Did Bosley Crowther Ever Like Anything?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Apart from A Hard Day's Night, of course.

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:06 (nineteen years ago)

From his review of Aparajito:

And, as with "Pather Panchali," the format and content of this film are remote from and very much in contrast to what we generally get from Hollywood. Like its exotic predecessor, it is a compound of documentary views of life in pre-liberation India, with some personal experiences and moods of its few principal characters conveyed at a pace that would try the patience of Job.

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:07 (nineteen years ago)

Which, in fairness, he eventually admits to liking somewhat, but not without much harping on the glacial pace setting off his permanent case of "jumpy leg syndrome."

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:09 (nineteen years ago)

From his review of Black Orpheus
Conversely, the girl who plays Eurydice is an American dancer, Marpessa Dawn, and she conveys more forthright emotion than does the non-terpsichorean man. A pretty, frank face and a gentle manner that suggest absolute innocence gather an aura of wistfulness about her that filters down into a melancholy mood. This, at least, is appropriate and helpful for the accidental tragedy that ensues.

It's like one of Bertie Wooster's loopier uncles went abroad and got a job as a film critic.

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:14 (nineteen years ago)

If not Bertie himself.

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:14 (nineteen years ago)

Results 1 - 20 of about 105 for "bosley crowther" and "middlebrow". (0.25 seconds)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:26 (nineteen years ago)

Timmy T, who are you really anyway?

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:33 (nineteen years ago)

i read bosley's review of testament of orpheus after watching it last year. i like him because you totally get this sense of the american establishment befuddled, and you realize how totally unprepared they were for everything that was about to happen. (the democratic party is still recovering.)

M. Cocteau is much too far-out for our figuring. And, anyhow, we never fathomed "Orpheus." There are a good many symbols and suggestions of contemporary absurdities that are amusing and easily recognizable, of course, such as a wry look at a young couple embracing while writing autographs with their hands behind each other's backs.

But the total "testament" is so completely and complexly intellectualized that its meaning is totally clear, we'll warrant, only to M. Cocteau. Nor does the graphic content of the picture so stimulate and fascinate the mind that it generates an emotional reaction, as with "Last Year at Marienbad."

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:34 (nineteen years ago)

Hm. It does look like he positively reviewed Last Year at Marienbad, but not without a lot of apologetic "others may think differently, I can't really explain WHY I like it" hemming and hawing. He ends with this

Take it thus and you should find it fascinating; try to make some sense of it—to discover some thread of proof or logic—and it is likely to drive you mad, like that clearly illogical match game that is played like a running gag through it.

In fact, the match game is the game called Nim, which is supremely logical, and you can learn how to play it from watching the movie.

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:52 (nineteen years ago)

the democratic party is still recovering from jean cocteau?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:53 (nineteen years ago)

on Letter From An Unknown Woman (a legitimate contender for that elusive title "the Greatest Film Ever Shot In Hollywood")
"It will choke you with rhetoric and tommy-rot."

(wtf Ken L? I'm Armond White if it makes you happy)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 29 October 2006 06:01 (nineteen years ago)

the democratic party is still recovering from jean cocteau?

aren't we all?

no i just mean bosley kind of embodies this mid-century ivy league (bosley was princeton, class of '28) consensus american liberalism that never figured out how to deal with the '60s.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 29 October 2006 06:11 (nineteen years ago)

e.g., on bonnie and clyde:

This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste, since it makes no valid commentary upon the already travestied truth. And it leaves an astonished critic wondering just what purpose Mr. Penn and Mr. Beatty think they serve with this strangely antique, sentimental claptrap, which opened yesterday at the Forum and the Murray Hill.

This is the film that opened the Montreal International Festival!

i love that outraged exclamation point.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 29 October 2006 06:14 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I didn't realize how old he was by the sixties- he was certainly working as critic when Citizen Kane came out.

(no offense intended, tt. I just thought maybe I was supposed to know who you were, and I didn't want to have to ask jaymc)

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 06:14 (nineteen years ago)

(for a while i thought you might be gygax from the ashes)

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 06:15 (nineteen years ago)

actually, jaymc was very curious too (surprise) so i emailed him my specs, feel free to request them :)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 29 October 2006 06:38 (nineteen years ago)

of course he was, he's bicurious, as is well-known.

― The Redd 47 Ronin (Ken L), Sunday, 29 October 2006 06:51 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't he famously take back (or at least amend) that review of "Bonnie and Clyde" a week or so afterward?

― A Radio Picture (Rrrickey), Sunday, 29 October 2006 08:58 (nineteen years ago)

Suggested topic for even shorter spinoff thread: Did anyone ever like Bosley Crowther?

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 30 October 2006 07:40 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

Here's something he seems to have liked.

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 22 November 2007 20:08 (eighteen years ago)

didn't he become Vincent Canby?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 22 November 2007 20:30 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

He was pretty otm about Wind Across The Everglades.

― Horace Silver Machine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 31 July 2009 18:08 (sixteen years ago)

lotsa gd stuff abt crowther, his BONNIE AND CLYDE review etc in this

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594201528/ref=cm_rdp_product

― Ward Fowler, Friday, 31 July 2009 19:44 (sixteen years ago)

OK, that is another of the many books I have bought in the past few years and not gotten around to reading. Thanks for the tip.

― Horace Silver Machine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 1 August 2009 22:26 (sixteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.