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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 07/27/90 -- Vol. 9, No. 4

MEETINGS UPCOMING:

Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. MT meetings are in the cafeteria.

_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C

08/01 LZ: A FIRE IN THE SUN by George Alec Effinger (Hugo Nominee)
08/22 LZ: RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA by Arthur C. Clarke
09/12 LZ: STAR MAKER by Olaf Stapledon (Formative Influences)
10/03 LZ: MICROMEGAS by Voltaire (Philosophy)
10/24 LZ: THE WORM OUROBOROS by E. R. Eddison (Classic Horror)
11/14 LZ: WAR WITH THE NEWTS by Karel Capek (Foreign SF)

_D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C.

08/11 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: Susan Shwartz
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
08/18 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)

HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 hocpa!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 mtgzx!leeper
HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3E-301 949-4488 hotld!tps
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 mtunq!lfl
MT Librarian: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

1. Of next week's Lincroft discussion book, Dale Skran says:

_A _F_i_r_e _i_n _t_h_e _S_u_n is a solid, pleasing detective story that further
develops the characters and events of _W_h_e_n _G_r_a_v_i_t_y _F_a_i_l_s. Some
dislike this because it is a sequel, and I hope it doesn't win a
"sympathy Hugo" voted by all those who wished they had voted for
the more original _W_h_e_n _G_r_a_v_i_t_y _F_a_i_l_s. However, _F_i_r_e stands on its
own, and serves as an interesting contrast to the usual assumed
"Christian" background of much SF (the characters are all Muslim).
[-dls]

THE MT VOID Page 2

2. We have already shown one of my three favorite Westerns, _T_h_e
_M_a_g_n_i_f_i_c_e_n_t _S_e_v_e_n, for the Leeperhouse Film Festival. Now we'll
show the other two. Our film festival for Thursday, August 2, at 7
PM is a tribute to the 1950s Western. We will be showing two of
the best Westerns of that (or any) decade, but two Westerns that
are antipodal opposites. One is about the responsibility to fight;
one is a sort of pacifist view of the West. One is a modest black
and white film; one is a big brash color Western.

1950s Westerns
HIGH NOON (1943) dir. by Fred Zinneman
THE BIG COUNTRY (1958) dir. by William Wyler

In HIGH NOON Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly lead a cast of many actors
in this 85-minute story told in real time about a small-town
sheriff who finds he must face four gunfighters. In desperation he
turns to the townspeople who have supported him for years, only to
find that he can depend solely on himself. The script was written
by Carl Foreman, who later wrote _T_h_e _G_u_n_s _o_f _N_a_v_a_r_o_n_e. The story
was clearly an indictment of the members of the Hollywood community
who did not stand behind blacklisted friends and co-workers.
Foreman himself was later blacklisted. Dimitri Tiomkin wrote the
score and Tex Ritter sang the now-famous "Do Not Forsake Me, O My
Darling." The cast includes Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, Katy
Jurado, Otto Kruger, Lon Chaney, and Henry Morgan.

Five years later William Wyler made one of the great spectacular
Westerns, THE BIG COUNTRY. Again there is an all-star cast
including Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Charleton Heston, Carroll
Baker, Burl Ives (who got an Oscar for his role), Charles Bickford,
Alfonso Bedaya, and Chuck Connors. Jerome Moross's full orchestral
score has itself become a classic and it sounds really good in high
fidelity. The film is based on a novel by Donald Hamilton, best
known for writing the Matt helm adventure series. Gregory Peck
plays a sea captain who comes west to marry his fiancee and finds
himself caught in the middle of a land war between two patriarchs.

The two films will start on time (well, maybe 7:05) because we have
four hours and ten minutes of film even without a break.

Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper

The desire of one man to live on the fruits of another's
labor is the original sin of the world.
-- James O'Brien

The 1990 HUGO Nominees
Copyright 1990 by Dale L. Skran Jr.

One embarks on a listing of your Hugo rankings with great
trepidation. At this point, I am inclined to keep my vote entirely
secret, since everything I have promoted or endorsed in the past
(Kingsbury's _C_o_u_r_t_s_h_i_p _R_i_t_e, Vinge's _M_a_r_o_o_n_e_d _i_n _R_e_a_l _T_i_m_e, Sterlings's
_S_c_h_i_s_m_a_t_r_i_x, and Effinger's _W_h_e_n _G_r_a_v_i_t_y _F_a_i_l_e_d) has gone over like an
over-weight Mesklinite. I have also found that sharp disagreements can
arise among friends over Hugo nominees, leading to months of rancor, and
a lasting doubt about one another's literary sensibilities.
Nevertheless, some hidden force (ego?) compels me to hold forth on my
reaction to this year's sterling and not-so-sterling nominees.

NOVEL

Overall, I am well pleased with the nominees, all of which I have
reviewed elsewhere (except for _G_r_a_s_s). The rankings are:

1. HYPERION: Bold, ambitious, cutting, disturbing, and unique,
_H_y_p_e_r_i_o_n is set apart from the crowd. Even the let-down, sequel
lead-in ending, and even worse sequel can't ruin an excellent
novel.

2. THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS: Interesting, with a broad sweep of
character and history. Future history and past history with a
truer ring that almost all SF I've ever read, but unfortunately
just a bit more flat than _H_y_p_e_r_i_o_n. A worthy #2 and a pleasure to
read.

3. A FIRE IN THE SUN: A solid, pleasing detective story that further
develops the characters and events of _W_h_e_n _G_r_a_v_i_t_y _F_a_i_l_s. Some
dislike this because it is a sequel, and I hope it doesn't win a
"sympathy Hugo" voted by all those who wished they had voted for
the more original _W_h_e_n _G_r_a_v_i_t_y _F_a_i_l_s. However, _F_i_r_e stands on its
own, and serves as an interesting contrast to the usual assumed
"Christian" background of much SF (the characters are all Muslim).

4. No award.

5. PRENTICE ALVIN: A readable continuation of the "Alvin Maker"
story, but surely not a Hugo-winning book.

6. GRASS: Sorry, I didn't get to it, so no comment. Reputed to be
among the worst of the nominees.

NOVELLA

1. TINY TANGO: A well-written, profoundly disturbing story of a woman
attempting to survive AIDS in the 90's by controlling her
emotional state. I am a bit surprised at myself for voting it

- 2 -

first, since this is a difficult story to like.

2. THE FATHER OF STONES: Lucius Shepard takes us back to the world of
the Dragon Griaule and its tortured inhabitants, telling a tale of
murder, love, manipulation, and weird cult doings. Not quite
spell-binding, but gripping all the same.

3. A TOUCH OF LAVENDER: A well written story of alien refugees on a
future Earth. Like "The Mountains of Mourning," it suffers from
using the aliens as a representative device rather than something
that might really happen. The SF trappings are not really
important to the story, which is more about drug addiction than
any SF theme.

4. THE MOUNTAINS OF MOURNING: A good but not excellent Gordon Dickson
style military SF coming of age story. A fair read, but it
suffers from not requiring any of its SF trappings. It could have
happened in the 18th or 19th century and been equally believable.

5. No award.

6. TIME-OUT: I like Connie Willis, and voted "Fire Watch" first for
the Hugo. She seems to have adopted a different writing style,
that of a fast-paced, breezy SF comedy. Not at all to my taste,
nor deserving a place on the Hugo ballot.

NOVELETTE

This was apparently a weak year for novelettes, at least in my
judgement.

1. ENTER A SOLDIER, LATER: ENTER ANOTHER: Silverbob once again
demonstrates the writing talent and sheer imagination that has
given us many past Hugo winners. Here he spins a tale of a
simulation-Cortes in an artificial reality that is not quite what
it seems.

2. FOR I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY: Call me stupid, but I was going to put
this below no award. I have always found Resnick's series of
stories about a group's attempts to re-create an ancient African
lifestyle on a space colony profoundly disturbing. Is he really
advocating the revolting morality of his main character? Is he
some sort of twisted racist bent on showing the hollowness of
"black pride?" This year I've decided the answer is neither, and
that Resnick is instead intent on showing the logical endpoint of
a "back-to-nature" movement and its perverse moral consequences,
which he does extremely well.

3. No award (hey, it's a bad year!).

- 3 -

4. DOGWALKER: Somewhat like "Sleepside Story" by Greg Bear, this is
an attempt by an author to write in a voice other than the one
they have spent most of their lives developing. Dan Simmons can
carry this off, others can't. A noble effort, but not Card's best
work.

5. EVERYTHING BUT HONOR: A predictable time-travel story about an
arrogant professor you know is going to arrive at a bad end from
page one.

6. THE PRICE OF ORANGES: Another light time travel story. What is it
with bad time travel stories? Why are so many being written? Why
are so many being nominated for the Hugo? Do people feel guilty
about not having given "Ripples in the Dirac Sea" a Hugo and want
to make it up to a class of stories?

7. AT THE RIALTO: Another empty and overly complex story by Connie
Willis. Perhaps written at the same time she composed "Time-out."

SHORT STORY

Try not to take this the wrong way, but I didn't vote anything
above no award. Some of these stories are interesting and well written,
but none are the sort of solid SF that should be nominated for the short
story Hugo. The quality of SF ideas in them is sadly lacking. Recently
I have been watching the entire 3rd season of STAR TREK: THE NEXT
GENERATION back to back, and have been very impressed with the quality
of both the SF ideas and the scripts. I especially liked "Survivors,"
"Hunted," "Vengeance Factor," "High Ground," and "Bonding." It is a
little sad that the short story nominees for the Hugo have weaker ideas
than a series of STAR TREK episodes.

1. No award.

2. COMPUTER FRIENDLY: Last year, I really hated Eileen Gunn's "Stable
Strategies for Middle Management," and I didn't expect to like
this story very much either. Much to my surprise, I voted it
first! This is not a real SF story - it is satire in the same
fashion as "Gulliver's Travels," but for all that it was well
written and imaginative. Still, I refuse to put a story which is
not really SF above no award, however interesting and well written
it may be.

3. BOOBS: Teenage girl becomes werewolf at puberty! Sounds stupid,
right? Suzy McKee Charnes lavishes her considerable writing
talent on this relatively slight premise, with good results.
Unfortunately the story, while interesting and insightful, is
simply not the flag-ship SF story that should win the short-story
Hugo.

4. THE EDGE OF THE WORLD: Swanwick offers up a weak story about three

- 4 -

teenagers walking down a staircase that extends over the edge of a
fantasy world which inconsistently contains both Richard Nixon and
Napoleon (not at the same time, though!). Nicely written, but
lacking in substance.

5. THE RETURN OF WILLIAM PROXMIRE: A fun piece of fan-fiction
concerning a time-traveling William Proxmire's attempts to scotch
the space program at its source by cutting short Heinlein's
writing career, with the expected disastrous results. Enjoyable
for fans, but not a flag-ship SF story.

6. LOST BOYS: A so-so ghost story with a personal afterword by Orson
Scott Card. It was fairly obvious all along what was happening,
and the idea is far from original.

7. DORI BANGS: Definitely the worst of the lot, Sterling's fantasy
retells the characters lives in two alternative universes.

DRAMATIC PRESENTATION

This was a good year for the dramatic presentation award.
Basically, all of the nominees I've seen are worthy to win the award,
which is certainly not true every year! FIELD OF DREAMS is not rated
since I haven't seen it.

1. THE ABYSS: Top notch SF-adventure with excellent actors, including
Ed Harris, Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michail Biehn. Strong
female characters. More and better underwater action than any
other film ever made. The single most dramatic rescue EVER on
film - and it could happen! Only a weak ending prevents this from
being one of the best SF films of all time.

2. BATMAN: A solid, visually impressive re-telling of the conflict
between the Batman and his greatest enemy, the Joker. Jack
Nicholson steals the show as the Joker, proving that what makes a
super-hero is really the existence of super-villains. For once,
Hollywood has made a comic-book movie that doesn't snicker at the
characters.

3. THE ADVENTURES OF BARON VON MUNCHAUSEN: This complex, story-
within-a-story, typically baffles the audience, but deserves
considerable credit for sheer ambition. Basically a super-hero
story told in the 18th century, I found it delightful and
entertaining.

4. INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE: In a weaker year, this might
have come in first. A high-quality action-adventure with an
interesting fantasy plot. I especially liked the death-traps that
guarded the Grail and the immortal knight. The adventures of young
Indie (River Phoenix) are also great fun. Still, this is more of
the same in the Indiana Jones series, although a big step up from
TEMPLE OF DOOM.

The 1990 ANNUAL WORLD'S BEST SF
DAW, 1990, ISBN 0-88677-424-1, $4.50.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper

"Alphas" is the usual sort of hard-sf story that one expects from
Gregory Benford. This one is seemingly inspired by "The Tachypomp" by
Edward Page Mitchell, and although it is intriguing from a science point
of view, the main character is little more than a place-holder and the
ending seems patently self-congratulatory (not of Benford per se, but of
the science-inclined in general).

Brian Stableford's "The Magic Bullet" examines biology rather than
physics, but is another hard-science story, this time with more emphasis
on the characters. Stableford does not slight the plot, however, and
provides a satisfactory, if incomplete, ending.

"North of the Abyss" by Brian W. Aldiss uses the Egyptian gods as
characters. But if you're expecting anything resembling Zelazny's
_C_r_e_a_t_u_r_e_s _o_f _L_i_g_h_t _a_n_d _D_a_r_k_n_e_s_s, think again; Aldiss takes a much more
nihilistic view of the universe.

The next story, "Chiprunner," is unusual in that it is only a so-so
story from Robert Silverberg, an author whom I had thought incapable of
writing only so-so stories. But even Jove nods, as they say, and I
found Timothy's desire to merge with his microchips not very believable.

James Morrow's "Abe Lincoln in McDonald's" includes alternate
history _a_n_d time travel (Lincoln somehow travels forward in time to see
the results of making a particular decision). I feel the use of both
techniques lessens the story, but perhaps I'm just a bit of a purist. I
also find the alternate history set forth a bit unbelievable, but I
would be willing to suspend disbelief for one change--but not for two.

"Death Ship" by Barrington J. Bayley is another (forward) time
travel story, though much different than Morrow's. But the ideas in it
seem old, and it never really takes off.

Lisa Tuttle's "In Translation" appears to have been heavily
inspired by _C_l_o_s_e _E_n_c_o_u_n_t_e_r_s _o_f _t_h_e _T_h_i_r_d _K_i_n_d in its story of what
happens _a_f_t_e_r humans are drawn to the aliens' landing sites.
Unfortunately, it all seemed fairly humdrum to me.

"A Sleep and a Forgetting" by Robert Silverberg had an interesting
premise (communications through the center of a star may get warped in
such a way as to allow communication with the past/alternate worlds).
But after hooking up with a world in which Genghis Khan did not become
ruler of the Mongols, Silverberg's characters don't seem to know what to
do with it, and the ending makes no sense at all.

Worlds Best 1990 July 14, 1990 Page 2

Judith Moffett's "Not Without Honor," with its aliens drawn to
Earth by their idolization of the Mickey Mouse Club, seems more a paean
to "the good old days" than the Mickey Mouse Club warrants. (Though
since I was never watched it--our television did not get UHF and NBC was
not on VHF--I am perhaps not the best person to judge.)

"Dogwalker" by Orson Scott Card has been nominated for a Hugo (the
only story in this anthology which has--Judith Moffett's "Not Without
Honor" is not to be confused with George Alec Effinger's "Nothing But
Honor" which _w_a_s nominated for a Hugo). I liked it, but many people I
know didn't.

Lucius Shepard's "Surrender" is part of Shepard's _o_e_u_v_r_e set in
Central America, though more based in the hard sciences than most.
Though Shepard carries it off as well as possible, it nonetheless
suffers from an unfortunate resemblance to many grade-B science fiction
movies to its basic plot.

To those who claim I don't like J. G. Ballard, I offer his "War
Fever" as a counter-example. Well-written and engrossing, it serves as
much as Ballard's response to Isaiah II:4 as a commentary on the
"detached scientific outlook."

My overall evaluation is, unfortunately, negative--unfortunately,
because I found previous years' anthologies in this series excellent.
The usual introductions for the stories are missing due to Wollheim's
poor health (which one hopes is only temporary), and even the selection
is disappointing. While this book may be worth the $4.50, I don't think
calling it the "best" is quite accurate.

REDSHIFT RENDEZVOUS by John E. Stith
Ace, 1990, ISBN 0-441-71145-6, $3.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper

Some of us are sick of ... insanely improbable solar
systems set up to show how clever the author's celestial
mechanics are.
--Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

True enough, but still ... I enjoyed _R_e_d_s_h_i_f_t _R_e_n_d_e_z_v_o_u_s. At
least, I enjoyed the part that _w_a_s the insanely improbable environment;
unfortunately, there wasn't enough of it.

The _R_e_d_s_h_i_f_t is a ship in which space is warped somehow so that the
speed of light is _m_u_c_h slower than in the "real" universe--ranging from
1750 meters/second to 5,360,000 meters/second. (The "real" speed of
light is 300,000,000 meters/second.) Stith plays a lot of games with
the ramifications of this, and this is the fun part. Unfortunately,
partway into the novel the action is moved to Xanahalla, a planet in
normal space where there is an evil religious empire and a bunch of
thieves who are trying to loot the treasury, and the plot is reduced to
that of a super-spy novel. One of the key elements to the resolution of
the plot is the result of an extremely unlikely artistic decision on the
part of the villains (this will make sense if you read the book), and of
course much turns on people misunderstanding the effects of the
"redshift phenomenon."

The real point of the novel can be found in Stith's own comments in
his afterword, "Inventing the _R_e_d_s_h_i_f_t." (The existence of this
afterword a figure, three tables, and an appendix "Phenomena Aboard the
_R_e_d_s_h_i_f_t" merely enforces the idea that the insanely improbable
environment was the point.) Stith says:
I know what you're saying. You're saying, "You can't
fool me. He just made up all that stuff. There isn't
rally a Xanahalla, is there, Virginia?"

Maybe. Maybe not. But I didn't invite you here to
talk about Xanahalla. Let's talk about the _R_e_d_s_h_i_f_t.

It appears that Stith himself agrees that the main point of the
book is the _R_e_d_s_h_i_f_t itself--all the rest is frills. And as a nifty
exercise in "what if?" it is certainly enjoyable, though Stith doesn't
seem to deal with what the change in speed of light would do to
Einstein's equation. If energy is directly proportional to the square
of the speed of light, then dropping the speed should drop the innate
energy as well. He _d_o_e_s, however, deal with neural transmissions. If
you're looking for something more then this sort of scientific game, you
will probably be disappointed.

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK

Capsule review: This film has a plot that has been
done to death in the past and occasionally better.
Still, my spider sense tells me that it may do well with
a new generation of viewers who may not be so familiar
with its predecessors. Rating: +1.

One tends to expect new ideas in films from Steven Spielberg's
Amblin Entertainment. And with Disney Enterprises starting a new film
branch, Hollywood Pictures, you would expect something fairly original
to inaugurate the new label. That makes it all the more puzzling that
this collaboration between Amblin Entertainment and Hollywood Pictures
would be a plot that was already old when Spielberg made _C_l_o_s_e
_E_n_c_o_u_n_t_e_r_s _o_f _t_h_e _T_h_i_r_d _K_i_n_d . There have already been so many
"Invasion of the Killer Vermin" films that one more is no novelty. In
other films we have seen people threatened by infestations of spiders,
ants, birds, slugs, rats, bats, feral dogs, bears, even frogs. (Don't
ask me how you make a threat out of a frog; I saw the film and still
don't know. You have to be pretty desperate for phobias to make a film
about killer frogs!) However well a new film of this type is done, and
_A_r_a_c_h_n_o_p_h_o_b_i_a was nicely executed, there is not much new you can put
into a film about a small town threatened by an infestation of deadly
spiders.

The idea of the film is that there is a prehistoric breed of
spider--one with a very different social structure from what modern
spiders have--living isolated in the jungles of Venezuela. This breed
of spider has a "king" and a bunch of drones, much like bees have with a
queen and drones. That is something of a stretch since spiders are much
more closely related to sea crustaceans than they are to insects. A
plot device that could have been devised by Rube Goldberg takes the king
spider and drops him (quite literally) into the backyard of a new doctor
in a small California town. Dr.~Ross Jennings (played by Jeff Daniels)
has a bugaboo about spiders and the fact that he has a barn full of them
is only one of the many problems he is facing as a result of moving to
Canaima, California, from San Francisco. There are, in fact, many
elements of the plot that executive producer Steven Spielberg might have
found extremely familiar. We have one lone man, who is not really
accepted by his town, who has to convince disbelieving officials that
they have a problem. He has his own phobias to overcome, but the love
of his family, charmingly portrayed, convinces him that he has to
overcome his fears and see that the problem gets solved. Luckily he has
a knowledgeable expert he can call on to help him out and to explain to
the audience how scary the situation really is. Surely all this must
have rung a bell somewhere in Spielberg's memory.

Arachnophobia July 22, 1990 Page 2

What is nice about the film is that it takes the time to develop
characters so that the audience has some understanding and empathy
invested in them. That too makes the film seem as if it were really a
1970s film. The viewer gets to know the people who are threatened by
the spiders--not as well as you get to know the Brodie family in _j_a_w_s,
but far better than you know anyone in most current horror films.
Nobody follows the new popular formula of being introduced and making
vacuous or stereotyped conversation, then being quickly dispatched to
nobody's regret.

The effects work usually is believable, though occasionally a
spider just does not scramble right. A fair number of live spiders were
also sued and unfortunately the film bears no endorsement of the filming
practices by any humane society.

_A_r_a_c_h_n_o_p_h_o_b_i_a is entertaining and has some genuinely creepy
moments, but lacks anything that really distinguishes it from other
films with very similar plots and approaches. I give it a +1 on the -4
to +4 scale.

Capsule review: The clever heist story fades into a
Murphy's Law sort of getaway. Three thieves find out
just how unfriendly New York City can be. There are
several well-defined characters created, but
unfortunately the three main characters are not them.
Rating: +1.

There are really two stories to _Q_u_i_c_k _C_h_a_n_g_e. The first story is
about twenty minutes long and is the story of "The Bank Robbery." The
second story is the story of "The Getaway." The idea behind the robbery
is clever. It is done in a way that has not been done in heist films
before it. I figured the gimmick out in advance, but I am told that
puts me in a minority. Word-of-mouth indicates that many viewers are
taken by surprise by the gimmick of the robbery. The Getaway is also
well done but in a very different vein. All the clockwork planning
falls apart as three partners in crime try to get from a New York bank
to JFK airport. Here no new ground is broken. Several films have been
made about what a hostile and frustrating place New York City is.
Notable examples are _T_h_e _O_u_t-_o_f-_T_o_w_n_e_r_s and _A_f_t_e_r _H_o_u_r_s. _Q_u_i_c_k _C_h_a_n_g_e
is slightly lower key and more believable than those films, but it too
is a compendium of the irritating frustrations and rude people in New
York City, woven together by a connecting story. The attempts to get to
the airport become more frantic as more and more obstacles fall into the
intrepid gang's way.

Bill Murray co-produced, co-directed, and co-starred. Howard
Franklin co-directed as well as wrote the screenplay based on a book by
Jay Cronley. Murray plays the absurdly laid-back Grimm. Murray
sacrifices much of the absurd gamut of frustrations by maintaining an
even keel throughout. As a counterpoint, Randy Quaid plays Loomis, who
constantly walks the narrow line between panic and hysteria. Of the
three thieves, the only character who has any depth is Geena Davis's
Phyllis, who is re-evaluating her future while they fights their way to
the airport, pursued by the slightly too intuitive Chief Rotzinger
(played by Jason Robards, Jr.).

_Q_u_i_c_k _C_h_a_n_g_e does have a few belly laughs, but it is not trying
constantly to be uproarious as so many current comedies are. More often
it contents itself with being whimsical and sly. This approach would
normally require a much better definition of the three main characters
than Franklin was able to provide, but ironically it is not the main
characters he develops. Instead he develops the minor characters and
then lets them upstage the stars, We better understand a bank guard
(played by Bob Elliot of the Bob and Ray team) than we do either if the
two male leads. The audience has less sympathy and interest invested in

Quick Change July 17, 1990 Page 2

them than in a cabbie who speaks and understands no recognizable
language. An officious bus driver (played by Philip Bosco) is as well
developed as Randy Quaid's character with far less screen time. By
blurring the foreground characters and focusing on the background, New
York City becomes the real main character of the film until the script
falters near the end and Murray once again reclaims the audience's
attention. I rate the film a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.