• November 28, 1977
• Vol. 8
• No. 22

Picks and Pans Main: Screen

The Turning Point

New York's famous Roseland Ballroom is the setting for this bittersweet trilogy about love-on-the-hoof. In the first episode a nostalgic widow (Teresa Wright) hopes in vain that a gruff, unpolished widower (Lou Jacobi) can replace her deceased husband—on the dance floor and off. The second segment plots the romantic involvement of a smoothie (Christopher Walken) with two attractive older women (Helen Gallagher and Joan Cope-land) and a young, on-the-rebound divorcee (Geraldine Chaplin). Finally, in the funniest and most poignant vignette, a pair of elderly contestants (Lilia Skala and David Thomas) try desperately to win a dance contest just once before they die. Despite uniformly excellent performances, director James Ivory allows the segments to melt into one another in a way that muddles an otherwise enjoyable film. (Unrated)

Nuclear war is obviously a terrible threat, but so are inane screenwriters who essay the subject. This time three Air Force men (Jan-Michael Vincent, Paul Winfield and George Peppard, who affects a hilarious Southern accent) set off across World War III-devastated America, heading for unfathomable reasons for Albany, N.Y. Along the way they pick up Dominique Sanda, a chanteuse stranded in Las Vegas, and fight off giant scorpions, killer cockroaches and crazed desperadoes. There are some spectacular visual effects and an interesting "Land Master" vehicle, but a new 360-degree sound system has the same effect as a bus careening through the lobby and crashing into the popcorn machine. (PG)

Bernardo (Last Tango in Paris) Bertolucci's four-hour saga of Italian life in the 20th century is alternately brilliant and boring. Robert DeNiro plays the patrician son of a Po Valley landowner and Gerard Depardieu is his best friend, a peasant who works the land. The story traces their relationship from childhood through the turbulent years of Fascism, socialism and, finally, the bitter aftermath of World War II. Dominique Sanda (again) is dazzling as the young wife, Burt Lancaster blustery as the patriarch and Donald Sutherland vicious as the Blackshirted foreman of the family estate. As always, Bertolucci uses his camera like a paintbrush—and some of the lushest, most erotic scenes ever splash across the screen. Unfortunately, this $8 million epic grinds to a yawning close with some mindless breastbeating about the virtues of Marxism. Dubbed in English. (Unrated)

This enthralling film marks the screen debut of Russian ballet phenomenon Mikhail Baryshnikov and a beautiful and talented 20-year-old newcomer, Leslie Browne. But the story centers on the relationship between two women—an aging ballerina (played by Anne Bancroft) and her best friend (Shirley MacLaine), who gave up a promising dance career to run a small ballet school in Arizona and raise a family. Bancroft and MacLaine turn in Oscar-caliber performances, as do supporting actresses Martha Scott and the legendary Alexandra Danilova. (PG)