Bukowski at Bellevue on AllMovie

In 1970, Charles Bukowski was a prolific poet and short story writer, but he had yet to gain a sizable following for his work outside of his hometown of Los Angeles, CA, and it would be several years before he would attain the underground literary celebrity he enjoyed in the 1980s and '90s. When Bellevue Community College in Bellevue, WA, invited Bukowski to perform a reading, it was only the fourth time the author had read his work in public; a two-man student camera crew was on hand to record the event using a primitive portable video system, and Bukowski at Bellevue is one of the few visual documents of Bukowski reading his rough-hewn, streetwise poetry for an audience.