Word: alpha
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Upcoming 'certs: Jimmy Cliff will have the Charles River to cross when he hits the Orpheum on the 19th of November. The Doobie Brothers and the Alpha Band'll be at the Music Hall November 5--where will you be? Taj and Ry (Mssrs. Mahal and Cooder) will double-boogey into town for a date at the Orpheum on November 14, and Robin Trower will hit the Music Hall on the 18th; that's the night before Jimmy Cliff will be at the Orpheum, in case you forgot. Now Aerosmith, with special guest Rich Derringer, will be featured...
...Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Phi Delta Alpha, Sigma Nu, Kappa Kappa Epsilon...they all seemed the same by midnight when the frats overflowed into the street, making one big party, an orgy of clashing bands rowdy frat guys and tipsy visitors. Somehow that Ivy League aura had vanished. This was a mammoth beer blast to rival any Big Ten post-game show. And that was after a losing effort on the gridiron...
...Nothing pleasant here, but rather Claude Chabrol's story of two unwed partners who play around on the side, driving the male in this hip arrangement to show his true chauvanist, possessive, jealous and increasingly inhuman colors. We cautioned you about the cruel commentary on the new morality in Alpha-Beta last week, but at least the outcome of that romantic fiasco stayed pretty much up in the air. The wind-up here is far less ambiguous: this Mr. Machismo stomps his liberated and true love's face in with his bootheel. Subtle, Chabrol, subtle...
Albert Finney goes through these changes in Alpha-Beta (originally a play, adapted with minimal cinematographic flourishes for the screen). Instead of the flippant, mostly harmless satire of a foray into the "Now Generation" that, say, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas turned into, this simple film, focusing entirely on Finney's Frank Elliot and his wife, Nora, played by Rachel Roberts, jolts us with an unrelentingly realistic, though extreme, view of the psychological crisis of a not old, but not young couple who choke on all the subtle lies needed to sustain the new 'honesty...
...Alpha Beta covers a decade in the Elliots' marriage, starting in the early 1960s on the day of Frank's 29th birthday and ending after their separation, with Nora first threatening, then retreating from suicide. Alpha Beta was originally a successful play by Scenarist Whitehead, and its three episodes still seem very much like short, jagged acts. The whole feeling of this small, stormy movie is enclosed, constricted. No effort has been made to enlarge the action of the play, but the theatrical qualities of the writing are not emphasized either. Director Anthony Page stages most...