A year after the death of Roger Ebert, our critics and contributors on the site that bears his name were asked to share a memory of the man.
We've just been through a remarkably old-fashioned summer at the movies: A summer during which the big hits were a space opera, a romantic melodrama, a thriller about sunken treasure and even one more absurdist frolic with good old James Bond. Summer is traditionally the season for quick, shallow entertainments, but the summer of 1977 outdid itself, and was astonishingly successful at it; Variety, the show-biz bible, calls this the best summer in years at the movie box office.
She was such a little girl when she started off down the Yellow Brick Road. So little and helpless and starstruck: "Gee, Mister Gable," she once sang, "can I have your autograph?"
"Here's another one," Severn Darden said. He was standing on the other side of the police station reading descriptions of Chicago's most wanted criminals.
"You wanna hear a funny story?" Jacqueline Susann said. "When 'Valley of the Dolls' came out in Russia, it was reviewed in Pravda. "So somebody sent us the review and we had it translated. They said it was a very exotic story."
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