Allegro non troppo (1976)

After finding Three in The Attic (1968) via a Google search a couple of weeks ago, astonished to find it, I watched it for the first time. This rare and hard to find college sex and campus politics, as “love torture”, set on a campus in upstate NY, actually filmed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, TITA was probably ahead of its time, being a feminist statement 2 or 3 years before the modern women’s movement began with the likes of Gloria Steinem leading the way. Steinem is still living AFAIK. I found “Attic” right here on rarefilmm.com. It starred the now late Yvette Mimieux, who died in January 2020 aged 80, something I find hard to fathom. Mimieux got her start in 1960 in HG Wells’s The Time Machine alongside also now gone, Rod Taylor., an Australian actor more famous for his TV series in 1960 “Hong Kong”, which I vaguely recall as a small boy. Yvette was 18 years old. 20 in Three in the Attic along side 2 other young female actors, and 2 or 3 actors who played her middle aged parents and the Dean of the elite women’s elite college she attended near the same kind of elite mens college, that her love interest attended. He was played by the now mentally disabled Christopher Jones, who also starred in Wild in The Streets in 1967 playing a 24 year old recently elected president of the United States after the voting age had been lowered to 18. In fact the voting age was lowered by an Amendment in 1971 to 18, but not as a result of Jones’s movie. The Draft which was sending 18 and 19 year olds off to the war in Vietnam was the cause. Old enough to carry a gun, but not old enough to vote. Barry McGuire’s Eve Of Destruction dealt with that burning issue in 1965. McQuire is still alive AFAIK.

OK after all that, I saw Allegro Non Troppo in New York City, in 1977 in the Carnegie Theatre on West 57th St. A über famous theatre where classical and pop concerts had been performed since the 19th century, the theatre named after the steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie. Correct title of the venue is Carnegie Hall. Tchaikovsky had conducted there in the late 19th century, and in the mid 20th century more famously, The Beatles gave a 1964 concert on their first US visit in February. Less known was a concert from Phil Ochs in 1970 which ended in disaster, since he played rock n roll classics from the 50s and not his usual folk music… He wore an Elvis Presley type of gold lame suit on stage and before the show was over, the fans expecting Pleasures of the Harbour, got Good Golly Miss Molly type of music. Little Richard (who died in 2019) and not Bob Dylan. “The Battle of Carnegie Hall” became the legendary name of this notorious concert.. Phil Ochs died in 1976, a suicide. He was very depressed due to lack of recognition for his by then over 10 year singing career. I actually met his girlfriend of the time. She told me he had hung himself in his bathroom.

As for this long forgotten animated film, I saw it with an art school friend, and we were both studying animation. It was great, with dancing hippos, fairies, and a Pan like creature from Debussy’s Afternoon of a Fawn. I am delighted to find this old chestnut. Other searches on streaming sites came up empty. One last thought Allegro non Troppo is a classical music term. Not sure what it means. I didn’t know that in 1977.