Robert Altman Study Part 2: Christmas Eve & Bodyguard

Discussions of Robert Altman’s career usually begin in general with Countdown in 1968 and in earnest with M*A*S*H the following year. But his career actually began more than two decades earlier, when he teamed with producer George W. George and sold story ideas for two long (and largely justifiably) forgotten cheapies. George was the son of cartoonist Rube Goldberg and the nephew of journeyman director Edward L. Marin, who directed the first of the two, Christmas Eve (1947).

Robert Altman Study Part 1: Beginnings

I’ve recently embarked on a comprehensive chronological viewing of the work of Robert Altman, and thought I’d try to gather some thoughts and notes here as I proceed. I’ve done this sort of study - trying to watch everything a filmmaker has worked on, in order, while reading biographies and other supplemental materials - in the past, but never set down my thoughts as I went. So this is as much for my own memory as anything else, and will be sporadic and fairly informal.