Cinema: Bomb

Ladybug Ladybug. May 32, 1964. Russia and the U.S. stand eye to eye, missile to missile. In a small American town, a secretary sits in the office of an elementary school and wonders nervously what millions of ordinary people are wondering that day: Will some madman push the panic button? And if he does will the bomb fall on—ZZZRRRZZZRRRZZZRRRZZZRRR!

The secretary’s heart almost jumps out of her mouth as the civil defense buzzer sounds a Yellow Warning. The secretary runs to the principal. The principal runs to the phone and calls CD communications. The line is busy. Since time is of the essence, he must assume the worst. Pale and trembling, he assembles staff and students in the schoolyard and issues the ominous command: Go home as fast as you can.

The same statement might be made to anyone who wants to see this movie. Ladybug is the second picture put together by Scenarist Eleanor and Director Frank Perry, the husband-and-wife team whose first picture, David and Lisa, was the best movie made in the U.S. last year. But this time the Perrys have plonked. Ladybug just crawls along for 81 minutes and never decides where it is going. The movie aims to be a thriller with a moral: it merely achieves a puerile apocalypse.