The Terry Southern Summer Film Festival
continues at 7:00 p.m. Monday night at the Boulder Public Library.

next screening:
END OF THE ROAD
Monday, July 13

The impressive, often outrageous films Terry worked on between 1964 and 1970 will play throughout the summer on Monday nights.You won't want to miss the rarely screened The Loved One (6/8) and End of the Road (7/13), and of course the bookends of the '60s: Easy Rider (6/29) and Doctor Strangelove (5/18).

Here is the schedule (screenings on Mondays, 7:00 p.m., Boulder Public Library)

DR STRANGELOVE: 5/18
THE COLLECTOR: 6/1
THE LOVED ONE: 6/8
THE CINCINNATI KID: 6/15
BARBARELLA: 6/22
EASY RIDER: 6/29

THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN: 7/6
END OF THE ROAD: 7/13

Monday May 18 Dig This—A Dose of Terry Southern
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, with Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens (1964). U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes mad and sends his bomber wing to attack the U.S.S.R. Convinced that communists are conspiring to pollute America’s "precious bodily fluids," Ripper invokes ‘Plan R’—which cannot be aborted. Hysterical scenes in the War Room where President Muffley meets with his advisors and the Soviet ambassador, who reveals that the U.S.S.R. has buried a secret "Doomsday Machine" that will destroy all life on Earth—if nuked. Peter Sellers plays three men trying to avert disaster: British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access to the demented Gen. Ripper, U.S. President Merkin Muffley, who must placate a hopping-mad drunken Premier Kissov, and the Advanced Weapons and Research advisor to the President, the enigmatic Dr. Strangelove. The film was inducted (by President Clinton) into the National Archives as a National Treasure. “Where you find smugness,” Southern once said, “you find something worth blasting.” Listed at number 3 on American Film Institute’s 100 Top Movies. Based on the novel Red Alert, by Peter George. Screenplay and adaptation by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George.Notes by Nile Southern. (93 min.) As an added feature, local author/filmmaker Nile Southern presents a short sample of his personal documentary-in-progress—DAD STRANGELOVE; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Dad. The film will be a son's quest to re-discover his father's legacy in today's media-saturated times. Nile, who won Colorado's 'Book of the Year' for The CANDY Men; The Rollicking Life and Times of the Notorious Novel, Candy (Arcade, 2004) introduces Dr. Strangelove, and takes questions after the screening.
 
Monday June 1 Dig This—A Dose of Terry Southern
The Collector
Directed by William Wyler, with Terence Stamp, Samantha Eggar, Mona Washborne, Maurice Dallimore U.K./U.S.A.—1965). A socially withdrawn bank clerk has a hobby collecting butterflies. He comes into a large sum of money and buys a country house. Unable to make himself at ease socially, he starts to plan on acquiring a girl friend—in a manner similar to the way he collects butterflies. He prepares the cellar of the house as a kind of collecting jar, and begins stalking his victim.Terry had written an elaborate and Poe-like plotline to facilitate the girl’s escape—but the studio rejected it. Nevertheless, Southern’s touch can be seen in the sparse, often loaded dialogue. Based on the novel by John Fowles. (119 min.) 
 
Monday June 8 Dig This—A Dose of Terry Southern
The Loved One
Directed by Tony Richardson, with Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, Rod Steiger, Roddy MacDowell, Sir John Guilgud, Anjanette Comer, Dana Andrews, Liberace (1965).  This film has become a cult classic - especially in Hollywood, as it is a great send-up of the studio system, and also the “death industry'” (i.e., Forest Lawn, where some of the scenes were shot).  Based on Evelyn Waugh's novel, co-written with Christopher Isherwood, shot by Haskell Wexler, and edited by Hal Ashby – this was Terry Southern’s entry into a hip, collaborative Hollywood of 1965. The marketing tag-line was “the motion picture with something to offend everyone!” – but it actually is a poet’s view of the loss of innocence and grandeur in an ever-commercialized and psychosis-inducing dreamland: Los Angeles. (122 min.)
 
Monday June 15 Dig This—
A Dose of Terry Southern
The Cincinnati Kid

Directed by Norman Jewison, with Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Karl Malden, Rip Torn, Ann Margaret, Tuesday Weld (1965). This lavish production set in New Orleans captures the alienated life of a card shark.The film reveals Terry Southern’s ability to do “straight” stories with a flair. Director Norman Jewison, upon seeing Terry after many years, said, "There's the man who saved Cincinnati Kid"—by making it relevant to its times—and avoiding formulaic conventions.The film has been voted “best gambling movie ever made” by the Punter’s Gambling Association in the UK. Produced by John Calley—who had hired Terry Southern on The Loved One. (102 min.)
 
Monday June 22 Dig This—A Dose of Terry Southern
Barbarella
Directed by Roger Vadim, with  Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O’Shea (France/Italy—1968).
Barbarella, a 41st-century sexy space-agent/astronaut, is sent on a mission to pacify a planet and must find an evil scientist in a city where a new sin is invented every hour and devious devices are deployed to test the limits of pleasure.  On her perilous journey the “pretty pretty” Barbarella teams with a blind angel and battles the Black Queen. The film captures both the fabulousness and indulgent excess of the 1960s style as well as campiness (music by Bob Crew Orchestra) and psychadelia. Jane Fonda’s jaw-dropping looks, combined with witty intelligence and humor make the film and character one she still remembers fondly. With eight credited writers, Southern’s lines are stand-outs. Based on the French comic by Jean Claude Forest. (98 min.)
 
Monday June 29 Dig This—A Dose of Terry Southern
Easy Rider

Directed by Dennis Hopper, with Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Phil Spector (1969).  Two young bikers sell some dope in Southern California, stash their money away in their gas-tanks and set off for a trip across America, on their own personal odyssey looking for freedom from the rat race. On their journey they encounter bigotry and hatred from small-town communities who despise and fear their non-conformism. They also discover simple kindnesses and alternative communal living. When they arrive at a diner in a small town, they are insulted by the local rednecks as weirdo degenerates. They are arrested on some minor pretext by the local sheriff and thrown in jail where they meet an alcoholic lawyer played by Jack Nicholson. He gets them out and decides to join them on their trip to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras.Terry Southern once wrote that the film came down to “killing a couple of guys because of the length of their hair.” (95 min.)


Monday July 6 Dig This—A Dose of Terry Southern
The Magic Christian

Directed by Joseph McGrath, with Peter Sellers, Ringo Starr, Richard Attenborough, Isabel Jeans (U.K..1969).  Guy Grand, Terry Southern’s most anarchic and relevant character today, is a billionaire who spends his millions "making it hot for them.” The film has an all-star cast and includes cameos by Roman Polanski, Yul Brenner, Raquel Welch, John Cleese and others in their 1960s prime. The novel was cited recently in the Washington Post as predicting the culture of public excess seen in Reality TV shows like NBC’s Fear Factor. (101 min.)
 
Monday July 13 Dig This—A Dose of Terry Southern
End of the Road

Directed by Aram Avakain, with Stacy Keach, Harris Yulin, Dorothy Tristan, James Earl Jones (1970). Suppressed for decades and long considered lost, this film was shot two weeks after Bobby Kennedy's assassination—the film captures via the catatonic main character the metaphorical destruction of 1960s idealism, and signals a prescient critique of the irresponsible "me" generation to come. Shot in the Berkshires by Gordon Willis, this is the true dawn of Independent Cinema. Directed by Southern’s hipster beat roommate and editor of The Miracle Worker, Aram Avakian. The dense, hallucinatory soundtrack was created by legendary Jazz composer Teo Macero, and Avakian’s brother, CBS International record-producer, George. The film, which Southern co-produced, has a harrowing (non-graphic) abortion scene, an existential, anti-war sentiment and an Actor’s Studio cast (many in their first starring roles) who play with an intensity rarely seen. For more information: http://www.terrysouthern.com/road.htm  (110 min.)