Daily News from New York, New York • 84

MOVIES Flat Note Hit By 'Song of x-vtvru row ji frz Norway' Film By KATHLEEN CARROLL Edvard Grieg may well have had his struggles as a young composer but ne woula have had to sit through the movie based on his life to know real depres ion. For "The Song, of Norway," at the Cinerama, is one big sour note. What has been done to the once charming operetta (it was first performed on Broadway in 1944) is almost too terrible to describe and it is particularly in furiating to those of us who still believe in the preservation of movie musicals. POOR GRIEG HIMSELF has been turned into a weak-chmed, effeminate whiner (at least, that's the way Norwegian actor, Toralv Maurstad plays him) who, when told his music is trash, wimpers: "I need fresh air." Maurstad can't eyen carry a tune. His rendition of "Strange Music" is simply a pain in the ear.

Frank Poretta (as a fellow mil i ciip I 1 composer) has more of a voice but his numbers are so clumsily stagea they are ludicrous. FOR INSTANCE, he bursts Into the title song over a glass of Deer; ana tne cinerama cameras, for no reason, suddenly whisk us away on a tour ot Norway. By this time we have already been I 1 I 1ST. QUALITY CnirnM Miiei iu 1 I 1 "The Song of Norway," a Cinerama Releasing Corporation release in Super Panavi-sion and DeLuxe Color. An Andrew and Virginia Stone production directed and written by Andrew Stone based on the play by Home Curran and the book by Milton Lazarus.

Presented at the Cinerama Theater. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes including intermission. MPAA rating: (All admitted for general audiences). LATEST PRINTS fX Ivpfe lvm'J LIMITED 111111 WJ W- QUANTITIES WW? SPONGE TYPE WiNTERWE.CT I Ml "H's I V-5cy DISH I BOYSHIDWATS II funnel I nnp lrX 0HTEE I PWflMAS I I6CUHCE JJS HTS- ill i sizes a-b-c-d I LUSTRA-WARE 1 1 scraper m4 sizes a I HANDLE THE CAST: Edvard Greta Toralv Maurstad Nina drain 1 1 Therese Berg Christina Schollin Rikard Nordraak Frank Porretta Biornsterne Biornson Harry Seconbe Berg Robert Moriev Edward Robinson Oscar Homolka Ensstrand" saturated with romantic views of fiords, waterfalls and fields of flowers. Florence Henderson can Her problem, as the struggling wife of the struggling composer, is tnat she can't speak.

Not that anyone can blame her for mering over the inane dialogue me up synchronization is so sloppy, that, at one point, she onens the door and a voice, that distinctly isn't hers, says "hello." 1 OVEN 4flt WYOH PILE LIMED I FAEMS-ROYS "BFfifiQFJ" THE OTHER WOMAN In Griee's life is a heftrlsfrrnio- irirl from Sweden whose father (it's -U' GARDEN y-WlliW r-tWS CLEAN-UP ALSO LADIES MISSES I' AFfVfCTC IL I UJpx TRASH AUTOGRAPH lgtW 3 STUFFED 1 1 IlPfe getting so Robert Morley will raise his eyebrows at any role) made a fortune in bottled punch. Christina Schollin manages to be nice about her silly part even when the cameras are treating her unkindly. Andrew and Virgina Stone, the creators of this scaled-down version of "The Sound of Music," have drained the life out of their film. Even the music sounds stale. The production numbers are strictly antique.

The choreography is deadly stiff. The whole thing is a tacky museum piece, as irozen as one of those ice bound Norwegian, fjords. The 'Bombay Opening j7 i8 in black and 5 "4.1 I a nWGLASS y1 vL 2 lbTbox t.c. measuring 1 11 yfV "Bombay Talkie," a film by lJL jiUU- nt31LWM tiff ismail Merchant and James Ivory, starring Shashi Kapoor, has its premiere Nov. 18 at the Little Carnegie Theater.

The story con cerns an Indian movie star, a neurotic woman novelist and a Poet who become emotinnallv in 32 0Z. SIZE MJC 'U' i i i FRESH Vf volved against the background of fl LI JIM LUl Uly.LHj..y.Witf-.il ft MMiiBlMJfflBgB me uombay film world..