23 Dec 2001 space quip: You can’t polish a…

Toronto Star movie critic Peter Howell is a 2001: A Space Odyssey fanatic who claims to have seen the 1968 Stanley Kubrick sci-fi classic more than 40 times. For the second holiday season in a row, Bell Lightbox, the Toronto International Film Festival’s modernistic movie showcase, is featuring a 70MM version of the film.

Critic Howell marked last year’s screenings with a column titled, “21 cool things about 2001: A Spacey Odyssey.” He reprised the column yesterday with “21 more cool things.” In this year’s instalment, Howell reports that when Kubrick was editing Space Odyssey, the comedian and filmmaker Jerry Lewis was down the hall making final cuts to one of his low-brow comedies. Late one night, Kubrick watched a frustrated Lewis struggle to make a scene work.

“You cannot polish a turd,” Lewis moaned.

“You can if you freeze it,” Kubrick replied.

The original trailer for  2001: A Space Odyssey is, of course, on YouTube.

H/T: Kendra Barnes.