FILM FUN

Rip It Up, Issue 20, 1 March 1979, Page 6

FILM FUN

Allegro Non Troppo the animated extravaganza opens at Wellington's Lido in March ... ine Directors' Guild of America have nominated five directors for their annual best direction award. The contenders are Hal Ashby for Coming Home, Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for Heaven Can Wait, Michael Cimino for The Deer Hunter, Paul Mazursky for An Unmarried Woman and Alan Parker for Midnight Express ... veteran director Alfred Hitchcock claims he will retire after filming The Short Night which deals with the escape and defection of spy George Blake ... Visconti’s new film The Innocent has earned the condemnation of the US Catholic Conference for its portrayal of marital infidelity, suicide and infanticide ... Robert Altman’s newie Quintet has opened in the states to antagonistic reviews ... Alice’s Restaurant the eatery made famous in Arlo Guthrie’s song and Arthur Penn’s movie is up for sale. Alice and her restaurant can be found in Lenox near Boston ... the animated film of Watership Down is to be followed by one of The Plague Dogs ... Superman grossed $76 million in its first seven weeks of release in America. It seems set to replace the The Exorcist as Warner Brothers' largest grossing movie ... Richard Lester has completed filming on Cuba with Sean Connery and Brooke Adams ... Elliot Gould to star in next Walt Disney movie ... Muhammed Ali claims that “This time next year I will be an even bigger movie star than either Robert Redford or Paul Newman. Acting comes natural to me” ... director Sydney Lumet is filming Just Tell Me What You Want around a Beverly Hills mansion reconstructed in Long Island, New York. Lumet has never made a film in Hollywood and vows that he’ll keep it that way ... George Lucas’s sequel to American Graffiti, More American Graffiti should be completed later this year. The film features all the original cast except Richard Dreyfuss .