The best Steve Allen’s documentary movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Steve Allen’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Steve Allen.
Night of 100 Stars
7.1/10
The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers payed up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.
Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind
7.9/10
A funny, intimate and heartbreaking portrait of one of the world’s most beloved and inventive comedians, Robin Williams, told largely through his own words. Celebrates what he brought to comedy and to the culture at large, from the wild days of late-1970s L.A. to his death in 2014.
Jay Sebring....Cutting to the Truth
7.6/10
An illuminating portrait of Sebring, the long-forgotten artist, designer, and entrepreneur who created a billion-dollar hair & beauty industry and defined iconic Hollywood styles for men.
The Adventures of Errol Flynn
8/10
A documentary about the life of Errol Flynn, with recollections from friends and family.
Tasmanian Devil: The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn
7.3/10
The story of Tasmanian-born actor Errol Flynn whose short & flamboyant life, full of scandals, adventures, loves and excess was largely played out in front of the camera - either making movies or filling the newsreels and gossip magazines. Tragically he was dead from the effects of drugs and alcohol by the time he was only 50 & the myths live on. But there is another side of Flynn that is less well known - his ambitions to be a serious writer and newspaper correspondent, his documentary films and his interest in the Spanish Civil War and Castro's Cuba
Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words
7.5/10
Thorsten Schütte’s film is a sharply edited and energetic celebration of Zappa through his public persona, allowing us to witness his shifting relationship with audiences. Utilizing potent TV interviews and many forgotten performances from his 30-year career, we are immersed into the musician’s world while experiencing two distinct facets of his complex character. At once Zappa was both a charismatic composer who reveled in the joy of performing and, in the next moment, a fiercely intelligent and brutally honest interviewee whose convictions only got stronger as his career ascended.
A Tribute to the Boys: Laurel and Hardy
6.8/10
Modern comedians share their thoughts about Laurel and Hardy. Also includes archival footage of contemporary comedians. Hosted by Dom DeLuise.
Boulevard! A Hollywood Story
6.9/10
Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley, two young songwriters and romantic partners, find themselves caught in movie star Gloria Swanson's web when she hires them to write a musical version of "Sunset Boulevard."
Nichols and May: Take Two
7.4/10
A documentary made for the PBS program American Masters about the comedy team Nichols and May.
Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth
7.9/10
In 1948, Lenny Bruce was just another comic who couldn't get arrested. By 1961, all that would change.
Erroll Garner: No One Can Hear You Read
7.9/10
In a triumphant career that lasted forty years Erroll Garner pushed the playability of the piano to its limits, developed an international reputation, and made an indelible mark on the jazz world. And yet, his story has never been told. Until now. The film explores Erroll's childhood in Pittsburgh; his meteoric rise in popularity while playing on 52nd street, New York's famed jazz epicenter; the origins of his most famous album (Concert By The Sea) and his most famous composition (Misty); his singular, virtuosic piano style; and his dynamic personality, both on and off the stage.
James Dean and Me
8.4/10
A documentary about James Dean. People who knew him or had worked with him reminisce.
Lenny Bruce: Without Tears
6.2/10
The outrageous, groundbreaking comic Lenny Bruce, whose iconoclastic material in a conservative era got him into tragic trouble, is profiled by a close friend, Fred Baker, who prefers to remember the laughs Lenny Bruce's memory evokes instead of the tears. By presenting Bruce's landmark skits on the Steve Allen Show, his failed TV pilot episode and a candid interview with Nat Hentoff, Bruce's genius and anguish show through the dramatic and tragic trajectory of his career from aspiring artist to hunted "lawbreaker".
The Universal Mind of Bill Evans
8.1/10
Jazz Pianist on the Creative Process & Self-Teaching. Here is the late, brilliantly original jazz pianist in intense conversation with his composer brother, Harry, on the nature of creativity in jazz. Occasionally, they stroll to the piano for a musical illustration (Evans play splendidly).
