Daniel S. Fox ’04 said Mitchell’s “breadth of knowledge about film” and “dynamic,” “larger-than-life” personality had made the class memorable.

“The course was called ‘American Film Criticism,’ but in actuality we watched a movie and Elvis Mitchell talked about it for an hour,” Fox said. “There was always something exciting going on—you never knew what was going to happen, which was something unique for a Harvard class.”

Stephen A. Black ’07 was particularly impressed by Mitchell’s film-industry connections.

“He’s somebody who is on the forefront of what he does,” Black said, adding that Mitchell was still down-to-earth. “It didn’t really seem like he was a celebrity, it always seemed like he was just almost like another professor.”

Over the course of the semester, Mitchell brought a series of professionals from various sectors of the film industry to the class’s Thursday afternoon lectures, culminating in a visit from star Bill Murray at its final meeting last week.

Rentschler and Connor said they imagined that next spring’s course would be graced by similarly knowledgeable visitors from the world of sound design and editing.

“When you have a famous outsider teaching the course, you want that,” Connor said.

“Elvis knows the rock music industry about as well as he knows the film industry,” Rentschler said. Mitchell’s friendships with many A-list entertainers are well-known.

Some, though, raised concerns about how Mitchell had balanced his high-profile Times job with the demands of the ivory tower.

“There was concern about, let us say, the course’s free-flowing organization,” Rentschler said.

“The course itself had all the initial administrative probalems that one might expect from someone who is not by training an academic,” Connor said. “Elvis is spread very thin right now.”

Sclarsic had similar qualms.

“At the risk of tying my own noose, I have to admit that the course load could stand to be a bit heavier,” Sclarsic wrote. “Though books were assigned, specific readings weren’t (after the first week or so).”

But Sclarsic said this had not been a major problem in the course, saying her experience had been “very positive” in general.

“Although his lectures aren’t as structured as they could be, that’s nothing one wouldn’t expect from any other first-time lecturer,” she wrote.