Bosley Crowther was a
journalistA journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and
authorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
who was film critic for
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean. Crowther was an advocate of foreign language films in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly the films of
Roberto RosselliniRoberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...
,
Vittorio De SicaVittorio De Sica was an Italian director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement....
,
Ingmar BergmanErnst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
and
Federico FelliniFederico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
.
Life
Born
Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. in Lutherville, Maryland, Crowther moved as a child to
Winston-SalemWinston-Salem is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina, with a 2010 population of 229,617. Winston-Salem is the county seat and largest city of Forsyth County and the fourth-largest city in the state. Winston-Salem is the second largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region and is home to...
,
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, where he published a neighborhood newspaper,
The Evening Star. His family moved to
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and Crowther graduated from Western High School in 1922. After two years of
prep schoolA university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
in
Orange, VirginiaOrange is a town in Orange County, Virginia, United States. The population was 4,721 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Orange County...
at
Woodberry Forest SchoolWoodberry Forest School is a private, all-male boarding school located in Woodberry Forest, Madison County, Virginia, in the United States. Woodberry's current enrollment is 402. Students come from 28 U.S...
, he entered
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, where he majored in history. For his writing performance, Crowther was offered a job as a cub reporter for
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
at a salary of $30 a week. He declined the offer, made to him by the publisher
Arthur Hays SulzbergerArthur Hays Sulzberger was the publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961. During that time, daily circulation rose from 465,000 to 713,000 and Sunday circulation from 745,000 to 1.4 million; the staff more than doubled, reaching 5,200; advertising linage grew from 19 million to 62 million...
, hoping to find employment on a small, Southern newspaper. When the salary offered by those papers wasn't half of the
Times offer, he went to New York and took the job. He was
The New York Times first night club reporter, and in 1933 was asked by
Brooks AtkinsonJustin Brooks Atkinson was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960...
to join the drama department. He spent five years covering the theater scene in New York, and even dabbled in writing for the theater.
Marriage
While at the
Times in those early years, Crowther met Florence Marks, a fellow employee; the couple wed on January 20, 1933.
Film criticism
Crowther was a prolific writer of film essays as a critic for
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
from 1940 to 1967. Perhaps conscious of the power of his reviews, his style was considered by many to be scholarly rather than breezy. Frank Beaver wrote in
Bosley Crowther: Social Critic of the Film, 1940-1967 that Crowther opposed displays of patriotism in films and believed that a movie producer "should balance his political attitudes even in the uncertain times of the 1940s and 1950s, during the
House Un-American Activities CommitteeThe House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
." Crowther's review of the wartime drama
Mission to MoscowMission to Moscow is a book by the former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph E. Davies published by Simon and Schuster in 1941. It was adapted into a film directed by Michael Curtiz in 1943....
chided the film by saying it should show "less ecstasy", and said "It is just as ridiculous to pretend that Russia has been a paradise of purity as it is to say the same thing about ourselves."
In the 1950s, Crowther was an opponent of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, whose anti-Communist crusade targeted Hollywood and blacklisted alleged Hollywood Communists. He opposed censorship of movies, and advocated greater social responsibility in the making of movies. He was critical of movies that sensationalized violence, criticizing
Bonnie and ClydeBonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow were well-known outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934...
as "a blending of farce with brutal killings," "as pointless as it is lacking in taste." Crowther approved of movies with social content, such as
Citizen KaneCitizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
,
The Grapes of WrathThe Grapes of Wrath is a novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962....
,
Gone With the WindThe slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
,
The Lost Weekend,
The Red Shoes and
All the King's MenAll the King's Men is a novel by Robert Penn Warren first published in 1946. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. In 1947 Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for All the King's Men....
. Crowther also had a barely-concealed disdain for
Joan CrawfordJoan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
when reviewing her films, referring to her acting style as "artificiality" and "pretentiousness", but he would also chide Crawford for her physical bearing. In his review of the cult classic
Johnny GuitarJohnny Guitar is a 1954 Republic Pictures Western film starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, and Scott Brady.The screenplay was based upon a novel by Roy Chanslor. Though credited to Philip Yordan, he was merely a front for the actual screenwriter, blacklistee Ben Maddow. ...
, Crowther complained that, "...no more femininity comes from her than from the rugged Mr. Heflin in
Shane. For the lady, as usual, is as sexless as the lions on the public library steps and as sharp and romantically forbidding as a package of unwrapped razor blades."
His preferences in popular movies were not always predictable. He defended epics such as
Ben-HurBen-Hur is a 1959 American epic film directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston in the title role, the third film adaptation of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay was written by Karl Tunberg, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The score was composed by...
and
CleopatraCleopatra is a 1963 British-American-Swiss epic drama film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The screenplay was adapted by Sidney Buchman, Ben Hecht, Ranald MacDougall, and Mankiewicz from a book by Carlo Maria Franzero. The film starred Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy...
, but gave the World War II film
The Great EscapeThe Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough...
a highly unfavorable review, and panned all of
David LeanSir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
's later works. He called
Lawrence of ArabiaLawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
a "thundering camel-opera that tends to run down rather badly as it rolls on into its third hour and gets involved with sullen disillusion and political deceit."
Crowther had a reputation for admiring foreign language films including many of the Italian neorealist films such as
Open CityIn war, in the event of the imminent capture of a city, the government/military structure of the nation that controls the city will sometimes declare it an open city, thus announcing that they have abandoned all defensive efforts....
,
The Bicycle Thief and
ShoeshineShoeshine is a 1946 film and the first major work directed by Vittorio De Sica. In it, two shoeshine boys get into trouble with the police after trying to find the money to buy a horse.-Plot:...
. But too he was critical of some iconic releases. He found
Kurosawawas a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
's classic
Throne of BloodThrone of Blood is a 1957 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. Its original Japanese title is Kumonosu-jō , which means "Spider Web Castle". The film transposes the plot of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth to feudal Japan.-Plot:...
(derived from
MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
) ludicrous, particularly its ending; and called
Gojira (Godzilla)is a 1954 Japanese science fiction film directed by Ishirō Honda and produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka. The film stars Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata and Takashi Shimura. The film tells the story of Godzilla, a giant monster mutated by nuclear radiation, who ravages Japan, bringing back the...
"an incredibly awful film". When
Alfred HitchcockSir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
released
PsychoPsycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
in 1960, Crowther dismissed the film as "a blot on an otherwise honorable career". He commented that while
Satyajit RaySatyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
's
Pather PanchaliPather Panchali is a 1955 Bengali drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of the Indian state of West Bengal. Based on Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name, the film was the directorial debut of Ray...
took on "a slim poetic form" the structure and tempo of it "would barely pass as a 'rough cut' with editors in Hollywood". Writing about
L'AvventuraL'Avventura is a 1960 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and developed from a story he created. Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti star. It is noted for its careful pacing, which puts a focus on visual composition and character development, as well as for its unusual narrative structure...
in 1960, Crowther said that watching the film was "like trying to follow a showing of a picture at which several reels have got lost."
The career of Bosley Crowther is discussed at length in
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film CriticismFor the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is a 2009 documentary film dramatizing a hundred years of American film criticism through film clips, historic photographs, and on-camera interviews with many of today’s important reviewers, mostly print but also Internet...
, including his support for foreign-language cinema and his public repudiation of McCarthyism and the Blacklist. In this 2009 documentary film contemporary critics who appreciate his work, such as A.O. Scott appear, but also those who found his work to be too moralistic, such as
Richard SchickelRichard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
,
Molly HaskellMolly Haskell is an American feminist film critic and author. Her most influential book is From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment of Women in the Movies...
, and
Andrew SarrisAndrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
.
Bonnie and Clyde criticism
The end of Crowther's career was marked by his disdain for the 1967 film
Bonnie and ClydeThe film was originally offered to François Truffaut, the best-known director of the New Wave movement, who made contributions to the script. He passed on the project to make Fahrenheit 451. The producers approached Jean-Luc Godard next...
. His review was scathing:
"It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cut-ups in Thoroughly Modern MillieThoroughly Modern Millie is a 1967 American musical film directed by George Roy Hill and starring Julie Andrews. The screenplay by Richard Morris focuses on a naive young woman who finds herself in the midst of a series of madcap adventures when she sets her sights on marrying her wealthy boss.The...
... [S]uch ridiculous, camp-tinctured travesties of the kind of people these desperadoes were and of the way people lived in the dusty Southwest back in those barren years might be passed off as candidly commercial movie comedy, nothing more, if the film weren't reddened with blotches of violence of the most grisly sort... This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste, since it makes no valid commentary upon the already travestied truth. And it leaves an astonished critic wondering just what purpose Mr Penn and Mr Beatty think they serve with this strangely antique, sentimental claptrap."
Other critics besides Crowther panned the movie; for example, New York Magazine's notoriously harsh critic,
John SimonJohn Ivan Simon is an American author and literary, theater, and film critic.-Personal life:Simon was born in Subotica, Bačka, County of Bačka, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later, known as Yugoslavia . He is of Hungarian descent...
, while praising its technical execution, declared "Slop is slop, even served with a silver ladle". Its distributor pulled the film from circulation. However, the critical consensus on
Bonnie and Clyde reversed, notably with two high-profile reassessments by
Time and
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
. The latter's Joseph Morgenstern wrote two reviews in consecutive issues, the second retracting and apologizing for the first.
Time hired Stefan Kanter as its new film critic in late 1967; his first assignment was an ostentatious rebuttal of his magazine's original negative review. A rave in
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
by
Pauline KaelPauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
was also influential. Re-released, the film became a substantial critical and financial success.
In the wake of this critical reversal, the most dogged critic of the film was Bosley Crowther, who wrote three negative reviews, as well as periodically blasting the movie in reviews of other films, and also in a letters column response to unhappy
Times readers.
The New York Times replaced Crowther as its primary film critic in early 1968, and it was widely speculated that his persistent attacks on
Bonnie and Clyde had shown him to be out of touch with current cinema, and weighed heavily in his removal. Crowther worked as an executive consultant after leaving the
Times. The turn of events dramatized a "changing of the guard" in film criticism, as a younger generation of critics achieved clout and prominence. The venerable Crowther had been no favorite among this group; in 1964, Kael sarcastically praised his "reverse acumen that makes him invaluable."
Crowther wrote
The Lion's Share: The Story of an Entertainment Empire (1957), the first book documenting the history of MGM, as well as
Hollywood Rajah: The Life and Times of Louis B. Mayer (1960), a biography of that studio's head.
External links