“We thought it was good advertising,” Hellman said of the Esquire problem in a 1999 Los Angeles Times interview when Two-Lane Blacktop finally made it on video. “In retrospect, we wouldn’t have done it. I think that raised people’s expectations. They couldn’t accept the film for what it was. “
French film critics did, and their enthusiasm spread to the United States. As the 1970s became recognized as the golden age of independent film, the reputation of the film and that of its director rose. In 2005 Cahiers du Cinéma magazine declared it was “one of the greatest American films of the 1970s”.
Monte Himmelbaum was born July 12, 1929 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and grew up in Albany, NY, where his father ran a small grocery store. When he was s6 the family moved to Los Angeles.
He studied language and theater at Stanford University, where he directed radio plays, and after graduating in 1951, studied film at the University of California in Los Angeles. Around this time he changed his last name.
In 1952, Mr. Hellman helped found the Stumptown Players, a summer theater company, in Guerneville, California. Carol Burnett was a member. He has directed numerous productions and appeared as an actor when necessary.
His first marriage was to one of the theater’s actresses, Barboura Morris. The marriage ended in divorce. He was married three more times, said his daughter. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by a son, Jared, and a brother, Herb.
