Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 24

REPUBLIC FINAL. a emr The Arizona Republic Thursday, October 23, 1980 and the Arts Uft Cerebral 'Stunt Man finally fights its way onto the screen caused a kind of paranoia, just like in the movie. I had to ask myself, 'Is that that long, sloping mansard roof, he could catch a drain pipe and not panic. Railsback did all but two of his own stunts in the movie. But in truth, as he and Bail insisted over a Biltmore spread of quiche, oyster stew and roast beef enhanced by a pastry wagon with wings, the film has as much mental action as physical action.

In its sensual deception and trickery, it reminds one of The Magus, the book by John Fowles. It is a film for all its physical and mental stunts that nearly missed the screen. And that's despite names like Peter OToole, the distinguished English actor who plays a diabolical director, forever hovering on an ingenious crane built especially for this performance (and since duplicated elsewhere) and despite its commercially successful producer director, Richard Rush, who is said to have brought in $60 million on both Getting Straight and Freebie and the Bean. The film was shot in 1978. Its visual scope and dare make it look like $15 million worth of celluloid, although it was made for $6 million a cheapie.

It was ready for distribution a year ago. Nobody called. "We knew what we had," said Rails-back. "No one who worked on the film ever doubted it was good. Unfortunately, it wasn't seen.

We were so positive we had something, but it was hidden. It Jfy Peter Rose Republic Staff. Forget the title, The Stunt Man, said Chuck Bail. This not a movie about stunts. Bail is a stunt man himself and an assistant director who plays himself in "the film.

If it is not about stunts, it sure has a lot of action up on that mansard roof at Coronado Island, San Diego: Bodies rolling, jumping, tumbling, Spinning, falling, sliding down the long "and curved roof surfaces precariously high. Bodies hanging from the edges, actually crashing through the roof into an, orgy below. not like Hooper," said Bail. "It's multilayered, switching back and forth between reality and illusion. In most aotion movies, you've got wham-bang, oars going off bridges, planes crashing, 'that's it." "It's about a man trying to control his own destiny and his paranoia in trying to control his own destiny," explained Steve Railsback, the youthful 32-year-old actor sharing top billing with Peter O'Toole and Barbara Hershey in the film that apens in Phoenix Friday.

Bail rode saddle broncs until he got stranded on the rodeo circuit in the late 1950s in Bangkok, Thailand, and went into Westerns to survive. He trained Railsback for six weeks before filming. Trampoline work, somersaults, confidence builders so if he slipped and fell on me: "They said it was too sophisticated," Bail said. "Only people in New York and Los Angeles would be able to understand it. "Ever hear of Citizen Kane! No one wanted it.

Star Wars was seen only because Alan Ladd Jr. decided to take a chance with it. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest no one wanted to see a film about nuts. The Black Stallion no one wanted to see a film about horses. American Graffiti sat on a shelf for six months.

"We're in very good company." Their report continued: The film has been playing in Seattle for five months; six weeks ago at the Montreal Film Festival, it became the first American movie ever to win first prize; shown in Los Angeles, it outgrossed The Empire Strikes Back. Finally, 20th Century-Fox picked it up for national distribution. In addition to Railsback and Bail, Ms. Hershey, who has the leading female role; director Rush; and Allen Goorwitz, who portrays a screenwriter, are beating promotional drums through the country. "We're not getting paid for it," noted Bail.

"Remember, we're outraged." "I have an agent calling me every day," said Railsback. "He doesn't like me out on the road. I'm not making him any money." Mb I iv'lt Steve Railsback, left, and Chuck Bail in The Stunt Man. Nation's taste maker finds sour grapes Sophia Loren By James Simon Associated Press BOSTON After six years of cross country trips to sniff, taste, look at and experience the best goods and services he could find, C. Paul Luongo says he feels happy, pained by dual role qualified to be the taste maker of America.

Luongo, author of America's Best 100, says he's received his share of brickbats since publishing his choice for the best in everything from steak (at Murray's in Minneapolis) and potato chips (Maui By Ken Peters Associated Press HOLLYWOOD Born out of wedlock in the charity wing of a Rome hospital, she was nicknamed "Toothpick" as a spindly young girl. Potato Chip Hawaii) to hotel butlers (Hyatt on Union Square, San Francisco). and his staff of 50 part-time workers scoured far-flung newspapers and magazines, contacted local chambers of commerce and talked to critics in a variety of fields to gather nominees. "One of the best sources was U.S. senators.

They're so eager to boost their Btate, and about half of them responded to our questions about the best in their area," he said. "Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, for example, (now U.S. secretary of state) listed about eight things everything from L.L. Bean and toothpick manufacturers to his choice of the prettiest sunset." Luongo's choices ranged from the big and already famous to the tiny and obscure.

"What distinguished my book from the Boolr of Lists or other 'best of attempts is that I've visited virtually every one of the winners and personally tasted or experienced it," Luongo said. "The only exception was things seasonal in nature that I couldn't get to in time for example, the best azaleas in springtime (Bellingrath Gardens, Theodore, Ala.) that I then checked out with magazine editors who specialize in flowers. "The people or products had to meet several criteria. They obviously had to be' the best, but they also had to be accessible to someone who wanted to experience the best. For example, the New York Athletic Club is the best in the country, but it's so exclusive that no reader could get inside to find out." Luongo, a smooth-talking public relations executive who has his own firm here, got the idea for the book after a 12-city tour with a client in 1974.

He says Ki did not include any of his own clients on the list and did not accept any payment in return for a listing in his book. He decided to critique the best things he found in each city, passed out the results to friends and realized other people might be interested in knowing where they could find great fried chicken (Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken, Jefferson, outdoor roller-skates (RC Sports Olathe, Kan.) and a hot-air balloon festival (Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico). Luongo said the publicity generated by his search prompted Marshall Field his choice as the best department store, to offer a Luongo-guided tour of all 100 goods and services listed in the book as a Christmas present this winter. The "best" price: $250,000. "The most heat, by far, came from my From that meager beginning, she rose to international acclaim, scaling the heights of film royalty.

choice of pizza (the European Restau But even now, there seems more of the rant, Boston), says Luongo. There are 240 million people in the country, and each thinks he knows who has the best pizza. poverty-stricken young girl than movie queen in Sophia Loren. "I am inclined to choose a simple life," said "People in Alabama say they have the best. Someone in Nebraska I didn't Miss Loren.

"I identify more with average people, with housewives, than I do with people even know they had Italian food there who lead jazzy, high-society lives and are so much above it all. The 46-year-old actress was in Los Angeles insists the best is at Valentino in Lincoln. Woody Allen says John's Pizza in Greenwich Village the list could go on forever. Obviously, I couldn't eat at every pizzeria in the U.S. or I would gain 40 pounds." recently to promote the television movie Sophia Loren, Her Own Story.

She portrays both her Ritza Brown, left, as the young Sophia Loren, and Sophia Loren as her mother, Romilda Villani. mother and herself in the movie to air at 7 p.m. Sunday on Channel 12. So to help narrow the field, Luongo The movie is based on Miss Loren's biography and dramatizes her rise from poverty Findings may shuffle blackjack odds Associated Press TRENTON, N.J. A unprecedented computer study simulating about 100 million hands of blackjack shows that players using the simplest strategy theoretically can beat the casinos in Atlantic City.

The study, released Wednesday by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, also shows that professional card counters can be nearly neutralized by two simple rules changes without hurting the game of regular players. card is more likely to be dealt near the end of the deck. Counters then suddenly place large bets in hopes of cashing in on statistical odds that are slightly in their favor. The study by Econ a Princeton research firm, shows conservative counters have a 0.67 percent advantage and regular players using a "basic strategy" have a 0.11 percent advantage under current New Jersey blackjack rules. The casino has a 1.73 percent advantage over less sophisticated players, according to the portion of the study that analyzed a hypothetical 8.4 million hands using six decks of cards and shuffling with one-third of the cards remaining.

In basic strategy, a player chooses to take another card or stand depending on the counts of his hand and the one card shown by the dealer. But if casinos play with eight decks of cards and shuffle with half remaining, the study shows conservative counters with a 0.25 percent advantage, basic strategy players with a 0.04 percent advantage and less sophisticated players' with a 1.82 percent disadvantage. To test the study, commission senior counsel Michael A. Santaniello suggested experimental play with eight decks and more shuffling at about 10 blackjack tables in each casino. The commission postponed action on the request.

About 67 percent of Atlantic City's, players may be classified as less sophisticated, about 31 percent use basic strategy and about 2 percent are counters, according to the study. The study found that at a $2 table over millions of hands, a less sophisticated player loses $3.98 per hour, a basic strategy player wins 32 cents per hour and a counter wins 85 cents per hour. The study followed a 13-day experiment last December in which authorities, allowed counters into Boardwalk casinos under altered blackjack rules. The state said counters won an estimated $1.4 million during the experiment. The $60,000 study, funded by Atlantic City's casino industry, could lead to a state policy allowing counters to play in -Mi fU -1 i 1 ki mi Awl Boardwalk casinos permanently, commission officials said.

Counters use sophisticated memory skills to "remember" which cards have been played and, therefore, which remain with the dealer. They do not cheat, but nevertheless they are banned from nearly all of the world's casinos. Counters have a better chance of predicting whether a high- or a low-value to Oscar-winning actress. "The way I grew up, without money, I should have wanted to marry a count or a prince or a king, but I never went for that, never," she said in an interview. "To me, it's personal nature to know the basic value of life and to know really what is important for me and my children, to leave my feet on the ground all the time.

"In the film, I play my mother, beginning before I was born, her relationship to my father and then myself as an adult. Playing my mother was one of the most difficult things I could do. "When you play a role that's been written by someone else, you can use your own tricks and get away with it. But I knew my mother would see the film and not let me get away with it. "It was even worse when I played myself," Miss Loren continued.

"It was like looking in a mirror I had to use every resource within me to give the image of myself that was real, not simply the one I wanted the public to see. "I think we got something very, very near to reality, and that's something you don't usually see on television." Miss Loren, laughing, said she found one distinct advantage in the role: "The director couldn't tell me I wasn't playing Sophia Loren very well." Making the movie was a continuation of the soul-searching process that began with the biography, Miss Loren said. "When you start to dig into your past, to investigate your personality, you are aware of so many things going through you, like going to a psychiatrist," she said. "Sometimes it can be very painful because you don't dare to say things that you really feel inside of yourself. But when you decide to do your story, you have to expose yourself and reveal everything "I had some very difficult moments.

It was both a pleasurable and a painful experience, as life is." Asked about the contrast of her difficult childhood to what would seem a "very good" life at present, Miss Loren raised an eyebrow and answered, "Very good? What appears from outside is not always true. "I think that my life has always been very hard. It's not that I want to present myself as a victim, but whatever I've had in life I have worked very hard for and deserved. That's why I'm able to appreciate what I have. Nothing ever came easy for me, nothing." "I think average people are able to identify with me and I with them because whatever I Armand Assante plays Miss Loren's father.

have, it didn't come from the sky on a silver Ballet disappointing, but troupe shows promise tray. "My life is still hard. If you are a sensitive person and you know what is going on in the world, life is very hard to live. There are many responsibilities the responsibility of children and a family and the responsibility of your own work. You have friends that you have to take care of sometimes.

Always, always. It never stops." The filming of her life story, said Miss Loren, marks an end and a beginning. By Dolores A. Barclay Associated Press NEW YORK Natalia Makarova and her newly formed dance company began their third week of performances at the Uris Theater Tuesday night with a ballet that has never been performed outside the Soviet Union. Studies, choreographed by Maya Murdma, was staged by Miss Makarova for Cynthia Gregory, who was somewhat of a disappointment.

The lyrical ballet to music by Chopin is an exercise in control and fluid technique. Miss Gregory was tentative and missed one or two steps. She recovered nicely midway through the dance to execute an admirable pixielike and sprightly. I Miss Makarova had Anthony Dowell as a partner for Maurice Bejart's choreography of Bach's Sonata No. 5 for" harpsichord and violin.

It was a moment' worth waiting for in this regrettably short program. As partners in this sensual and-demanding work, Miss Makarova and Dowell moved as liquefied sculpture. In the allegro, Miss Makarova was coquettish without losing the elegance of her role. Dowell was low-keyed as he interpreted the wit of Bejart's choreogra-" phy. Together, they were a well -cut gem." The company has much promise.

But its singular strength at the moment is its artistic director. glissade en pointe. She also showed control with the intricate patterns of the allegro. But this was not enough to overcome a flat, uninspiring performance. Miss Makarova made good use of the area in her staging for the seven dancers.

George Balanchine's pas de dix from Raymonda followed Studies. It featured Karen Kain and Peter Schaufuss. Schaufuss is a strong and precise dancer who reaches with his grand jetes and other leapB. Although an able technician, Miss Kain was somewhat abrupt when she should have been more fluid. Nancy Raffa gave a refreshing interpretation of the first variation, appearing "Now that it's done, I'm making a new start, a new chapter.

Those past years, it took so much, and I relieved my soul of so many burdens that I carried all these years. Maybe I gave up some illusions, but I also gave up some ghosts. "I have a new kind of feeling about my life; I'm feeling much more liberated and much more at ease. I like myself..