‘Dear Mr. Brody’ Film Review: Engrossing Doc Unearths Bizarre Tale of a Hippie Millionaire
st birthday that he’d give away most of his $25 million to anyone who asked — as a gift for the needy, a sign of rich-in-life contentment (he’d just gotten married), and a down payment on more love in a wartorn, unequal world.The largely forgotten story of the “hippie millionaire,” whose Scarsdale home, phone line, and Manhattan business address (all given out freely by Brody) were flooded with recipient hopefuls, is only part of the weird, wonderful, and woeful retelling that is Keith Maitland’s engrossing documentary “Dear Mr. Brody.” Maitland’s previous film “Tower,” which heart-stoppingly recounted the University of Texas campus killings in 1966, remains one of the best documentaries of the past decade, and as another imaginative slice of history, memory, and contemporary applicability, this one is a more than worthy follow-up.Even if you’re unfamiliar with this blip in the timeline of eccentric beneficence, paying attention to the last 50 years would tell you that Brody’s pie-in-the-sky mission to change the world didn’t pan out.