The art of the double bill, part three

Although it runs contrary to common practice, I feel a successful double feature depends on variety. When I went to the movies in the 1970s, neighborhood theaters would show unlikely combos like the one above, while art and revival theaters usually paired films by director or star. In the end, however, something as disparate and bizarre as The Odd Couple with Rosemary’s Baby or That Touch of Mink with To Kill a Mockingbird avoid any form of competition, instead offering art and diversity.

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Whereas an evening of Some Like It Hot (two hours) with Irma La Douce (142 minutes) may yield an awareness that a little Billy Wilder can go a long way. But the teaming of the two radically different Hitchcock films below covers a vast range of attributes and qualities, at once enlightening and exhilarating. Note that Vertigo, widely considered a failure in its time, gets second billing.

After the success of Midnight Cowboy, Canada’s Astral Films paired a dubbed, pre-Graduate Italian comedy with Dustin Hoffman (originally third-billed under Elsa Martinelli and Caesar Romero) with an experimental Phil Kaufman comedy starring Jon Voight, Monique Van Vooren, Severn Darden, Joan Darling and Nelson Algren (!). As for the oddity below, it’s anyone’s guess if these pictures made it beyond urban screens or university auditoriums. I actually owned this poster way back when—it was a present from Nelhydrea Paupér.

The Art of the Double Bill, part one, click here

The Art of the Double Bill, part two, click here