Documentaries, old and new, with stills and notes for students, makers, and observers of documentary film and video. ______________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday, January 18, 2010
Ralph Steiner, Elia Kazan, and others
Pie in the Sky (1935), by Russell Collins, Elia Kazan, Elman Koolish, Irving Lerner, Ralph Steiner, and Molly Day Thatcher (Kazan's wife at the time), is a Depression-era oddity that looks like it was made for fun by a group of friends. Two men (above; Elia Kazan, at left, in an unusual on-screen appearance, plays one of the men) horse around in a junkyard after leaving a preachy soup-kitchen that ran out of pie before they could be served.
Although Pie in the Sky isn't a documentary, Steiner's shooting style is reminiscent of his work for Pare Lorentz in the documentary film, The Plough that Broke the Plains (1936).
Title:
Pie in the Sky