Written by Alexander Eliot, The Secret of Michelangelo: Every Man’s Dream an hour long special, appeared on ABC prime time television Dec. 6, 1968 9:30-10:30 p.m. Christopher Plummer and Zoe Caldwell narrate this documentary on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes.
In this promotional intro, you can see Jane and Alex climbing the scaffold to the ceiling.
This is an excellent program to witness that cold day in December of 1968. I managed to tape record the audio of this program and still have it to this day. Unfortunately, I managed to capture the last 35 minutes of this broadcast, yet still vividly remember how good this program was. Big thing about this program was the excellent narration performed by Mr. Plummer, since the year previously, I experienced his earlier acting in the Bronston’s epic: “The Fall of the Roman Empire”. Thank you.
Hopefully, the video will be released commercially some day. But not restored! 😉 – Site Admin
I would love to acquire a video of this documentary. I was 16 years old at the time of broadcast and had just devoured the Sistine books my art student brother brought home from college.
How I wish I could see this! I have an endless fascination with these frescoes. The cleaning of the ceiling is probably the world’s largest art tragedy in history; I doubt this close pre-restoration documentary will ever see the light of day again.