SHORT TAKES

FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (Warner Bros.):: There are more dead pedestrians in thisscript than anything since What's Up, Doc? There is also more fagbaiting by James Caan than in anything he's ever done. There is also, however, Alan Arkin, who in one grim-

ace can be both funny and vicious, which makes me think he should have played Lenny Bruce. So what's he doing here? Showing up everybody else, including Valerie Harper, who plays the ignored wife. These are some of the

components of the underdog co-partners cop movie {Busting, Law and Disorder). You're supposed to forgive murder, fag jokes, and egotism in the name of justice and/or manhood. And Freebie and Bean don't even break the dope ring, because they're such (loveable) dufos that they fumble the job. The godfather's wife is in love with the police commissioner so she, of course, is the snitch. Shit, it doesn't even pay to figure these movies out anymore.

Georgia Christgau

EARTHQUAKE (Universal):: The only way to cover disaster movies now is to talk about the ones not made yet, and speculate on the gimmicks that invariably will challenge SENSURROUND SOUND (a low frequency vibration which is not heard, but felt, rather like the lowest note on a cathedral organ.) The Towering Inferno has dozens of \ stars trapped in a burning highrise apartment while dozens of other stars try to get them out (the wind is too strong to land helicopters on the roof and blah blah blah blah). Maybe they could send smoke smell into the theaters. Wouldn't cost much — an usher and an old Sunday New York Times. The Hindenburg features George C. Scott and Anne Bancroft trapped in a burning dirigible — the same usher with a Goodyear tire? Or you can hang around and wait for real disasters to happen. CBS News will interrupt The Waltons to bring you live coverage... and I'll take Walter Cronkite over SENSyRROUND SOUND any day.

Peter McWilliams

THE GAMBLER (Paramount):: James Cann's Axel Freed is not The Prototype Gambler, just a sterotyped Bad Better. He's an egomanical compulsive hunk of a scholar, who loves the uncertainties, not the possibilities, of gambling. Does that make this movie "absorbing," "dynamic," "significant?" Axel's a glorified creep. There's loads of analogous references in his English Lit lectures about George Washington's fear of failure and risk, desire vs. reality. And occasionally he leads you to think he's seen the light, or at least lost his loot but that's just Cann's naturally antsy look. The other characters are too pat. Lauren Hutton seems uncomfortable off her Vogue covers but she sure beats Cybill. The dialogue is strong, the visuals subtle, the ambitious script tight but incredible — it's much too cerebral and goes nowhere: why bother, then? The Gambler is not to California Split what Juggernaut is to The Posiedon Adventure. Shows you can lose for winning.

Robbie Cruger

FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL (Paramount):: Until the time when someone in movieland decides to make decent horror films once again, monster maniacs will have to settle for fare such as Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell (cha-chacha), a slightly better than average excursion into neo-Gothic terror. The

resident doctor at a truly insane asylum, Frankenstein (wizened Peter Cushing) transplants the brain of a kindly genius into the body of a neolithic homicidal nut. The resulting humanoid is a rather unique cross between J. Fred Muggs and Albert Einstein, but not much fun at parties. Most of the potential plot complications are left unrealized and even Terence Fisher's taut direction and the cast's noble acting cannot overcome the simian script and the laughable make-up. Like Frankenstein's monster, the film comes apart at the seams by the last reel.

Ed Naha