University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

Making An Idiotic Story
Into A Repulsive Film

By KEN BARRY

If you are any good at all at
spotting trends, you will have
noticed that a distinctive breed of
films has been infesting
Charlottesville theatres in recent
weeks. These films-"Andromeda
Strain," "Hellstrom Chronicle,"
and now "Willard" are
representative-might be broadly
characterizes as science fiction
brought down to earth. The new
direction in sci-fi is easy enough to
explain; even little kids these days
aren't going to buy antenna-cared
moonmen or three-nosed
Martians-for TV cameras have
emptied space of all its monsters
and mystery.

But what manner of void, short
of empty pockets, has ever
stymied the fertility of zealous
movie-makers? Since the celestial
stuff can no longer be cranked out
with profitable abandon,
producers have lowered their
sights to fashion epics about the
creepy-crawly things people have
long known about but (the fools!)
taken for granted. Hitchcock's
stunning "The Birds" was, I
suppose, a harbinger of the
terrestrial trend in sci-fi;
"Willard," a film that would be
accused of cribbing from
Hitchcock had it been filmed five
years ago, now garlands itself for
"emulating" the master. Whatever
its pretensions, it arrives in a thick
cloud of subversive beast, insects,
and microbes; and it by no means
stands out from the pack.

Davison And Co-Stars: Self-Proclaimed Dullness

"Willard" is about a lonely
young man (27) who is harassed
by cloying relatives and bullied by
a despotic boss. Friendless, he
befriends a pack of rats loitering in
his backyard (every boy should
have a pet). He feeds them,
propagates them, trains them, and
then-seizing upon the possibilities
for revenge marshals them for
havoc-wreaking attacks on his
tormentors. Finally, the rats gnaw
the boss to oblivion and, bending
to the inevitabilities of
Frankenstein morality, turn upon
their master.

Bad Dream

It sounds like the lingering
memory of a bad dream-perhaps
from too much cheese dip at last
night's cock tail party. Actually the
movie was "inspired" by a novel
called Ratman's Notebook
(although that doesn't necessarily
spoil my origins hypothesis). The
story is idiotic and absurd; it stems
from the quality of imagination
that produced the Disney
"flubber" epics, but the source has
gone putrid, or perverse, or mad.

I am not saying that a movie is
necessarily bad because its premise
is improbable; "The Birds" proves
that. But improbability must be
artfully overcome; we must be
lulled into a willing suspension of
disbelief, et cetera. "Willard's"
very subject matter precludes art;
the film is mired in its own
inherent repulsiveness. The awful,
majestic terror of angry, swooping
birds is not, believe me, duplicated
by the sight of a swarm of
fang-toothed rats. "Willard"
doesn't submerge its
improbability, but lurches
grotesquely against it.

Vapid Plot

When the rats are off the
screen, "Willard" manages a few
winning moments. Bruce Davison,
in the title role, is pleasant and
sympathetic when the part allows
him to be. The kinfolk and the
boss (Ernest Borgnine) are
Dickensian in their grotesque
gusto and menace. Willard's
birthday party bears some
resemblance to Pip's unforgettable
Christmas dinner, Uncle
Pumblechook presiding, in
Great Expectations.

But a few nice touches in
characterization don't compensate
for a vapid and offensive plot.
"Willard's producers have
proclaimed their own dullness in
bragging their movie is "without a
message." True enough, though;
and it offers nothing instead
except armloads of bad taste.

(Now at the Paramount)