Fishko Files from WNYC

WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks back to the films of 1959. From romantic comedies to sword-and-sandal spectacles, the films of that year spoke volumes about what was happening off screen (produced in 2009).

Tomorrow in New York, another of the off-beat films of Shirley Clarke sees the light of day. WNYC’s Sara Fishko considers the trail-blazing filmmaker, in this Fishko Files report.

April has been officially named "Jazz Appreciation Month." So in this edition, we offer Sara Fishko's exploration of "The Oxford Companion to Jazz" (from 2005).

As the new Mad Men season begins, WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks back to some “soft sell” advertising of the 1950s. Here is a new! Improved! Fishko Files…

A new film has WNYC's Sara Fishko thinking about so-called "movie-going."  Here's a Fishko Files report.

In jazz, says WNYC’s Sara Fishko, one thing leads to another.  For vocalist Jon Hendricks, who will perform in our area next week, it was some great instrumental jazz solos that led him to make an unforgettable leap into song. Here is the next Fishko Files…

Previews for The Big Knife begin on March 22nd. It opens April 16th. Click here for more information.   By 1940 the playwright Clifford Odets already had a Broadway hit (Awake and Sing!), a Hollywood screen credit (The General Died at Dawn) and his face on the cover of Time Magazine. In February of that year he wrote a note to himself in his journal: “Do you know I’m beginning to think you are a very ordinary fellow. You are vain, dishonest, morally lax, you are proud, you are lazy and self-indulgent. Aren’t you really sinking deeper every week into the feather bed of a successful career? Read this again in a week. In another week, again.” At 19 Odets was in Greenwich Village trying to make it as an actor. After playing bit parts in the Theater Guild he fell under the spell of Harold Clurman and the legendary Lee Strasberg, soon joining the Group Theater. It was there that he was inspired to write his own plays. In 1935 Odets’ rousing, one-act labor drama Waiting for Lefty became an instant hit. That same year Awake and Sing! hit Broadway, and Hollywood came calling in earnest.  The conflicted Odets wrestled with his commitment to New York theater and progressive politics, and decided to go west. After years of working on screenplays in Hollywood, Odets wrote the play The Big Knife in 1949 – taking Hollywood as his subject and creating a memorably-villainous studio head. Odets wrote the scathing play at the height of McCarthyism during which he, and the star of The Big Knife John Garfield, were eventually called in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Later Odets’ screenplay for Sweet Smell of Success depicted another despicable villain in the notorious J.J. Hunsecker. Odets died in 1963, torn to the very end.   WNYC Production Credits... Mix Engineer: Paul Schneider Associate Producer: Laura Mayer Enterprise Editor, WNYC News: Karen Frillmann

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson has had a life-long connection with Chopin’s music. Ohlsson talks Chopin with WNYC’s Sara Fishko, in this edition of Fishko Files…

WNYC’s Sara Fishko has been listening to some new, old recordings--which have just been unearthed.  She has this Fishko Files report.

The Motion Picture Academy has recently created an official “Costume Designer’s Branch” of the organization, for the first time.  That seems a good reason to hear more about legendary Costume Designer Edith Head, whom WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us is still the most Oscar-nominated, Academy Award-winning woman in Oscar history. Here is this Fishko Files...

Classical concerts have their own rhythm and their own rituals. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, one of them is the encore.

An abstract painting got WNYC’s Sara Fishko thinking as she visited the Montclair Art Museum...

New York Fashion Week begins today, as designers and retailers look ahead to the coming season. But, as WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, Fashion Week has a past, too. Here’s the next Fishko Files…

Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky would have been 90 this week.  As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, the multiple-Oscar-winning Chayefsky fought to the death for every fierce and furious word he wrote.  Here is the next Fishko Files…

In this edition of Fishko Files, WNYC's Sara Fishko looks at the past and present of film criticism, and its variable impact over a couple of generations. To hear some current film critics, visit the 92nd Street Y tonight for the “Pre-Oscar Film Critics Roundtable,” featuring film critics discussing their craft on stage.