Oslo Jargo (Bartok Kinski) This is a strange little film, you never get the feeling that you know entirely what is going on. There's some intriguing dialogue hidden in the middle, but the whole theme is entirely esoteric and vague. Performances are quite good. Paul Newman seems torn but does nothing at all to overcome the lethargic pull he's drawn to. WUSA is radio station in the South where the drunk Newman gets a job.The film is intentionally claustrophobic with counter-culture elements spread throughout.The ending is rather ambivalent. It's nice to see unique films like this one.Also recommended: Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) A Dandy in Aspic (1968)

Michael_Elliott WUSA (1970) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Heavy-handled political drama about a radio host (Paul Newman) who gets a job in New Orleans and quickly starts a relationship up with a former prostitute (Joanne Woodward). It doesn't take long for the host to realize that his radio station has some right-wing views and are using him to spread some not so innocent things. All the time one man (Anthony Perkins) has been collection survey data on welfare but it turns out he too was just being used to try and get people kicked off the system. WUSA has some terrific performances in it but the film is so over-the-top and melodramatic that you can't help but finally give up on it and especially once we hit the final twenty-minutes when everything pretty much gets thrown out the window. There's no question that the filmmakers and producer Newman wanted to get their message across and there are many ways to do this without having to be so heavy and dramatic. I won't ruin what happens in the final twenty-minutes but it's a real shame that the film spent so long building up the characters and only to have what happens bring them down so low. I think the biggest problem with the screenplay is that we've basically got three different movies rolled into one and each story is pulling in a separate direction. You have a romance between Newman and Woodward. You have Perkins realizing that someone bad is trying to hurt the poor. You then have these two connected to the third story dealing with the radio station and its owner (Pat Hingle). The problem is that all three stories are just way too far over-the-top that you can never really believe anything you're seeing and especially all the political stuff. Instead of telling a realistic story, it seems as everyone felt no one would understand what they were trying to say so they just went as far as they could to make that point. It really wasn't needed. The one strong point are the terrific performances led by Newman playing one of the darkest and meanest characters in his career. I really thought the actor did a tremendous job in the part, which is unsympathetic and at times rather hateful. Just check out the scene where Newman is ripping into Perkins on his "good" heart and it's certainly a side of Newman that we didn't get to see him play too much. Woodward also turns in a marvelous performance as she's pretty much the heart of the picture. I thought she was extremely effective as the down-on-her-luck prostitute early on but she also handles the more dramatic stuff later in the pic. Perkins too is very good in his part as is Hingle, Laurence Harvey, Bruce Cabot and Cloris Leachman. Shockingly, I think the best portion of the film is the romance between Newman and Woodward. The two obviously have great chemistry and I thought the scenes with them just sitting around drinking and talking were the best and most memorable in the film. Its said that originally this 115-minute movie clocked in over three hours and I can't help but think what hit the editing room floor. WUSA is well made and well acted but sadly it just tries way too hard to get its message across.

wes-connors Alcoholic ex-musician Paul Newman (as Rheinhardt) drifts into sweaty New Orleans, where he collects a $100 debt owed by bearded preacher Laurence Harvey (as Farley). The swindling pastor Harvey amusingly notes, "Ministers run a terrible risk with neurotic old women," and guides Mr. Newman to work at right-wing radio station "WUSA". For female companionship, Newman manages to pick up scar-faced barfly Joanne Woodward (as Geraldine), as she tries to peddle her wares for a square meal. The couple become acquainted with social worker Anthony Perkins (as Rainey), who unwittingly becomes involved in a welfare scheme.With good, almost prescient subject matter, writer Robert Stone's "A Hall of Mirrors" (1967) reads like it should have been a great counterculture film for 1970's #1 "Box Office Star" (then Newman's position, according to "Quigley Publications"). But, Newman and favored director Stuart Rosenberg fail to put "WUSA" over. Things start off well, with great New Orleans locations; and, the film is littered with terrific supporting performances. But, frankly, the real-life married Newmans drag it down. Everyone else is terrific, but they seem inauthentic as boozy pseudo-hippies. Hey Joe, loved seeing the (just deceased) Jimi Hendrix wall poster.***** WUSA (8/19/70) Stuart Rosenberg ~ Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Perkins, Laurence Harvey

dsgoorevitch This one of my favorite movies of all time with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Antony Perkins, Cloris Leachman and Pat Hingle all at their best. Reinhart (Newman), a man who's washed up as a musician becomes a "communicator" at WUSA, a right-wing radio station in New Orleans. He is not an ideologue himself –not a Rush Limbaugh character– just an employee, a DJ– I think he reads the news. But the fact that he works there at all paints him a right winger to his antagonist played by Perkins. The film contains some of my favorite lines of dialog in film, like when Reinhart gets the job and Leachman is thrilled. "Yeah, just great. I'm part of a pattern in someone else's head." He's long past being thrilled.There are two important and tense scenes between Perkins, a do-gooder who lacks the basic confidence that gets Newman shacked up within minutes of his arrival in New Orleans. In one of them, Perkins stutters through his outrage, wanting to know what's going on at WUSA. Newman coolly listens and responds acidly: "I understand your situation... because I too am a moralist." Perkins responds with a smirk and an "oh yeah, right" which Newman cuts off, "...but there IS a solution to your dilemma..." to which Perkins stammers "a-a-and w-w-w-what w-would that be Reinhart?" Newman's smile disappears and he responds with his thumbs down: "Drop dead." He repeats the line with all the rage and contempt he can muster, all his feelings so twisted inside him that he can barely function. The feelings Perkins needs to make him feel competent Newman has felt too and they have hollowed him out. Newman's not right wing. He's just beat. Dropped out. If you don't know that, you don't understand where Reinhart's coming from. He's a sleepwalking man but mostly he is as disappointed and disillusioned as a man can be. Unfortunately, the character played by Perkins is much better at retaining his illusions with tragic consequences.This movie is about ideological exhaustion and the delusions of the ideologically pure, both left and right wing.What is so good about WUSA for me is that it's the only time, other than Hud, when Newman was an actor first, a star second. And this one's the grittiest. The reason for its unpopularity is that it is uncompromisingly honest about a political situation which to some extent still exists today. It really comes down on neither side of the political divide or, to be more accurate, pretty gruesomely insults both, thus satisfying no one who expects a movie to be partisan. It's ironic that it's hated because it is a "message movie."