Stills from ‘Success’
Written on September 11, 2008 | Posted in American Success Company / Success / The Ringer / Good as Gold, Gallery | Leave a comment
In 1979 William Richert, a novice writerdirector, strode out of Closetland with a pair of black-comic fantasias on the lust for power: Winter Kills and Success. What happened next would fulfill a paranoid’s darkest hopes. With all the good grace of a Mafia don consigning a nosy reporter to cement sneakers in the East [...]
Mr. Richert’s other feature, ”Winter Kills,” is fondly remembered in some circles for its continual non sequiturs, wild changes of scenery and political plot revolving around a madam played by Elizabeth Taylor. That wasn’t Mr. Richert’s crazy one, either. This is his crazy one.
”American Success,” which like ”Winter Kills” is a supremely playful [...]
Until now, only about four copies of William Richert’s dark 80s fairy tale, ‘American Success Company’, were known to exist (one owned by a television network, one by Steven Spielberg, and two VHS dubs, one owned by me). Richert has remastered the 1983 release of his picture, retitled ‘Success’, starring Jeff Bridges, Ned Beatty [...]
Prior to a miraculous recent restoration of a badly damaged Success master by Brian Q. Kelley, only a few dubs of the obscure film were known to exist, including one according to Tech Digest proudly owned by Steven Spielberg.
Read more at FilmStew
Now playing! The Invisible Studio Internet presentation of 1981’s “Success” starring Jeff Bridges as ‘Harry Flowers’, Belinda Bauer as ‘Sarah’ and Bianca Jagger as ‘Corrine’. For the first time ever, watch the entire film, presented with ten minutes of never-seen footage from the original Munich, Germany production.. The film was considered lost to chemical ruin until recent technological innovations and a total restoration by Brian Q. Kelley.