“You, Kid:”

The Kid Stays in The Picture is a fascinating documentary about the movie producer Robert Evans, who has perhaps the longest winning streak in Hollywood in the early 1970’s, producing (in a row) Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, The Godfather and Chinatown. Evans was also known for dating beautiful woman, a project which he attacked with nearly as much gusto as he did producing films.

Evans is wearied, articulate and full of himself. If you can look past that (after five minutes, it isn’t hard), this is a fascinating stylish documentary which skews the reverence most film geeks (Suzan and I included) have for this cinematic period. See if you’ve taken a film class since about 1985, you’re tought that 1967-1975 or roughly The Graduate to Jaws was the Last Golden age of American Cinema before commercial leviathans like Star Wars made movemaking about selling Happy Meals rather than changing the world.

By Evans account, the era of Hollywood barrons like Jack Warner and Daryl F. Zanuck and their big silly movies might have been over but he wanted to take their place. Bratty kids like Francis Ford Coppola and Roman Polanski might have been geniuses but they needed the guiding hand of an older brother like (who else?) Robert Evans.

Nonsense and bluster? Of course. But Evans admits that up front. Honesty’s hardly the point. Evans is a salesman, one of the best. This movie is 90 minutes of watching him go.

• Category: Cinematically Speaking...