FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
Musical, 1971, USA, G, * * * 1/2
Topol, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey, Molly Picon, Michael Glaser. Directed by Norman Jewison. 180 min.

An unknown in this country when he was picked for the lead (a surprise to nearly everyone, who just assumed that Zero Mostel, the stage Tevye, would play him on screen as well), Israeli actor Topol brings extraordinary grace and physicality to the role of Tevye in Norman Jewison's stirring film version of the great Broadway musical about life in the tiny Russian-Jewish village of Anatevka. Although occasionally sappy and cute, it remains one of the few epic musicals that lives up to its grand scale. The songs, including such standards as "If I Were a Rich Man," "Sunrise, Sunset," "Do You Love Me?," and "Tradition," are milked for all they're worth.

FIVE EASY PIECES
Drama, 1970, USA, * * * *
Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Lois Smith, Susan Anspach, Fannie Flagg, Sally (Ann) Struthers, Helena Kallianotes. Directed by Bob Rafelson. 98 min.

Five Easy Pieces could easily have been just another antiestablishment "road picture." Bob Rafelson, however, turned the story of an oil-rigger who travels home to his dying father into a perceptive, picaresque adventure. After the seminal Easy Rider, Jack Nicholson consolidated his star status with this volatile, charismatic portrait of a working-class man from a highly cultured background. It's Nicholson's show, but the supporting cast is equally colorful: Karen Black as his pregnant girlfriend, Susan Anspach as a piano student with whom he becomes smitten, and Helena Kallianotes as a tough-talking hitchhiker. Rafelson has never duplicated the brilliance of his work here, which also includes highly innovative editing (by Christopher Holmes and Gerald Sheppard) and edgy, intense camara movements (by Lazslo Kovacs). A modern American "must see."

FM
Comedy, 1978, USA, PG, * 1/2
Michael Brandon, Eileen Brennan, Alex Karras, Cleavon Little, Martin Mull, Cassie Yates. Directed by John A. Alonzo. 110 min.

The perfunctory plot of this soundtrack album masquerading as a movie concerns a group of radio station deejays who rebel against their conservative corporate bosses and play the kind of music they know their radical fans want to hear: Jimmy Buffett, Bob Welch, Steve Miller, and Linda Ronstadt. This is revolutionary? No, but there's a lot of it, and although the cast of comedians is for the most part wasted, Ronstadt and Buffett do turn in decent concert appearances.

FOR PETE'S SAKE
Comedy, 1974, USA, PG, * 1/2
Barbra Streisand, Michael Sarrazin, Estelle Parsons, William Redfield, Molly Picon. Directed by Peter Yates. 90 min.

Streisand is the whole show in this broad slapstick farce about a Brooklyn housewife who inadvertently becomes involved in crime and prostitution while trying to help her struggling husband. Director Peter Yates has placed Bringing up Baby in French Connection country and come up with a sloppy, wildly uneven, but occasionally funny outing. Peter Bogdanovich's thirties hommage -- What's Up, Doc? -- was lighter aand more consistent, but Streisand again manages to pull the loose parts together.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION
Action/Adventure, 1971, USA, R, * * * *
Gene Hackman, Fernando Ray, Roy Scheider, Tony LaBianco, Marcel Bozzuffi. Directed by William Friedkin. 104 min.

William Friedkin's superbly executed cop thriller brought the genre into the modern era with tough, foulmouthed narc Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in pursuit of an international heroin ring and its multimillion-dollar cache of dope. Ernest Tidyman's taut, furiously paced script structures the entire movie as a series of chases, the most memorable being a car-versus-train race through Brooklyn that must be one of the most nerve-racking vehicle duels on film. The novelty of cops who look and sound like real people has diminished since The French Connection was released, due partly to the host of imitations and rip-offs it spawned, but it still packs a whallop as dynamic action entertainment, masterfully handled on all levels. Eddie Egan and Sonny Grasso, the former cops whose real-life exploits inspired the film, appear as Simonson and Klein. Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Hackman), Screenplay Adaptation, and Film Editing.

FUN WITH DICK AND JANE
Comedy, 1977, USA, PG, * * *
Jane Fonda, George Segal, Ed McMahon, Dick Gautier, Fred Willard. Directed by Ted Kotcheff. 95 min.

Jane Fonda, reminding us that she is one of America's funniest, sexiest comediennes, and George Segal play a conventional upper-middle-class couple who find themselves in desperate financial straits when Segal loses his job as an aerospace engineer. They turn to crime, first because their backs are against the wall and later because they find it a wicked sexual turn-on.

THE GAMBLER
Drama, 1974, USA, R, * * * 1/2
James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Lauren Hutton, Morris Carnovsky, Jacqueline Brookes, Burt Young. Directed by Karel Reisz. 109 min.

James Caan gives one of his finest performances in Karel Reisz's muted, brutal, beautifully textured study of a compulsive gambler whose efforts to pay off his debts have a cataclysmic effect on those around him. Though slow and, at times, murky, The Gambler benefits from a strong, well-conceived script by James Toback and beautiful acting from the large supporting cast, especially Paul Sorvino and Burt Young as two cold-blooded loan shark collectors and Lauren Hutton as Caan's sympathetic friend. Victor Kemper did the fine, dark cinematography, and Roger Spottiswoode, who later directed Under Fire, supervised the editing.

THE GAUNTLET
Action/Adventure, 1977, USA, R, * * *
Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, Michael Cavanaugh, Carole Cook, Mara Corday. Directed by Clint Eastwood. 108 min.

Not just another Clint Eastwood renegade-cop movie, this one was directed by Eastwood himself and it's a lot of fun. Eastwood's dim, drunken Ben Shockley, who must escort a witness (Sondra Locke) that everyone wants killed back to trial, is his most touching, vulnerable characterization in years. For once, you feel there's something behind the scrunched-up eyes and bullet-biting grimace. Eastwood's direction occasionally has a charming eccentric touch.

THE GETAWAY
Action/Adventure, 1972, USA, PG, * *
Steve McQueen, Ali McGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers, Al Lettieri, Slim Pickens, Richard Bright, Bo Hopkins. Directed by Sam Peckinpah. 122 min.

This dull, overlong chase film about a just-released con and his wife (Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw) who pull off a bank robbery and promptly go on the lam was Sam Peckinpah's one out-and-out attempt at a non-auteurist commercial success. Had he treated the story with any of the viscerality he brought to The Wild Bunch or Straw Dogs, he might have been able to turn Walter Hill's shoddy script into something watchable, or at least coherent. Instead, the director stages a few undeniably exciting set pieces that are afloat in a sea of confusing, stagnant drama. McQueen, always underappreciated as an action hero, is fine here, but MacGraw is miscast and embarrassingly bad. Based on the grisly novel by Jim Thompson. elvetica, Sans-Serif">Buy the DVD/VHS at Amazon.com.

GIMME SHELTER
Documentary, 1970, USA, * * * 1/2
Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Melvin Belli. Directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin. 91 min.

This stunning "rockumentary" deals with the Rolling Stones's tragic Altamont concert in December of 1969, where one of the Hell's Angels security guards knifed a spectator to death. The Stones, the Jefferson Airplane, and Ike and Tina Turner performed, but something went awry -- in the concert's conception, planning, and organization -- and Altamont signaled the end of innocence for the Woodstock generation. The film's tone is dark rather than celebratory, and the bad vibes are palpable. The Maysles were major figures in the early years of cinema-verite documentary filming.

THE GODFATHER
Drama, 1972, USA, R, * * * *
Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Sterling Hayden, Richard Conte. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. 175 min.

Francis Ford Coppola's gangster film about the Mafia has achieved such classic status that many have forgotten the controversies surrounding its original release: the negative representation of Italian-Americans and the sympathetic portrayal of gangsters and killers (problems also found, incidentally, in Mario Puzo's best-selling novel, on which the film is based). These difficulties are in many ways reconciled by the sheer brilliance of the filmmaking; so far, this is one of the high points of Coppola's checkered career. He paints a vast, dark canvas of characters and events, concentrating on the concern of Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) about the son who will succeed him as Godfather. The action begins in the mid-1940s and spans several years (then several more in the sequel The Godfather, Part II maintaining a remarkable authenticity). The ensemble of Method actors is superb, with Brando's Oscar-winning Don almost outshined by Al Pacino's likable-soldier-turned-ruthless-gangster. A remarkable film.

THE GODFATHER, PART II
Drama, 1974, USA, R, * * * *
Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Talia Shire, Lee Strasberg, Troy Donahue, Harry Dean Stanton, Michael V. Gazzo. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. 200 min.

The Godfather, Part II has a problem: while it considerably enriches the original Godfather, it also needs to be seen with it to be fully appreciated as an epic depicting the rise and fall of one Mafioso family. In Part II, the new Godfather (Al Pacino) is faced with crooked business partners, disloyal brothers, and a wife (Diane Keaton) who disapproves of his activities. Meanwhile, the film recalls, in extended flashback sequences, how the young immigrant Don Corleone (Robert De Niro) built the now-collapsing empire. Much of the production (which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture) -- acting, direction, period design -- is as good as, if not better than, the original. A must-see film, all the more after a screening of the first.

GOING IN STYLE
Comedy, 1979, USA, PG, * * * 1/2
George Burns, Art Carney, Lee Strasberg, Charles Hallahan, Pamela Payton-Wright. Directed by Martin Brest. 97 min.

In outline, this film by Martin Brest (Beverly Hills Cop) sounds as though it has a case of the formula cutes: a comic caper yarn about three aged roomies (George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg) who join forces to knock over a bank. But unlike so many cuddly-oldster movies, this one is about something: old people are useless because we make them feel useless. All three of the performers are brilliant, and so is their twenty-eight-year-old writer-director. A single world, a double take, a line that would read like nothing on the printed page -- all are transmitted into the provocations to laughter or tears. There is no mechanical prodding. Brest has created a comedy that embraces us all.

THE GOODBYE GIRL
Comedy, 1977, USA, PG, * * *
Ricard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings, Paul Benedict, Barbara Rhodes, Theresa Merritt, Michale Shawn, Nicol Williamson. Directed by Herbert Ross. 110 min.

Another odd couple battles its way to romance in Neil Simon's movie. As Simon-watchers might expect, the film is calculated, predictable, shameless in heart-tugging, and often scarcely credible. But as a young actor, Richard Dreyfuss unleashes his dizzying, apparently boundless energy and yet manages to be a believable romantic lead (he won an Academy Award for his performance). Marsha Mason, a warm, likeable performer, is unfortunately stuck with an unlikable role as the whining hoofer who's been loved and left by a succession of handsome actors.

GREASE
Musical, 1978, USA, PG, * * 1/2
John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stackard Channing, Jeff Conaway, Didi Conn, Jamie Donnelly, Dinah Manoff, Barry Pearl, Kelly Ward. Directed by Randal Kaiser. 110 min.

This noisy, undistinguished pastiche of fifties musicals is worth seeing for John Travolta. Funny-looking as well as beautiful, Travolta is a romantic hero with an ingratiating streak of self-parody. Unfortunately, his energy is released only intermittently here and, among the supporting players, only Stockard Channing gives her performance any heat. Olivia Newton-John, toothy and unspeakably bland, makes you wish that a juvenile delinquent would come along and stomp on her.

THE GREAT GATSBY
Drama, 1974, USA, PG, *
Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Sam Waterston, Scott Wilson. Directed by Jack Clayton. 144 min.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's works compete with Ernest Hemingway's as the hardest to portray accurately on screen, and 1974's The Great Gatsby definitely puts Fitzgerald out in front. Jack Clayton is able to make a pretty shallow film out of an ugly, sad book by glossing over all Gatsby's negative traits -- leaving the character almost nonexistent, a fact underscored by Robert Redford's timid performance. Further, the social fabric of the era and of the central characters is virtually demolished in favor of a crude and vapid sentimentality. The good -- Bruce Dern; the mediocre -- Karen Black; and the bad -- Lois Chiles all intermingle with practically nothing to tell them apart. Mia Farrow must be rated the worst of the film's acting horrors; her Daisy seems not only anorexic but only half awake. Yet all the blame does not go to Farrow, who is an excellent actress in better situations. Jack Clayton was able to translate the enigmatic Turn of the Screw into the extraordinary The Innocents, so his complete failure here must be seen as a forgivable misunderstanding of the work.

THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER
Drama, 1975, USA, PG, * * 1/2
Robert Redford, Bo Svenson, Bo Brundin, Susan Sarandon, Edward Herrmann, Geoffrey Lewis, Margot Kidder. Directed by George Roy Hill. 107 min.

The gallant, silk-scarved pilots who made their reputation as daredevils in the 1920s are the subject of George Roy Hill's visually spectacular, gently emotional salute to the glory days of aviation. Pepper (Robert Redford), a great flyer who just missed combat in World War I, now barnstorms in an aerial circus, hoping to challenge a great German ace (Bo Brundin) to a showdown in the skies. William Goldman's quirky script falls completely apart by its conclusion, but until then Hill succeeds in creating a pleasingly atmospheric tale. Good, unaffected work from the actors, especially Redford and Susan Sarandon.

HALLOWEEN
Horror/Science Fiction, 1978, USA, R, * * *
Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Nancy Loomis, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers, Kyle Richards, Tony Farlow. Directed by John Carpenter. 90 min.

Michael Myers, whose violent insanity may well be the result of demonic possession, escapes from the mental home where he has been incarcerated after murdering his older sister and returns home to kill some more. He stalks and slaughters several baby-sitters before the survivor learns once and for all that there is indeed a bogeyman. Consummate craftsmanship makes a conventional genre story into something special; the film goes easy on the bloodletting, but the subjective camera is relentless and highly effective. Halloween was one of the most profitable independent features ever made, and launched the damsel-in-distress career of Jamie Lee Curtis.

HAROLD AND MAUDE
Comedy, 1971, USA, PG, * 1/2
Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusak. Directed by Hal Ashby. 90 min.

Hal Ashby's cult classic is a cutesy black comedy about the romance between a teenage rich boy (Bud Cort) who stages jokey fake suicides and an eighty-year-old woman (Ruth Gordon) who spouts moronic homilies about wildflowers and the life force. Despite patches of amusingly bloody slapstick, it remains an insufferable piece of sixties free-spirit sentimentality. The film is a popular double feature at revival houses with the equally saccharine King of Hearts. Good song score by Cat Stevens.