One of the most innovative figures in experimental film, Vanderbeek specialized in combining radical formal techniques and progressive politics. In this non-verbal political satire, he reflects on mass society, conformism, and the era’s infatuation with rockets.

Samuel Beckett wrote the script for this one-character drama without dialogue featuring Buster Keaton. Alan Schneider, the film’s director, staged all of Beckett’s plays in the United States. He also directed four of Edward Albee’s plays, winning the coveted “Tony” award for his work on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Boris Kaufman (who won an Oscar for On the Waterfront) was the director of photography.

Walter Dinsmore’s annual January breakdown begins shortly after he has a hysterectomy and delivers $1,800 in $10 bills—the result of swallowing a nickel when he was a child. Psychoanalysis proves futile since our hero sees nothing wrong with being passionately in love with his mother. All ends happily, however, with Walter marrying his mother, moving to the suburbs, and supporting the two on welfare. The film is characterized by its irreverent, anti-establishment humor; its audacity and wit are balanced by ingenious editing and technical polish. Anyone interested in the quality of contemporary life—and film—will be stimulated by this hilarious satire of neuroses, nuttiness, art, music, police brutality, pornography, racism, TV commercials, and filmmaking itself.