It’s so ironic that Mike Sragow, The Baltimore Sun’s great film critic and writer, (now under-used by The Chicago Tribune editors that oversee the newspaper) has a magnificent piece in yesterday’s New York Times. The piece is about the seminal Hollywood director Victor Fleming who will have a retrospective at NY’s Film Forum from March 5 – 18. The article features a photo of Jean Harlow in Fleming’s film BOMBSHELL (remember that great screening we did with Sragow at MICA?), and chronicles the frustration Sragow feels that Fleming, who helped thrust Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland and many more towards stardom, hasn’t received more recognition for his outstanding career. Sragow’s great book on Fleming has won universal praise and is certainly one of the best profiles of the American movie art form, in the time of its adolescence, ever written.
~Jed Dietz, MFF Director
Maryland Film Festival Blog 