Word: davison
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Human Touch. Changes seemed to be glacial under former commanding General James Polk, an old-fashioned "spit and polish" soldier who retired last spring. He was succeeded in June by General Michael S. Davison, 54, who formerly commanded Field Force II in Viet Nam and served as Commandant at West Point. Davison, rated by a Pentagon colleague as "a professional with a human touch," is already having an impact. After an inspection, Davison pronounced the Army's barracks "a scandal and a disgrace," and will supervise the spending of $70 million earmarked to refurbish the worst of them...
Gilbert Ralston, who wrote the screenplay, sees Willard as "a rat morality play. It's based on the concept that man carries within him the seeds of his own destruction. The evil he does will turn back on him." That it certainly does. Willard (Bruce Davison) is an underachiever in his 20s who likes rats but is also something of a rat fink. He stands by spinelessly when his mean-minded boss (Ernest Borgnine) kills Socrates, one of his pets. Socrates' best friend, a rat named Ben, witnesses the act. It is thus easy, when Willard gets fired...
...Davison and Borgnine, at first it was thought that they would use doubles, but both decided to stay the course themselves. In the scene where the rats attack Borgnine, prop men stood overhead and poured the live furries down on him. One rat, obviously carried away with the drama of the moment, drew a little Borgnine blood. No matter: after a quick tetanus booster (for Borgnine), both were back in action...
...good idea-a young man who uses rats to avenge the oppressions of his elders-but it would have needed a combination of Bunuel and Hitchcock to carry it off. Instead it has Daniel Mann (I'll Cry Tomorrow), who manages, despite a good performance by Bruce Davison, to make the movie look like something disinterred from the cellar of TV's Twilight Zone...
...hasn't lived in a police state can understand what living in one is like," says Father Colin Davison. An Anglican priest in South Africa for seven years, Davison ran the educational program of the ecumenical, multiracial Christian Institute there. He was told to leave the country last month and is now back in England. Davison is not alone in his plight. Since Feb. 1, twelve clergymen, all foreign nationals, have been ordered out of South Africa in a harsh silencing of clerical voices that have been raised against apartheid...