Word: ritts
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...illusions I might have entertained about artistic integrity. But the opposite situation--watching a former TV sit-com starlet metamorphose into a first-rate actress--amazed me. Expecting "Gidget Goes to Harlan County," I was surprised, impressed and moved by Sally (Flying Nun) Field's performance in Martin Ritt's new film, Norma Rae. She delivers a powerful shaded performance as Southern woman who slowly learns to value herself. Playing a sassy, kicked-around mill worker, Field brings an almost autobiographical intensity to the role. Her aging starlet cuteness suddenly works--like Field herself, Norma Rae is a woman cashing...
Directed by Martin Ritt Screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank...
...response is to wonder why it took so long for the film makers to reach this big scene. It is the same with other sequences: company goons on the attack, the death of Norma Rae's father from overwork. There is an awful familiarity here and in Martin Ritt's conventional staging. The angles and editing are those of 30 years ago, and they seem less a reversion to classicism than a confession of creative failure...
...Begelman's return, Los Angeles District Attorney John Van de Kamp issued a four-count felony complaint, charging the executive with grand theft of $40,000 and with forging the names of Director Martin Ritt, Publicist Pierre Groleau and Actor Cliff Robertson on checks. So Begelman is set to surrender this week to Burbank police, and will shortly afterward be arraigned. If convicted, he could be sentenced to one to ten years in state prison on the grand-theft charge and one to 14 years on each of the three forgery counts. One serious problem...
None of this would go down so easily if Ritt had cast heart-warming actors in the key roles; a few too many beaming faces onscreen, and the movie would curdle before our eyes. Luckily, the three sons - Andrew A. Rubin, Steve Burns and Michael Hershewe - are as obstreperous as they are attractive. Further spice is provided by Murray Hamilton and Robert Webber as dastardly villains, and by the stunning Alexis Smith, who turns up as a wealthy horsewoman. In her tight jeans and cowboy hat, Smith gives Casey's Shadow a welcome dose of hard-edged sexuality...