When Midnight Cowboy came out in 1969, Miami Herald critic John Huddy heralded its arrival with a string of superlatives: “Staggering, shattering, heartbreaking, hilarious, tragic, raw and absurd.”
Over the years, the ranks of its admirers has only grown, among them documentary filmmaker Nancy Buirski.
“I remember feeling that it was a really radical film,” recalls Buirski, who first saw Midnight Cowboy sometime after its original release. “It felt different from anything I had seen… It was like a gut punch.”
Director Nancy Buirski
Buirski’s documentary Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy, now playing in limited release in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Detroit and other cities, digs into the loam that produced such a bleak yet beautiful flower of a film. Midnight Cowboy hit theaters the same year as Hello, Dolly! and Paint Your Wagon but unlike those celluloid larks, John Schlesinger’s film...
Over the years, the ranks of its admirers has only grown, among them documentary filmmaker Nancy Buirski.
“I remember feeling that it was a really radical film,” recalls Buirski, who first saw Midnight Cowboy sometime after its original release. “It felt different from anything I had seen… It was like a gut punch.”
Director Nancy Buirski
Buirski’s documentary Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy, now playing in limited release in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Detroit and other cities, digs into the loam that produced such a bleak yet beautiful flower of a film. Midnight Cowboy hit theaters the same year as Hello, Dolly! and Paint Your Wagon but unlike those celluloid larks, John Schlesinger’s film...
- 6/30/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Footage of late Sixties New York City seamlessly sways into Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy stealing a handful of plum tomatoes and a coconut from a fruit stand with help from his new sidekick Joe Buck (Jon Voight). “These Eyes” sing Guess Who, and Lucy Sante comments that the film “could be an advertisement for anti-glamour and yet by doing this it manages to express the zeitgeist.”
Nancy Buirski’s masterful Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy, edited with Anthony Ripoli is much more than a documentary on John Schlesinger’s multiple Oscar-winning film. Based on James Leo Herlihy’s novel, adapted by Waldo Salt, shot by Adam Holender, with costumes by Ann Roth, Midnight Cowboy features an impressive supporting cast, including Sylvia Miles, Brenda Vaccaro, Jennifer Salt, and...
Nancy Buirski’s masterful Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy, edited with Anthony Ripoli is much more than a documentary on John Schlesinger’s multiple Oscar-winning film. Based on James Leo Herlihy’s novel, adapted by Waldo Salt, shot by Adam Holender, with costumes by Ann Roth, Midnight Cowboy features an impressive supporting cast, including Sylvia Miles, Brenda Vaccaro, Jennifer Salt, and...
- 6/29/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Live television director John Frankenheimer’s third theatrical feature is based on James Leo Herlihy’s dysfunctional family novel. This led directly into Frankenheimer’s amazing run of five consecutive ’60s masterpieces beginning with Birdman of Alcatraz and ending with Seconds. Warren Beatty, only five roles away from Bonnie and Clyde, makes a strong impression.
The post All Fall Down appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post All Fall Down appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 10/19/2022
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Click here to read the full article.
A hot trend in publishing these days is to write an entire book about the making of one seminal movie. In the last few years there have been books about West Side Story (the 1961 Oscar winner, not the Spielberg remake), The Wild Bunch, Chinatown and The Godfather, to name a few. Glenn Frankel, who wrote earlier books about the making of High Noon and The Searchers, followed up last year with Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic. Now that book has in turn inspired a new documentary by Nancy Buirski, which is playing in both Venice and Tellurida.
Although a 101-minute movie will never have the breadth or depth of a 340-page book, Buirski’s film does have the advantage of providing revealing on-camera interviews with several of the movie’s principals, including actors Jon Voight,...
A hot trend in publishing these days is to write an entire book about the making of one seminal movie. In the last few years there have been books about West Side Story (the 1961 Oscar winner, not the Spielberg remake), The Wild Bunch, Chinatown and The Godfather, to name a few. Glenn Frankel, who wrote earlier books about the making of High Noon and The Searchers, followed up last year with Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic. Now that book has in turn inspired a new documentary by Nancy Buirski, which is playing in both Venice and Tellurida.
Although a 101-minute movie will never have the breadth or depth of a 340-page book, Buirski’s film does have the advantage of providing revealing on-camera interviews with several of the movie’s principals, including actors Jon Voight,...
- 9/2/2022
- by Stephen Farber
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber releases the film in select theaters on Friday, June 23.
Perhaps the most explicit and emotionally intense film of the New Hollywood era — and yet in its “Odd Couple” theme and wistful sensibility a profoundly Old Hollywood film, too — “Midnight Cowboy” remains littered with contradictions. Gay and tender, its representation of sex is vile. It’s nostalgic and hopeless; a celebration of the counter-culture and, seemingly, an indictment of its decadence. All that makes Nancy Buirski’s new documentary about its production and legacy more interesting.
Not that “Midnight Cowboy” isn’t already fruitful subject matter. James Leo Herlihy’s radical 1965 novel was picked up by British kitchen sink filmmaker John Schlesinger, who related to its themes of repressed homosexuality, loneliness, victimhood and how our identities are, in truth, whatever we want them to be.
Perhaps the most explicit and emotionally intense film of the New Hollywood era — and yet in its “Odd Couple” theme and wistful sensibility a profoundly Old Hollywood film, too — “Midnight Cowboy” remains littered with contradictions. Gay and tender, its representation of sex is vile. It’s nostalgic and hopeless; a celebration of the counter-culture and, seemingly, an indictment of its decadence. All that makes Nancy Buirski’s new documentary about its production and legacy more interesting.
Not that “Midnight Cowboy” isn’t already fruitful subject matter. James Leo Herlihy’s radical 1965 novel was picked up by British kitchen sink filmmaker John Schlesinger, who related to its themes of repressed homosexuality, loneliness, victimhood and how our identities are, in truth, whatever we want them to be.
- 9/1/2022
- by Adam Solomons
- Indiewire
In the opening scene of Nancy Burski’s “Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of ‘Midnight Cowboy’,” Jon Voight tells a story. The actor recalls, with vivid intensity, the conclusion of principal photography for “Midnight Cowboy,” John Schlesinger’s 1969 film adaptation of James Leo Herlihy’s novel. They were in Texas, he remembers, shooting the opening sequence, when he discovered director Schlesinger crouched on the ground behind a car; he was having what appeared to be a full-on nervous breakdown, convinced they’d made a terrible, embarrassing film.
Continue reading ‘Desperate Souls, Dark City, & The Legend Of ‘Midnight Cowboy” Review: A Thorough, Thoughtful Historical Survey [Venice] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Desperate Souls, Dark City, & The Legend Of ‘Midnight Cowboy” Review: A Thorough, Thoughtful Historical Survey [Venice] at The Playlist.
- 9/1/2022
- by Jason Bailey
- The Playlist
Though you might think Midnight Cowboy’s main claim to fame is one of the most famous improvised lines in screen history (“I’m walkin’ here!”), Nancy Buirski’s fascinating and really quite hypnotic documentary will introduce more thoughts and perspectives on a truly underrated Hollywood milestone. Directed by John Schlesinger in 1969, Buirski’s subject film has the rare distinction of being the only X-rated movie to win the Best Picture Oscar, although that claim is put to the test here, opening up a whole other can of worms in the process.
Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy, world premiering in the Venice Film Festival’s Classics section, is more of a mosaic or essay film than a forensic dissection, but here that phrase does a disservice, since it gets into ideas and themes in ways traditional docs can’t (notably an especially brilliant musical sequence...
Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy, world premiering in the Venice Film Festival’s Classics section, is more of a mosaic or essay film than a forensic dissection, but here that phrase does a disservice, since it gets into ideas and themes in ways traditional docs can’t (notably an especially brilliant musical sequence...
- 9/1/2022
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
More than 50 years after it hit theaters and ushered in a new and more sexually daring style of on-screen entertainment, “Midnight Cowboy” continues to rank among the greatest American films ever made. It’s still the first and only best picture winner at the Oscars to be rated X, an indication of just how barrier-breaking the movie was when it debuted.
Now, a new documentary from Nancy Buirski will explore the behind-the-scenes odyssey to get the story of two small-time grifters produced, as well as the tumultuous era in which the movie was released and embraced. Glenn Frankel’s acclaimed book, “Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation and the Making of a Dark Classic,” will be the basis of the untitled film. “Midnight Cowboy” was directed by John Schlesinger and starred Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. It focused on Ratso Rizzo, a tubercular con man, and Joe Buck, a wannabe street hustler,...
Now, a new documentary from Nancy Buirski will explore the behind-the-scenes odyssey to get the story of two small-time grifters produced, as well as the tumultuous era in which the movie was released and embraced. Glenn Frankel’s acclaimed book, “Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation and the Making of a Dark Classic,” will be the basis of the untitled film. “Midnight Cowboy” was directed by John Schlesinger and starred Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. It focused on Ratso Rizzo, a tubercular con man, and Joe Buck, a wannabe street hustler,...
- 5/6/2021
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
“A Biography Of A Film”
By Raymond Benson
Lately there has been a new trend in film books that are more like biographies than simply non-fiction treatises on the making of a movie. A “biography of a film,” as critic Molly Haskell calls it, treats a particular motion picture in the same way a researcher would examine a person’s life—from the inception to its lasting influence and impact today, meticulously illustrating each step and examining the personnel involved along the way. The recent Space Odyssey by Michael Benson (a “biography” of 2001: A Space Odyssey) is a fine example.
Glenn Frankel’s Shooting Midnight Cowboy—Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic is one such biography of a film, and it is a magnificent tome. Besides dissecting the all-important sociological milieu that was in the background while Cowboy was being made,...
“A Biography Of A Film”
By Raymond Benson
Lately there has been a new trend in film books that are more like biographies than simply non-fiction treatises on the making of a movie. A “biography of a film,” as critic Molly Haskell calls it, treats a particular motion picture in the same way a researcher would examine a person’s life—from the inception to its lasting influence and impact today, meticulously illustrating each step and examining the personnel involved along the way. The recent Space Odyssey by Michael Benson (a “biography” of 2001: A Space Odyssey) is a fine example.
Glenn Frankel’s Shooting Midnight Cowboy—Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic is one such biography of a film, and it is a magnificent tome. Besides dissecting the all-important sociological milieu that was in the background while Cowboy was being made,...
- 4/1/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Albert Hughes takes us on a wild journey through the movies that made him, then explains why he’s not a cinephile (Spoiler: He is). Heads up – you’re going to hear some words you’ve never heard on our show before, and only one of them is Metropolis.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Gremlins (1984)
A Christmas Story (1983)
The Candidate (1972)
Menace II Society (1993)
Die Hard (1988)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Scarface (1983)
Goodfellas (1990)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Raging Bull (1980)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Alpha (2018)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Metropolis (1927)
True Romance (1993)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
The Matrix (1999)
Man Bites Dog (1992)
Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)
A Serbian Film (2010)
Scarface (1932)
The Book of Eli (2010)
The Departed (2006)
Infernal Affairs (2002)
The Godfather (1972)
Casino (1995)
JFK (1991)
Dead Presidents (1996)
Eve’s Bayou (1997)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Psycho (1960)
The Cremator (1969)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967)
Halloween (2018)
From Hell (2001)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Hoffa (1992)
V For Vendetta (2005)
Spartacus (1960)
You Were Never Really Here...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Gremlins (1984)
A Christmas Story (1983)
The Candidate (1972)
Menace II Society (1993)
Die Hard (1988)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Scarface (1983)
Goodfellas (1990)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Raging Bull (1980)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Alpha (2018)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Metropolis (1927)
True Romance (1993)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
The Matrix (1999)
Man Bites Dog (1992)
Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)
A Serbian Film (2010)
Scarface (1932)
The Book of Eli (2010)
The Departed (2006)
Infernal Affairs (2002)
The Godfather (1972)
Casino (1995)
JFK (1991)
Dead Presidents (1996)
Eve’s Bayou (1997)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Psycho (1960)
The Cremator (1969)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967)
Halloween (2018)
From Hell (2001)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Hoffa (1992)
V For Vendetta (2005)
Spartacus (1960)
You Were Never Really Here...
- 9/29/2020
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Fifty years on, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman’s squabbling amid the squalor of low-rent New York remains a heartbreaking triumph
Before bromance, there was Midnight Cowboy. Brama? Bragedy? This movie – on rerelease for its 50th anniversary – is about two men finding friendship in the desolate common cause of their loneliness. It was adapted by screenwriter Waldo Salt from the novel by James Leo Herlihy, and the original author’s friendship with Tennessee Williams shows up faintly as an influence in the film’s depiction of vulnerable small-town boys in the big city. The director was John Schlesinger – an Englishman who brought the kitchen-sink realism and hopeless yearning of earlier movies such as Billy Liar to Midnight Cowboy’s domestic scenes of our two sad heroes squabbling in their grimy New York squat, quarrelling over the cooking and fantasising about riches and relaxing in the Florida sun.
Jon Voight plays Joe Buck,...
Before bromance, there was Midnight Cowboy. Brama? Bragedy? This movie – on rerelease for its 50th anniversary – is about two men finding friendship in the desolate common cause of their loneliness. It was adapted by screenwriter Waldo Salt from the novel by James Leo Herlihy, and the original author’s friendship with Tennessee Williams shows up faintly as an influence in the film’s depiction of vulnerable small-town boys in the big city. The director was John Schlesinger – an Englishman who brought the kitchen-sink realism and hopeless yearning of earlier movies such as Billy Liar to Midnight Cowboy’s domestic scenes of our two sad heroes squabbling in their grimy New York squat, quarrelling over the cooking and fantasising about riches and relaxing in the Florida sun.
Jon Voight plays Joe Buck,...
- 9/12/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
American actor best known for her roles in The Poseidon Adventure, Blue Denim and Bunny Lake Is Missing
Carol Lynley, who has died of a heart attack aged 77, emerged as a young star in the late 1950s, when Hollywood was becoming aware of the growing teen audience who identified with new actors such as Lynley, Sandra Dee, Tuesday Weld and Sue Lyon, who all played similar coming-of-age roles.
Lynley’s poignant portrayal of a 15-year-old girl who finds herself pregnant and seeking an abortion in Blue Denim (1959) broke new ground, despite Hollywood’s lingering puritanical mores. The main differences between the play, by James Leo Herlihy, in which Lynley had appeared triumphantly the year before on Broadway, and the film were that, on screen, the word abortion is never uttered and the girl has the baby.
Carol Lynley, who has died of a heart attack aged 77, emerged as a young star in the late 1950s, when Hollywood was becoming aware of the growing teen audience who identified with new actors such as Lynley, Sandra Dee, Tuesday Weld and Sue Lyon, who all played similar coming-of-age roles.
Lynley’s poignant portrayal of a 15-year-old girl who finds herself pregnant and seeking an abortion in Blue Denim (1959) broke new ground, despite Hollywood’s lingering puritanical mores. The main differences between the play, by James Leo Herlihy, in which Lynley had appeared triumphantly the year before on Broadway, and the film were that, on screen, the word abortion is never uttered and the girl has the baby.
- 9/11/2019
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Actress Carol Lynley, whose popularity in the 1960s and ’70s grew with films Return to Peyton Place, Under the Yum Yum Tree and Bunny Lake is Missing, as well as TV appearances in some of the most watched series of the era while peaking with 1972’s disaster film classic The Poseidon Adventure, died Tuesday after suffering a heart attack at her home in Pacific Palisades, CA. She was 77.
Her death was announced by her friend, the actor Trent Dolan.
With a modeling background, Lynley had a few small credits (she was Rapunzel in 1958 on TV’s Shirley Temple’s Storybook) before really making a name for herself that year in James Leo Herlihy’s controversial Broadway play Blue Denim, in which she portrayed a pregnant teenager seeking an illegal abortion. She starred in the feature film adaptation the following year, scoring a...
Her death was announced by her friend, the actor Trent Dolan.
With a modeling background, Lynley had a few small credits (she was Rapunzel in 1958 on TV’s Shirley Temple’s Storybook) before really making a name for herself that year in James Leo Herlihy’s controversial Broadway play Blue Denim, in which she portrayed a pregnant teenager seeking an illegal abortion. She starred in the feature film adaptation the following year, scoring a...
- 9/6/2019
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Actress Carol Lynley, best known for her role in the 1972 film “The Poseidon Adventure,” died at her Pacific Palisades home Tuesday after suffering a heart attack, according to her friend, actor Trent Dolan. She was 77.
Lynley began her career as a child model, appearing on the cover of Life magazine at the age of 15, before starring in Disney’s “The Light in the Forest” and the independent film “Holiday for Lovers.” Shortly after, she secured a breakout role in the 1958 Broadway play “Blue Denim” and its subsequent film adaptation, in which she played 15-year-old Janet Willard tasked with figuring out how to undergo an illegal abortion.
The play, written by James Leo Herlihy, received immediate criticism for its laissez-faire attitude toward abortion, leading to a revised ending in the film that sees Janet go through with her pregnancy. Despite the controversy, the role earned Lynley a nomination for a Golden...
Lynley began her career as a child model, appearing on the cover of Life magazine at the age of 15, before starring in Disney’s “The Light in the Forest” and the independent film “Holiday for Lovers.” Shortly after, she secured a breakout role in the 1958 Broadway play “Blue Denim” and its subsequent film adaptation, in which she played 15-year-old Janet Willard tasked with figuring out how to undergo an illegal abortion.
The play, written by James Leo Herlihy, received immediate criticism for its laissez-faire attitude toward abortion, leading to a revised ending in the film that sees Janet go through with her pregnancy. Despite the controversy, the role earned Lynley a nomination for a Golden...
- 9/6/2019
- by Anna Tingley
- Variety Film + TV
Pictures like Midnight Cowboy pulled everyone my age group into the movies, while the entire older generation likely stopped going to movies altogether. John Schlesinger’s masterpiece can boast a number of firsts, and deserves the high praise it receives from every angle — this was the epitome of progressive filmmaking circa 1969.
Midnight Cowboy
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 925
1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen/ 113 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 29, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt, Anthony Holland, Bob Balaban, Viva, Ultra Violet, Taylor Mead, Paul Morrissey, Pat Ast, Marlene Clark, Sandy Duncan, M. Emmet Walsh.
Cinematography: Adam Holender
Film Editor: Hugh A. Robertson
Production Design: John Robert Lloyd
Original Music: John Barry
Written by Waldo Salt, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy
Produced by Jerome Hellman, Kenneth Utt
Directed by John Schlesigner
Midnight Cowboy is perhaps the...
Midnight Cowboy
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 925
1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen/ 113 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 29, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt, Anthony Holland, Bob Balaban, Viva, Ultra Violet, Taylor Mead, Paul Morrissey, Pat Ast, Marlene Clark, Sandy Duncan, M. Emmet Walsh.
Cinematography: Adam Holender
Film Editor: Hugh A. Robertson
Production Design: John Robert Lloyd
Original Music: John Barry
Written by Waldo Salt, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy
Produced by Jerome Hellman, Kenneth Utt
Directed by John Schlesigner
Midnight Cowboy is perhaps the...
- 5/26/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Let’s go back to 1959, when just implying that two teenagers might have first-hand knowledge of sex is socially unacceptable dynamite. This adapted play about an unwanted teen pregnancy is actually quite good, thanks to fine performances by Carol Lynley and Brandon De Wilde, who convince as cherubic high schoolers ‘too young to know the score.’ And hey, the teen trauma is set to the intense music of composer Bernard Herrmann.
Blue Denim
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date April 17, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Carol Lynley, Brandon De Wilde, Macdonald Carey, Marsha Hunt, Warren Berlinger, Vaughn Taylor, Roberta Shore, Malcolm Atterbury, Anthony J. Corso, Gregg Martell, William Schallert.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Film Editors: William Reynolds, George Leggewie
Original Music: Bernard Herrmann
Written by Edith Sommer, Philip Dunne from the play by James Leo Herlihy and William Noble
Produced by Charles Brackett
Directed...
Blue Denim
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date April 17, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Carol Lynley, Brandon De Wilde, Macdonald Carey, Marsha Hunt, Warren Berlinger, Vaughn Taylor, Roberta Shore, Malcolm Atterbury, Anthony J. Corso, Gregg Martell, William Schallert.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Film Editors: William Reynolds, George Leggewie
Original Music: Bernard Herrmann
Written by Edith Sommer, Philip Dunne from the play by James Leo Herlihy and William Noble
Produced by Charles Brackett
Directed...
- 5/5/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Initially a bustling urban backdrop for this new and correspondingly modern medium known as cinema, New York City has been a focal point of American movies since the inception of the form itself. Movies were made to move, and no place moved like NYC. At first, it was the city alone that dazzled filmgoers: the sheer scope and scale of Manhattan’s topography, the size of the city’s towering skyscrapers, the clustered ebb and flow of its lively population. Then stories emerged out of this concrete jungle, stories born from the teeming metropolitan setting: immigrant tragedies, gangster tales, social dramas of class inequality and economic expansion. Before long, Hollywood coopted New York, and suddenly, the bi-coastal portrayal of the Big Apple featured posh penthouses, swanky nightclubs, and a decidedly one-sided representation of the haves and have-nots (Hollywood liked the haves). As an alternative, independent filmmakers took the city’s...
- 6/30/2017
- MUBI
It's a genuine forgotten gem: American student Jean Seberg's five-year adventure in Paris is mostly a period of romantic frustration. Irwin Shaw and Robert Parrish's look at the problems of an independent woman is remarkably insightful; the chronically miscast and underused Ms. Seberg is luminous. In the French Style Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1963 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 105 min. / Ship Date April 12, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Jean Seberg, Stanley Baker, Phillippe Forquet, Addison Powell, Jack Hedley, Maurice Teynac, Claudine Auger, James Leo Herlihy, Ann Lewis, Barbara Sommers. Cinematography Michel Kelber Original Music Joseph Kosma Written by Irwin Shaw from his short stories Produced by Irwin Shaw, Robert Parrish Directed by Robert Parrish
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Talk about elusive movies: on must keep an eye on the TCM logs to catch many of the films of director Robert Parrish. I had to wait for the advent of...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Talk about elusive movies: on must keep an eye on the TCM logs to catch many of the films of director Robert Parrish. I had to wait for the advent of...
- 4/23/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Hollywood tackles the big issues! This adapted play about an unwanted teen pregnancy is actually quite good, thanks to fine performances by Carol Lynley and Brandon De Wilde, who convince as cherubic high schoolers 'too young to know the score.' And hey, the teen trauma is set to an intense music score by Bernard Herrmann. Blue Denim 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives 1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date March 16, 2016 / available through Amazon / 19.98 Starring Carol Lynley, Brandon De Wilde, Macdonald Carey, Marsha Hunt, Warren Berlinger, Vaughn Taylor, Roberta Shore, Malcolm Atterbury, Anthony J. Corso, Gregg Martell, William Schallert. Cinematography Leo Tover Film Editor William Reynolds, George Leggewie Original Music Bernard Herrmann Written by Edith Sommer, Philip Dunne from the play by James Leo Herlihy and William Noble Produced by Charles Brackett Directed by Philip Dunne
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Sex education today is erratic, with no established standard, but...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Sex education today is erratic, with no established standard, but...
- 4/5/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It's a shock to go back and watch "Midnight Cowboy" 45 years after its debut (on May 25, 1969) and see how raw and otherworldly it looks. After all, the X-rated Best Picture Oscar-winner has been so thoroughly assimilated into American pop culture that even kiddie entertainments like the Muppets have copied from it.
The tale of the unlikely friendship between naïve Texas gigolo Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and frail Bronx con man Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), "Midnight Cowboy" was initially considered so risqué that it's the only X-rated movie ever to win the Academy's top prize (though after it won, the ratings board reconsidered and gave the film an R). Still, the film featured two lead performances and a few individual scenes that were so iconic that homages (and parodies) have popped up virtually everywhere. (Most often imitated is the scene where Ratso, limping across a busy Manhattan street, is nearly...
The tale of the unlikely friendship between naïve Texas gigolo Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and frail Bronx con man Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), "Midnight Cowboy" was initially considered so risqué that it's the only X-rated movie ever to win the Academy's top prize (though after it won, the ratings board reconsidered and gave the film an R). Still, the film featured two lead performances and a few individual scenes that were so iconic that homages (and parodies) have popped up virtually everywhere. (Most often imitated is the scene where Ratso, limping across a busy Manhattan street, is nearly...
- 5/23/2014
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
The French gave us the word “demimonde” – literally, half the world. But what it has come to mean in English, or so says Webster, is “a distinct circle or world that is often an isolated part of a larger world.”
Storytellers have always held a fascination with the dark side of human nature; that part of the psyche which is normally restrained and leashed, taught to be obedient, held in check – as Conrad wrote in Heart of Darkness – by the reproving looks of our neighbors. After all, what was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but a probing of that other, id-driven half and the entrancing appeal of doing what one wants instead of what one should.
Film is no different than literature, and from its beginning the movies have produced a rich vein of stories about society’s fringe dwellers, those who operate by necessity,...
Storytellers have always held a fascination with the dark side of human nature; that part of the psyche which is normally restrained and leashed, taught to be obedient, held in check – as Conrad wrote in Heart of Darkness – by the reproving looks of our neighbors. After all, what was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but a probing of that other, id-driven half and the entrancing appeal of doing what one wants instead of what one should.
Film is no different than literature, and from its beginning the movies have produced a rich vein of stories about society’s fringe dwellers, those who operate by necessity,...
- 5/27/2012
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
Dec 16, 2010
John Schlesinger wanted to make a film of James Leo Herlihy's 1965 novel Midnight Cowboy soon after it was published. When he suggested the project to United Artists, however, he found that a reader in their story department had already submitted an unfavourable report on the book. The reader said that the action of the novel went steadily downhill from the outset, and had recommended that the company not acquire the film rights. Schlesinger, on the other hand, saw dramatic possibilities in the story of a Texan named Joe Buck, who comes to New ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...
John Schlesinger wanted to make a film of James Leo Herlihy's 1965 novel Midnight Cowboy soon after it was published. When he suggested the project to United Artists, however, he found that a reader in their story department had already submitted an unfavourable report on the book. The reader said that the action of the novel went steadily downhill from the outset, and had recommended that the company not acquire the film rights. Schlesinger, on the other hand, saw dramatic possibilities in the story of a Texan named Joe Buck, who comes to New ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...
- 12/17/2010
- CinemaNerdz
Movie fans line up outside The Directors Guild Theater. (Photo: copyright Lee Pfeiffer/Cinema Retro)Alumni of a classic reunite: (L to R) John Barry, David V. Picker, Sylvia Miles, Jerome Hellman, Ann Roth and Adam Holender. (Photo: copyright Lee Pfeiffer/Cinema Retro)
By Lee Pfeiffer
Last night New York City became Hollywood-on-the-Hudson when The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosted a 40th anniversary screening of Midnight Cowboy at The Directors Guild Theater. It was an extraordinary evening on every level. The program is part of the Monday Nights with Oscar series, which was created by Patrick Harrison of A.M.P.A.S. For years, Harrison has presented some of the most unique and memorable classic movie events the city has seen - and last evening was no exception. For the Midnight Cowboy tribute, some key members of the creative production team were reunited for an on-stage...
By Lee Pfeiffer
Last night New York City became Hollywood-on-the-Hudson when The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosted a 40th anniversary screening of Midnight Cowboy at The Directors Guild Theater. It was an extraordinary evening on every level. The program is part of the Monday Nights with Oscar series, which was created by Patrick Harrison of A.M.P.A.S. For years, Harrison has presented some of the most unique and memorable classic movie events the city has seen - and last evening was no exception. For the Midnight Cowboy tribute, some key members of the creative production team were reunited for an on-stage...
- 3/17/2009
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
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