One Day Since Yesterday (2016): Streaming on Netflix

I am so happy and honored to have been interviewed for this new documentary, directed by Bill Teck. It’s about Peter Bogdanovich’s gorgeous – and lost, for many years – film They All Laughed, starring Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, John Ritter, Colleen Camp, Patti Hansen, Dorothy Stratten and a host of others. It’s one of Bogdanovich’s best, and remember, this was the man who brought us The Last Picture Show.

Dorothy Stratten was murdered by her psycho ex-boyfriend (who then killed himself) a month after the film wrapped. It was a huge scandal, and since Peter Bogdanovich had been dating Stratten (who is angelic and funny and sweet in They All Laughed), he was somehow tainted by association, even though he had nothing to do with her murder. In that scandal, They All Laughed died on the vine. It barely opened. It had a “bad vibe” around it. Peter Bogdanovich’s career was basically stopped in its tracks by this tragedy. Which, of course, was secondary to the devastation caused to Stratten’s family and friends, including Bogdanovich.

Over the past 10 years or so, there’s been a groundswell of enthusiasm about this magical film. It was released on DVD with a great commentary track by Bogdanovich. Huge directors have sung its praises as one of Bogdanovich’s best (and it is). It’s time for this film to be rehabilitated as the magical screwball comedy that it is. I wrote two pieces about it: They All Laughed: Eyelines, Points of View, and Three-Dimensional Space in the Algonquin Hotel Sequence and They All Laughed: The Wordless Opening Sequence.

It was through those two posts that Bill Teck found me. He was making a movie about the making of They All Laughed, and asked if I would like to be interviewed. Would I like to sing the praises of one of my favorite films??

And now it’s done. One Day Since Yesterday is not only a love letter to They All Laughed, but it’s a love letter to Peter Bogdanovich. I am proud to be involved.

Other interviewees: Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Gazzara, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, Patti Hansen, Peter Bogdanovich, the critics Molly Haskell and Andrew Sarris, Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, my great blog-friend and fellow Elvis-obsessive Jeremy Richey (we discussed Elvis as an actor here), and many others. But that’s more than enough, don’t you think?

One Day Since Yesterday is now streaming on Netflix. Please check it out. And please see They All Laughed. It deserves to take its place in the canon.