Dick Cavett with 1970 Academy Award Predictions (Rex Reed's)

It's 1970, the year Midnight Cowboy and Butch Cassidy were up for Best Picture. Also, a time when it was almost safe to gratuitously insult John Wayne, without back-tracking a moment and then bravely charging forward again with something actually censorable at the time. (See if you can tell/ guess what Reed says.)

Rex Reed is just as I recall him from age 9: Not Sorry You Can Go F Yourself. Not dry-witted but pulpy. A professional kill-joy, as some critics are, but not quite up to the level of serious contempt.


What I see now is that he was with-it, man, making a lot of "bread" as a critic (and bit player) and he was going to help lead us into the Seventies' Great Wardrobe Depression. (But note, his argyle suit is from the 30's!)

If the film breaks, as it often seems to do from secondary sites, click here.

And to continue with the rest of the interview, here is Part Two.

He made it to the Gong Show. Still writes reviews (getting some attention when he lauded Michael Moore without noting any of Moore's dishonesty: it's the craft, you know.)

Now that I've put you off watching the clip, a brief note about Cavett and me. I will always be fond of Dick Cavett.

My bedtime was 9 and he was on at 10:30. My two older brothers got to stay up and watch and all I had was the furnace register, which was really only sufficient to hear how much my family were enjoying themselves, laughing or expressing shock.

So to this day I am still determined to get mine. I want to see every show, (and eventually I will even if it means going to the real Museum of Broadcasting History).

When I was finally old enough, the show was cancelled and I read Cavett's autobiography. I think it was written before his terrible bouts of depression and all the shock treatments. I found it laugh out loud funny in high school, anyway.

YouTube's collection of Dick Cavett clips has doubled to about 20 now, still mostly rock stars, like Hendrix, Lennon, Harrison, Bowie, Ravi Shankar and of course ABBA ...the Cherry Sisters, etc. But don't you worry about YouTube, anyone can post and it's the World Wide Web!

There is now an entire interview with Woody Allen, I ought to watch--- except for the first time in my life I honestly cannot get over this particular artist's arrogant self-absorbtion and apparent moral retardation. I really don't care for a visit with Woody, not even in his prime. Maybe especially in his prime. My mind can't get past that family photo Mia Farrow punctured with voodoo spikes.

Maybe I'll "lighten up" someday, I don't know.