In Witness to a Century, George Seldes briefly mentions being interviewed for Warren Beatty’s Reds, saying the taping took five hours and seven reels of film for fifteen seconds of screen time.
Reds clearly isn’t the greatest movie made, but I’ve got a comfy place for it in my heart; for nothing else, Warren Beatty deserves to be remembered as a fine filmmaker not just for making a movie about America’s radical left in the early 20th Century, but releasing it in 1981. It’s still not out on DVD, and it’s been suggested the problem may be due to Beatty’s reluctance to provide a director’s commentary.
There’s plenty to like about Reds (and some to dislike), but the one enchanting feature it has is the snippets of interviews with Seldes, Henry Miller, Will Durant, Hamilton Fish, Rebecca West, and others. If it’s true that Seldes was interviewed for five hours, then you have to assume that roughly the same amount of time was spent with the other interviewees. What a treasure of reminiscences. Probably, a lot of the footage is of no interest, but if, after editing, they could give us a few DVD hours of that bunch, we could skip the Beatty commentary and experience a real historical record.
Posted by Bobby Farouk at May 25, 2005 10:55 AMA friend who I unfortunately can't contact to return it loaned me a documentary on Seldes called "Tell The Truth And Run." Anyone know if it's worth seeing?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 25, 2005 04:49 PM