Serendipity and Mr. Bradbury

By James H. Burns: A LOST Ray Bradbury Documentary? I rather serendipitously came across this 1963 Ray Bradbury documentary from David L. Wolper’s and Mel Stuart’s Story Of* series (this one produced and directed by Terry Sanders).

The Story of a Writer features some amazing footage of Bradbury at home, 1963 California (including the Pickwick bookstore), and a dramatization of “Dial Double Zero.”

There’s also a nice mystery for those gathered here. Is the budding writer shown at about 16:16-ish a fan of the era, and are those fanzines, Mystic and Daphnis he pulls out of his valise, or stories? Also, at about 18:20-ish, who are the participants in Bradbury’s writers’ group (or, are they simply actors)?

This is a lovely bit of filmmaking.

5 thoughts on “Serendipity and Mr. Bradbury

  1. This is a wonderful look back at the time. I was a small child myself, and had not yet read any of his stories, but most of the ones I loved later had already been written.

    Mark Evanier has described, in detail, his own teenage fan-encounter with Bradbury, similar to the one at “16:16-ish”; it seems to be something Ray believed very strongly in doing.

    Bradbury’s explanation for why he doesn’t drive doesn’t make much sense — he doesn’t drive because a lot of people get killed in accidents every year — yet he continues to ride in cars. My guess is that he didn’t drive because, for some of us, it is impossible to turn off the imagining machine while performing mundane tasks.

    I didn’t know that he had a bunch of children — sad that so many of his treasures were auctioned off recently.

  2. …Which fits in with File 770’s unofficial motto — It’s always news to somebody…

Comments are closed.