The Knockturnal spoke to filmmaker Sabrina Jaglom and curator of Hope Runs High, Taylor Purdee, about the 4K restoration of the late actor-director Henry Jaglom’s fourth feature, Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983).
The film is an off-beat romantic comedy centering on two middle-aged characters, Zee, played by the Academy-Award nominated actress Karen Black, a woman very unsure of herself, even more so after she finds herself abandoned by her husband. Finding solace in the streets of New York, she then has an odd meet-cute at a café with Eli, played by Jaglom’s frequent collaborator, Michael Emil. Their camaraderie quickly blossoms into a romance that finds them both at odds and at ease with each other as Zee’s eccentric and unapologetic ways battle with Eli’s neurotic, matter-of-fact tendencies.
The film also features legendary actor-filmmaker Orson Welles, Frances Fisher, and a memorable cameo from the then little-known Larry David. Sweet, enduring, and chaotic, it showcases a version of the Upper West Side in New York City that once was, making it feel like a time capsule of the 1980’s.
Jaglom was a pioneer of independent cinema, and its charm came from his unique, unfiltered style as he utilized the rawness of the city that was home to him, feeling like a character of its own, and performances of the actors with whom he has a personal connection. Emil, being his own brother, Welles, being a close friend and mentor of his, and Black, whom he once dated. He shot the whole film in just one week without permits and wrote a loose script that highlighted the strength of his actors as they played characters similar to themselves, encouraging the use of improvisation.
Audiences in New York City were treated to viewing the film at the Metrograph for a successful run with four screenings from Feb. 20th to the 24th, two of which were sold-out. An encore screening is set for this Wednesday, Mar. 4th, with the film soon rolling out to more arthouse cinemas across the nation. At the first three screenings, audiences were treated to a Q&A and introductions held by Jaglom, Purdee, and Justin LaLiberty of Cinématographe, who collaborated with Hope Runs High to make the first of many Jaglom restorations possible.
Below, Ms. Jaglom and Mr. Purdee share their excitement and the process of bringing this new version of Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? to screen, honoring the late Jaglom, who passed away days after the restoration’s initial premiere at the 63rd New York Film Festival last September.
The Knockturnal: I’m Zipporah Pruitt with The Knockturnal. I’m excited to talk to you both about Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?, which is showing in 4K at the Metrograph in New York City. And so, if you could please introduce yourselves.
Sabrina Jaglom: Hi, I’m Sabrina Jaglom.
Taylor Purdee: I’m Taylor Purdee. So I’m the curator of Hope Runs High, which is distributing and restoring this film, and Sabrina’s father is the director of it [Henry Jaglom].
The Knockturnal: And so, Sabrina, can you tell me a little about your father for those who aren’t familiar with his work?
Sabrina: Yeah. So my father, Henry Jaglom, in his lifetime made 21 films, 20 of those completely independently without the studio system. His first film definitely wasn’t indie film, but it was created with Columbia [Pictures]. And prior to that, as we were discussing, he was an actor, an editor, and very much came up in the counterculture kind of 60s, 70s, 80s in Hollywood, but continued making films for many decades.
He passed away this last September, but over the years, he’s made so many films about his own personal life, struggles, and events, and also those in the lives of people close to him. And just issues that he found interesting. A lot of women related issues were very interesting to him.
Issues about love, romance, divorce. And he often used a lot of the same actors who he came up with and who he knew to use an improv-based style version of kind of directing and acting. Really, his actor studio training coming in strong with the way he manipulated the scenes to get the actors to use the framework he provided and their lines very much feel organic in that way. And I’ve been working with Taylor [Purdee] here to restore some of his earlier films to bring new life to the 35 millimeter, which Taylor can speak to, but also to kind of bring his films to a new audience. I think while in some ways some of his films were very specific to his generation, there are also so many parallels between today and so many just—I think they just relate to people and the human struggle and the human condition. And that’s really what he was all about.
The Knockturnal: And so, out of all Mr. Jaglom’s films, why was Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? selected for this restoration? And why was the Metrograph in New York City the perfect place to screen it?
Taylor: Honestly, it was kind of just a luck of the draw situation. So we got involved with Henry’s library kind of, maybe a month before COVID hit. And then between the pandemic and all of the things that go with a catalog as large and like over so many decades as his eventually, we like had a plan in place, which I should mention this kind of version of the restorations that we’re seeing right now got set off by kind of a third partner that we have, which is a Blu-ray label called Cinématographe, which is part of a larger group called Vinegar Syndrome.
And they kind of do all of the kind of like coolest, like downtown restoration things. They’re kind of like the alt criterion. And so when we started, like a year or so ago, really, really going into what materials were available, they had wanted to start and kind of go chronologically through Henry’s work. And so the first film that he made outside of the studio system is a film called Tracks from I think 76, which that restoration just isn’t finished yet. And so this was kind of just the next one chronologically, and it had all of its all of its pieces, and that’s its whole own thing of like, do you have the audio track, do you have the original negative? Some guys in Connecticut go through frame by frame to pull out every scratch. And it was kind of just lucky that this was next on the list because it’s maybe my favorite of his films, in part because I live in the neighborhood that it takes place in in Manhattan. So it’s very familiar to me.
But it was kind of just like a perfect situation, and that this was next on the list. And it’s one that is such a, it’s such a New York movie, and the restoration was finished kind of just in time for its premiere at the New York Film Festival in September, which was sadly days after Henry passed. But that festival is held really with like within the ten block radius that this movie was made in.
Sabrina: And the New York Film Festival is also where my dad released his first film, A Safe Place, and it’s, you know, he grew up on the Upper West Side also.
Sabrina: I was just thinking, as a viewer, you know, you trust, they have great taste, and you trust them. I think it’s really great to be like, yes, a lot of younger people have not necessarily heard of my dad. You know, he hasn’t had film releases in a lot of people’s lifetime, but he has a lot of very short diehard fans and a lot of people who’ve always known about him, love or hate him.
But what I, you know, I love here in LA, there’s plenty of theaters in New York, there’s very few where it’s like, okay, whatever they’re showing, I’m going to show up, and I’m going to watch it. I trust their programming. I trust their taste. I trust that I’m going to enjoy the experience or be interested in the experience. And so I think that Metrograph is such a cool home for that reason.
Taylor: It’s also really like a destination joint in that, like that’s, there’s a restaurant and a bar, and it’s a kind of a hangout. And the number of times that I’ve gone to see a movie there and then, like gotten a drink between a double feature and run into somebody who was like, Hey, what are you, what are you doing here? I’m like, oh, l’ve nice to meet you. I’m here to see a movie. And they’re like, this is a movie theater because it’s a really cool hangout. Um, and I think Sabrina’s right. You kind of just trust that you’re either going to see something great or that you never would have known about, and you’re never going to forget, or you’re going to wish you forgot, but you won’t be able to, you know?
The Knockturnal: And so Mr. Purdee, please tell me about the process of supervising the restoration of this classic and collaboration with Justin LaLiberty of Cinématograph. Cinematograph. Cinematograph, which is a sublabel of Vinegar Syndrome. Yeah.
Taylor: So I mean, I kind of think it all comes down to Henry’s independent spirit, because this kind of thing wouldn’t be possible at this scale. Like we’re doing restorations of like 11 of his films, then we’re doing kind of re-release stuff for a bunch of the others that maybe were shot more recently or digitally, and so don’t need to be restored. But that is only possible really because he, Henry, like Sabrina was saying, financed the films and controlled the films himself so that they could all live in one place. We essentially found almost all of the negatives in one archive where they’ve been kept safe for decades. And without that sort of singularity, this would be a much more improbable undertaking because films can just get lost and live in archives all over the world, and it can take years to find the bits you need.
Sabrina: Or you don’t know who has the rights, et cetera, et cetera.
Taylor: So luckily, Sabrina kind of knew where everything was, so we could come in and kind of, I guess, the most interesting thing to me about this sort of work is that they were all at the archive that the Academy has. So that was great. And it’s nice to know that, you know, we think about the Oscars as being kind of what the Academy does, but their preservation work is kind of hugely important. And this has all been kept safe in a vault from the Academy because they, you know, like these movies, and they could, you know, find space for them. But essentially, Cinematographe wants to do kind of these super special and Blu-rays of the films, but they need to be upgraded to, you know, look great on your new 4K computer. And so somebody has to go through kind of frame by frame and pull out every scratch and every bit of broken sound. And so for me, it’s kind of like a treasure hunt.
Like, we’re lucky that we knew where a lot of these were, but it still took a while to figure out, okay, well, we know where the soundtrack is, but where is the negative? Is the negative all there is? Is there a, and there are kind of tiers of the materials that you would use for this that are technical things? Like, oh, is it an interpositive and not a negative that is kind of minutiae?
But the end of the day, it’s treasure hunting. And so now I think most of them are in Vinegar Syndrome’s archive, kind of as the work is going on. This is the first one, Sitting Ducks, which Sabrina mentioned earlier, I think, is having its festival premiere in the summer. And it’s going to be a couple of years’ worth of these. We’re kind of doing three at a time until, yeah, until we kind of get into the 21st century, in which those films were done digitally and don’t need the same amount of work on them.
Taylor: I mean, for me, it’s a hangout movie. There’s this thing for New Yorkers, especially when it’s summer aware, because you can walk everywhere, you end up going out for your groceries, and then having a completely different kind of a day. Sabrina said something to me a couple of years ago that I think about monthly, which is that Los Angeles is not a spontaneous city, but New York, New York is. And this movie kind of really encapsulates that, that Karen Black’s character can wander around having a bad day and spiral into a Henry Jaglom movie. And that it can capture that sort of, I was just getting a drink, and man, then Larry David showed up, and now here I am at the museum, I’m drunk. And that sort of hangout film feeling is what’s so fun about it. Because he gets it right in such a kind of an indescribable way that you’ve either lived it or you haven’t, but he really gets it right.
Sabrina: Yeah, I agree. I was just going to say that, that it really captures the spontaneity that New York can hold and the way you kind of stumble into a day or a life or a relationship. And I do feel it’s simultaneously such a time capsule for that period of New York, that era. But it also just is, I think, ongoing; it feels New York. And that’s what’s so special about it is it’s simultaneously like, wow, this is the 70s.
And then it’s also, it still has a lot of the current New York elements in the way that you kind of sit at a cafe, you end up talking to somebody, and that’s something very unique to New York as opposed to a lot of other cities. And I just think also, you know, the characters. Everyone’s playing characters, but also versions of themselves. And there’s a lot of eccentrics. And I think it just really captures the way that New York brings together so many people with distinct characters and personalities into one area so beautifully.
Taylor: And one thing that I do want to mention is both in the, like, the architecture of the city, like it is very much this one part of New York City in this one week in 1982. But also the people as well, that you go into this movie feeling like, oh, this is going to be a fun comedy, a fun 80s thing, actors I like are in it. But I feel like it’s pretty hard to leave this film without a sense of like what we’ve lost. Like the New York that was, the culture that was. And it’s hard to watch this movie and not, not just be like, oh man, wouldn’t it be great if, but kind of wonder how you get from like one New York to the next because as familiar as this movie is, it’s also kind of like a window onto a lost world.
Sabrina: And all the locations are mostly, I mean, you can see the streets obviously, but like it was shot at Nanny Rose, which was like a big hang out, and Cafe Central, and like those aren’t there anymore.
The Knockturnal: And so Orson Wells was a close friend of your father Sabrina, and he appears in the film as a cameo, which you said is from A Safe Place, his earlier film?
Sabrina: Yeah, so Orson Welles was in my dad’s first film, titled A Safe Place, playing a magician. And that’s how they became friends, was my dad essentially showing up at Orson Welles’ hotel room door and convincing him to be in this movie, knowing that Orson Welles liked magic and saying you can be a magician. And Orson Wells says, can I wear a cape and thus began their friendship.
That was decades long. And Orson Wells appeared his last onscreen performance was actually in my dad’s film Someone to Love. But yes, in this movie, the two leads are watching a film. And it is clips from my father’s first film, A Safe Place, featuring Orson Wells, which one is just very meta two is fairly self-indulgent. But three is also a wonderful way to show Orson.
And actually, I think for my dad, we haven’t talked about this is this conjecture. But you know, there’s a magic of those scenes in Central Park with Orson Wells, and their I mean, literally, but also not literally, like it feels very much about fate and spontaneity. And I think that’s also what this movie, Can She Bake a Cherry Pie, really captures, is this kind of moment also in Central Park, in time where people are meeting. And so it definitely provides a wonderful parallel and like contactually works. But I think also he wanted to have the characters watch his own film.
Taylor: And not only are they watching it, they’re watching it like on TV. It’s like in universe being broadcast on the local New York network.
And his favorite songs are in the film. And yeah, it’s, you know, I mean, my dad, he really put himself into all of his movies. And some more than others, you know, Taylor mentioned Tracks, which is about a Vietnam War vet after and it’s much heavier. And it’s very much not about my dad’s life, but it’s about his generation and the things that they cared about. This is one of his movies that’s a little bit more introspective.
It kind of is setting actually. I believe I haven’t thought about it before. But I think this movie actually just kind of marks a shift in his style of filmmaking in a way where it’s very much examining what’s been going on in his own life, as opposed to kind of like the world.
Ms. Jaglom stated that she felt her father wanted to make this film with his brother, Michael Emil, and have him be his voice for his thoughts at the time.
Sabrina: I think it was like, oh, this would be funny. Him and Karen would be an interesting pairing. I can have him talk through divorce and relationships, kind of as my proxy, but also it’s very much him. And again, I think just this goes back to the point that my dad didn’t really write detailed scripts. He had an idea for settings and scenarios, and definitely like beginning, middle, end, many scenes. Like, he basically, especially in those days before he met my mom, and she is much more story-minded, and things got a little more complex in the script. They were really outlines he was working off of. One of his scripts was an outline on the back of an envelope, but it was very clear to him what it was about, what these characters were trying to say, what he was trying to get at the heart of. And it was very much built around, oh, I can cast this person. They’d be great at this and then building it with them in mind.
The Knockturnal: How much improvisation was evident in this film with the script?
Sabrina: His films are primarily improv, but again, this is improv with a very strong director. So it would go like this: this is what the movie is about, this is what the scene is about, this is your character.
Here’s maybe a line to start, and then he would interrupt, and he would cut, and he would say, say that again or feed people a line. So it was very director-led improvisation. And then again, finding in the edit really kind of the through line in a lot of ways.
But this is not someone who, you know, wrote a scene, shot coverage from multiple angles, like, you know, went back into the same line zone over again. It’s not how he liked to work. He liked things to feel more organic.
The Knockturnal: And so, for those viewing the film for the first time at the screenings this weekend, what do you hope they enjoy and take away from this film, particularly with the dichotomy of the two couples featured?
Sabrina: I hope people allow themselves to kind of just get swept up in it and enjoy, first of all, enjoy the kooky ride and enjoy this time capsule of New York. But also, I do think the movie, while Karen Black and Michael Emil Jaglom, both are very, very unique people who maybe not a lot of people can relate to. I do think that what they strike at the heart of is something very relatable, which is this desire to be seen and this desire to be loved and find connection and understand what’s going on in our lives. And so I hope that people are amused and entertained, but also are able to kind of allow themselves to feel and reflect on their own relationships.
Taylor: For me, I hope that I think this one is a really good entry point to Henry’s filmography because it’s so weird at first and then so relatable, kind of even if you don’t want it to be.
So like, dive in from here because they’re all so varied, but you can feel the same wild, strange soul in all of them, whether it’s the Vietnam film or the later light comedies. And I think that the sense, the time capital sense of how did New York change? How did our sense of ourselves as a people shift over from, you know, he just passed away in September. And so that, like, you can see kind of from his adulthood till today, like what happened in like the American lifetime with Henry Jaglam. And, you know, where is his America now?
Sabrina: His lifetime definitely straddled some massive changes. You know, it’s he, yeah, he 87 years of massive changes for sure.
The Knockturnal: And I think this film is very refreshing as a young person, you know, who’s a Zillennial. I think it’s important for the younger generation to see love that isn’t perfect, especially with characters that are both middle-aged. And how you still don’t have to have yourself figured out. And just, you know, instead of like dating apps, just the natural connection of a meet-cute. It’s just chaotic in the best way.
Sabrina: Yeah, it’s a reminder to, you know, get out from your screens and get out in the world, and you never know what can happen.
Taylor: To the young love point that you asked about a second ago, too. You were asking about the two couples, and definitely the like finding your person later, no matter how kooky you are, the two leads really have, but then the kind of other couple that there’s like this, like pick up artist guy at the cafe, and his girlfriend, Francis Fisher, who wears a pigeon on her head. Their relationship, the more I watch it today, the more I start to feel like there is something that he’s getting at here, in like a conversation about polyamory or like having a messy Brooklyn dating life that you’re trying to build something out of that, especially in that period, would have felt very like is he a bad guy? Why is their relationship so fluid? But today reads more as these people are trying to work out something that we have more language for today. And so I’ve seen it a couple times with younger audiences, and that l’ve heard like in bathrooms a few times, like, man, why was that couple so like, ah, Brooklyn, but also, hey, it’s just like you and Jim.
Sabrina: That’s funny. I think at the end of the day, relationships is just a theme that my dad explored time and time again, but we as a species will always explore because it’s really about just like, who are we? How do we connect? What do we want? And that’s definitely what I think this film is just really about at the end of the day.
The Knockturnal: I want to go back to the film, the restoration’s first premiere at the New York Film Festival. I know that was days after your father passed away, sadly. And so can you all be back to like the audience reception to that, with it being part of a revival section of the festival?
Taylor: Yeah, I mean, and so Sabrina was obviously going to be there. And then it all kind of changed at the last minute. But that gave it a that made it a particularly interesting screening or couple days of screeings, because one, there was a feeling at the festival of like, oh, wow, Orson Welles, no, Henry Jaglom’s first movie had been here, we’re back. And then as soon as the news broke, the like every filmmaker around wanted to come over and talk to me about Henry, like, I mean, what’s fun about that festival is that it feels like kind of, you don’t sell a movie there, it’s not like, Sundance, where you’re going to make a big sale, it’s like really a kind of stop on your like, high art festival circuit.
So there’s a lot of like kind of fabulous Hollywood stuff for people with none, not the like industry stuff. And so the number of people that are just so interesting and making incredible work that wanted to talk about Henry, because that was all going on at the same time, was really striking. And then by the time we got to the screening, Michael Emil’s wife came and brought as much of the New York side of the family as was around.
And that added this whole other level of it. And Sabrina says something earlier that made me think about this, which is that Michael Emil Jaglom is playing himself. He’s this, he’s so magnetic in that he shouldn’t be magnetic, but you can’t not want to look at this guy. And after the screening, his wife was saying something similar, which was that, like the number of people that after this movie wanted to cast him, and then realized he was just that guy, and like wrote things around that for him, or that maybe he was supposed to do like Letterman or Johnny Carson or some talk show in that period.
And those people were just, oh, he’s really just, he’s going to lecture us on math right now. And so to have all of that kind of in the room at the time, because Michael also isn’t with us anymore, like you said, and the sort of collective family, like, oh, we haven’t been together with them on the screen us together in a while, and to see them so like rejuvenated. Because, like you haven’t even if you watch this movie a week before the New York Film Festival, you haven’t seen it like this. It’s so alive. And so, just like it’s not like watching it on the DVD at all.
Taylor: It’s not like watching it on the 35 millimeter version you saw in 83. And so kind of that, like everybody’s immortal energy came through a bit, which was really powerful. And I wish you could have been there, Sabrina.
Sabrina: Me too. Me too. But I’m really excited to see this new version for the first time tomorrow. And I’ve never seen [it] on a big screen because that was before my time.
The Knockturnal: Thank you for sharing that. It sounds very heartfelt, and the communal experience of a film is unlike any other, and I’m excited for the audiences that get to see it this weekend. I know you guys added two more shows.
Taylor: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it’s Metrograph is running it Friday through Tuesday. And then it’s going to spiral around, you know, the rest of the art houses in other cities. But this is Metrograph, going to be a great, really fun opening.
And the other thing is for the Friday show, that Justin is going to be with us. And he is like his whole own character. He is like the king of Letterboxd. He’s got these detailed super fans that come out of the woodwork because his the stuff that he’s restoring and championing is so interesting and stuff you didn’t even know that you needed. So it’s going to be really fun to have him there because he brings a whole other point of view, and really, it’s these films that brought him and I together. So Hope Runs High and Cinematograph have been doing a bunch of non-Henry restorations, and we do a bunch of stuff together. But the first thing that we ever really talked about was he was like, Hey, I saw that you’re doing some stuff with those Henry Jaglom movies.
Is that like you’re doing all of them? And then it kind of spiraled from there because he never let go of the idea that these needed to be brought back and restored in a way that like neither one of us could have made this happen quite without the other one. And so it’s really great to have the three of us; we haven’t all been in a room together. But these films kind of brought us together, and now it’s spiraled out into a number of other projects. So Henry really brought us all together for these.
The Knockturnal: That’s great. I’m really happy to hear that you know he has great work. And a lot of you, a lot of audiences are going to rediscover it or get a taste of it this weekend. Is there any word on when we can expect the physical release of this film from Cinématograph?
Taylor: I think he is planning the so the digital version, the like, oh, you can rent it on Amazon version will probably be in about six to eight weeks. And the physical version, it’ll be out with two other Henry films and like a three-part special deluxe thing, probably in the summer. And those are like their whole owned thing. There’s like bespoke packaging that he does for them. They’re really kind of gorgeous physical media gifts to if you if you’re a Blu-ray collector, this is a label for you, no question. So he’s going far above and beyond with how he puts these out. But yeah, probably over the summer.
The Knockturnal: Okay, nice. Yeah, through watching this film and you know, getting this press letter about it. I never heard of Vinegar Syndrome and Cinématographe. I’m excited to look into that as well as Henry’s other films.
Taylor: Yeah, dive into them. They are it’s a huge library and the very varied set of things that they do. But if you’re a Blu-ray person at all, check them out. There’s something for everybody. And something for your enemies, you know, that’s a huge, huge taste range.
The Knockturnal: And so Sabrina, what is the most important piece of advice on filmmaking that you received from your father? I know you’re a filmmaker yourself. You had your directorial debut four years ago with Jane (2022).
Sabrina: Yes, it’s called Jane. Yeah. Um, wow, that’s a great question. I can’t think of any specific advice. I should just say that, like, it feels like my entire life was advice from my dad on how to make movies. You know, he was really intent on using your life and your emotions. I learned so much with him from him about working with actors and committing, and just what it is like to just make something and kind of put yourself in that position. You know, when I showed him my film, Jane, before its release, he was like, wow, this is such a commercial movie. He was very surprised, you know, and it had a real script and everything and camera and, you know, editing and like, you know, it’s a more traditional style of it’s just a film. It’s not an indie improv movie.
But it’s a psychological thriller. But he loved it. He was very moved by it. And I think what he feels is important is just like connecting with your audience in some way and really being character-led. I think that’s just kind of the through line that I take with me, especially when I like, I’m writing now and reading scripts to consider, it’s like, okay, what is the audience member going to feel? What are you going to walk out feeling?
And that doesn’t mean it’s always good or happy. It’s just like, are you inviting a dialogue? Are you, are you working on something in that way? So I think that’s kind of what I think about what he would say, kind of how I come to it.
The Knockturnal: Are there any new projects we can expect from each of you, coming soon?
Taylor: Yeah. Well, what do you, yeah, are you, do you have anything to you? Are you in the middle of something, Sabrina?
Sabrina: Yeah, I have a film that I didn’t write. It’s a wonderful script that we’re trying to get off the ground to shoot this year, and just some other projects I’m writing. And so nothing, nothing to mention quite so yet, but hopefully soon.
Taylor: We’re in post for this one’s a doc, and trying to be finished in the next, like two months, that is kind of sort of like a Hollywood history thing. And so there’s a bunch of like fan favorite people, kind of from Henry’s era. And there’s a lot of crossover between the characters and story in this nonfiction piece and some of the stuff that we’ve been talking about today. So that’s the next thing that we’re producing. And we are releasing a new film that Taika Waititi, who makes the Thor movies, that he’s produced. That’s the sort of like coming of age adventure in New Zealand that should be out in the spring. And it’s directed by a woman in Rachel House who is in the Moana movies and the Minecraft movies. She’s this kind of great New Zealand actress who’s now making, you know, her directorial debut. And maybe just because we’re doing them back to back, but this kind of through line of like making movies with your friends, making movies so that you can watch your daughter in her flippy dress, like even like Taika Waititi makes you, he makes the Thor movies. But this is a movie that he like wanted his friend to direct, and they all teamed up. And as you know, Hollywood shifts that sense of like, oh, can you go home and see your daughter?
Can you do it with your people? It seems more and more important. And I just, I really hope that if as people dive into Henry’s work, they also dive into his biography a little bit because it’s endlessly inspiring that a guy like that could exist, you know.
On how people can learn more about Henry Jaglom. Ms. Jaglom mentioned a book written about her father and his friendship with Orson Welles about their conservations. In addition to a documentary made about him years prior in 1995, called Who Is Henry Jaglom?
Sabrina: So many, many years ago, these filmmakers made a documentary called Who is Henry Jaglom? And it’s simultaneously praising and insulting him the entire time. My dad thought it was hilarious. And enjoyed it. I mean, he enjoyed all press, good and bad. He enjoyed talking about himself and his work with whoever, no matter what they said. But yes, so they’re saying he, Peter Biscond, released a book basically taking all these transcripts of lunches between my dad and Orson Welles over the years. My dad recorded all of their conversations, or many of them. And Peter Biscond edited it into a book called My Lunches with Orson. And it is mostly the edited version is mostly Orson talking. It’s less of the back-and-forth present in the actual transcripts, but it’s very, very interesting and hilarious and insightful about Hollywood.
And you hear crazy stories about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and who people who just popped by their table at Mamezan. So it’s definitely, if you’re a lover of film history, worth a read; it’s definitely not a Henry Jaglam biography at all, but it’s very much worth a read.
Taylor: Every year on Welles’ birthday, there’s like a two-day Twitter thread of just screen grabs from the book.
Sabrina: Yeah. And there’s some, and I think both Orson Welles and my father just like to say shit. They like to like make their statement.
Taylor: They’re sassy. They’re just like sassy with their little martinis.
Sabrina: They are the ladies who lunched, like seriously.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
You can follow Ms. Jaglom @sabrinajaglom and the account of her father’s, which she now runs @hjaglom .Mr. Purdee @taylorpurdee.Hope Runs High @hoperunshigh, and Cinématographe @cinematographe. You can get tickets for the March 4th screening of Can She Bake a Cherry Pie here.