l-Piece

In a casual fancy, S. J. Perelman once concocted an actor of surpassing ego. "I see a fresh new concept of drama knocking at the door," he said. "A theatre without plays . . . devoid of scenery and untrammeled by actors."

"And what would be left?"

"Just me. Face facts--the day I donned greasepaint, a whole profession became obsolete."

Perelman named his actor Basil Woolwine. He could just as well have called him Anthony Newley. In the latest case of lifelessness imitating artlessness, Newley continues his long love affair with Newley. Can Heironymus Merlcin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? "is a real ego trip," says the Director-Writer-Star. But it is less a trip than a misfired space shot blasting $1,250,000 to ashes.

As in his theatrical I-pieces, Stop the World and The Roar of the Greasepaint, Newley again presents himself as an overpainted everymannikin, this time named Heironymus Merkin,* who views his life as one long stag film.

As a youth, Merkin is tempted by the Devil (Milton Berle). From then on, girls fall in line beside his bed. From time to time Merkin is visited by Death (George Jessel) who gazes at Merkin with basilisk eyes and bleats standup jokes that are as dead as vaudeville. Eventually, even he sighs, "I think I should warn you I'm getting new material."

A wise move. The script by Herman Raucher and Newley never graduates to the sophomoric. Female characters are given Ian Fleming labels with a touch of Li'l Abner: Polyester Poontang, Miss Maidenhead Fern, Trampolena Whambang and Miss Hope Climax. Jokes consist of lethal single entendres like "Heironymus lays them in the aisles," or Berle's remark as he rows a boat on a sandy beach: "I haven't passed water in three days." Between them, Newley rants some chants that are mislabeled songs, appears more naked than his victims, and plots along in the hope that some day it will all make sense and money.

Hello World. "I still don't think that Anthony Newley is a household name," Newley complains offscreen. "It's a bit of a bummer, as they say."

The Heironymus bummer began shooting on the isle of Malta. But "the editor of the Times of Malta started a campaign about the decadent film unit," he says. "Suddenly there were cops everywhere. They were pressuring me not to shoot the scene where I make love to Mercy in the grass. Eventually we did shoot it ... we had to go in the grass very deep." If he had trouble with the fuzz, it was even worse with some of the cast. "Berle is one of the great monsters of our time," he says. "You believe he's the Devil because he's such an s.o.b. anyway."

As far as the film's sexual interludes go--and they manage simultaneously to go too far and not far enough--those, too, are beneath contempt to Newley. "I suppose I'm really antifeminist," he admits. "If a man really loved women, he'd treat them with more respect." But then, how can you offer respect when you don't have much, even for yourself? "Perhaps once you stop being hungry, you don't produce such good stuff," says Newley the film critic. "I'm beginning to lose it. My work--all of it --is a hobby now."

-A term defined by most dictionaries as a pubic hairpiece.

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