Word: films
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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WINNING. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward appear as a husband and wife whose marital trials are enacted against the roar of the auto-racing circuit. The film gives a pretty bumpy ride overall, but it's a pleasant enough vehicle for the Newmans...
Heroic Notion. The free university movement may prove to be a passing fad, but it has already had an impact on established institutions. Dartmouth has incorporated experimental college courses in black American history, film criticism and the relationship between religion and science in its regular curriculum. St. Louis University gives credit for free university courses in the psychology of social work and the future of Catholic higher education. On its own hook, Brown University recently adopted some of the far-reaching reforms that free universities commonly aim to stimulate. Beginning next fall, a Brown student will be able to plan...
...that flashy stuff.") Nothing but a minimum of talk and then down to the substance of Johnny Cash and his show: singing songs. One regular singing session that Cash conceived and is particularly proud of: "Ride This Train," a wandering medley of folk songs and film clips through times and places in American history...
While the images and songs are making the film personal by concentrating on attractive kids, the narration details and analyzes the characters' ideals, the great American drama of growing-up. But here too a balance is achieved by pushing cliches too far, by filling the narration with put-on. The subject of the film remains these ideals as they influence the characters, but Kahin's control of this material and his objectivity toward it never lapse...
...course there are a few quibbles. The songs repeat their best lines ("You always used to be a virgin/ But it's so hard to tell these days") too often. A few scenes (a slap, a mugging) seem contrived. But the film is so well put together that these are at worst minor hitches, and at best strange contributions. Its shortness gives every excess, every idiosyncracy, a function in character establishment. The excessive repetition of line and gesture, for example, makes the characters look a little silly: it balances their very romantic notions and intense self-attention. Humor like this...