More coffeehouses, beatniks and folkies.... (Greenwich) Village Sunday (1960s)

(Greenwich) Village Sunday (1960s)

NOTE: Although this is listed as
"Greenwich Village Sunday"
at archive.org,
the correct title seems to be "Village Sunday"
(see screenshot).

Synopsis from distributor's release sheet
(archive.org):
Though somewhat removed in time from the day of the Indians and the separate Colonial Village it once was, Greenwich Village is still a "happy hunting ground," a place of the spirit. For more than fifty years it has been home and studio to nonconformist artists, writers, actors. Bohemian, beat or just plain citizen, the Village is dear to its loyal residents.

Sundays the center of the Village is the circle in Washington Square Park, where banjos, guitars, bongos and singers clamor in harmony -- sweet or strong -- where Villagers meet old friends and make new ones; and tourists and visitors join in the friendly throng.
Twice yearly since the first decade of the century, the world's largest outdoor art show is held. Here "abstract expressionists, romantic idealists, drippers and splatterers, the best and the worst, can be found."
Vivid color and original music for recorder, guitar and bass assist the camera in this creative study. Here we see the remaining old hidden gardens, secret treasures, old world customs such as the Festival of San Gennaro. By day this is a glory of floats, parades, displays of exotic food. At night it is ablaze with the lights and mystery of the old country. For those who wish, there are the espresso cafes filled with smoke and the constant talk of art, politics and love; and resounding with the tempo of jazz and the declamations of the poet as he beats out his own rhythm in impassioned exhortations to life.

REVIEWS (archive.org):

Reviewer: Marysz - - February 1, 2004
Subject: A vanished Greenwich Village
In this film we follow a prim young woman in white gloves as she explores Greenwich Village on a Sunday afternoon. She walks off the Fifth Avenue bus at Washington Square and straight into a "hootenanny." This is a corny, but charming look at the Village in the early sixties in the transitional period between the "beat' generation and the rise of the later sixties counter-culture. The best scenes are when we actually hear the folksingers singing bluegrass tunes around the Washington Square fountain and the beat poet reading in a grubby coffeehouse. These scenes have real documentary value. The film's use of actors to try to create a story gives it an amateurish feeling, but that same amateurism is what also gives the film its charm. It was nice to see the old Italian Greenwich Village with the street market and the stickball and bocce players, who are now long gone. The Greenwich Village portrayed here looks like a shabby, tolerant place where ordinary people could afford to live. Alas, that is no more.

Reviewer: Christine Hennig - - December 21, 2003
Subject: Ooh, look at all them hippies!
This laid-back early-60s film shows us street life in Greenwich Village on a Sunday. We see such things as sidewalk art displays, folksinging in the circle, and beatniks reciting poetry. This definitely brings back a memorable time and place, giving us a glimpse of the birth of the 60s counterculture. One rather silly aspect of the film is a prim woman in a striped dress and little white gloves who appears in almost every scene and reacts to things as if she was on Mars (though with a smile on her face). This film could have perhaps had more content to it, but then it wouldnt have been as laid back as a Greenwich Village Sunday.

"I lived with them 
on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs
There was music 
in the cafés at night
And revolution in the air...." (Bob Dylan)

DOWNLOAD
(Divx as multi-part rar-file,
each part around 100 MB):

PART 1
PART 2