Starkly and brutally realistic, but dreamlike in an intense emotional way, Luis Bunuel's Los Olvidados (The Forgotten Ones) tells a story about juvenile delinquents growing up in slums outside Mexico City. Bunuel--the master film surrealist--made this movie in 1950. He formed the basis of his plot from a true story in police records, but no straight documentary could ever have the power of this film. The strength of the characters in Los Olvidados and the things that happen to them drive pins into your soul.

Surrealism in this film is no gratuitous exercise, but a way of probing into the distoritions of mind wrought in a small boy's head by an uncontrollable world of misery. Bunuel has mellowed since he made this film: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, a clever comedy he made a year and a half ago, uses the same surreal imagery, but in a less direct way. That film was popular, witty, adroit; Los Olvidados is driving, frightening--caustic and political. People who thought The Discreet Charm was amusing, but who couldn't quite see where Bunuel was going, should see Los Olvidados and they'll know.

In a 1951 review, Octavio Paz described Los Olvidados as "implacable as the silent march of lava." I can't imagine a more apt metaphor to convey its impact. Famous scenes: the gang of young boys tormenting a blind man; Pedro's dream (more powerful and more complex than any described by Freud); the "second chance" offered by the liberal reformatory.

Los Olvidados will be shown once only, on Thursday. The weekend films may be more pleasant to watch. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. spent a few years making films before he decided his personality got lost on the screen. So he gave up on Hollywood in favor of Wheaties.

Battle of the Sexes is an odd adaptation. A Peter Sellers movie based nominally on James Thurber's The Catbird Seat, it transports the action from New York to an old-fashioned woolens company in Scotland. Verrry Brrritish...and verrry funny.

The Oklahoma Kid is another oddity: Bogart and Cagney as cowboys, so to speak. Bogart runs the House of Entertainment and wears the black hat; Cagney, though an outlaw, wears a white one. The first time I saw The Oklahoma Kid, I predicted I would finally see Cagney speak his memorable line ("You dirty rat. You killed my brother.") at the end of the last reel. But he doesn't, and my Cagney Fan Club sources tell me he never said it in any movie.