Reviews

"I've said a lot of things in this vale of tears. One of them might have been cy-- cyanide." How wonderfully intricate, how absolutely unsalable for its time, how typifying of the occasional gallant attempt of 'Seventies television, especially 'Seventies public television, to experiment audaciously.

Yes, it wasn't the most faithful nor expert adaptation of Vonnegut's, or anybody's, work that the world has ever seen.

But God, when Diana Moon Glampers came on the air, I knew I was in for some amazing entertainment.

I saw it chiefly as a college video offering at my school, over closed circuit. It, like many of the entertainments we rented and "broadcast", garnered only small interest. Some of those entertainments included "The Prisoner" and "The Producers", which tells you something of the tastes of middle-Georgia student audiences in the late 1970s.

In the early 70's, when I was in my early teens, television was an experimental place, especially on Sundays. All sorts of interesting shows came over the color television in my family's living room, and the black-and-white one in my bed- room. WTVC's "Sunday Cinema" showed some of the highest mo- ments at the apex of TV weirdness: Sunday afternoon. One day I tuned in, and a film called "Catch As Catch Can" was on. It was an Italian film, dubbed in English. My grandmother and I were in the living room watching, and I noticed it was some- thing I'd never seen before: a sex comedy! No nudity, mind you (except for a centerfold one of the characters was ogling), but plenty of scantily-clad, well-endowed maidens. And plenty of opportunities taken by the director to make sure the women were photographed from some point above their heads, putting their ample cleavage on display. Up to this point, I'd only seen the likes in Life magazine spreads on Raquel Welch, and the Mark Eden Bust Enhancer ads in Redbook. Grandmother was under- standably concerned about the quality of viewing, so she changed the channel to something else after we viewed a swim- ming pool scene in which a woman almost drowns and is resus- citated by the hero, poised above her ample bosom. I went to my room, presumably to read. I turned the movie back on in there. There were other scenes I've forgotten, but one bit of titillation sticks in my mind: the hero and some busty woman rolling round and round in a giant soup can that's floating down some river. I had a breast fixation for years after seeing the film. I was in absolute heaven. Story? Why worry about that? I am decidedly more sexually mature--and definitely more politically correct--now that I am 42, but I am still very glad WTVC, for whatever reason, put that film on that day.