce Giannini has succeeded in asserting his male--and proletarian--dominance over Miss Melato, he is able to express genuine love for her, which, to her astonishment, she finds herself reciprocating. Thus commences a Garden of Eden-like idyll that Miss Melato fears will end upon rescue because she worries that she will not be strong enough to turn her back upon a life of luxury for a hard, uncertain existence with an impoverished, low-class laborer.

Whether or not the lovers are rescued won't be given away here. Once again Giannini and Miss Melato affirm that they are one of the most attractive and appealing teams on the screen today. Although Giannini is ever adept at alternating between bafflement, rage and tenderness, Miss Melato must necessarily carry the picture, communicating a kind of irable directness beneath an initially bitchy surface and, most crucially, affect a convincing transformation from a shrew to a loving, devoted woman.

Although a bit drawn out, "Swept Away" is mainly satisfying and fiercely provocative on several levels. It seems certain to stir up considerable controversy and discussion among moviegoers in the month to come.

Maniac Sought in 'Bird'

"The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" (at the Pantages) proves that the most familiar of ingredients can still work if they're served up with enough style.

Just as he's about to return home to America, a young writer (Tony Musante) witnesses--from a considerable distance--an attempted murder in a Rome art gallery and his quick actions save the life of the owner of the gallery's wife (Eva Renzi).

Rome, it seems is being terrorized by a Jack the Ripper type specializing in pretty young girls. Detained by the authorities, Mustante decides to try to find the maniac himself.

Now all this sounds just about as hokey as you can get, but fortunately it doesn't look that way. In a dazzling directorial debut, screenwriter - journalist - film critic Dario Argento displays such authority and imagination he makes the formula seem fresh and thoroughly engrossing.

(If he means his movie to be some sort of tribute to the Hollywood thriller of the '40s he's doing it with a great, deal more subtlety and lack of self-consciousness than is usually the case.)

Anyway, he builds suspense so well that the picture is downright scary. You even forget that it's not very well dubbed. "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" also benefits from rich color set off by strong light and deep shadows and takes us throgh parts of Rome and its environs that are way off the tourist track.

Usually cast as a psycho himself--e.g., "The Incident," "The Detective"--Msante makes a likable hero, niave but determined. His girl friend is pretty Suzy Kendall.

Much of what happens in "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" is predictable--and somehow all the more enjoyable for being so--but it would be pretty tough to crack this whodunit in advance of its surprise ending.

'Citizens Band' Tunes In on Fun

"Citizens Band" (citywide) is the first major film to deal with the CB radio phenomenon, and what a dandy entertainment it is. Writer Paul Brickman (in a smash debut) and director Jonathan Demme (up from exploitation at last) have hit exactly the right note between reality and make-believe to create a successful topical comedy that boasts considerable feeling for its people and insight into contemporary Americana. What's more, it most effectively reunites "American Graffiti's" Paul Le Mat and Candy Clark.

Le Mat is a very nice guy, conscientiously trying to care for his nutty drunken bum of a father (Roberts Blossom), pursue Miss Clark, who has foraken him for his square, uptight brother (Bruce McGill), and clean up the local CB emergency band of hookers and various kooks, including a thundering bigot (Harry Northup), a crazy priest (Ed Begley Jr.) and a singularly precocious little kid (Michael Mahler).

One Man's Families

Paralleling and at times intersecting the triangle involving Le Mat, Miss Clark and McGill is another, which provides the film with its greatest source of laughter. A couple of truckers' wives, resigned Marcia Rodd and unflaggingly bubbly Ann Wedgeworth, gradually discover they are married to the same man, happy-go-lucky Charles Napier, whom they find shacked up with a sweet, squeaky-voiced yet very wise little prostitute, Alix Elias, who at Napier's urging has put her business on wheels--in a camper.

While generating much humor and sentiment, Brickman and Demme suggest that the CB phenomenon is somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand it allows people to express themselves and their fantasies for better or worse, to strangers in ways which presumably they wouldn't dare face-to-face, especially to friends and family (and even lovers). Rather comfortingly, the film also suggests that CB radio can actually bring people together, making a positive contribution to the concept of the global village.

Bright and Bouncy

Enough of such serious considerations, "Citizens Band" is mainly bright, bouncy and hilarious. Le Mat and Miss Clark give further evidence that they are among the most gifted and appealing young people on the screen today, and McGill, in his film debut, is most impressive, making sympathetic a seemingly disagreeable character.

"Citizens Band" has a first-rate, appropriately lively score by Bill Conti (fresh off his superb contribution to "Rocky," which included the Oscar-nominated "Gonna Fly Now"). The highly mobile and expressive camerawork is by Jordan Cronenweth, one of the best. (The movie was filmed in small towns and rural areas in Northern California.)

Most gratifying of all, the film marks the graduation of Demme, one of the most talented young directors in Hollywood, from the ranks of exploitation after a substantial apprenticeship with Roger Corman that yielded that witty exploitation classic, "Caged Heat."

Square-jawed, charismatic yet just naturally funny, Napier has likewise arrived after yeoman service in several Russ Meyer films--he was Harry in "Cherry, Harry and Raquel," one of Meyer's best and funniest work, have perhaps never before been shown to such advantage on the screen. As for Elias, she's irresistible--but then so is everything about "Citizens Band."

Violence TKOs 'Fighting Mad'

In "Fighting Mad" (citywide), Jonathan Demme, one of the most promising young writer-directors in exploitation pictures, has allowed violence to outweigh ideas to such a degree that the picture pecomes a turnoff, little more than a blatantly obvious play to the yahoo mentality.

It's a shame, because technically the picture is terrific and its story could have sustained considerably more development.

Freshly divorced, Peter Fonda decides to give up big city life and head home to the Arkansas hills with his small son (Gino Franco) to resume farming with his father (John Doucette) and brother (Scott Glen). However, he arrives just as ruthless promoter Philip Carey is grabbing up all the land to begin strip mining operations, a procedure that endangers the property of even those who have decided to hold out--doucette, Glen and precious few others.

There are lots of potential ingredients here: nostolgia for a simpler though endangered way of life vs. rapacious industrialization, a concern for ecology and despair over the corrupt politicans that allow men like Carey to prevail and flourish. But the Niagara of violence unleashed when Fonda decides to fight back after Carey has Glen and his wife (Kathleen Miller) savagely murdered finally drowns out everything. Because of this, Demme never does get to what should be the final irony, which is that strip mining for coal may well become an inevitability on of the gas shortage. It's not that "Fighting Mad" is incredible--surely there have been men as bad and even more murderous than Carey--but that Demme here can't seem to resist at every opprotunity going for easy, inflammatory brutality instead of reaching for the larger prespectives and broader and deeper implications about life in America today that his story affords so rich and natural a context.

There are both vivid images and performances--Doucette is especially good as a strong, loving patriarch--but in aiming so unerringly at gut reactions Demme never engages the imagination. As a result, "Fighting Mad" goes down for the count.

Slaughter, Fear in Grisly 'Halloween'

What is most depressing about "Halloween" (citywide), a well-made exercise in unredeemed morbidity, is that it is the work of talented young USC film school alumnus John Carpenter, who recieved a short-subject Oscar for his highly affecting "Resurrection of Bronco Bill" and much praise for his "Dark Star," a student project he developed into a feature-length film. More recently--and less encouragingly--he coauthored "The Eyes of Laura Mars."

After a bravura precredit sequence in "Halloween," in which we discover that the brutal murderer of a young woman on Halloween Eve in 1963 is her little brother, the film flashes to the present. The boy, (Tony Moran) now 21, has escaped from the mental institution where he's spent, the last 15 years to return to his idyllic-looking hometown for a new rampage.

He zeroes in on three likable high school girls, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis and P.J. Soles. Predictably, this zombie-like killer murders Loomis and Soles in nauseatingly grisly fashion, and Curtis, the patrician daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh in her film debut, is saved by mental-institution chief Donald Pleasence in the nick of time. But has this remorseless figure of primordial evil and superhuman strength really been vanquished...?

Although Carpenter and producer Debra Hill's plot may be full of holes, Carpenter draws upon the resources of the camera to overcome them with ease. Also his victims are well drawn and well played. (Pleasence has little to do but stalk the elusive man.)

With cinematic flair, Carpenter therefore knows how to generate fear (rather than suspense) and how to make us feel like voyeurs (which makes the film a complete turn-off about halfway through). So what, then is the point of all this realistically depicted slaughter and terror? With its tree-shaded small-town American setting, "Halloween" does function metaphorically for the insecure times in which we live. But sincce it offers nothing more, "Halloween" (MPAA-rated: R) becomes yet another in that seemingly endless series of films that simple exacerbate our increasing paranoia--and what is the good of this?

COMPUTER MAKES FOR SWEET 'ELECTRIC DREAMS'

It was only a matter of time before someone came up with a computer fantasy, but what's surprising is that it turns out to be as inspired and appealing as "Electric Dreams" (citywide), a romantic comedy of genuine sweetness and originality.

Spacey, klutzy, bespectacled young San Francisco architect Lenny Von Dohlen, who's developing an earthquake-proof brick (what about the mortar?) is the perfect candidate for a personal computer to organize his life.

At the same, a lovely young cellist (Virginia Madsen) has moved into the apartment on the floor above him, and what first attracts her to her new neighbor is the music emanating from his apartment, seemingly in response to her cell practicing. When she mentions it to him, Von Dohlen doesn't know what she's talking about; he hasn't yet realized that his computer has taken on a life and personality of its own.

Toward the middle, "Electric Dreams" threatens to become too mild for its own good, with the computer--which calls itself Edgar--gradually dominating the film as well as Von Dohlen. (Since the cagey, brilliant Edgar's voice is none other than that of Bud Cort, newcomers Von Dohlen and Madsen seem bland in comparison.) But director Steve Barron and writer Rusty Lemorande knew what they were doing: proceeding blithely, they're able to catch us by surprise as they gradually reveal their film's emotional undercurrents.

Von Dohlen and Madsen really catch hold of us--and each other--when he comforts her on the loss of her beloved cello, crushed by the elevator doors. By the way of comfort, he points out that what's important--and not lost--is what's inside her--that the cello, after all, is only an instrument.

Computer-generated graphics and music have been around for some time, but it's hard to think of another contemporary non-"Star Wars"-type movie that incorporates them so extensively.

Thanks to cinematographer Alex Thomas, production designer Richard Macdonald (a longtime distinguished associate of the late Joseph Losey), video wizards Ian Kelly and Tim Boxell and composer Giorgio Moroder, "Electric Dreams" (rated PG but suitable family fare) is highly imaginative, both visually and aurally. In its lighthearted way, it raises our consciousness of how computers are affecting our lives and perhaps even reshaping our perception of reality.

Last seen as a young musician seeking out the advice of country legend Robert Duvall in "Tender Mercies," Von Dohlen has much the appeal of the youthful James Stewart. Soon to be seen in the science-fiction epic "Dune," Virginia Madsen is another discovery, as poised as she is beautiful. Maxwell Caulfield has some funny moments as a handsome, confident musician who mistakenly assumes Von Dohlen will pose no threat to his pursuit of Madsen. But the really touching figure in the film is finally Edgar; never seen, Bud Cort reminds us what radio acting at its best was all about.

Underside of Americana in 'Macon'

It's a sleepy night in a Louisiana tank town in 1954.

Two rambunctious young men (Alan and Jesse Vint), taking turns with a girl, scramble out a back window and make their getaway from a trio of irate older men. All the while we hear songs like "Sha-boom" and "Jim Dandy to the Rescue."

In short, it would seem that "Macon County Line" (citywide) is going to be still another foray into '50s nostalgia. Scarcely any prolog could be more deceptive--aside, perhaps, from the fierce expressions on the faces of the Vints' pursuers.

By the time its increasingly harrowing 90 minutes are over, "Macon County Line" has become one of the most uncompromising and terrifying portraits of Americana ever commited to film.

The Vints, brothers in real life, play a pair of open, happy-go-lucky brothers from Chicago who have just enlisted in the Army in New Orleans and plan to have some fun in the two weeks of freedom left to them. Traveling over Louisiana back roads they give a life to a pretty girl (Cheryl Waters) heading for Dallas.

It's a bright, sunny day when suddenly the fuel pump in the brothers' '48 Town and Country Chrysler gives out. Limping into a roadside community for repairs, they're spotted by an uptight sheriff (Max Baer) who orders them to get moving once the job is completed.

Unable to afford a new pump and forced to settle for a patch-up job, they find themselves stranded on the outskirts of town--and, unknowingly, right across from the sheriff's house.

What ensues is a tragic convergence of three elements--the sheriff, the trio of kids and a rapist (Timmothy Scott) and his friend (James Gammon), another ex-con. By chance, Scott's next victim turns out to be Baer's wife (Joan Blackman), whom he murders.

Baer, who produced, and Richard Compton, who directed, have collaborated on a terse, punchy script that has developed this true-life incident into a classic American tragedy that is also an implicit but all-out indictment of the evils of gunworship, bigotry and just plain hardheaded stupidity and ignorance. As a result, "Macon County Line" is an utterly devastating film, painful to watch but too compelling to turn away from.

This American International release makes everyone in it shine. Both Vints have been seen before, but never have they showed such promise. The same holds true for Compton, heretofore a director of some unmemorable low-budget exploitation pictures. Miss Walters, a skillful actress, has a fresh appeal, that augurs wells for her, too.

But it's Baer, whose project "Macon County Line" is, who's the revelation on both sides of the camera. No Beverly Hillbilly, he's an absolute terror because his monsterous sheriff comes on as such a well-mannered, soft-spoken nice guy. Indeed, what gives "Macon County Line" its impact is its insistence in showing everyone, even the rapist in the round.

Also in the cast are such stalwarts as Emile Meyer, Doodles Weaver and Jay Adler. Standouts are little Lief Garret as Baer's confused but obedient son and Geoffrey Lewis, who provides some comic relief as a slow-witted mechanic. "Another Time, Another Place," composed and sungy by Bobbie Gentry accompanies the end titles.

Stunningly photographed by Daniel Lacombre (outside Sacramento, which es perfectly for bayou country), "Macon County Line" is outstanding in its every aspect.

'Martin' Combines Horror and Pathos

Ten years ago a young Pittsburgh film-maker named George A. Romero, whose background was in commercials and documentaries, turned out a low-budget horror picture called "Night of the Living Dead," which was about a rampage of ghouls. It has become a classic of the genre and is arguably the scariest picture of the past decade.

Now Romero is back with another scare show, "Martin" (tonight and Saturday at midnight at the Royal for an indefinite Friday-Saturday midnight run). Actually more tragic than suspenseful, "Martin" has plenty of graphic, though not lingering, gore and some humor, too, but pathos is the essential quality of this modern-day vampire tale.

What Romero has done is to take a vampire and turn him loose in Braddock, Pa., a decaying steel mill town. Martin (well-played by John Amplas), a nondescript teenager, has come to live with his elderly cousin (Lincoln Maazel) who believes that vampirism is the family curse and considers it an obligation to take the youth in, hoping even to save his soul. Martin, however, sees himself as sick rather than possessed by the devil. In any event, he's a homicidal maniac with a lust for blood as well as sex.

The telling of Martin's grisly story becomes for Romero a way of commenting on the decline of religion and traditional beliefs, and he couldn't have picked a more apt setting than homely, seedy, everyday Braddock to make the point. (Transylvanian castles couldn't seem more remote.) The irony, of course, is that in regarding Martin as a veritable Count Dracula--which in a way he is--his cousin denies him the help (or simple confinement) he needs.

If "Martin" (MPAA-rated: R) is less fascinating--except in its all-out shock sequences--than "Night of the Living Dead," it is more ambitious. No matter how many jolts and laughs a cult audience might get out of "Martin" there's no denying its underlying seriousness.

There's also no denying Romero's talent (which extends to ling up a capable cast and crew). Romero has a mordantly witty, deeply pessimistic vision of the world, which he communicates with strong visual force. Like Samuel Fuller and especially Russ Meyer, George A. Romero is an authentic American primitive.

'RE-ANIMATOR' COULD BECOME A CLASSIC

"Re-Animator" (San Diego area theaters), despite its title, is not a cartoon.

It's simply the best, funniest Grand Guignol horror picture to come along in ages.

Winner of a special critics' prize at Cannes, it could become a classic of the genre like "Night of the Living Dead" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and enjoy a long life as a cult film.

"You haven't done this on people?," asks medical student Bruce Abbott of his new roommate, Jeffrey Combs, who's shot up Abbott's dead cat with a mysterious phosphorescent chartreuse substance that has turned the poor creature into a rampaging attacker. But Combs, fresh transfer from a Zurich medical school--never mind why he departed--is a genius teetering on madness and determined to conquer brain death. The only trouble is that the dead, animal or human, are brought back to life as zombies with brutal killer instincts.

Of course Combs' experiments lurch out of control with breathtaking rapidity, but then everything about this film is fast and punchy. adapted by Dennis Paoli and William J. Norris froma 1922 H.P. Lovecraft story and directed by Stuart Gordon, it's a real throat-grabber that holds tight from first frame to last.

To describe what happens is not merely to spoil the show but to invite a repugnance that the film itself skirts because its makers have been shrewd enough to balance the blood and guts with laughter. The special effects inspection yet are so outrageous that you can't take them seriously. "Re-Animator" is therefore not really all that scary, although it's not absolutely out of the question for the faint heart and/or impressionable youngsters.

A founder of Chicago's widley acclaimed Organic Theater, Gordon displays an impressive grasp of the cinematic for a debuting film director, even allowing for some TV expirience. Empire Pictures has him committed for more horror, but he shouldn't let himself get stuck in the genre.

Everyone involved is first-rate, cinematographers Mac Ahlberg and Robert Ebinger and composter Richard Band, whose score, in the full-bodied vintage Hollywood manner, is performed by Rome's Philharmonic Orchestra.

Abbott and Barbara Crampton (as his girlfriend) are attractive, capable leads, and like their director and acting colleagues, come from the theater. David Gale has gruesome fun as a crazed member of the medical school faculty, and so does Robert Sampson as its ill-fated dean. But the big noise is Combs, a small, compact man of terrific intensity and concetration (and winner of a Los Angeles Drama Critics best actor award for his performance in "Playboy of the Western World.") "Re-Animator" is a Times-rated Mature.

'NINJA' DONE IN BY EXTREME VIOLENCE

"Revenge of the Ninja" (citywide) is quite a few chops above the average martial arts film but it is done in by extreme violence.

There's no question that its fledgling director Sam Firstenberg and its writer James R. Silke, a respected film historian, have a strong sense of the cinematic. Add David Gurfinkel's dynamic camera work and Rob Walsh's driving score, and you've got a picture that's always lively and often exciting. But "Revenge of the Ninja" is a paradox: a film that looks and sounds great but is hard to watch because of its grisliness.

In ancient Japan, the Ninja were a secret clan of deadly warriors with a mastery of an array of weapons and also the art of illusion. Today, only a handful of martial artists are skilled in ninjitsu, One of them is the film's hero (Sho Kosugi), but, when a band of evil ninjitsu masters slay most of his family, he is persuaded by his friend (Arthur Roberts) to move to America with his small son (Kane Kosugi) and mother (Grace Oshita). Kosugi doesn't know that Roberts intends to use Kosugi's import business as a front for drug-trafficking. Roberts then runs afoul of the underworld, and the blood bath begins in earnest. There are "1,000 ways of death" for the Ninja, and by the end of this film you feel you've seen them all.

Dialogue and acting are strictly elementary, generally the case in martial arts movies crowded with karate champions rather than actors. But there's solid work from Virgil Frye as a tough police detective, and Mario Gallo is vivid as a mob kingpin. The film's best sequence finds Kosugi taking on four thugs as they're driving off with his art treasures in a speeding van. "Revenge of the Ninja" (rated R for some strong language as well as its violence) is best left to martial arts fans, but what Firstenberg and Silke do next will be worth a look.

'THE HOWLING'--HORROR FOR THE FUN OF IT

Shrewd young film makers, who realize the horror picture is a virtual rite of age for them, often decided to have fun with the genre. They've learned that when they're enjoying themselves their audiences will too, provided that the laughs and chills are kept in proper balance.

This seems to be the case with "The Howling" (citywide today), which has played successfully around the country before opening here. It's a hip, confidently made picture, loaded with inside references, but it does push to the limit of redeeming effects of humor upon sheer grisliness. On a first look "The Howling" is at times pretty scary and downright revolting; oon a second, it's more of a joke. But when it comes to making recommendations about this kind of film it's first impressions that count, which means that it's unsuitbale for pre-teens and for those who are at all squeamish even if the film were not taken seriously at all.

In adapting Gary Brander's novel, director Joe Dante and writer John Sayles--he did a rewrite of Terence H. Winkless' script to help pay for "The Return of the Secaucus Seven"--plunge us immediately into a terrifyingly life-like situation, shot with jagged, jarring documentary realism by versatile cameraman John Hora. A petty Los Angeles newscaster (Dee Wallace) has been repeatedly ed by a psychopathic killer, and she's agreed to meet him in a peep show booth at the back of a Western Avenue porn shop. There's a snafu with the cops providing her cover that almost costs her her life, and she finds she has blacked out the incident only to be tormented by it in recurrent nightmares.

The film makers have captured the backstage atmosphere of a nightly TV news show and the awfullness of Wallace's ordeal with such wit and economy that they have shown us they have what it takes to go ahead and tell us a serious story. But that's not what they were hired to do.

Suave, soothing psychiatrist Patrick Macnee recommends that Wallace and her husband (Christopher Stone, her-real life spouse) go to his Northern California retreat to recuperate. All it takes is a quick cut to a grimacing John Carradine to let us know that rest and recreation is not what's in store for Wallace.

Wallace, the lost lady in the Las Hadas bar with Dudley Moore in "10," rightly plays straight. Dennis Dugan and Belinda Balaski are her colleagues who begin to suspect the killer she trapped was perhaps more than just another psychopath. Elisabeth Brooks is a sultry, insinuating lady at the retreat, and Slim Pickens is the local sheriff. Dick Miller, longtime Roger Corman stalwart, is an occult-book shop proprietor, and there are walk-ons by director Jonathan Kaplan, science fiction historia Forrest Ackerman and Corman himself. (Both Dante and Sayles are Corman alumni.) Sayles has a funny bit as a morgue attendant. Pickens and a number of other players are named for directors of a certain kind of horror picture that "The Howling" revives.

'NOMADS': STYLE WORKS, BUT FILM SHORT OF MARK

At the beginning of "Nomads" (citywide), a bloodied and terror-stricken Pierce Brosnan stabs at emergency ward doctor Lesley-Anne Down as he utters his dying words in French. Not only does he leave Down with a cut on her neck bad enough to require stitches but he also has plunged her into a walking nightmare, having transferred into her mind the whole horrifying experience that has cost him his life.

If style were everything, "Nomads" would have it made and then some. In look and feel and in its L.A. environs it brings to mind "Body Double," but alongside it, the Brian De Palma thriller seems as substantial as Shakespeare. As Down reels around, trying to hold on to her own mind as Brosnan's memories intermittently invade it, we learn that the bearded Brosnan was a French anthropologist who, with his beautiful auburn-haired wife (Anna-Maria Montecelli), had just settled into a hillside home that had been the scene of a hideous Tate-like massacre.

Obscene messages cover the garage walls, and a band of punks (among them Adam Ant, Mary Woronov and Frank Doubleday) drive up and down out front in a van. Alas, as an anthropologist, Brosnan is more curious than afraid. Of course, these aren't ordinary punks....

In strict fairness one shouldn't give away their secret, but the fact that "Nomads" writer-director John McTiernan takes himself so very seriously only makes his tale of the supernatural seem all the sillier, and as a result, merely grisly rather than scary. There are some spooky, other-worldly moments, as when Brosnan stumbles through a Venice doorway, finding himself in a seemingly endless corridor, spanned by arches and greeted by a nun (s Bay, delightfully eerie) who tries to warn him how and why the punkers, whom she calls Nomads, are so dangerous.

Cameraman Stephen Ramsey and production designer Marcia Hinds have given "Nomads" a sleekly elegant look, and Bill Conti's score is properly ominous. But McTiernan, an American Film Institute alum in his feature debut, so overreaches in his hard-to-swallow premise that his film can't sustain such high-style elements.

His cast, which includes Nina Foch as the chic realtor who sold Brosnan his cursed house and Jeannie Elias as Down's foul mouthed friend, is doggedly conscientious, especially Brosnan in working up an acceptable French accent. "Nomads" (rated R for considerable bloodshed, some sex, some strong language) leaves us wondering what Brosnan's "Remington Steele" fans will make of it--and what made him choose it for his leap from TV to the big screen in the first place.

'STRANGE BEHAVIOR' BLENDS WIT, GORE

"Strange Behavior" (citywide) could just as easily have been called "Altered States." Actually, this little horror picture is a good deal less pretentious, a fine reminder that the size of the imagination is ever more important than the size of the budget.

Grisly but sly, "Strange Behavior" is the genre film at its most knowing and controlled. Director Michael Laughlin and co-writer William Condon simultaneously resurrect the horror film's cherished mad schientist and invoke nostalgia for small town life and its values. It is able to take its people and their relationships seriously, yet affectionately spoof the conventions of its genre, embracing even its own campy title. As an exploitation picture, it plays on the layman's deep-rooted fear of science tampering with nature.

Michaael Murphy may be the screen's ultimate preppie, synonymous with glib contemporary urbanity for his portrayals in "Manhattan" and "An Unmarried Woman." But it should be ed that Murphy is an Altman favorite and demostrated his sense of humor and shrewdness by appearing in another very hip horror picture, "Count Yorga, Vampire." In "Strange Behavior" he's an ordinary guy to the bone, a rural police chief, long widowed.

Dan Shor, who plays Murphy's son, is a likable kid and, like most of his peers, can always use some extra money. So when his pal (Marc McClure) tells him he can get paid for serving as a guinea pig at a nearby college's experimental lab, he doesn't hesitate. It's run by Fiona Lewis, whose dated hairdo is as rigid as her posture and who reads her every line with a wicked wit, bringing to mind Gale Sondergaard's Spider Woman. "Now just relax," says Lewis soothingly to Shor as she wields the world's largest hypodermic. "You won't feel a thing."

Louis Fletcher is the comforting, patient lady in Murphy's life. She's an older-fashioned feminine type who favors Spring-O-Lators and--nice touch--chews gum in what proves to be her biggest, most affecting moment. Arthur Dignam, the most tortured of the priests in Fred Schepisi's "The Devil's Playground," is Lewis' mentor, about whom it would not do to reveal more.

Amazingly, "Strange Behavior" (rated R for grisiliness) was shot in and around Auckland and represents one of New Zealand's initial ventures into the international film market. For Michael Laughlin, "Strange Behavior" represents a notable directorial debut after having produced such venturesome films as "Joanna" and "Two-Lane Blacktop."

'ALLIGATOR' MIXES GORE, HUMOR

Now that John Sayles' "The Return of the Secaucus Seven" has at last been released to raves on both coasts he will most likely never have to return to writing exploitation pictures like "Alligator" (citywide).

Yet he and director Lewis Teague--he also directed Sayles' script for "The Lady in Red"--have nothing to apologize for in regard to "Alligator," which happens to be well made and lots of fun. While it has the genre's mandatory quota of death and destruction, it nevertheless is in refreshing contrast to the morbid dehumanizing horror pictures that have been flooding drive-in screens of late.

What makes "Alligator" a standout of its kind is a wonderfully saving sense of humor that does not patronize unsophisticated exploitation fans nor does it stint them on their expectation of chills and scares. However, "Alligator" shows how important a light touch and laughter are in depicting gore.

Anyway, there's this 36-foot-long, 2,000-pound alligator sloshing about the sewer system of an unnamed city that's started surfacing and gobbling up folks right and left. Naturally, nobody believes policeman Robert Forster when he says that's what happened to his young partner, although we know this to be true. But then how did that alligator get to be so big in the first place?

Sayles and Frank Ray Perilli, who collaborated on the original story, honor the requirements of plot but happily shift the emphasis to the likable Forster and his relationship with pretty, capable herpatologist Robin Riker, both of whom are delightful and relaxed under Teague's direction. "Alligator" gets lots of mileage out of Forster's thinning hair, and there's an easy going naturalness to Forster and Riker that make them seem like one of the couples in "The Return of the Secaucus Seven." Michael Gazzo is Forster's hard-pressed chief, Dean Jagger's a local malevolent tycoon and Jack Carter and Henry Silva two key victims of the alligator.

In substance "Alligator" (R) is, of course, all stuff and nonsense, but it's tight, smart and looks good. It's the only kind of film that leaves you feeling certain that it's only a warm-up for bigger things from its makers.

VIOLENCE FOR 'MOTHER'S DAY'

"Mother's Day" (citywide) is the latest shocker to depict extreme violence against women on the screen.

This tawdry little item, which is unrated, finds three young women on a camping trip who are kidnaped by a pair of doltish brothers and brought to a filthy cabin where the boys intent to rape, beat and strange their victims--all to the cackling delight of their crazed aged mother.

Only one of the young women gets the full treatment before her friends manage to escape, only to prepare an even more savage revenge. They ax one brother in the groin, force Drano down the other and smother the mother with a translucent plastic pillow in the shape of a woman's bosom.

Despite such a horrifying vengeance, it's the brutal abduction that lingers in the mind. It's been theorized that such violence against women represents a backlash against women's liberation. Whether or not this is the case, such a reaction is obviously abhorrent.

Any traces of talent and dark humor that might show through "Mother's Day" (Times-rated: Adults only) are drowned by the cynicism and horrendousness of the enterprise. In his feature directorial debut, Charles Kaufman (who wrote the script with Michael Leight) lets us know even before the credits what we're in for, greeting us with a murderous attack on a young couple that includes a graphic decapitation of the man. One wonders what Kaufman, having exploited totally degrading material to the hilt, hopes to do for an encore.

'Thunder' Let's Bloodbath Roll

Well into the press preview of "Rolling Thunder" (citywide) someone shouted, "At least it's not dull." To give the devil his due, it isn't, but otherwise it's one of the most revolting exploitation pictures to come along in some time.

William Devane stars as a POW Army major who returns home to San Antonio, Tex., with much fanfare. On his first evening home, however, his wife (Lisa Richards) tells him she wants to marry another man (Lawrason Driscoll). Devane is just getting used to this piece of news when several days later a group of thugs break in, demanding the $2,155 in silver dollars presented him by a local department store for every day he spent in North Vietnam prison camp. Devane reflexively refuses to tell where the money is hidden, so they stick his hand in garbage disposal. (This is the moment that caused Fox to drop the picture after a hostile preview in Salinas; now it's AIP that will accrue the virtually certain profits.)

A Wicked Right Hook

Miss Richards and their small son (Jordan Gerier) walk in at this point, and although gerier reveals where the coins are, he and his mother are shot dead.

What ensues, predictably, is a bloodbath of revenge, with Devane wielding a sharpened hook in place of his mangled right arm. Linda Haynes, a local girl who wore his POW bracelet, s him on the grisly odyssey.

Now the point to be made about "Rolling Thunder" is that it's not just another cheaply made piece of junk--although junk it most assuredly is. It has been very well directed by John Flynn and superbly photographed by Jordan Cronenweth from a script by "Taxi Driver's" Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould from a story by Schrader.

"Rolling Thunder" is some kind of ultimate in cynical calculation. The whole numbing predicament of the returning POW is perceptively, credibly depicted--but only to set up the carnage that follows. Surely, the POWs don't deserve this kind of exploitation on the screen.

When Devane takes off to exact revenge, the familiar romantic story of the self-destructive loner and his loyal girl on the run in exotically seedy locales is set in motion.

The Last Convertible

Along the way there are a number of hip symbolic touches lamenting how America's going to hell--undoubtedly this picture is its own best proof of that--such as the fact that the red Cadillac convertible presented to Devane is the last of its kind.

Both Devane and Miss Haynes, who could be playing the very same been-around, good-hearted girl she portrayed in "The Nickel Ride," are excellent within context. (As Devane's avenging POW pal, Tommy Lee Jones hasn't much to do except kill.) But that context is reprehensible. Of course it could be argued that Devane is only reaping what we sowed in Vietnam, but it will take a much less shallow picture than this to make the connection beween American violence abroad and at home.

Indeed, the whole argument that life in America has become as rotten and vile as it is shown to be here doesn't work. That's because in every aspect "Rolling Thunder" (MPAA-rated: R--only an R?) is so slick, so derivative that for all its fury and tumult it has no real life of its own.

Upping the Genre of Prison Flicks

There's scarcely a genre more sleazy than that of the women's prison picture, which today is made mainly in the Philippines and which features women degrading women in the context of sex-and-violence fantasies for the delectation of male audiences.

Consequently, "Caged Heat" (citywide, with a re-run of Melvin Van Peebles' outrageous and dynamic "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song") is especially gratifying. With wit, style and unflagging verve, writer-director Jonathan Demme, a youthful and talented exploitation veteran, sends up the genre while still giving the mindless action fan his money's worth.

Demme, best known for "Angels Die Hard," manages not only to have it both ways but also, in pointing up the absurdity of the genre, points up the absurdity of the often cruel and inhuman conditions of real-life prisons.

Echo of Altman

Backed by remarkably gifted cameraman Tak Fukjimoto and equally inspired composer John Cale, who ranges easily from the funky to the elegiac, Demme evokes the rich, ironically but comionately observed atmosphere of a Robert Altman film--and even throws in some well-done Felliniesque dream sequences for good measure.

Juanita Brown, Roberta Collins, Erica Gavin, Ella Ried and Rainbeaux Smith are inmates at an extremely harsh--and absolutely authentic-looking--women's prison presided over by the sexually twisted and sadistic matron (Barbara Steele, the erstwhile horror picture goddess who spoofs her part deliciously).

The girls are further menaced by a mad resident, doctor (Warren Miller), who specializes in hideous behavior modification treatments designed to satisfy his own warped desires.

Strong Control

Demme has such strong control he manages to make fun of the cliche plot and its conventions while taking the direness of girls' plight seriously and shows off his spirited cast to best advantage.

Most notably, Demme treats Erica Gain, who starred in Russ Meyer's "Vixen," as an actress rather than a sex object and elicits from her an unexpectedly creditable performance.

In Every aspect "Caged Heat" attests to Demme's viruosity--and to Fujimoto's and Cale's as well--and thereby demonstrates that all three of them are ready for major projects.

Violence Bared in 'Supervixens'

In its first few minutes "Supervixens" comes on like vintage Russ Meyer, a hilarious, rambunctious combination of fast action and busty babes.

But quite abruptly Meyer, the original King of the Nudies, freezes the smile on our faces with a dazzlingly staged, truly terrifying sequence that, in making a direct connection between sex and violence, is truly one of the most imioned expressions of the battle of the sexes ever filmed.

SuperAngel (Shari Eubank), the spoiled incredibly voluptuous, incredibly insatiable wife of a nice-guy gas station attendant (Charlie Pitts), begins taunting a super-macho crooked sheriff (dynamic, jut-jawed Charles Napier) for his impotence. The more she teases him the more she unleashes in him a sadistic streak--and a masochistic one in herself--so that the tension that builds between them must inevitably be resolved in an orgy of either sex or violence.

In the increasing suspense, as either alternative momentarily hangs in the balance before SuperAngel finally pushes the sheriff too far, we are able to see how both are tragically trapped by their sexual stereotypes: As a sexpot SuperAngel is expected to demand nothing less than perfection from her lovers; as a he-man the sheriff must be the ultimate in virility.

Anyway, she incites him to such rage that she ends up stomped then electrocuted in her bathtub.

(Although "Supervixens," which is decidedly not hardcore, probably got its rating for a few flashes of below-the-waist nudity, it's the violence that merits it.)

Even though this sequence moves as lightning-fast as the famous shower scene in "Psycho" it is too grisly not to exact its toll. So shocking, so visceral is it in its impact that it’s impossible--unless you’re pretty unthinking or insensitive--to laugh heartily at the subsequent lusty adventures of Pitts, now on the run since he’s the prime suspect in his wife’s brutal murderer.

However, Meyer himself is more serious than ever before. The pioneer and now past master in projecting all-American male sex fantasies on the screen is in "Supervixens" reflecting the reverberations of women’s liberation. Before our very eyes sex goddess dreams turn into nightmares. Indeed, so powerful is SuperAngel that she reincarnates herself as "Supervixen", now as good as she was previously evil. With her Pitts finds idyllic bliss--until the sheriff reappears for a final battle with the couple.

A blue-collar surrealist, Meyer used a camera as expressively and rigorously as Hitchcock or Antonioni. In his adept hands a vast desert expanse--virtually the entire setting for "Supervixens"--becomes a moral landscape. In this film it’s as if he had gone and explored, as never before to such an extent, the dark underside of his erotic myths. It’s "Supervixens," not "Day of the Locust," that’s genuinely apocalyptic.

'Malibu High': A Study in Obsession

The title "Malibu High" suggests a bouncy summer romance featuring sand, surf and bikinis. Actually, it’s anything but that. It tells of an 18-year-old girl (Jill Lansing, an inexperienced but intense young actress) who hates school and is on the verge of flunking out and despises her nagging mother whom she blames for her father’s suicide. When her boyfriend (Stuart Taylor) throws her over for a rich girl, that’s the last straw. In revenge, she decides to seduce her teachers into giving her A’s, turns hooker to get money to buy the luxuries she craves and discovers she gets a kick out of killing people.

All this is as sordid as it sounds, but whether by accident or design director Irv Berwick and writers John Buckley and Tom Singer so identify with their heroine that the film becomes a surprisingly comionate study in obsession. They never make fun of the absurdity of her determination to graduate from high school merely as a fierce point of pride nor do they satirize her complete naivete as she becomes a pawn for her underworld pimp (Garth Howard), who gets her to kill for him but treats her with unfailing--and therefore seemingly authentic--tenderness and respect.

This girl brings to mind the frustrated nurse of that B classic "The Honeymoon Killers," who would never have turned murderer had she not fallen for a greasy little gigolo, and also Truffaut’s equally obsessive "Adele H." in her extreme reaction to Taylor’s rejection of her.

Produced at the age of 18 by Lawrence D. Foldes, who claims to be Hollywood’s youngest producer--and he may well be--"Malibu High" is often awkward and crude yet is too oddly compelling to be dismissed as the trash it would seem so clearly to be. The girl’s story may be utterly improbable but her corruption is persuasive; in this, she’s not so unlike Louise Brooks’ Lulu in "Pandora’s Box." "Malibu High" is a seedy, sleazy little gem best appreciated by cineastes.

Corman Gang Spoofs Itself

At least as far back as "Merton of the Movies" (1924) Hollywood has been turning its cameras on itself, generally with satirical and often savage intent.

But there’s never been anything quite like "Hollywood Boulevard", an outrageous, often hilarious spoof of the zany world of low-budget exploitation film-making. And what better company to produce such an effort than Roger Corman’s New World Pictures?

To be sure, New World knows its audience too well to attempt anything like an authentic glimpse of the actual hectic, often ruthless and desperate existence of aspiring young talent. Rather, it has played everything very, very broad, waist nudity to satisfy the fans of the very films it’s making fun of. Yet it is also sufficiently imaginative and knowledgeable to amuse film buffs.

In the time-honored tradition a naive beauty from Indiana (Candice Rialson, an honest-to-goodness New World alumna) heads for Hollywood dreaming of screen stardom. No Sooner has she tried out Bette Davis' footprints in Grauman's Chinese forecourt than she lands a job playing the driver of a getaway car--her own ramshackle vehicle--for a pair of bank robbers. The only thing that the robbers are for real--she having fallen for their "hidden camera" gambit.

However, she does get away, which is enough to inspire her two-bit agent (Dick Miller) to send her out on a job as a stunt girl at Miracle Pictures. (Hence, the hoary line, "If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle.") Soon shes cast as one of the leads in a made-in-Phillippines girl guerrillas epic--a New World staple--called "Machete Maidens." She's then cast in "Atomic Brides," a monster-sci-fi picture that somehow started out as a '50s nostalgia script.

Writer Patrick Hobby and directors Joe Dante and Allan Arkush have made a delightful, freewheeling joke not just of Corman genres but all the venerable Hollywood cliches--e.g.., the haughty star (Mary Woronov), the pompous, puttee-and-riding crop director (Paul Bartel).

Then, having had such fun, the film in an inspired stroke, shifts into an actual B movie when a murderer strikes Miracle Pictures. Thus "Hollywood Boulevard," while still maintaining its satirical thrust, becomes an homage to the well-done thriller. (In the process it pulls off the familiar blurring of illusion and reality paradox with the least pretentions imaginable.)

What makes "Hollywood Boulevard" such a special treat for insiders is that like Miss Rialson, practically everyone in front of the camera is an actual exploitation veteran. Paul Bartel is the talented director of "Death Race 2000," and the fellow who plays his assistant is the equally gifted director, Jonathan Kaplan, whose latest picture is the current "White Line Fever." Miss Woronov, a sullen Andy Warhol alumna, and Miller (whom we watch seeing himself with Boris Karloff in "The Raven") are particularly amusing.

Also involved are Rita George and Tara Strohmeier as starlets, Richard Doran as Miraccle's ace prodcuer and Jeffrey Kramer as Miss Rialson's writer boyfriend.

Appearing breifly are Daily Variety film critic Joseph McBride (as a drive-in patron who attempts to rape Miss Rialson, having been driven into a frenzy by seeing her on the screen) and the Hollywood Reporter film critic (and New World publicist) Todd McCarthy.

A Look at '50s, Flatbush Style

With poignant perception, "The Lords of Flatbush" (citywide) suggests that growing up in the ’50s was pretty much the same in Brooklyn as it was in San Rafael or Modesto ("American Graffiti") or even a dying Texas town ("The Last Picture Show").

In each instance we’re shown high school kids fighting off boredom and struggling with the conflict between their sexual frustrations and an arbitrary, hypocritical moral code.

In vastly different ways and with varying degrees of intensity, all three pictures portray powerfully the '50s as an age of innocence, perhaps the last era when young people could be so cruelly decieved by illusions about themselves and what the future held in store.

"We're what you might call a social athletic club," says Wimpy Murgalo (Paul Mace), one of the Lords of Flatbush. "You know, we play a little ball, shoot some pool and bust a few heads."

Actually, there are only four Lords--uniformly leather-jacketed, blue-jeaned and greasy-haired--and their toughness is mainly a pose. They may turn the drawers in their teacher's desk upside down, they may even "borrow" a car, but they are neither hoodlums nor dopers. They resist learning anything--that would be unmanly--but they do have dreams, if not exactly ambitions.

Making their feature debut, codirectors and co-writers (with Gayle Glecker) Stephen F. Verona and Martin Davidson focus on two of the Lords, Chico Tyrell (Perry King) and Stanley Rosiello (Sylvester Stallone). As Chico, darkly handsome and confident of scoring with any girl in school, pursues Jane (Susie Blakely), a pretty, WASPish newcomer, the muscular Stanley is getting used to the idea that he's going to become a father, like it or not.

Engagement Ring on Layaway

His regular girl Frannie Malicanico (Maria Smith) has announced she's pregnant and pleads for marriage as the solution.

That "The Lords of Flatbush" was shot in 16mm (for $380,000) and then blown up to 35 serves only to heighten its sense of reality’s harshness. Closer in spirit to "Mean Streets"--but not as despairing--than to "American Graffiti", it is a very New Yorkish film, with its emphasis on characterization and dialogue rather than visual style. Rounding it out is Joe Brooks' evocative original score.

Its creators clearly know their people well and care for them deeply, inviting us to share their feelings. A film of acute observation and telling nuances, "The Lords of Flatbush" is full of devastating vignettes.

There's the moment when Jae introduces Chico to her well-bred parents--her father is an Army career officer--that reveals the chasm between lower and upper middle classes in America. And when Frannie, egged on by her girlfriend Annie (Renee Paris), who wears her hair in rollers everywhere, coaxes Stanley into buying her a $1,600 engagement ring on layaway, we see in this pathetic, vulnerable girl the shrew that is surely to merge later.

But best of all is when the soda fountain proprietor (Joe Stern) gently tries to get through to Butchey (Henry Winkler), the brightest of the Lords, and urges him not to waste his brains.

Except for Perry King, who played the title role in "The Possession of Joe Delaney" opposite Shirley MacLaine, none of the film's talented young actors is very familiar--but they shoon should be. Indeed, a sequel to "The Lords of Flatbush" has already been announced.

Teen-age Hijinks in 'Pom Pom Girls'

No wonder "The Pom Pom Girls" has been setting records for Crown International in various cities, to date mainly in Canada. It’s an upbeat, sexy, action-filled tale of contemporary high school life that embodies perfectly what most teen-agers wish their lives were like.

All the key kids in this film are attractive, popular and uninhibited. They do as they please and pretty much get away with everything. All the adults are of course easily buffaloed klutzes; eve the one halfway respected figure, a husky football coach (James Gammon) can be slugged without too much ttemerity (though with some justification and much provacation).

Yet, talented young writer-producer-director Joseph Ruben, in projecting this postadolescent fantasy, observes the rules. His young people raise hell, but they aren’t vicious, cruel or destructive. Even though vehemently anti-intellectual they’re a pretty likable bunch, possessing some dimension and, most important, vulnerability. As a result--and because it has an abundant sense of humor--"The Pom Pom Girls" succeeds as an evocation of the kind of freedom that youth symbolizes but practically no one, today or in the past, ever really gets to enjoy.

There's practically no plot. It is the beginning of a new school year, with the big game with a hated rival looming and the boys and girs pursuing each other. Campus clown and rebel leader Robert Carradine wins nice girl Jennifer Ashley after some misunderstandings; the school's moody Lothario, Michael Mullins, after overcoming some image problems, succeds with golden girl Lisa Reeves. These young people are all capable and effective, but the film's standout is Bill Adler as Mullins' amusingly lummoxlike rival for Miss Reeves.

Life Is Hell in Japan 'Vengeance'

The irony of the demise of Japan's distinguished Daiei company is that the work of its numerous creative people has become so much more accessible now that so many of them have gone over to Toho

Such is the case with director Kenji Misumi, heretofore an unknown quantity, who demonstrates a bravura talent in his stunning "Sword of Vengeance" (at the Toho La Brea).

"Sword of Vengeance" opens with a precredit sequence horrific even for a samurai film. As his retainers fight back tears a solemn lord, hardly 5 or 6 years of age and unable to pay his taxes to the Shogun, prepares for his decapitation. (Mercifully, it occurs off-screen: Misumi is discreet.)

Thus we are introduced to the film's commanding--and surprisingly comionate--hero (Tomisaburo Wakayama), the Shogun's executioner. What ensues is virtually impossible to follow, but moviegoers familiar with the samurai genre will know their way around. The essence of the film's typically intricate plot deals with Wakayama's vengeance upon the Yagyu clan of assassins for taking away his job.

What really matters is the dazzling way in which Misumi stages Wakayama's spectacular swordplay, investing slaughter with the elegance of a dance ritual and creating images of striking beauty out of pain and chaos. Life is hell in "Sword of Vengeance" yet the film itself, as a work of art, is exultant.

'Cannonball!' Takes Old Road

For New World Pictures, director Paul Bartel last year turned out "Death Race 2000," a fine little exploitation picture that not only beat the similarly themed "Rollerball" to theaters but also proved to be the more coherent and pertinent of the two pictures, although made for much less money in far less time.

Now Bartel and "Death Race 2000" star David Carradine are back with "Cannonball!" (citywide), also for New World release. Unfortunately, it's simply "Death Race 2000" all over again but devoid of ideas. For all its non-stop action "Death Race 2000" forcefully envisioned a 1984ish future, complete with Big Brother, in which our national sport, deisgned to satisfy a love of violence and lust for winning, is a ferocious annual transcontinental road race whose gladiatorlike contestants get points for killing off not only each other but pedestrians as well.

Set in the present, "Cannonball!" likewise features a transontinental car race that's just as bloody, even if the contestants confine their mayhem largely to each other. Sponsered illegally, it offers $100,000 prize for the driver making it first from the Santa Monica Pier to a designated spot in Lower Manhattan. (In the recent "Gumball Rally," nearly identical but far less gory race reversed the direction, starting in Lower Manhattan and ending in the Queen Mary parking lot in Long Beach.)

In the title role Carradine is again the man to beat, although he's been out of circulation, having taken a manslaughter rap for a friend. Currently living with his beautiful parole officer (Veronica Hamel), he simply whisks her along when she protests that a single traffic citation could send him right back to the stir.

Other key contestants are surly Bill McKinney, who's being sponsored by aspiring country and western singer Gerrit Graham--he plans to braodcast along the way via his CB--and his pushy mother, Judy Canova; rugged car hop Mary Woronov; Stanley Clay, who's ostensibly been hired to transport, a Lincoln across the country; Archie Hahn, Carradine's overly worshipful friend, and Belinda Balaski and Robert Carradine, just a couple of kids on a joy ride in a silvery Corvvette "borrowed" from Miss Balaski's father.

On the sidelines are Dick Miller as Carradine's older brother, who's prepared to go to any length to hedge the heavy place he's bet upon him, and director Bartel himself, amusingly playing a suave gangster who sees himself as the new Cole Porter. (Six other directors have cameos in the film, including New World's chieftain Roger Corman, who plays L.A.'s district attorney, and Martin Scorsese, who plays one of Bartel's hoods.)

Resourcefully made and boasting competent performances, "Cannonball!" is nonetheless just another of New World's spate of mindless destruction derbie that features mammoth car wrecks above all else. As a result, it can only represent, a step backward for both Bartel ad Carradine. Even so, "Cannonball!" will most likely be a hit at the drive-ins.