Action: Directors Guild of America [magazine] (March-April 1971) [special report: "The Coming of the Russians"]

Hollywood CA: Directors Guild of America. Near Fine. 1971. (Vol. 6, No. 2). Magazine. [nice clean copy, minor handling wear only, original owner's address label on rear cover (see Notes)]. (B&W photographs) Most of this issue documents a visit to the U.S. in February 1971 by a trio of Soviet filmmakers -- Sergei Bondarchuk, Yuri Ozerov, and Stanislav Rostotsky -- as part of a cultural exchange of sorts that grew out of the attendance by American directors Fred Zinnemann and Franklin Schaffner at the 1965 Moscow Film Festival. (It was followed by a reciprocal visit to the USSR in May by an American delegation headed by Robert Wise.) The group passed quickly through New York, then spent a whirlwind four days in Hollywood, attending several screenings and participating in Q-and-A sessions, being hosted as dinners by the likes of George Stevens and King Vidor, visiting studios large (Universal Pictures) and small (Robert Aldrich's independent operation), going to Disneyland (of course!), and paying a call on John Ford -- a visit during which they found Ford playing cards with John Wayne. "It turned into a remarkable scene, with the Russians asking for autographed photographs to take home to their children and all toasting American-Soviet friendship as they stood around Ford's bed." (There are, alas, no photos of this visit in the magazine, although there are plenty of others of the Russians hobnobbing with various American directors, including Rouben Mamoulian, Elia Kazan, Robert Wise, Delbert Mann, Paul Newman, etc.) Much of the account of the Russians' visit is presented in screenplay form, with transcriptions of some of the conversations that took place. Also in this issue is a short interview with Martin Ritt, and a rundown of that year's DGA awards. The address label on the rear cover is that of director Arthur Hiller .