r/ebert • u/Radiant-Specialist76 • Feb 08 '24

What were the most well-known movies released in the 20th century that Roger Ebert never saw?

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

2

u/JamesBeardsley Apr 28 '24

He said near the end of his life that he never saw The Sound of Music. It came out in 1965, two years before his career as critic began.

2

u/Radiant-Specialist76 Apr 28 '24

wow thanks for answering this after I had posted it so long ago

1

u/JamesBeardsley Apr 28 '24

Haha yeah, I coincidentally saw your post from three months ago after googling a question I had regarding Ebert's series The Great Movies. (The curse of subreddits with <500 members!) I remembered him responding to this very question (movies people would be surprised he never saw) during an email interview in the 2010s and thought I'd go ahead and chime in!

1

u/Radiant-Specialist76 Apr 28 '24

Do you remember any others he mentioned?

2

u/JamesBeardsley Apr 28 '24 edited Apr 28 '24

I know he said in his review of Terminator Salvation (2009):

"The first "Terminator" movie I regret (I suppose) I did not see."

So he claimed then that he never saw The Terminator from 1984. But the thing is, he actually reviewed it with Siskel on the show when it first came out -- just not in print. I suspect he just forgot that he saw it all those years later in 2009; maybe he even checked his site's archive, saw there was no print review for the movie, and assumed he never watched it.

I'm really curious whether Ebert ever saw the French film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which topped the most recent (2022) decennial Sight and Sound poll of the greatest movies ever made (the only "greatest films" poll Ebert participated in). As far as I can find, Ebert never even mentioned the movie in print. Now that many critics are calling it one of the greatest films ever, I wish he was around to offer his two cents. It came out in 1975, so you'd think he'd have seen it, but I can't find any evidence that he did.

Anyway, I'm not sure what other famous movies Ebert might have missed before his passing in 2013, but I know he never saw The Sound of Music. There may well be others, but that was the one that came to his mind when he was asked. He presumably caught virtually all the big releases once he was on the job beginning in 1967, since he tended to review 250-300 movies every year. But that's all I can say. Hope some of this was interesting. Cheers!

2

u/Radiant-Specialist76 Apr 28 '24

Huh, that's all really curious. Thank you for such an in-depth response!

2

u/First-Sheepherder640 Sep 26 '24

I'd also like to know if Ebert ever saw the OTHER infamous European art film from 1975, "Salo." He mentioned Pasolini from time to time and included Pasolini's "Gospel According To St. Matthew" in his Great Movies list. But no review of "Salo."

Thank God he never saw "The Sound Of Music," it blows.

1

u/zizmorcore May 21 '24 edited Jun 01 '24

library dull attractive silky aspiring brave chop possessive piquant drab

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact