SHORT TAKES

BUSTING (United Artists):: You probably think that the hardest part about being a vice cop is getting your face busted in by junkies or some big time dealers trying to blow your brains out in a crowded supermarket. Well, it’s not. The hardest part of being a vice cop is filling your mouth with bubble gum and philosophy with a punky put-on attitude and not looking like an asshole. In Elliot Gould’s latest, Busting, he intermittently does both. Robert Blake, as his partner, continually draws on an unlit Pall Mall and plays straight man to Gould’s humor, which runs from lowkeyed to plain buried. Both cops go after Mr. Big and find themselves stymied by his political connections. But after busting a couple of hookers and losing a C minus shoot out, they finally nail Rizzo (Mr. Big) in an ambulence chase scene almost as exciting as Gould’s bubble gum chewing. The tiresome duo discover the moral of the tiresome plot, that, shorn do be dom du du, busting up is hard to do.

Harvey Zuppke

WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM (United Artists):: About four backwoods children who are orphaned 15 minutes into the movie when their father dies of consumption and bad timing. They are left dlone to charm us with their hardship, but seasoned character actor, Harry Dean Stanton, steals the show as the underdog, hillbilly, shoe-shufflin’ landlord of their piece of the Blue Ridge Mountains. You remember Harry — the speedfreakin Cisco Pike, bank robber Homer Van Meter in Dillinger, one of Kelly’s Heroes. Producer Mark Radnitz (Sounder) saw to it that four innocents were chosen for the Lilies cast, all with little or no acting experience. 12 year old Matthew Burrill, native to the Appalachian locale, said the best part of promoting the movie was being on the same plane with the Isley Brothers. You can’t keep ’em down on the farm. . .

Georgia Christgau

CINDERELLA LIBERTY (20th Century Fox):: The story is simple: sailor on leave meets and marries a whore. But the sailor, James Caan, is more than just a sailor, even if the whore, Marsha Mason, is little more.‘John’s liberty pass is from the Navy Hospital, so he must report back by. midnight. He hustles Maggie in a pool game, gets laid for free, gets back in time, and the movie earns a title. John gets hooked on his hooker and finds out she has a kid — her bi-racial experiment. Then the three of them fool around in an “I’d like to get to know you” routine. But the honesty of it: the grubby apartment, the kid’s needing his teeth fixed, John’s caring — not romantically, but pragmatically — charms you. The film is predictable, but it’s so damn honest that you believe in everybody, and root for them, too. A Cinderella movie for our times.

Harvey Zuppke

JEREMIAH JOHNSON (Warner Brothers):: Robert Redford makes a mighty mountain man — he kills every b’ar and skins ever injin in the North Pineys without once getting a hair outa place. In spite of this minor technicality, one must admit that this is the most entertaining slice of rough ’n’ tumble to hit the nabes in a passel o’ fortnites. Just wait’ll you slurp the tender, connubial beddown with Rob’s (gift from her pappy chief) squaw: she can’t speak English and he can't stomach her vitties, plus they gotta cart around a mute white orfink, whatta fine parable of the nuclear family. Whole flick’s a gasseroonie and the season’s finest respite from cops.

Lester Bangs