Educational Media Reviews Online

The Riviera, Cote d’Azur, has long been the watering hole of the rich and famous. It’s most famous film festival, the Cannes Film Festival, attracts hordes of photographers, paparazzi as well as the glitterati.

Riviera Cocktail is a documentary about the artistic life of Rivera-based photographer Edward Quinn. Mr. Quinn became a photographer after World War II. Originally a jazz musician, Quinn was entirely self- taught as a photographer. He mostly freelanced but worked occasionally for Paris Match. What started out as his hobby, quickly became his vocation. Quinn built a network of bellhops, maids, secretaries, and hotel clerks, to tip him off to their famous hotel guests. He relied on both these contacts and his Irish charm to get his remarkable photos.

This documentary is a fascinating photographic recreation of the “innocent” fifties on the Cote d’Azur. Many famous visitors Sophia Loren, Bridget Bardot, Kim Novak, Audrey Hepburn were candidly photographed by Edward Quinn. In his later, less glamorous, career, Quinn switched to photographing artists, particularly his friend Pablo Picasso. His remarkable Picasso photos are a valuable legacy of the great artist.

Riviera Cocktail is well edited with cuts to beautiful beach scenes, Quinn’s photos, European Legacy, and commentary from Quinn’s widow and narrator. Franco Ambrosetti and his European Legacy jazz ensemble provide the outstanding soundtrack for Riviera Cocktail. The documentary is extremely well done with high quality color, sound and jazz music.

Unfortunately, some sections of the documentary are in foreign languages without subtitles. These include the comments of the European Legacy band in Italian, and brief commentary in German from German artist Georg Baselitz. In addition, the DVD menu doesn’t include a chapter menu. This would be helpful as the documentary is 97 minutes long.

Still, I can highly recommend Riviera Cocktail to those universities and colleges that have photography, visual art and journalism programs. It is probably too specialized for most public libraries. Edward Quinn was a remarkable man and his pictures seem likely to endure.