Matt Singer presents a detailed history of the various iterations of the movie review TV show where Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel debated film quality. The show started out on a Public Broadcasting Station in Chicago and later morphed into a national syndicated weekly program.
Matt Singer documents the hostility Siskel and Ebert had for each other over many years of working together. Both men were competitors: Ebert reviewed movies for the Chicago Sun-Times (winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1975) while Siskel was the film critic at the Chicago Tribune.
From the start, the Siskel and Ebert relationship was antagonistic. But, over time, the relationship mellowed. Of course, the money factor impacted Siskel and Ebert. Starting at earning a few hundred dollars per week at the local PBS station, the Siskel and Ebert show grew in popularity and secured multimillion-dollar contracts for a national syndicated series.
Sadly, the Siskel and Ebert partnership ended in 1999 when Gene Siskel died of brain cancer. Ebert died in 2013 after a long battle with salivary gland cancer, thyroid cancer, and cancer of the jawbone.
Despite their differences, both Siskel and Ebert loved movies and their movie review show–with its famous “Two Thumbs Up!”–helped to promote cinema and changed film criticism. Were you a fan of Siskel and Ebert? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: Coming attractions — 1
Ebert before Siskel — 15
Siskel before Ebert — 35
Opening soon at a theater near you — 57
The first-take show — 79
Rompin’ stompin’ film criticism — 103
Two thumbs up — 127
Across the aisle — 147
Hooray for Hollywood –165
Get to the crosstalk — 185
The future of the movies — 201
The balcony is closed — 217
Ebert & Roeper & Lyons & Mankiewicz & Phillips & Scott & Lemire & Vishnevetsky — 233
Epilogue: Until next time, we’ll see you at the movies — 261
Appendix: Buried treasures that Siskel and Ebert loved — 277
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS — 297
NOTES — 301
PHOTO CREDITS — 331
INDEX — 333
I watched them and thought Ebert’s picks were closer to my taste! He was also a fanboy and one time and that made him simpatico to this semi-BNF! That said, I never watched a movie just because one or both of them liked it!
Bob, I’m with you on Ebert. His movie tastes paralleled mine.
Yes! My mum always felt Roger Ebert was the man for me: “A real brainy bloke” was how she put it (this was before I met John, of course); and it became a long-standing joke in our family that Roger only got married after I was off the market, lol. But secret husbands aside, Siskel & Ebert were the first film critics who came into people’s homes and explained why they thought a movie was bad or good, important or disposable, and I have fond memories of watching them on tv every week. I also have a number of Ebert’s books—mostly compilations of reviews, but his autobiography is very good too.
They were the first reviewers who had a weekly reviews series on a broadcast network in the US, I think, but film critics of varying qualities had been fixtures on network and syndicated as well as local chat shows (and news programs) for decades before they began thumbing. From bubbleheads such as Rex Reed and the only slightly less clownish Gene Shalit on over to the likes of Pauline Kael, John Simon, and Molly Haskell. ..each of them controversial in their ways!
Todd, Pauline Kael was in a class of movie reviewers by herself. I didn’t always agree with Pauline Kael’s analysis, but I always came away knowing more about the movie.
I’d suggest James Agee, who mostly wrote film reviews for THE NATION and (iirc) HARPER’S, set the standard that others would aspire to, within their contexts. Kael, Simon, Haskell to a slightly lesser extent, had their crochets and blind spots. As do we all, but Kael and Simon made little effort to hide theirs. Even Harlan Ellison could seem less excessively emphatic.
Pat Aufderheide and your old APA-mate (IIRC) Kathi Maio can be more measured as well.
Deb, I, too, have read several of Roger Ebert’s books. You’re mum was right: Ebert was “a real brainy bloke” and continued to write movie reviews during his battles with cancer.
I would watch their various series (as I mentioned on Patti’s blog, they actually had two commercial syndicated series, AT THE MOVIES for Tribune Media and SISKEL AND EBERT AND THE MOVIES for Disney’s distribution arm…as they moved on from their WTTW/PBS and Tribune series, both replaced them with other pairs of reviewers).
I’m not sure I actually Enjoyed their shows so much as watched them when I felt like it, not finding either of them as perceptive as they were touted to be (but they were a bit deeper than most of their replacements). I was particularly unimpressed when Ebert allowed Siskel to credit RE with the concept of “the idiot plot” (a plot which happens only because all characters in the work are blithering idiots), when Ebert as a fanzine/convention-fan of fantastic fiction was fully aware he was echoing rather better literary critics Damon Knight and James Blish.
From the local Chicago WTTW local show (COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU) to the networked SNEAK PREVIEWS (a bit smoother from what I’ve seen of their first episodes) was initially part of a Friday in the Boston area that also included a season of the INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL half-hour and PBS THEATER, an early version of the Criterion/Janus film collection on tv (as the Janus Theater was a Boston institution). I’d be watching them till they ran out for the evening.
Oh, and ACADEMY LEADERS, a one-season (possibly two?) anthology of short films that were nominated for Oscars, the first such I saw, on PBS ca. 1977, was also in that mix, on WGBH in Boston or WNHN in Durham, NH.
Todd, Diane and I watched all the various iterations of SISKEL AND EBERT. Like millions of other viewers, Diane and I appreciated their movie reviews and unlike Cap’n Bob, we would go see movies Siskel and Ebert gave “Two Thumbs Up!”
Having watched Rex Reed and Gene Shalit all over the television while growing up and being familiar with more than a few press critics (Kael, Haskell, Rich, Sarris and Schickel) by high school Siskel and Enert seemed more like bandwagon-jumpers than a anything else to me and more middle brow than even the critics on the local newspapers. I’d leave them on if I came across their show while flipping channels but never felt either had anything of value to offer. I can see this being an interesting enough document of late seventis through late nineties popular culture but the author’s notion that the duo somehow introduced film criticism to mainstream America is ridiculous. Every mid-sized newspaper in this country had movie critics from the silent era on.
Byron, the early iterations of Siskel and Ebert broke new ground because the producer of the PBS shows were able to get clips of film from new movies to show during the program.
No, not a fan. I seldom watched them and only intermittently agreed with them. I didn’t care for Siskel’s opinions much. I liked Ebert’s books and he showed a lot of courage towards his awful end. And he wrote BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS!
Jeff, I preferred Ebert’s takes over Siskel’s critical judgments. Plus Ebert won a Pulitzer Prize that Siskel coveted…but never won.
Prizes only as good as what they are awarded to. Tom Shales had one of the most undeserved Pulitzers for criticism thus far, in his case for tv crit. I’m not sure I would rate Ebert as more perceptive than Siskel in most ways, except in the obvious problem Siskel had with Ebert’s trophy.
Todd, Ebert won his Pulitzer Prize in 1975 and it was years before another movie critic–Stephen Hunter in 2003–won another Pulitzer Prize for movie criticism.
Watched and enjoyed the show but did not enjoy the occasional sniping. Siskel came across at times as smarmy; Ebert appeared more “common man.”
Jerry, Siskel envied Ebert’s success and was usually the one who started with the the snarky comments.
Also enjoyed the doc about Ebert: LIFE ITSELF. He allowed himself to be filmed in the ravages of his disease when he was barely recognizable. Ego or humility-I am not sure.
Patti, I agree with you on LIFE ITSELF (2014). It was moving…and very sad.
Both men had tough ends of life. I guess most of us do…but I hope that most of us suffer less than they apparently did.
Chicago popcorn apparently more dangerous than that elsewhere, perhaps.
Todd, you might be right about Chicago popcorn, but I suspect the culprit is the Chicago-style pizza that Ebert and Siskel consumed!