Aimless Bust

By R.C

THEY ALL LAUGHED

Directed and Written by Peter Bogdanovich

Any film of potential consequence begins with a dream, an idea--at least an angle. But the intent of Peter Bogdanovich's new film remains one of the year's more dispiriting mysteries. Perhaps he had in mind a country-music remake of Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night:eight characters play a romantic roundelay during a week in Manhattan. Maybe he wanted to reunite the galvanic stars of Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline: Ben Gazzara and Audrey Hepburn play the most prominent pair of lovers. Or did the director of The Last Picture Show and At Long Last Love hope to execute a triple homage to his former Galatea, Cybill Shepherd? The film's three ingenues all bear traces of the Delphic Cybill: Dorothy Stratten has the blond hair and the even features, Patti Hansen the mobile mouth in search of the perfect smirk, Colleen Camp the Texas twang and eerie talent for grating on the most placid moviegoer's nerves.

Whatever the intent, the result is an aimless bust, unencumbered by a visual or structural scheme. It wanders through a series of tony boites, boutiques and hotel lobbies in the vagrant hope of witnessing a privileged moment. Those are likely to occur only when Hepburn is onscreen. At 52, the eternal gamine has become a figure of icy chic; the lilt in her voice now has the gravity of years; she has barely a line to speak in the film's first hour, and too many silly words in the second. But she is still a radiant presence, and she blesses the end of They All Laughed with a display of poignant maturity. One would gladly pay to hear her read the Bel Air phone book. One would not be surprised to know that was Bogdanovich's next project. --R.C.

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