Oscar-nominated director and classic film enthusiast Peter Bogdanovich has recently uploaded more than four dozen five-minute video shorts to YouTube touting various directors, actors and films under the banner Peter Bogdanovich Recommends.
Naturally, there is a Peter Bogdanovich Recommends: Orson Welles short, which is with illustrated with scenes from Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai and Touch of Evil. He recaps Welles meteoric rise to fame and fall from grace, calling him “the grandest maverick of the American screen.”
According to Bogdanovich, his video recommendations were shot by his then wife Louise Stratten in the late 1980s for use on broadcast television.
“I consider this a kind of — I hope — public service to support and encourage film lovers,” he stated in his YouTube notes. “Most of the pictures discussed are available in some form today.”
Bogdanovich, who turns 80 on July 30, began his career as a programmer and critic before directing such films as The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, What’s Up Doc and Mask. He also helmed the documentaries Directed by John Ford and The Great Buster, as well as overseeing the completion of Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind.
He authored a Welles monograph for the Museum of Modern Art and co-wrote This Is Orson Welles. His other books on film include Pieces of Time, Who the Devil Made It and Who the Hell’s in It.
Peter Bogdanovich Recommends looks at such filmmakers as Ford, Frank Capra, Charlie Chaplin, George Cukor, Jean Renoir, Ernst Lubitsch, Don Siegel, and Alfred Hitchcock.
There are profiles of actors including Spencer Tracy, Great Garbo, Jimmy Stewart and Shirley Temple. An index of all of his YouTube videos may be found at youtube.com/channel/UCT-qm-Grq7dZaHv2M_jzIrg/videos
Peter Bogdanovich Recommends: Orson Welles can be seen below.
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