Word: wanda
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...film version of Kurt Vonnegut's recent play Happy Birthday, Wanda June brings to the screen for the first time a widely read and respected writer. Since Happy Birthday, Wanda June is an especially inept movie, it would be comforting to report that Vonnegut has been victimized by the Hollywood barbarians, his work vulgarized beyond recognition. But it is not so. Vonnegut's own company (called, with inadvertent irony, Sourdough Ltd.) co-produced the film. His name appears in the traditional superstar's position above the title, implying not only box office eminence but a certain pride...
Happy Birthday, Wanda June is a softcore satire on the trappings and traditions of heroism. The hero, Harold Ryan (Rod Steiger), is part Odysseus, part Hemingway. Returning home after eight years of adventuring, he finds that in his absence his wife Penelope (Susannah York) has acquired a college degree, worldly wisdom and two dreary suitors (George Grizzard and Don Murray...
What comes especially clear in Wanda June is that Vonnegut is an easy kind of satirist. His writing is full of engineered whimsy, empty of rage. He is so eager to ingratiate himself with his audience that he seldom takes on anything more substantial than tentative heroes, canting psychiatrists, fumbling representatives of Mencken's American booboisie. A couple of heavyweight opponents are indeed invoked throughout Wanda June (the war in Viet Nam, the Christian religion). But Vonnegut dances around them like a kid from the Golden Gloves unwilling to risk even...
...WANDA MILLER Newport News...
...Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters, Shepherd