New York In The '50S

Based on writer Dan Wakefield's memoir of the same title, Betsy Blankenbaker's pleasant but insubstantial documentary paints a picture of New York — primarily Greenwich Village — in the Eisenhower era through interviews, mostly with writers and artists. They include writers Joan Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne; journalist Nat Hentoff; actor Robert Redford; editor Norman Podhoretz; Art D'Lugoff, owner of the influential Village Gate club; documentary filmmaker Ted Steeg (who inspired the character of Gunner Casselman in Wakefield's autobiographical novel Going All the Way); commentator William F. Buckley; writer Gay Talese and his wife, pub...