Quick return of Anne

Press, 23 September 1988, Page 28

Quick return of Anne

By

DAVID CLARKSON

That child with a genius for trouble, “Anne of Green Gables,” has been released as a 3-hour Roadshow video. The Canadian production has found its way on to video after its release as a television series. Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel of an orphan girl growing up on Prince Edward Island, Canada, has been brought to the screen with care and skill. It can be forgiven its length. It traces her life from the age of 12, through her teen-age years. Actress Megan Follows goes through a rapid ageing process in this film that is paced like a country childhood. It might be seen as the goody-goody trip of a lifetime, but Anne really can be a trying child. She can whine and wheedle, and she is not a devotee of suffering in silence. Her main problem in life is that she lives in a world where every adult is all too ready to think ill of young people. There are excellent performances from Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth as the bld brother and sister who provide the orphan with the love and friendship she craves. This release through Videocorp International, is rated as suitable for general audiences. Other Videocorp International releases include: “Hearts of Fire”: Bob Dylan plays a rock star at the dog-end of his career in this 92-miniite video by Roadshow, directed by Richard Marquand who made “Return of the Jedi” and “Jagged Edge?’ Dylan wrote and performed several of the songs on the soundtrack.

The film explores the outrageously self-indul-gent world of rOck superstars, and takes a little time out to consider fame. Dylan explains: “It’s a trap. The better you are, the bigger the trap.” British actor Rupert Everett plays a high powered rock star at the peak of his career, and Fiona Flanagan is the new talent that both men want. It is rated as suitable for viewers 13 years and older, with a warning about its content. f22“The Kindred”: One for horror fans, with mad scientists running amok and creating a monster

V that is reminiscent of an encounter in deep space, • “Alien.” ( It is full of people who don’t realise it is unwise to wander alone in horror videos. The special effects are gruesomely organic, particularly when the monster makes its first appearance and dispatches a young woman. The video creates a suitably nightmarish atmosphere, and packs in some good scary stuff. If. stars Rod Steiger,. Amanda Pays and Julia Montgomery, runs for 90 minutes, and carries a rating as suitable for 13-

year-olds and over, with a warning about content. “The Buddy Holly Story”: Gary Busey, better known lately for violent encounters in "Lethal Weapon” or “Bulletproof,” plays Buddy Holly in yet another video that traces the road to fame as far as CLearlake, Ohio, in 1959. “La Bamba” recently told the story of Ritchie Valens, who also died in that plane crash. Only the bio-pic of the Big Bopper now remains to be made to cover the trio of singers who died that night. Holly’s story does not have the bitterness and conflict of “La Bamba,” but the video is an interesting slice of history with plenty of good music along the way.

It traces his career from 1956, when he was playing on a local radio station in Lubbock, Texas, and encountering resistance from the station’s advertisers when he and his group set about generating some musical excitement. It runs for 110: minutes. Parental guidance is recommended for viewers younger than 13 year. “Flowers in the Attic”: A shocker which tries a bit hard. Louise Fletcher plays an awesomely brutal grandmother who locks four children away in the north wing of her manor house for months. They have to be locked away so that their mother can expunge the awful sin of having married her own uncle, so that her father will write her back into his substantial will. All this incest, child abuse, sadism, and murder makes very heavy going. The video is rated as suitable for viewers 13 years and over, with a warning about its content.