Spotlight on hoods and rockers

Press, 24 February 1986, Page 14

Spotlight on hoods and rockers

PRIZZI’S HONOUR Directed by John Huston Produced by John Foreman Screenplay by Richard Condon and THIS IS SPINAL TAP Directed by Rob Reiner Anjelica Huston and her director-daddy, John, call the shots in “Prizzi’s Honour” — a tawdry tale of Mafia manoeuvres. Hers was a name, also, that caught my eye on the credits for "This is Spinal Tap,” which is back for six days only from last year’s film festival.

If you spot Huston’s cameo appearance in what "Newsweek” magazine described as the “funniest rock- ‘n’ roll movie ever made," then you are alert, or, perhaps a humourless heavy metal fan, looking rather than laughing at this perceptive documentary-style parody of ageing rockers on the road. “Prizzi’s Honour” is

parody too: belittling the grandeur of “The Godfather,” using cinematic devices with distancing effect, and teasing with stylish schmaltz devoid of substance.

John Huston spells out his intentions in a finely crafted opening sequence. A baby is offered up to two men; a child receives a knuckleduster for Christmas; blood bonds are exchanged; and a daughter of the “family” weds in suburban dreamtime splendour, her rows of attendants dressed in chiffon blue and nylon pink.

This is melodrama; the camera swings majestically above the scene, swooping over the bridal couple and down through the pews. Huston offers us

little more than a cynical panorama. We see the trusty hitman, Charley Partanna (Jack Nicholson), roll eyes at another guest, Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner), who mouths back, straining against her lilac dress. Later, we see rather more of them both but get no closer to their characters which are as orchestrated as the plot and the soundtrack.

This is a film with 1940 s foundations. Puccini and Rossini provide music that is more than background; it’s used, as in old thrillers, to denote the ups and downs of a simple story of love and revenge.

The characters catch planes, drink pineapple cocktails, take their telephone calls on New York rooftops, and enthuse over each other with a sincerity that makes "Dallas” appear as gritty realism. What makes “Prizzi’s Honour” modern, in spite of its corny conventions, is black humour lent by the director’s manipulations. He allows Nicholson to be the dumb killer who

falls for the Lauren Ba-call-type broad, who turns a trick on what the Prizzis call honour.

Anjelica Huston as Maerose, besmirched granddaughter of the don, is none too happy to see her former beau besmitten, or, to be told to “practise your meatballs.” A true Prizzi, she shuns tame domesticity In favour of plotting. Charley is left to decide whether to “ice” Irene, a fellow contract killer, or marry her. The ending is no surprise; it’s an exercise in reminding us that this is Huston’s film above that of his deliberately unappealing actors. We are as captive as the Prizzis in their code of behaviour, so stage-man-aged it denies true emotions.

So we watch a guileless, beefy Nicholson, rendered moronic rather than his usual psychotic self. A shrivelled William Hickey as Don Prizzi, shrunken in his red throne, offers Maerose not honour but cookies.

John Huston reaffirms his skill, but this is not a film to remember him by. Huston is a craftsman. Now nearing 80, .he has not made this a final masterpiece to add to his catalogue. Instead, “Prizzi’s Honour” is a cunning, mocking work, drawing on, but not dependent on, his decades of directing. Its stylishness is enough to warrant its medley of Academy Award nominations.

“This is Spinal Tap” deals in music industry stereotypes, but its characters are altogether more endearing than the Prizzis. The band are former headlining head-bangers whose failing crowd-pull is attributed by their paunchy manager to increasingly selective appeal. Their American progress is charted by the director, Rob Reiner (Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, “Meathead”), who appears as a director, Marty Di Bergi, and wears the sort of cap he did in “All in the Family.” Reiner

has succeeded’in making a low-budget funny film, deserving of the fringe acclaim it won overseas.

Di Bergi, who makes commercials, sets out to shoot a documentary on his idols, Spinal Tap, and their hard-rocking, hard-; living United States tour. The “Interview” footage slows the film and allows plenty of clever dialogue. Spinal Tap are a hardcore of two English- school chums, who started out as the Originals, found that they weren’t, and became the New Originals. From white shirts and Beatle haircuts they evolved into flower boys, had a hippy hit, and then wound up in spandex pants with a history -of drummers who died mysteriously.

Drummer No. 1 had a gardening accident, the second “choked on it” (vomit, “they didn’t know whose, you can’t dust it”), his replacement "spontaneously combusted” and No. 4 thought his chances were better. With albums like “Intravenus de Milo” behind them, Spinal Tap have a reputation for risque cover art. The band think their latest cover — a greased woman on all fours, wearing a dog collar and leash — is sexy. Their record company president, a suitably attired Patrick MacNee says: “Sexist.” Clearly, say the music business functionaries, a new record cover concept is required. The tour limps on but cancelled gigs strain relations. When Janine, girlfriend of a band member, turns up "dressed like an Australian’s nightmare" it is going to get worse. She charts out Spinal Tap’s new image — astrologically inspired costumes — pushed aside In favour of Druid drama on a Stonehenge set. The new concept falls, Janine elbows out the manager, books the boys to play an air force base, and forces the inevitable split between the schoolchums. Next comes the news that their lyrically more mature single, "Sex Farm” (“Some of our early stuff was shit”), has gone big in Japan. Will Spinal Tap re-form

and play Tokyo, or stay poolside L.A. dreaming of jazz numbers and collaboration with the London Philharmonic? You’ve got until Thursday to find out. — JANETTA MACKAY

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