In this short video, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory rummage around in the DVD closet of the Criterion Collection, to note the release of a new box set of their collaborations on film. The set includes special editions of My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street. And if you haven’t seen those two yet,…
What’s New Pussycat? premiered on June 22, 1965, and despite its very promising cast – including Peter Sellers, Peter O’Toole, and Romy Schneider – we at Mid Century Cinema are Not recommending it. It was never very good and has not aged well. (Even the venerable Andrew Sarris, then purportedly rallying to Pussycat’s defense against…
In 1960, Director Claude Sautet released Classe Tous Risques, an outstanding escaped-killer-on-the-run drama featuring Lino Ventura and an unknown Jean-Paul Belmondo. For his efforts he won the enormous respect of his peers (Jean Pierre Melville grabbed a hold of Ventura and made a similarly themed if very different picture, Le Deuxieme Souffle) but not much…
Two months ago we discussed Ethan Hawke’s absorbing interview in the spring issue of Cineaste in which the actor elaborated on the influence of the New Hollywood on his career choices; part two of that conversation appears in the magazine’s summer issue, and is again of great interest to fans of the seventies film. “If the point…
Between 1969 and 1972 filmmaker Costa-Gavras and actor Yves Montand teamed up for three compelling political thrillers, two of which, The Confession (1970) and State of Siege (1972) have just been released in excellent new special editions from the Criterion Collection. Criterion had previously issued Z (1969). Costa-Gavras, born in Greece in 1933 (as Konstantinos…
Celebrating Orson Welles’ 100th birthday isn’t something you do in just one day, or even a month, and here at Mid Century Cinema we’ve been in a very Wellesy state of mind. If you have not much familiarity with Welles (or even if you do), take a look at this entertaining and informative six minute…
The 2015 Cannes film festival is currently in full swing (as I write this, Woody Allen’s upcoming Irrational Man is screening out of competition—it will open in the U.S. in July). On May 16, 1965, the eighteenth Cannes festival drew to a close, with the top prize going to Richard Lester’s The Knack . ….
On May 10, 1965, “Off Season” the last episode of season three of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was broadcast on NBC. Not what you would call “must-see-TV,” nevertheless, for a number of reasons the fairly routine, thinly-motivated, and at times only tenuously credible drama effectively holds one’s attention throughout. The first few minutes offer a…
Orson Welles would have celebrated his 100th birthday on May 6. I’m posting this a week before the official date because Welles was one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, and I thought I’d send my card in a little early, ahead of the tidal wave of good wishes that will soon…
New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Law went into effect on April 19, 1965. The collective, astonished reaction heard after the razing of old Penn Station in 1964: “you mean they can do that?” contributed to a movement that ultimately led to the measure. It was not enough to save the majestic Singer Building from the…