My Letter to Molly Haskell sent August 2012:

Dear Molly,

I want to offer my condolences on the passing of your beloved Andrew. I also want to write to you and tell you about a great kindness that he showed to me.

Andrew meant so much to me as a critic. He shaped the way I look at film. I grew up in Buffalo, New York and attended SUNY at Buffalo. I graduated an English major in 1973 with a concentration in filmmaking. In those college years, I enjoyed watching the great works of the foreign directors. Truffaut, Fellini and Bergman were among my favorites. After college I moved to San Francisco where I met my good friend and film buff, Jack Kleinman. In one of our early conversations, I made the naive statement that I had seen every good movie ever made. Jack gave me a look and asked me if I’d seen every Howard Hawks movie. I answered: “Who is Howard Hawks?” About this time, he pulled out his copy of “The American Cinema” and thus began the transformation of my cinematic life.

Over the next few years I was consumed, along with Jack, in attempting to see every italicized film that was listed in Andrew’s book. To this day I have not completed that task, but I still refer to the book very often.

Following him each week in the Village Voice became a habit. I’ve never found any critic whose tastes and insights have more closely matched my own. On the rare occasions when our tastes diverged, his great style of writing and wit more than made up for the disagreement. His annual Ten Best List became my most anticipated film event of the year.

Jack, my wife Dorothy, and I were in attendance at a tribute to him in May of 1993 in San Francisco. The screening was Max Ophuls “The Earrings of Madame de…” By this time I had been reading his reviews in the Village Voice and the New York Observer for almost 20 years. I had followed his sickness from afar and it was only after recently reading your book that I understood all the difficulties of 1984.

In the fall of 2000, my wife and I were Boston planning to go to New York City. I checked on the Internet and found that Andrew was teaching a class at Columbia the day before we were to arrive in New York. I concocted this elaborate plan to leave my wife in Boston, and drive our rental car to New York City in time to attend the class.

After getting up at 4:00 AM, driving to Connecticut, taking the Metro North to Manhattan, checking into our hotel and riding the IRT to Columbia, I approached the receptionist at the film department. I asked if I could sit in on Professor Sarris’s class at 2 PM. She responded that I would have to ask the professor myself and I should return before that class. Walking out, I saw him come out of the classroom. I approached him and introduced myself. I told him I wanted to come and sit in on his 2:00 class. He said I could join the end of the class that was going on right now.

After class he asked me what I plans I had. I said that I would probably get some lunch and return for the second class. He kindly offered to let me join him and his friend for lunch. We went out to a little Greek restaurant and in the course of the conversation I found out that I had the honor of having a birthday lunch with Andrew! It was Halloween, October 31, 2000, his 72^nd birthday.

I was walking on air just being around him and listening to him tell stories to his friend and me. I’ll never forget the anecdote he told about a particular tennis game. He was playing tennis with “Bob Duval”. After the match a young starlet came by and brought a cold glass of iced tea for Duval. Andrew was incensed that she didn’t bring a second glass for him! He recalled how Bob thought this was hysterical.

After lunch we went back to the classroom where the afternoon movie was one of my favorites, “Gun Crazy” directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Andrew sat right next to me throughout the screening. After class we said our goodbyes and he gave me his card. In a final gesture of kindness, he agreed to write a little autograph to my friend Jack, who I know would hardly believe that I actually sat next to Andrew Sarris during a screening of “Gun Crazy”. He wrote out the following little autograph which I passed on to my friend.

I followed his career all the way to its end. When he lost his position at the Observer, we had to make do with his monthly articles in Film Comment. Each year, Jack and I still looked forward to those Ten Best Lists. The last few years without them has caused us great sadness and loss.

I heard that there may be a public memorial for him this fall in New York. If this is the case, and there is any information about this event that could be passed on, I would be honored to attend such a service. I am sorry for your loss and for all of us who loved him and his writing and what he meant to us.

Most sincerely yours,

Steve Reinhardt

Reply from Molly Haskell, September 13, 2012:

Dear Steve,

Thank you for your wonderful letter of condolence. (I am writing through tears!) The lengths you went to attend his class. And the birthday lunch with Andrew and Marvin! And it was the autograph to finally dissolve me.

The notes (or blogs) I’ll most cherish are those from ex-students, among whom you now stand included.

There will be a memorial service at the Walter Reade Theatre (Lincoln Centre) on Wed. Oct 24 at 3:30 with a little reception after at the Furman Gallery.

I would be honored to have you attend and if you do, please seek me out among the crowd to say hello.

Yours,

Mol