Quick Cuts

By R.S.

THE MACKINTOSH MAN is a triumph of the packager's craft. It brings together a trio of international stars (Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda and James Mason), an array of first-class English supporting players (Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Nigel Patrick), and a renowned director (John Huston) whose work is not what it once was--or seemed to be --but who remains a solidly professional moviemaker. However, a close inspection of the script could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. It seems to have been prematurely disinterred from a time capsule devoted to the cultural artifacts of the 1960s, when spies were coming in out of the cold war's shadows to warm themselves in the world's moviehouses. Newman is a double agent who is sent to prison in England in order to be sprung by a gang specializing in elaborate and unlikely jail breaks; then, using his fugitive status as a cover, he is to track down a major violator of the Official Secrets Act. There are drug injections, escapes, captures, car chases, beatings, doublecrosses and whatnot. There are even two novelties: a woman kicked in the groin and a bit of blather about letting the Commie spies go, since everyone seems to be letting bygones be bygones these days. Within the limits of the genre, this stuff is handled well enough. It just seems terribly redundant, even to the people involved in it.

MAURIE is an unprecedented film --the first full-scale weeper for men. It is the slightly fictionalized history of the relationship between Maurice Stokes, a black basketball player who was named rookie of the year after his first season with the Cincinnati Royals, then was mysteriously paralyzed, and Jack Twyman, a white man and one of the team's stars, who oversaw and financed a ten-year attempt to rehabilitate Stokes. In the end Stokes died, but not before recovering his ability to speak and to work, albeit painfully, with his hands.

As for Twyman, what began as a casual case of good Samaritanism and team spirit turned into a cause and an obsession. Writer Douglas Morrow and Director Daniel Mann do not explore the complexities or growth of either character. They play their story strictly and obviously for tears and inspiration.

Bernie Casey in the title role and Bo Svenson as Twyman work with affecting simplicity and nice touches of humor, much of the time undercutting the film makers' implacable drive for sentimentality. Their combined efforts remind us that the relationship between these men was more interesting than a Love Story for jocks.

BADGE 373, according to the credits, is "inspired by the exploits of Eddie Egan," the former New York cop whose fictionalized doings were also the basis for The French Connection. But inspired is not a word to be employed anywhere near this flat-footed flatfoot saga.

Indeed, Egan could probably sue the producers for defamation of character.

(He in turn could be sued for non-support for his work in a secondary role.) What must have seemed like twists on the Connection formula at some stage of the film's conception look like simple rip-offs onscreen. The big chase this time involves a bus instead of a subway train; the bad guys are smuggling guns out of the country--to Puerto Rican revolutionaries--instead of heroin into it. Director Howard Koch's sense of pace is roughly that of the U.S. postal service. Writer Pete Hamill's sense of style is adequately suggested by his naming the villain Sweet William and making him an embittered Harvard graduate who quotes Gide during a confrontation scene. Two worthy performers, Robert Duvall as the Egan type and Verna Bloom as his girl friend, try hard to make something human out of their roles. Unassisted as they are, they fail honorably. qedR.S.

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