In 1963 Boultenhouse wrote, produced, and directed Dionysius,which he described as a “free treatment of Euripides' The Bacchae.”It starred the dancers Louis Falco, Anna Duncan, and Nicolas Magallanes as Dionysius, Agave, and Pentheus respectively, and the experimental filmmakers Charles Levine, Willard Maas, Gregory Markopoulos, Marie Menken, Lloyd Williams and William Wood as the Chorus of Cameras. The film's score was by Teiji Ito.
HANDWRITTEN evokes ... a combination of visual imagery and language for which the term filmpoem seems at last fully justified. Boultenhouse's film revolves around the slamming of a fist on a glass tabletop.
Because of the film's choices of text and illustration were made so well – and because the natural anatomy of memory is so like that of cinema montage– the movie's effectiveness is very great, and it stands as a worthy initial exploration of the medium in which Mr. Boultenhouse has wrought so well. –Wallce Thurston, Kulchur #16
