John Musilli

Camera Three is an American variety show devoted to the arts. It ran on CBS from January 22, 1956 to January 21, 1979, and moved to PBS in its final year to make way for the then-new CBS News Sunday Morning. The PBS version ran from October 4, 1979 to July 10, 1980. Camera Three featured programs showcasing drama, ballet, art, music, anything involving fine arts. One of its most notable presentations was a condensation of Marc Blitzstein's leftist opera The Cradle Will Rock. Presented on November 29, 1964, it was a dramatic demonstration of how far television had come since its early days, in its willingness to present a work that surely would have been banned from the airwaves during the era of Joseph McCarthy.

Plácido Domingo hosts this tribute to American tenor Mario Lanza. Interviews, rare footage and vintage recordings chronicle Lanza's life from his Philadelphia childhood to his meteoric rise as an opera singer and film actor and his tragic death. Credited with bringing opera and classical music into the home of everyday Americans, Lanza starred in That Midnight Kiss and The Toast of New Orleans and portrayed Enrico Caruso in The Great Caruso.

Profile of one of the world's most popular motion picture stars, told through interviews with some of the artists who worked with him, family, friends, and excerpts from many of his films and television appearances.

The work of photographer Diane Arbus as explained by her daughter, friends, critics, and in her own words as recorded in her journals. Illustrated with many of her photographs. Mary Clare Costello, narrator Themes: Arbus' quirky go-it-alone approach. Her attraction to the bizarre, people on the fringes of society: sexual deviants, odd types, the extremes, styles in questionable taste, poses and situations that inspire irony or wonder. Where most people would look away she photographed.

Excerpted parts of interviews conducted by Pia Lindstrom (daughter of Hitchcock actress Ingrid Bergman) and William Everson for a 2 Part episode of the TV series Camera Three called The Illustrated Hitchcock. Subjects include working with actors, acting styles, techniques of suspense, casting choices and the making of various films

Primer on the meaning, techniques and background of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Keir Dullea, who starred in the film as astronaut Bowman, narrates on camera and over many excerpts from the film.

Members of the Broadway cast join Stephen Sondheim in a performance of the number. Filmed in Sondheim's apartment in New York City.

Film director Hitchcock discusses his life and career in long talks with Pia Lindstrom (newscaster and daughter of Hitchcock star Ingrid Berman) and with film historian William Everson. Excerpts from several films illustrate these interviews. Discussion topics include: what is fear?, method acting vs. film acting, the difference between the usual "Who Done It" mystery and what he considers to be real suspense. His choice of leading ladies and why (Bergman, Baxter, Kelly, Marie Saint, Leigh, etc.).

Mel Tormé hosts this retrospective of the most prolific period of Frank Sinatra’s career from the beginning to mid-60s. Told through interviews with colleagues and entertainment experts along with clips from live performances, film and TV.

An interview with Peter Bogdanovich and Henry Jaglom who were presenting films at the ninth New York Film Festival (1971). The documentary was first presented on the television program Camera Three.

Ryszard Cieslak and other members of the Polish Laboratory Theater demonstrate exercises designed to prepare the mind and body for performance.

Author-critic Anthony Burgess explores in a free-wheeling way perspectives of James Joyce's great experimental novel "Finnegans Wake". He is in the unusual setting of an Irish pub, utilizing a variety of props to illustrate his points. Burgess, erudite and ironic, brings in photographs, history and even sings a song from the book -- the "Ballad of Persse O'Reilly." All this with Burgess leaning on the big wooden bar of the pub. Internationally known author Burgess ("A Clockwork Orange", "ReJoyce", etc.) has always been fascinated by "Finnegans Wake", its idiosyncratic language, its enormously complicated structure, and its attempt to address those most universal human questions of life, death, sex, mind, and mankind's fall and resurrection.

An examination of Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ on Camera 3 (1972)

Overview of the life and art of sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Film of many of his sculptures, designs, stage sets, fountains, public spaces, drawings, etc. Filmed in his studio in Long Island City, NY. With scenes of the artist at work and reflecting on his aesthetics. Noguchi is interviewed by art writer Faubion Bowers.

Scripted documentary about the life and career of painter, experimental film-maker, surrealist Hans Richter. Interview of Richter, examples of his art work, excerpts from his films.

François Truffaut in conversation in 1977 with Richard Roud, then Director of the New York Film Festival.

Profile of Jean Gabin, the great French actor of 100 films, who died in 1976 at the age of 73. Here his career is traced and he is remembered by some of the many producers, directors, writers and actors with whom he worked. Illustrated with many photographs and film clips. Narrated by Nadia Gray who played opposite Gabin in the early 50's. Interviews with Directors Rene Clement, Jean Dellanoy, Denys de la Patelliere, Granbier-Deferre. Actors Madeleine Renaud, Michele Morgan, Simone Simon, Jean Desailly, Francois Arnoul, Lino Ventura, Danielle Darrieux. Cinema Critics and Historians Claude Beylie, Robert Chazal. Screenwriter Michel Audiard. 1978.

Stan VanDerBeek, experimental filmmaker at work with friend and computer expert Wade Shaw, at the sophisticated new (1972) computer at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and discussing the inevitable interaction of computers with artistic creativity. Clips from several VanDerBeek films.