Rock Hudson shows the language of the camera. Jane Fonda makes funny faces. Freckles of Natalie Wood. Paul Newman is drinking a beer. Julie Andrews strolls on the beach in Malibu.
Roddy McDowall was a British-born actor: arrived in Hollywood while still a child, he starred in many movies, theatre, on television. And became famous as a photographer (so that the recent fake image of Elizabeth Taylor nude had been attributed to him). He became famous for his collection of “rejects” film when it was investigated by the FBI for piracy: kept in his home hundreds of film scenes, obtained from studios before it disfacessero.
A passion for the image and the fragment, the search for hidden moments, away from public gaze, ever revealed: is all this summer in the collection of home movies, filmed in Malibu with friends (and friends) between holiday houses, beaches and loaded a few days ago on YouTube by a user who defines independent documentary filmmaker and who says they obtained personally by Roddy McDowall (who died in 1998). Its intention is to make a documentary.
The video goes back to the long summer of ‘ 65, covering a period from the date of Easter (that year fell on April 18), celebrated with Robert Redford at the home of actress Hope Lange, Labor Day (first Monday in September) with Rock Hudson. Movies are dumb, but you don’t need the audio to appreciate the protagonists chronicled in moments of sincere fun, free time, when the paparazzi (and all of us) were not driven to certain extreme and difficult to collect in a video like spontaneity.
Easter party at the home of Hope Lange: guests include Robert Redford.
Jane Fonda, Julie Andrews on the beach in Malibu.
