Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 21

I Ml GEateJlainmssri DETROIT FREE PRESSTUESDAY, OCT. 2, 1979 5B 6 The Legacy9 may be the worst 01 II eYiis THE LEGACY Area Theaters Maggie Walsh Ross Elliott '-I-1 I 1 H'W jWP gT-MHj; i iij- Ji.u nil. ii ii I iiii.i. i.i hi i i ii. mil.

pry Cllve Daltrey Released through Universal Pictures. Produced by David Foster screenplay by Jimmy Sangster, Patrick Tllley and Paul Wheeler; photographed bv Dick Buth and Alan Hume; directed bv Richard Marquand. Color. 100 minutes. PARENTS' GUIDE: Rated with several grisly murders and occasional use of vulgar language.

MR. MIKE'S MONDO VIDEO Area Theaters WITH: Guest appearances bv Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtln, Carrie Fisher, Terl Garr, Deborah Harry, Margol Kidder, Bill Murray, Gllda Radner. Released through New Line Cinema. Produced and directed by Michael O'Donogue. Written bv O'Donoghue, Mitchell Glazer, Emily Prager and Dirk Wlltenborn.

Color. PARENTS' GUIDE: Rated With several comic situations that some may find gross or offensive. LOVERS AND OTHER RELATIVES Maple Theater Young Wife Laura Antonelli Sandro Alessandro Momo Renzo Orazlo Orlando Produced by Silvio ClementeM; screenplay bv Oltavlo Jemma and Allessandro Parenzo; directed bv Salvatore Samperi. Color. 96 minutes.

PARENTS' GUIDE: Rated with heavy sexual content though not as heavy as in most Antonelli vehicles. By MICHAEL CLARK Free Press Film Critic Just what Is Klki Dee doing singing a decidedly unspooky tune during the credits to "The Don't producer David Foster and director Richard Marquand care about establishing a suspenseful tone for their picture from the opening shot? Don't they know by now that a large measure of Hitchcock's success and Polanski's success has come from the intelligent selection of background music for their films? OH, WELL it doesn't really matter. Even without the Inappropriate credit tune and some upbeat dance music used later to accompany what is intended to be a tense escape scene, "The Legacy" is the most expendable of several insufferable bombs that opened here last Friday. If you've seen any of the three film versions of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" even the lousy one with Hugh O'Brian and Fabian you'll always find yourself a reel or two ahead of the story. Katharine Ross and Sam Elliott play an American couple in England who unexpectedly find themselves captive in a 17th-century country estate.

They are soon joined by five other "guests," who are knocked off one-by-one in particularly grisly fashion until It becomes apparent that the perpetrator behind these crimes has something particularly eerie and supernatural lined up for Ross. We know it's going to be eerie and supernatural because every murder has been followed by a shot of an innocent and playful-looking cat the kind who has not yet gone to seed on Meow Mix. An unexpected twist has Roger Daltrey cast as one of the victims. He evinces the kind of showmanship that even the Who have never attempted on stage, with a scene in which he finds his face and throat completely drenched in blood after a particularly suspect nurse performs a botched tracheotomy on him with a dinner knife. It's really heavy, man.

YET, PERHAPS not as heavy as the sight of Sid Vicious singing "My Way" in "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video." After all, it wasn't every day that the late Sex Pistol gave his all to a Paul Anka composition, and his highly individualized rendition provides a welcome oasis from this hodgepodge of mostly sophomoric comedy skits that NBC wouldn't allow on the air. "Mondo Video" hit town just one day after the merciful departure of "Sammy Stops the World," another theatrically exhibited non-movie whose box-office performance will no doubt have theater owners all over the country pillaging their children's college funds to come up with this month's mortgage payment. "Mike" may do marginally better than "Sammy," but most viewers will probably agree with the NBC censors who took one look at this slapdash collection of jokes about Gig Young's groceries, Cheryl Tiegs' crotch, and a Cedar Rapids religious cult that worships Jack Lord as a living god and said, "NO." Michael O'Donoghue, a guiding force behind the success of "National Lampoon" and "Saturday Night Live," set out to spoof "Mondo Cane," "Mondo Freudo," "Mondo Hollywood," "Mondo Topless," "Mondo Teeno" and all the other "Mondo" pictures that dominated the trash movie market in the '60s. BUT EVEN IF the satire weren't already 15 years out of date, it's unlikely that "Mondo Video" could have succeeded.

Kllliiailliiiiilii mmmm mmmm "An utterly charming movie. Janet Maslin, New York Times Katharine Ross finds herself in a gripping situation in "The Legacy." But it's an ungripping movie one of three reel bombs to open recently. "Lovers and Other Relatives," the most recent selection from Detroit's chapter of the Laura Antonelli-Movle-of-the-Week Club, was first released in the U.S. in 1976 to capitalize on the popularity of "Malicious" (then called It had the same director as the earlier Antonelli vehicle (Salvatore Samperi), the same male adolescent co-star (the late Alessan-dro Momo) and virtually the same plot. In fact, there isn't much sensuality conveyed at any time during the course of a very long 98 minutes a situation that has less to do with Antonelli's generally clothed state than with the actors' all-too-apparent awareness that the same story has already been given a much more satisfactory treatment.

And a Laura Antonelli movie without sensuality amounts to a gross misuse of a natural resource. The producers might as well have cast the late Bruce Lee in a drawing room comedy. PEPPERMINT mm DIANE KURYS A GAUMQNT NEW YORKER RIMS RELEASE ow MAPLE 3 Maple nd ot Telegraph Near Bloomlield Plan 055-9090 EXCLUSIVE EMGAGEMENTIi BOBBY HUTCHERS0N Quartet "WICKEDLY FUNNY!" Daily News THE PASSAGE of three years has not made it any less of a rip-off. Antonelli is cast once again as the object of young Momo's most Intense sexual urges, but this time she's the boy's sister-in-law instead of the family maid. Her husband, though, works long hours in the city and can't spend much time on a beach vacation with his parents, luscious young wife and so-called little brother.

Well, you all know what can happen at the beach and I'm sure you all know what happens in this film. Except this time, there Isn't any supercharged love scene like the climactic one in "Malizia" that had most males in the audience taking huge bites out of the upholstery In their theater seats. "I give MONDO VIDEO MR NUKE'S a 10. It has a good beat and you can dance tO it." Dick Clark lira msumnuM si mm mm mums Plus Special KLUSBSf funny." Chevy Chase 7U AT THESE THEATRES: ABBEY MOVIES SOUTHLAND ACADEMY OLD ORCHARD TERRACE FAIRLANH PARKWAY HAMPTON RENAISSANCE WOODS PGjPAREN7AL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED A WNfR mos.oo PICTURES release (sOHt MATERIAL MAT WOT HKTAWJ fOHCWtOWN tfVU VWRNER BROS.O Copyrigni 1979 Wamtt Brot Inc. 'Orion Pictures Company All RtgrtH lletrrved.

As a "documentary" of bizarre world customs, "Mondo Cane" (the prototype for all that followed) was funny enough on its own. No satirist could hope to outdo a picture that showed Formosan gourmets eating puppies, Calambrian villagers lacerating their legs in memory of Christ's crucifixion and sex-starved women tearing the shirt off the back of Rossano Brazzl. O'Donoghue and some equally talented collaborators have tried to out-gross the gross, and the predictable result is a 75-minute blast of shotgun humor that only occasionally hits its target. Some of the funniest bits (like weight lifters working out to become Kate Smith's pallbearers) are wisely thrown away in 10 seconds, but generally the material Is stretched far beyond the breaking point. 7M 7:20.

9:50 10:30. 12:59. 3:10, 5:30, 7:50, 10:10 AT 1 1 rrr LEADING JJJtiii THEATRES: 10:00. 12:30.2:50, 5:10,7:30.9:60 1:00 7:20 0:40 1 00. 7 20 I 40 7:30, in 7:20.0:51 7:20.1:50 2:00.4:30.7:15.1:30 in town plots, songs tiFHU JE A MUMBr tfiOS OWOft PClURFS ftliASE thru mUHBt A Commumcatlonc Company i PYTHON (MONTY) PICTURES LTD ALL fWMTS RESERVED.

TOfir mmw LITTLE RIVER BAND in concert at 9 and 10 p.m., Ford Jefferson at Woodward. Call 224-1069, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. BRIAN BEDFORD plots and counterplots In "Deathtrap" at 8 p.m. Fisher Theatre, Second at Grand Blvd.

Call 872-1000, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. DANNI NANNI and Sherry Agnello sing at Gino's Surf, 37400 Jefferson, MX. Clemens. Call 468-2611, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. dally.

BOBBY HUTCHER80N quartet plays jazz at Baker's Keyboard, 20510 Llvernols. Call 864-1200 anytime. NANCY WIL80N sings on her annual visit to db's Club. Hyatt Regency Hotel, Michigan at Southfield, Dearborn. Call 593-1234, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

dally. 6 05, 7:45, 1:00.7:20.1:20 si fKHU IHOUjtfKt at these THEATRES I WW I nnm cunminr check directory for WEDNESDAY MATINEES Check Directory for f-Wednesday Matinees DRIVE-INS LJ ALSO AT THESE DRIVE-INS i muxi man IffiMWf I ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ttWZM SUPER DRAGON" ill I r2k 1 VV 1 I ltf JjL 2. "DRAGON DIE 8 HARD" 11 I XBF 1 1 1 'Xjfi 3. "3 THE HARD WAY" II 1 EXCLUSIVE TvTvi rl' I i 1 Aim QC VJp ftr- A 287M RMcMgan Ave. pA I If I jAi I Lr 1 2MLW.aT4rapli I I I I 1 1 Aft 'til 1 1 fi9 Vf 1 1 i MmffiLtLJ in t1'! I1 LAS VEGAS ENTERTAINMENT CENTERS "I 1 7 POWERFUL omnv i oiuni i I (Cy si.

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