The Savage Eye 04/19/25

What does one call a film this original?  It’s a poetic documentary-investigation of Los Angeles culture circa 1958; it’s also a powerful proto-feminist essay. Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers & Joseph Strick collaborated on this rare attraction. Barbara Baxley stars as a disaffected divorceé who sees the city as layers of Hell. She and Gary Merrill deliver a stream of consciousness on the progressive soundtrack. It’s sane, humanist and compassionate, and also quite adult; the credits are a roll call of talented individualists: Haskell Wexler, Irving Lerner, Verna Fields, Jack Couffer. One disc in a four-disc set, on Blu-ray from Severin Films.
04/19/25