Movies Til Dawn

In the 1960's, filmmaking great Robert Altman ("Mash", "Nashville", "O.C. and Stiggs"--do I really need to go on?) was going through a rough patch. Though not many of his "Mash" and all-things-forward fans knew it, Altman had been around a long time--and not in a groovy, counter-culture kind of way. His career was that of a jobbing television director--from the late fifties through the sixties, Altman directed scores of episodes of shows like "Bonanza", "Combat", "The Roaring Twenties", "Kraft Mystery Theater" and many too undistinguished to mention (all right--"Hawaiian Eye"). Always looking to make the leap into features--and already being left behind by contemporaries like Sydney Pollack, Elliot Silverstein and Mark Rydell--Altman became increasingly fractious with his employers. Always a sharp-tounged provocateur, his drinking brought out a dark edge that frequently torpedoed friendships a...