Quick Cuts

By J.C.

THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS. Adapted from Paul Zindel's 1971 Pulitzer-prizewinning play, this saga of a bitchy, boozy mother and the two daughters she victimizes is sentimental without really being tender, naturalistic without being real. The elder daughter (Roberta Wallach), a callipygous, gum-snapping high school cheerleader, suffers from epileptic seizures--presumably a result of life with mother. The younger, ethereal offspring (Nell Potts) escapes into the world of scientific research. She wins a prize for a school experiment concerning the supposed deleterious effects of gamma rays on sensitive marigolds: some survive, it seems, blooming beautifully. The parallel between flowers and daughters is stressed long past the point of endurance. Joanne Woodward is assertive and brassy as the mother, but never seems to get past the character's mannerisms. The daughters are exceptional. Roberta Wallach (daughter of

Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach) is a model of the kind of controlled frenzy that many older and more experienced actors never master. Nell Potts (daughter of Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman) has a vulnerability and translucent beauty that summon up memories of the young Elizabeth Taylor. Her father directed quite nicely.

ACROSS 110TH STREET. It is tempting to call this bit of New York City crime busting a new low in senseless brutality, racial exploitation and pandering to an audience. However, it only fits a pattern set by such sleazy predecessors as Cool Breeze and Super Fly. Three black hoods who are down on their luck knock over a numbers bank in Harlem, getting away with $300,000 and killing a couple of cops and a gaggle of gangsters. The constabulary, the Mafia and the black crime organization that ran the bank each embark on a separate campaign to bring the bandits to rights and, of course, start stumbling over and shooting each other in the process. If the film makers had cared to concentrate on the political or social implications of such a story, they could have produced a kind of Battle of Algiers in Harlem. Director Barry Shear (Wild in the Streets) concentrates mostly on a hoked-up conflict between a fading police captain (Anthony Quinn, also one of the film's producers) and his black successor (Yaphet Kotto). Anthony Franciosa impersonates a notably dumb and vicious Mafia muscle man, whose sole function is to torture various blacks and die spectacularly, providing the audience with opportunity for plenty of indignation and vicarious, bloody triumph.. J.C.

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