"It’s a wonderful reminder of a time when monthly magazines (with three-to six-month lead times) were gleaming, state-of-the-art, ad-stuffed engines of both fact and sensibility, and guides to a confident, contemptuous, and romantic new postwar cosmopolitanism.”
-Carl Swanson
"A journalistically inspiring documentary that takes us on a ride through the ’60s via some of the era’s greatest magazine writers, photographers and editors.”
- Stephen Farber
“If you care about A-team writing and are a junkie about the epoch covered, there aren’t many more ticklish 90 minutes around right now."
- Mike Smith
“Smiling Through the Apocalypse is a treat for any journalist, history fan, or pop culture aficionado to watch, with its happy narrative and inspirational, larger-than-life character of Harold Hayes.”
- Gabriella Tutino, Highbrow Magazine
"Makes you want to set your time machine to land in late-1960s Manhattan... This was a swinging New, a drug-fueled thunderdome of a place, an urban fantasia that valued deeply accomplished journalism as much as it did cultural hedonism, and this doc does a noble job of showing how Esquire at the time bridged the bright-eyed Norman Rockwell image of the 1950s and the pessimism and self-entitlement of the 1980s."
“A treasure trove of inside-baseball stuff for anyone who loves magazines.”
- Patrick Sauer
"A Lovingly told recollection.."
- Belle McIntyre
“..informative, good fun.."
- Ed Rampell
"Facinating!"
- Mike Kaspar
A Beast of an Editor
"This film should not be missed, especially by those interested in the publishing world and its immense potential for intellectual sophistication”
- Brian Clarey
"Skillfully edited and energetically paced, Smiling Through provides a memorable time capsule for those who miss the smart magazines that will never return."
- Roxana Vosough
By Ashley Bailey
By Bob Dorn
By Susan Gilmor
By Brian Clarey
" A compelling film on both journalistic and personal levels.”
- Hap Erstein