More Box Office Gospel

A credit for Godspell ("U," Odeon, St. Martin's Lane and Haymarket) claims: "Based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew." My first reaction was to question whether the inspiration was St. Matthew's Gospel or Pasolini's remarkable film of the same title.
Any Christian's first impression might be of the irreverence or impropriety of setting this highly contetnporary, brilliantly fantastical musical to the dialogue of the Gospel.We see Jesus (Victor Garber) with his trendy mop of dark unruly hair, being baptised by John in the waters of Jordan. then leading the troupe of "kids" -teenage disciples in today's familiar garb of hippies or "beautiful people" — through the streets and purlieus of New York.
Their lively song-and-dance routines and antic clowning throb to the familiar parables.
Another reaction might he the cynical one that Hollywood and "showbiz" in general has got on to a good thing — an inexhaustible source of super stories and dialogue from the New Testament as well as the Old.
Traditionally the Christian story has been retold in the idiom of every generation. Godspell is not a longfilm. As the already "hit" music dies down (at the preview I attended, volume was at a deafening pitch) and we come to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, it would be hard iOdeny that this extraordinary movie captures or is captivated by something of the authentic Message.
The film seems likely to repeat its stage success in the cinemas. More important is the suspicion that tins and pernaps other celebrations of Our Lord as a superstar might yet prove. however improbably, the means of introducing the present wayward, revolutionary generation to the basic Christian Story.
A Touch of Class ("X," Odeon, Leicester Square) could be the title not only of this uneven, permissive, but persuasive romantic comedy but for a whole batch of new films of decidedly superior quality. As actors. Glenda Jackson and George Segal have each more than a touch of class, Producer-director Melvin Frank also has a touch of class class with comedy, albeit rather sub-Lubitsch. His taste isn't quite sure enough to navigate the change from sexfarce to poignant brief encounter smoothly.
England Made Me ("A," ABC-2, Shaftsbury Avenue) is a stylish and intelligent movie of Graham Greene's early novel about an overfond English brother and sister living in Sweden in the 1920s and trying to do better abroad than they could at home.
Kate (Hildegarde Neil again) is secretary and mistress to a vaguely sinister tycoon (Peter Finch). Robin (charming Michael York) is a footloose, feckless young man who wears an Old Etonian tie to which he has no right.
The English exiles, including the seedy reporter Minty (Michael Hordern is brilliant), suffer in varying degrees from their rootless state; the Continental Europeans are living in the dawning shadows of Hitler.
As far as it goes, the film is very true to the novel, although the setting has been changed from Sweden to Germany and beautifully photographed in Yugoslavia. It is good to see a film made with such evident deep feeling for the book.
Freda Bruce Lockhart