Cinema

Fit for a Queen?

Kenneth Robinson

Rooster Cogburn Director: Hal Wallis Stars. Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne. 'TY. EmOre' Leicester Square (122 mins) Her Majesty the Queen, who has only just had time to recover from the Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium, had another night out this week at the EmPire' Leicester Square. As she went in she may have, noticed that the posters offer John Wayne Oa Katherine Hepburn 'FOR YOUR PLEASURE'. Was this some mistake? Had she not heard that today's cinema is filled with people catching fire, wallowing in bouts of infidelity or gasPing with surprise as they are knifed or shot? So what could a film company think it was doing here, offering a picture for pleasure? I must say that I myself went into the EmOre with some uneasiness. This was that rare occurrence, a film with a 'U' certificate. Would it be rather tame for those of us who were hardened to the continual violence of today's cinema?

I need not have worried too much. Any C"I.,1

'Id

— or any queen, for that matter — could use a little imagination to fill in the nasty details. When the horses are blown up and drowned at,. the end of the picture there are no close-ups 0, them writhing in agony. The cameras are just as discreet as they were when Her MajestY attended the Wembley event where a comPatitor's horse was injured and destroyed. But why, you may wonder, are horses blown up at all in Rooster Cogburn? I'm still not quite, sure, because when this happens the film's Pin` has got out of hand. By this time Katherine Hepburn is being a devout missionary, riding down the Oregon on a raft with John WaYne. He, of course, is the sort of man who never changes his clothes and frequently wipes hiS knuckles across his mouth. When the couPle are not reminding us of Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen they are busy shiPPing, 9 few crates of nitro-glycerine down the raPiusa• Mr Wayne, in the role of a marshal call Rooster, has rescued Miss Hepburn from a raiding party at an Indian reservation. Did limply that nobody here is seen to catch fire, misbehave or get himself shot? These things do all happen, but with the reticencke suited to a royal premiere. There is one quic, look at a man going up in flames in a tent an" then the camera cuts back to Miss Hepburn' resembling Joyce Grenfell more than ever before in her career. And when villainous men_ are stabbed, kicked brutally in the face °'

thrown over cliffs, the camera is equally quick to leave the screen. Naughtiness? Although you

"Peet Miss Hepburn to become an erring miSsionary – after having her sore neck massaged by Mr Wayne – she does no more than

throw an impetuous verbal bouquet at

hint I won't spoil this phrase for you, but it has something to do with the privilege she feels at

meeting such a representative of the male animal. She is naughty only in a very uncon

ventional way. Children who are dragged to this 'LI' entertainment in the holidays, wonder

ing why any grown-ups should be so unkind to them, may well be delighted to see a good

Christian woman slaughtering men with a inachine-gun and lying her way out of tricky situations.

I must not be beastly about this dear little wide-screen film. The photography is exquisi

tely careful, with never a subset out of place. The music is a nice mixture of the usual coyote theme on double horns with bursts of shivering

apprehension from the string section. And the religious element is played straight to the ,gallerY. Including gems like 'Even if drink is immoral I think the good Lord likes a nice cigar'.

This film tries so hard not to be typical of its kind that it becomes really kitsch in parts. One of my favourite memories of pseudish Cinema will be the glorious moment when Miss HePburn works her way through the 23rd

Psalm, while the villain of the piece fires revolver shots into the ground between her feet. And I don't think there has ever been a funnier grave-side monologue than the one With which Miss Hepburn says 'Goodbye dear

triend' to the mound of earth that represents her recently slain father. Miss Hepburn's missionary has a biblical quotation for every occasion. For me the whole from calls to mind some of my favourite words 'Mb the Old Testament. This film stands out among other productions of today like 'a lodge',

as somebody says in Isaiah, 'in a garden of cucumbers'.