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Show HIM 1ISIIS By Jean Piatt Playing at the Opera House this weekend is Roman Pol-anski's Pol-anski's CHINATOWN. For those of you that missed my comments in a previous column, col-umn, I will reiterate some of my opinions. CHINATOWN is Polan-ski's Polan-ski's first real commercial film, but it is still done with the care and detail that make this director a genius. It is a detective film, filled with the usual twists and turns of the plot. As a genre film, it is excellent. ex-cellent. Polanski keeps you masterfully in suspense. He doesn't pop surprises at 'you, but presents things factually and methodically, enwrapping you in a mesh finest screen actors today, puts forth an excellent performance. per-formance. He breathes, walks, and lives the role, it seems, until un-til you can no longer study his acting because he seems to become the character rather than act the part. Add to this portrayal a talented actress like Faye Dunaway, and you have an excellent pair. Dunaway plays the mysterious my-sterious real wife of the Commissioner. She is the total embodiment of Chinatown, China-town, where truth and fiction are so intertwined that you can no longer try to decipher them, but are lost in the mania. The second offering at the Opera House is BEHIND THE along with the detective. This film is about a detective de-tective who involves himself in marital cases. A very rich woman comes to him to find out if her husband hus-band is having an affair. He doesn't want to take the case, but does so, reluctantly. The husband, it turns out, is the head of the L.A . Water Department. The detective finds that the man would rather spend his time checking check-ing water supplies than carousing, car-ousing, but finally, the detective de-tective spots him with another an-other young woman and photographs them. The news hits the papers, only to have the detective faced by a law suit by the real wife-a phony had hired him. Thus the mystery and suspense sus-pense unwind. Why did someone want to set up the respectable husband, hus-band, and why, more importantly, import-antly, would they want to kill him? Jack Nicholson, one of the GREEN DOOR. Since the opening of DEEP THROAT (no pun intended), pornography has gotten much publicity and criticism. BEHIND BE-HIND T HE GREEN DOOR has emerged as a critics' favorite, favor-ite, since it is not only a dirty movie, but, miracle of miracles, it is one that is fairly well done. Someone has taken the film beyond sexual adventures and actually tried to use good camera work. Nevertheless, it is a porn film. There is minimal plot and much sexual footage. The film involves around the kidnapping and hypnotizing hypnotiz-ing of a young woman. The rest of the film is the sexual antics she is put through by others. Hardly a plot as absorbing absorb-ing as CHINATOWN,' but, for some, it should prove interesting viewing. Others may want to opt for a night of television or checkers. Choose accordingly. (By the way if the young woman seems familiar, it is because Marilyn Chambers is the Ivory Soap girl. I guess she can't be all bad or at least, not very dirty.) |