San Francisco Film Society Oral History Project Interview with ...

MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Yeah. That was quite a tribute, too, to one of his favorite films, the
original Lubitsch film.
CLAUDE JARMAN: And the film Don’s Party. That caught so much heat. Of course we wanted to
show that film, and the critics hated it. They just thought, oh, not a really good film. It was Bruce
Beresford’s first film. And he came to the Festival. It was his first film that was shown in this country.
And of course he went on to become a very, very top director. So we were very proud of the fact that we
stuck to our guns. It was a pretty interesting movie.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: I saw it.
CLAUDE JARMAN: It got bad reviews. And I don’t know—It was just funny that he turned out to be a
very successful director.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: How did he feel about the reception the film got?
CLAUDE JARMAN: He didn’t care. He was fine. He moved on to New York. He knew he was going
somewhere. Lauren Bacall, she was great, too.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Had she written her book then? Was that why she was—
CLAUDE JARMAN: No, I don’t think so.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Who was doing the interviews at this point, do you remember?
CLAUDE JARMAN: I think Mark Chase was doing the interviews.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: And who else did you have? Claude Lelouch?
CLAUDE JARMAN: We did.
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