Wyler, Kazan, Ashby, Scorsese – Who's Next?

by Cláudio Alves

Barbra Streisand in FUNNY GIRL was the last performance William Wyler directed to an Oscar win.

As stated in the Scorsese at the Oscars write-up, the Killers of the Flower Moon auteur is one of only four directors to have helmed Academy Award-winning performances in all acting categories. The others are William Wyler, Elia Kazan, and Hal Ashby, with the former having the record to end all records. Across 32 years, Wyler directed fourteen victorious turns, including multiple champions in the four races. Such a feat won't likely be equaled, but that doesn't mean the quartet is bound to stay put forever. Some directors are on the cusp of joining the ranks of Wyler, Kazan, Ashby, and Scorsese…

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50th Anniversary: "Harold and Maude" is as necessary as ever.

by Brent Calderwood

It might be time to stop calling Harold and Maude a cult film. Yes, it’s true that when it came out fifty years ago (December 20, 1971), many critics and audiences greeted it with a mix of bewilderment, indifference, and even hostility—Variety, for example, claimed it had “all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage.” And yes, it's also true that Harold and Maude has been a staple of midnight art-house screenings almost since its release and has topped “best cult films” lists for as long as “cult film” has been a recognizable term.  

But 50 years on, Harold and Maude is so widely beloved by critics and new generations of film lovers that what was faintly hailed as an exquisite but slightly rarefied document of post-’60s counterculture is now firmly a part of our culture...

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"The Landlord" at 50

by Mark Brinkerhoff

50 years ago today the one and only Hal Ashby, then an Oscar-winning film editor (In the Heat of the Night, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!) made his directorial debut with the release of The Landlord. Based on a 1966 novel and starring an almost inconceivably baby-faced Beau Bridges, its plot is fairly run-of-the-mill today but must’ve seemed quite daring for the time: A young man named Elgar (?!), who comes from wealth and lives with his parents at their Long Island estate, decides to buy a “rundown” tenement house in the dicey, gentrifying neighborhood of Park Slope. (Imagine!)

The tenants are black, he’s white, and his scheme is to evict them all so he can convert the property into something posh—a vanity project, if there ever was one. 

Things do not go according to (his) plan...

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Smackdown '70 Companion Podcast Pt 2: "Five Easy Pieces" and "The Landlord"

Smackdown in 3 Parts
• The Write-Ups
• Podcast Companion Part 1
And now the conclusion!...

Pt 2 (39 minutes)
On the second half of the Supporting Actress Smackdown podcast we discuss Hal Ashby's debut film The Landlord (1970) starring Beau Bridges and Lee Grant. We theorize about why it's not more famous and what would have happened with the great African-American actress Diana Sands if she hadn't died so soon after the movie. We also make some time for the Best Picture nominee Five Easy Pieces and its abundance of actressing, not just Karen Black! 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Thanks again to the panelists: Mark Blankenship, Dan Callahan, Denise Grayson, Lena Houst, and Bobby Rivers . Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Pt Two: The Landlord and Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Soundtracking: "Harold and Maude"

by Chris Feil

Some of our greatest cinematic love stories are more than the coupling at the center. As in life, the love can be more deeply felt when both sides of the arrangement have had their own separate journeys that inform and are informed by their relationship. Conflicting personal priorities, emotional walls dismantled, allowing oneself to accept being loved - it’s the personal obstacles that allow us to get swept up in the romance. One of the (cult) classics of this kind of love story is Hal Ashby’s delicate Harold and Maude, with Harold’s emotional arc towards self-acceptance all underscored with the musical stylings of a Cat Stevens soundtrack.

Would that all of our romantic foibles and internal battles could sound as lovely as this...

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