I can imagine it pleasing the weirder elements of the university population, but exactly why John Cassavetes' Shadows should have excited so much praise from more serious film goers I find it hard to understand. Supposedly an "improvisation," it was shot on 16mm in New York with a hand held camera and used unknown young actors, both white and negro. With a saxophone aimlessly and monotonously filling the gaps in the sound track (the music is by Charles Mingus) the film chronicles the happenings in the life of a group of layabouts and their friends for a day or so in New York

Now, I've nothing against technical shortcomings as such If they result from the, limitations of locale shooting, Ho that the often over grainy photography and sometimes inaudible dialogue didn't particularly worry me, but the film's faults go deeper than that.