Word: hals
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Most pretentious of the new shows is The Senator, which will appear every third week on NBC's catchall The Bold Ones series. But except for an authoritative performance by Hal Holbrook and a patina of knowingness (terms like "Evans and Novak" popped up without explanation), the premiere was just another action show about an assassination plot...
...Malice. Unlike Hal Hoi brook in his Mark Twain Tonight, Whitmore does not attempt to achieve a flesh-tinted, bone-perfect reproduction of Rogers, nor does he even speak with Rogers' casual, careless Oklahoma drawl. What he tries for, and succeeds in evoking, is a psychic affinity with the wit of the Western corral, a man whose comic spirit always had a visible edge but no sting of malice, a man who could toss off a one-liner like, "I could have gone to West Point, but I was too proud to talk to a Congressman...
...bizarre relationships variety, but plus ca change -of the two main girls in our little boy's life, he meets one at his St. Paul's commencement and another at a Fly Club garden party. (A dramatic peak-such as it is-in the book comes when Flo tells Hal she can't afford to go skiing with him in Austria over Christmas, but will probably end up just going skiing with her family in Vermont. "But I'll manage," she promises...
...young people's interest in drugs (Mommy takes lots of pills, Daddy is a booze hound), but they all smack of smug rationalization. In the midst of all these dismal goings on are several fine actors yelling to get out. Wallach is brutal and forceful as the father; Hal Holbrook, playing a next-door neighbor, is remarkably moving against overwhelming odds; and the young actors-Deborah Winters, Stephen McHattie, Don Scardino-are a talented crew. The best of The People Next Door is the brilliant, low-key camera work of Gordon Willis, whose fine eye for color and composition...
...worst thing about the film was Hal Holbrook. As Maxie's high school principal he speaks for the director, and he speaks a series of banal platitudes that only the Needham P. T. A. could find palatable. Lines like "Some of these kids just want to turn the world upside down, others just want to retreat from it." He looks so sincere and self-righteous, as if he were God himself speaking from the rostrum of the high school auditorium. Later, when he finds out his son is dealing, he pats him on the cheek, and then climbs down...