SHOWMAN (1963)

Brother documentarians David & Albert Maysles (GIMME SHELTER/’70; GREY GARDENS/’75) got their start with this modest time-capsule peek at producer/presenter/publicist Joseph E. Levine just as he was pivoting from exploitation shlock (GODZILLA/’57; HERCULES /’58) to quality fare (THE GRADUATE/’67; LION IN WINTER/’68; A BRIDGE TOO FAR/’77).  Vittorio De Sica’s TWO WOMEN was the bridge  (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/08/two-women-la-ciociara-1960.html), and here he goes on a ‘working’ victory tour carting Sophia Loren’s Best Actress Oscar® to Rome via L.A., NYC, and hometown Boston.  A squat bullfrog of a guy (think East Coast Sam Spiegel), always on the move as he schoomzes similarly built office ‘yes’ men (naturally, the sole rather handsome senior exec, he might have stepped out of MAD MEN, gets the heave-ho), debates issue-oriented producer David Susskind on Boston radio over the merits of A RAISIN IN THE SUN/’61 vs HERCULES, checks box-office receipts, attends a tribute dinner to himself, etc.  Impervious to jet lag (or does all the fat cover signs of fatigue?), he’s in and out of Rome overnight after delivering Mr. Oscar to a delighted Sophia.  Then . . . back to working the next project.  More than Levine, what the film really shows off is the radical improvement in versatility possible with ever smaller cameras and a revolution stemming from the new lightweight sound equipment.  A technical achievement that gave rise to cinéma vérité, here applied to documentaries.  It lasted about a generation before the rise of ugly video-tape systems.  Now, all digital and much improved.  Yet this somewhat primitive artifact of its era still feels fresh.