"Sidney Lumet’s film version of Tennessee Williams’s Orpheus Descending, with a script by Meade Roberts (who later played Mr. Sophistication in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie). I love Brando in this, especially that opening speech to the judge, and when he recounts the story of meeting Leadbelly."

"Yes, Cassavetes again, and by now it’s a no-brainer as to who my favorite filmmaker is. This time he takes on the gangster/noir genre but does it in his own inimitable abstract-expressionist style, where time slows down or sometimes speeds up, so we never know exactly where we are in terms of a traditional story arc or act structures. We are in dreamland . . . an opium-induced reverie. This is a portrait of an artist in the guise of a strip club owner, and Ben Gazzara’s Cosmo Vitelli is a career-topping performance. The onstage burlesque routines are worth the price of admission, as is the one and only Mr. Sophistication, played by Meade Roberts."