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Show The Selling of the West by Rosa Jordan ll was appropriate that "Spirit of the West." the new Park City Alpine Meadows promotional promo-tional film, should be narrated by an Old Prospector. Not since gold rush days has the west been touted in terms so crassly commercial. Stereotyped sales pitches ran the gamut from girl admiring herself in mirror as she buys new hat to clinched closcups of half-filled nine glasses to the cheap scx-scll of couple alone before blaing lire (a scene with all the authenticity of an acrylic bearskin run). According to Old Prospector, the "spirit of the west" is in its friendly people. Sure enough, there were friendly ski mechanics, mechan-ics, friendly fry cooks, friendly bartenders, and hoards of friendly fri-endly ski instructors all of whom even a tenderfoot might know arc being paid to be friendly. The "spirit of the west" is also fun and freedom, we're told. It's rolling craps and playing the slots: it's sitting around one ol "them fancy condos" stuffing coffee table hors d'ocuvres: it's being packed like sardines on a sundeck. Luckly they told us this was Western-style fun and freedom. Otherwise we might have mistaken them for orindarv metopolitan pastimes. All might have been torgtven (and hopefully forgotten) had there been an adequate sequence of one great freestyler. a single go-for-broke racer, or a peewec hotdoggcr. But apparently it was payday for the ski school. In fine American style, locked knees swaying to schmaltzy music, they monopolized the few expert scenes. 11 plastii. sells, the film shoulr be a smashing success. However I might say thai in nn lvcen1 travels, the reason people niov often have given me for want in;' to try skiing was having seen 01 television Gammer's sensational downhill run. Unbeknown to makers of "Spirit of the West." authenticity still countcs. What the film lacked in taste was more than made up for in food and drink the Resort treated us to beforehand. It must have taken half a shrimping fleet and a couple salmon trawlers to get that much fabulous seafood into port. As for the West's spirit of fun, frienliness, and hospitality, it was there at Park City Resort ... everywhere except in the film. |