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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 02/01/91 -- Vol. 9, No. 31

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

02/20 LZ: MARTIANS, GO HOME! by Frederic Brown (Social Satire)
03/13 LZ: TOM SWIFT by Victor Appleton II (Juvenile 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.

02/09 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County:Lawrence
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
02/16 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: Stanley Schmidt
(phone 201-432-5965 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 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3B-301 949-4488 hotsc!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. One of our better pairings of films for the Leeperhouse festival
will be shown on Thursday, February 7, at 7 PM at--where else?--the
Leeper house. Each is an adaptation of a celebrated novel about
children growing up in the South and their impressions about the
world around them, a world with kindness and with bigotry.

Coming of Age Films
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER (1968) dir. by Robert Ellis Miller
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) dir. by Robert Mulligan

In THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Alan Arkin plays a deaf-mute
forced to move to a new town to be near a hospitalized friend.
There his life touches those of many of the people around him,
particularly the family of the house where he boards. Arkin and
Sandra Locke were both nominated for Oscars. Also in this

THE MT VOID Page 2

adaptation of the novel by Carson McCullers are Stacy Keach, Percy
Rodriquez, and Cecily Tyson. Normally we would show films in the
order in which they were made, but since this is the less commonly
seen film, we will show it first.

Harper Lee's novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was adapted by Horton
Foote, who won an Oscar for the script. Gregory Peck won an Oscar
for his role as a Southern lawyer who becomes hated in his town for
defending a black man (Brock Peters) accused of raping a white
woman. The story is seen through the eyes of his two young
children. The film earned five Oscar nominations in addition to
the two it won. It was nominated for Best Picture (losing to
_L_a_w_r_e_n_c_e _o_f _A_r_a_b_i_a) and Best Score. Robert Duvall makes his film
debut in a brief but memorable role.

These two films have something else in common, incidentally. Both
are long--so please try to be on time.

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

There is no creed so false but faith can make it true.
-- Henry David Thoreau

THE TIME AXIS by Henry Kuttner
A book review by Frank R. Leisti
Copyright 1991 Frank R. Leisti

It is often a pleasure to reread some of the old science fiction
books that I have accumulated in my library. _T_h_e _T_i_m_e _A_x_i_s by Henry
Kuttner is one such book. This book, copyright 1948 was published by
Ace Books, Inc. and has that fabulous price of $.40 on the cover. It
was from an earlier time of science fiction, which really hit home when
it stated that the periodic table of elements had been increased by
elements 85 and 87, astatine and francium.

To view such a work of time travel, such as _T_h_e _T_i_m_e _A_x_i_s, is to
remember an earlier time of the Bohr atom, and the painstaking
investigations into the happenings of the universe. This type of time
travel used the method of a particular point within the earth that
flowed through time -- keeping separate space and time within the
three-dimensional oval space that constituted the time axis. The story
involves four travelers of time, a doctor, a scientist, a military man,
and a journalist. The full circle of time is evident, when the
scientist has uncovered the Time Axis and has found himself, a younger
version of the the doctor, the military man and the journalist within
the oval space past the events of time.

We discover the story as the journalist writes it later, before he
begins his journey on through time -- like some roving reporter. From
the various beginnings, we discover that an ancient artifact of the
Cretan Empire was a futuristic Pandora's box that when opened by some
scientific society, would force them to venture ahead in time to combat
the terror of nekron, "a new form of matter, the death of energy -- a
pattern, a dead null-energy pattern of negation" of both space and time.

Of course, predestiny plays its hand upon the world and these four
time travelers move into the Time Axis and are interrupted in their
journey to the end of time to get involved in a small event, where they
come face to face with their duplicates. Their memories complete, they
find the situation not to their liking and are forced to defend
themselves and move back into the Time Axis.

Finally at the end of time of this world, with the Face of Ea, who
has summoned them to do what they need to do -- rid the universe of
nekron.

While quite simplistic in terms of its writing -- covering events
and involving the paradoxes of time and the universe, it was a wonderful
story from earlier years and it brought back to me the desires that I
once had to read all the science fiction in the world -- to imagine
worlds, galaxies, and universes beyond that of the ordinary. From our
roots in reading science fiction, whether for pleasure or for

Time Axis January 29, 1990 Page 2

imaginative fun, this story brings back those innocent years of reading
for the wondrous worlds that could be created by someone's imagination
and effort.

In terms of today's work, there are but a few ideas placed here and
a weak character development show the weak side of this book. Yet, it
was one of the early works -- from which others drew their strengths and
ideas from. On the Leeper scale, it rates a low -1.

THE GRIFTERS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: A lot of impressive names
cooperated to create a surprisingly unimpressive _f_i_l_m
_n_o_i_r crime story. This film pulls its punches by
throwing in absurdities at the wrong moment and has at
least one surprisingly vicious scene. Rating: +1 (-4 to
+4).

A "grifter" is a con-man (nobody calls them "con-persons"), someone
who makes a living by fraud. There are little cons and big cons. A
small con will net pocket change and maybe a busted jaw. A big con can
net in the millions and can get you killed. Con men have been portrayed
as likable in _T_h_e _F_l_i_m _F_l_a_m _M_a_n and _T_h_e _S_t_i_n_g. They are seen with a
kind of dark awe in _H_o_u_s_e _o_f _G_a_m_e_s. Perhaps the most realistic view and
by far one of the dirtiest is in _T_h_e _G_r_i_f_t_e_r_s, anew film with a superb
pedigree that still disappoints. What is the pedigree? It was a novel
by Jim Thompson, a crime-story writer who is only now, after his death,
reaching his greatest popularity. The film adaptation of his _A_f_t_e_r
_D_a_r_k, _M_y _S_w_e_e_t is also in current release. Thompson also occasionally
did screen work, co-scripting one of the great films of all time,
Kubrick's _P_a_t_h_s _o_f _G_l_o_r_y. Thompson's _G_r_i_f_t_e_r_s was adapted for the
screen by Donald Westlake, himself a popular crime novelist and author
of books such as _B_a_n_k _S_h_o_t. The film was produced by Martin Scorsese,
who directed _f_i_l_m _n_o_i_r crime films such as _M_e_a_n _S_t_r_e_e_t_s and _T_a_x_i _D_r_i_v_e_r,
and directed by Stephen Frears, who also directed _M_y _B_e_a_u_t_i_f_u_l
_L_a_u_n_d_r_e_t_t_e, _S_a_m_m_y _a_n_d _R_o_s_i_e _G_e_t _L_a_i_d, and _D_a_n_g_e_r_o_u_s _L_i_a_i_s_o_n_s. As close
as it would be possible to have a spectacular _f_i_l_m _n_o_i_r film, this is
it. Still, this turns out to be just an adequate crime story, little
more.

The film concerns three grifters. First there is 25-year-old Roy
Dillon (played limply by John Cusack). Then there is his 39-year-old
mother Lily Dillon (played by the oddly mis-cast Anjelica Huston).
Unusually mis-castings have a pretty person cast where someone grittier
is needed. Here it may be the reverse. Lily looks old enough to be
Roy's mother. The story calls for her to be Roy's mother without
looking it. She is supposed to look young and attractive, and while
Ms. Huston really is the right age for the role--she was born in 1952--
she looks too old for the role and dressing her in a sexy dress and
stiletto heels does not do it. The third vertex of this dark triangle
is Myra (played by Annette Bening), a bouncy young grifter with a
background for big grifts. Often her bounces are out of her clothes and
onto a bed, particularly when big money is involved. She wants to
partner up with Roy in more ways than one, but she and Lily are just too
similar and know too much about each other to get along.

Grifters January 26, 1991 Page 2

(I will try to avoid spoilers in what follows but there will be
minor spoilers.)

What is wrong with this story? Why is this only an adequate crime
story? First, the plotting is less complex than you would expect. You
have three devious characters and one would expect a really devious
plot, but it fails to materialize. There are no big surprises in the
plotting. The viewer never really feels grifted by the script. Second,
parts of this film really do not make sense. The climax of the film is
contrived and if it is not a physical impossibility, it is a very strong
physical improbability. In another incident, a bullet is fired and the
police conclusion about the incident seems completely inconsistent with
what would have been the trajectory of the bullet. It is almost comical
to imagine the incident as the police must be picturing it to create the
required trajectory. While the previous problem in physics is probably
from the novel, the trajectory problem seems to be Frears not thinking
out the scene ahead of time and could have been avoided.

This is not a bad film, it just fails to materialize into a very
good one. The scenes that should carry the dramatic impact lose it
because of small absurdities. In my opinion, this film has been over-
rated. It would have made a decent black-and-white in the 1940s and it
still is just about that good. My rating is +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

Capsule review: Unexceptional is really the word
for the new _H_a_m_l_e_t from Franco Zeffirelli. Gibson is
okay as Hamlet but is nothing startling. Glenn Close is
the only actor experimenting with her role. The scenery
is nice but this much-trimmed re-telling is nothing
Shakespeare would feel bad for missing. Rating: +1 (-4
to +4).

Generally in reviewing a film, first consideration is given to how
good the story is. It is a little tougher to review a Shakespeare film
because, whatever the good qualities of the story itself or even the
dialogue, it is pointless to praise the gentleman who contributed them.
_H_a_m_l_e_t is a film that gets no points, positive or negative, for story.
The question is not whether _H_a_m_l_e_t is a good story, but rather whether
this is a good _H_a_m_l_e_t.

First of all, this is not so much _H_a_m_l_e_t as _H_a_m_l_e_t_t_e. Every line
that's there is Shakespeare's, but not every line that is Shakespeare's
is there. Franco Zeffirelli tells the story slowly, taking time to
bathe the viewer in the impressive scenery, then cutting much of the
play--half, I am told--to make it fit into two and a quarter hours. As
one expects from a Zeffirelli film, it is lushly filmed, though perhaps
not so much as some of his other films, particularly the ones set in
Italy. This film has less of the soft focus of, say, _R_o_m_e_o _a_n_d _J_u_l_i_e_t.
The scenery is mostly in stoney castles shot with a much harder focus.
Some of the exteriors look much like the real Elsinore, but the Scottish
castles used for the interiors has far too much Celtic-looking
decoration. Ennio Morricone's score is not only much less intrusive than
usual, it seems nearly non-existent. Surprisingly few scenes have any
score at all.

The important question is whether a popular actor like Mel Gibson
can play a good Hamlet. In many ways Hamlet is very much a character of
the 1990s. He has horrible family problems, he screws up his love life,
and he has absolutely atrocious audience manners. Gibson's Hamlet,
however, is surprisingly uninteresting and not particularly relevant to
either Hamlet's time or our own. Gibson's performance makes no
statement about the Dane that was not on the printed page. By contrast
Glenn Close's Gertrude takes the incest a step further than
Shakespeare's did by apparently being attracted to her own son. Alan
Bates plays new King Claudius not very notably and even the great Paul
Scofield seems unable to do much with his role. Helena Bonham-Carter of
_A _R_o_o_m _w_i_t_h _a _V_i_e_w and _L_a_d_y _J_a_n_e needs a new character to play.

This film has too many problems to become the definitive _H_a_m_l_e_t the
way Zeffirelli's is the best known version of _R_o_m_e_o _a_n_d _J_u_l_i_e_t. It is
simply an okay retelling of the classic story. Rent _H_e_n_r_y _V instead. I
give it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

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