Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert discuss the movies that helped make them critics and the movies that have made the most impact on them while critics. The first movie that made an impression on Siskel was Walt Disney's
Dumbo (1941), particularly the scene in which Mrs. Jumbo is separated from her son and the one with the Little Engine That Could. The first for Ebert was
A Day at the Races (1937), in which Harpo seemed to be smiling directly at him. Both critics make the same choice for the first adult movie to make an impression on them:
A Star Is Born (1954). Ebert particularly remembers the suicide. The first movie that made them think of movies as an art form? For Ebert it was
La Dolce Vita (1960); for Siskel,
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). As critics, each found a movie that became a touchstone. For Siskel it was
Last Tango in Paris (1972); for Ebert,
Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Their most unpopular reviews were both pans for popular movies. Ebert's was for
Blue Velvet (1986), a movie Siskel joined the majority in praising. Siskel's was for
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), although Ebert points out that he and many other critics disliked it as well.
—J. Spurlin