Word: australian
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...faults except that it is neither tense nor in any way Middle Eastern. The wily Lebanese banker, the fanatic Syrian colonel, the Israeli undercover agent and his trusty Damascan mistress all speak as if their lines had been written for them by-to pick an absurd example-a plonking Australian novelist named Morris West, author of The Shoes of the Fisherman. This is Eric Ambler territory, and no Western writer less accustomed to its rigors should go out in the Mideast...
...PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE is more a one-character study than a fully fleshed play. Australian Actress Zoe Caldwell acts up a typhoon as an Edinburgh teacher with sweeping fervors and fantasies, but Mrs. Jay Allen's adaptation of a novel by Muriel Spark is unfortunately becalmed...
Indeed, much of the Bee Gees' style (the name, coined by an Australian disk jockey, stands for Brothers Gibb) harks back to the days long past -1964, say-when love and idolatry dogged the Beatles' every step. The songs are simple, the beat steady, the tune up on top for easy listening. The words, too, push back the calendar a few years: unabashed love epics spiced with just a pinch of social awareness. "Oh, how I tried, really and sincerely I tried," quavers Robin in one song, as background strings swirl up in Pucciniesque supplication...
...Australian-born Zoe Caldwell, who was awarded a Tony for her performance in Slapstick Tragedy, camouflages the plight of a play that has said its all in the first 20 minutes by resolute diversions of voice, manner and meticulous comic timing. Unfortunately, she would rather see through, than be, Miss Brodie. She does not trust the role enough and kids it in a slyly satirical put-on instead of letting herself be consumed by it. If she had created a warped, vulnerable, fitfully valiant and perpetually self-deluded human being, playgoers might have laughed with Miss Jean Brodie...
Double Rescue. At election time next year, Gorton will have one big factor going for him in hardy, hero-loving Australia. Flying with the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II, he was shot down in the Pacific in 1942, lived for days on turtle eggs and fish until his rescue, then went through painful plastic surgery for injuries he had received when his face "got mixed up with the instrument panel." As he sailed home at last on leave, his boat was torpedoed, and he spent another day and a night on a raft, chest-deep in water...