Alan Arkin’s Adventures in Moviegoing

Alan Arkin’s Adventures in Moviegoing

10 Episodes

From earning an Academy Award nomination for his very first screen role in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING to his Oscar win forty years later for LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, Alan Arkin has enjoyed an eclectic and distinguished career as both an actor and director. A lifelong cinephile who grew up watching international masterpieces at New York’s legendary Thalia theater, he sits down with his son and fellow actor, Adam Arkin, to discuss his passionate opinions on movies, sharing what he learned about acting from the great French film stars and singling out the director he would have given anything to work with. As something of a specialist in black comedy, the films Arkin has selected unsurprisingly include several superlative examples of the genre, including a devastatingly funny Italian gem (MAFIOSO), a wild counterculture parable (GREASER’S PALACE), and an absurdist art-world satire (THE SQUARE).

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Alan Arkin’s Adventures in Moviegoing
  • Alan Arkin’s Adventures in Moviegoing Teaser

    Episode 1

  • Alan Arkin in Conversation

    Episode 2

  • Alan Arkin on OF MICE AND MEN

    Episode 3

  • Of Mice and Men

    Episode 4

    Directed by Lewis Milestone • 1939 • United States
    Starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., Betty Field

    George and Lennie are California migrant workers on the run from the law because of something the simple-minded giant Lennie did. They find work at a local ranch, where they dream of making ...

  • Alan Arkin on WAGES OF FEAR

    Episode 5

  • The Wages of Fear

    Episode 6

    Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot • 1953 • France
    Starring Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter Van Eyck

    In a squalid South American oil town, four desperate men sign on for a suicide mission to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over a treacherous mountain route. As they ferry their explosive...

  • Alan Arkin on THE HORSE'S MOUTH

    Episode 7

  • The Horse’s Mouth

    Episode 8

    Directed by Ronald Neame • 1958 • United Kingdom
    Starring Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh, Renee Houston

    In Ronald Neame’s film of Joyce Cary’s classic novel, Alec Guinness transforms himself into one of cinema’s most indelible comic figures: the lovably scruffy painter Gulley Jimson. As the ill-behave...

  • Alan Arkin on MAFIOSO

    Episode 9

  • Mafioso

    Episode 10

    Directed by Alberto Lattuada • 1962 • Italy
    Starring Alberto Sordi, Norma Bengell, Gabriella Conti

    In Alberto Lattuada’s brilliant dark comedy MAFIOSO, auto-factory foreman Nino (Alberto Sordi) takes his proper, modern wife (Norma Bengell) and two blonde daughters from industrial Milan to antiqu...