Can Roy Scheider (playing Joe Gideon - a gossamer thin veiled version of director Bob Fosse) keep his addictions and self-destructive inclinations in check long enough to finish edits on a motion picture he’s directed while also choreographing a broadway musical extravaganza?  Of course he can.  But can he achieve true excellence in these tasks without succumbing to his most base impulses?  Now that’s the question of the film.  To answer this, Fosse sends up everyone including himself in this wry, dazzling, mean, funny, and devastating take down of a business like no other.

If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing John Sturges’ Bad Day at Black Rock (1955).