The Wind and the Lion. If one believes in the adage, "any publicity is good publicity (just get the name right)," than a film like the Wind and the Lion should be reviewed on the day it leaves town. And as a matter of fact this abomination is leaving today, from the Beacon Hill, where it has been preaching the worst kind of fascist nonsense for the past couple of months. The responsibility belongs to USC Film School hot-shot John Millus, who, along with Robert Towns (shampoo, The Last Detail) is Hollywood's favorite litte scriptwriter This film he directs as well, but his skills in the department may be quickly dismissed as amateurish--a hopeless waste of a very large budget, lots of locations and extras, etc. But his scriptwriter is something to be reckoned with--he has made quite a lot of money for pictures like Dirty Harry, Dillinger, Jeremiah Johnson, Judge Roy Bean. And it's terrifying to know that people responded to these films--they play on the most violent and degrading of fantasies. Fortunately The Wind and the Lion was badly directed, and though it has been making money it's not the smash it was cooked up to be, Lucky for us.

The closest thing I can think of to describe this movie is a scene from Alan Pakula's The Parallax View. Warren Beatty, a reporter uncovering a assassination conspiracy, finds that the huge Parallax Corporation is recruiting potential killers by a set of complex psychological tests designed to isolate psychopathic traits. He masquerades as a misfit, passes the tests, and is ushered into the mysterious corporate headquarters for further tests. They seat him in a large chair and wire him for blood pressure and visceral reactions, then they begin showing him a movie. The film--brilliantly done--is like the inside of George Rockwall's (former head of American Nazi Party) mind. Quick-cutting from the flag to a domineering father to bullets, to a penis, to Klu Klux Kian cross-burning, back to a church, to big artillery, back to mother, now crying, to the president, and so on... The Wind and the Lion is a stop away from this, with its approval of Teddy Rooseveit's lingoistic Wipe-am-out mentality, people going around constantly warning the going around constantly warning the Barbary Pirates (who have kidnapped Candice Bergen) that "the big attack" will have its way. When the Americans finally do arrive and you're supposed to stare at the sheer power of this most powerful big-gunned nation in the world; they come in like stormtroopers, goosestepping silently, like machines, as the frightened Arabs clear the streets in terror. Meanwhile, both Candy and TR have galned a grudging respect for Sean Connery, the shelk/kidnapper. He, you see, is one of the race of truly great men (the other, says Roosevelt, is J.P. Morgan), and this transcends cultural differences. In this case the cultural differences involved are the fact that Connery's chieftain is a vicious sadist who carves men in two without blinking or thinking twice. But the only think Bergen's malden can fault him for is being a kidnaper of women and children. If only he were more sexist, about his violent behavior, then he'd be fine. So, the Americans, seeing this kinship of rugged individualism, actually ally themselves with the shelk (in this case the Germans are the villains).

Anyway, it goes on and on in like manner, to the point that one can only conclude the Millus should be locked up or sold to the Chilean government as a consultant on South Korean methods of crowd control. Instead, Millus is signed as screenwriter for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypee New, a big blockbusting statement on Vietnam, with massacres, heroin addiction, the whole thing. What could be the only fictional film about the indochina War (we exclude The Green Berels, which was so outrageous that French students would systematically take to the streets whenever it opened in a given city, and drive it out of town), under Milius's stern hands, might turn out to be the nightmare film of the century.

BRATTLE

Closely Watched Train, 6:25, 9:30, WR-Mysteries of the Organism, 8 p.m., tonight; Last Tango in Paris, 5:45, 9:35,Breathiess, 8 p.m., starts tomorrow.

CENTRAL II

A BRIEF VACATION, 6, 9:45, Nights of Cabirla, 7:50, tonight; The Exorcist, 6, 9:35, The Devils, 8 p.m., starts tomorrow.

HARVARD SQUARE

Happy Hooker, 1, 4:30, 8 p.m., Bar barella, 2:45, 6:15, 9:45, tonight: A Woman Under the influenes 2:30, 7:15, Straw Degs, 5, 9:45, starts tomorrow.

ORSON WELLES I

Monty Python and the Holy Grall, 4, 5:33, 7:10, 8:45, 10:20.

ORSON WELLES II

The conversation, 4, 8:30, Christown, 6:10, 10:40, tonight; A Night in Casablanca 4, 8:50, 9:45. The Betty Boop Scandale, 5:30, 8.25, starts tomorrow.

ORSON WELLES III

Anais Nin Observed, 4, 7:15, 10:30, The Henry Miler Odyssey, 5:15, 8:30.