Film Gab is saddened to hear of the death of film critic extraordinaire Judith Crist. One of the most influential reviewers of the second half of the twentieth century, she was also the first woman to serve full-time as critic for a major daily paper (The New York Herald Tribune). For twenty-two years she wrote reviews for TV Guide, reaching twenty million readers each week, and logged a decade at The Today Show where she became a major voice during some of the most tumultuous years in Hollywood.
Never one to mince words when a film failed to meet her approval, she famously called The Sound of Music "Icky-sticky" and suggested that the film's audiences weren't "up to the stinging sophistication and biting wit of Mary Poppins."
Still, Crist was never one to incite the wrath of her fellow critics, preferring to address her readers rather than engage in the bloviations that could distract from the movies themselves. Her voice was always sharp, her insights actually insightful, and her legacy lives on among all of us who gab about film.
Film Gab is sad to report that producer and all-around hollywood mover and shaker Richard Zanuck has passed away. Behind such great films as The Sound of Music (1965), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), M*A*S*H (1972), The Sting (1973), Jaws (1975), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), and Big Fish (2003), Zanuck admirably emerged from the shadow of his legendary studio chief father Darryl Zanuck to carve his own name in the Hollywood history books. Saint Peter, you're going to need a bigger boat.
