FILM

FILM

WUSA & The Lickerish Quartet

WUSA clearly means to be a big, steaming slice of America 70’s style, a vivid anti-fascism in America melodrama in the tradition of All The King’s Men and A Face in the Crowd. Unfortunately, due to Robert Stone’s wildly slanted script, Stuart Rosenberg’s gaudy direction, and a cast of characters which includes both a heart of gold whore and a crippled newsdealer, what emerges is considerably less distinguished: another big-budget, hate the South movie reminiscent of Sweet Bird of Youth and The Chase.

Paul Newman plays an embittered, non-involved alcoholic who takes a job as a broadcaster at WUSA, a right wing New Orleans radio station. Joanne Woodward is his downtrodden girlfriend, a movie whore of such innate dignity and compassion that she could almost qualify for service in a Disney flick. Newman and Woodward live next door to Anthony Perkins, a sincere, pathetic young man who is conducting a welfare survey. When Perkins learns that the results of his survey will be used by the station to discredit his clients, he flips out and attempts to assasinate the president of WUSA at a huge patriotic rally which Newman is emceeing. From here on in everyone in the movie suffers terribly.

All of this could have been corny, melodramatic fun if the script weren’t so anemic (it takes over an hour for us tp learn how Perkin’s survey ties in with WUSA) and stuffed with pompous preachy lines. What can actors do when they have to recite dialog as bad as that in WUSAl Appear in different movies — ones which don’t pull out all the stops in an attempt to manipulate audiences into a simplistic good guys vs. bad guys view of the world. One small note of thanks: to Newman for the cynical, self-contained quality he brings to his flawless portrayal of an alcoholic, and to Miss Woodward for the incredible amount of grace and poignancy she manages to imbue her foolish role with. That the Newmans can perform so persuasively in such a ramshackle vehicle is startling.