TCMFF Top 5 So Far

Today, TCM announced nine more films for the upcoming TCM Classic Film Festival (TCMFF), April 24-27, 2025. I figured that now would be a good time to do my top five picks. Actually, I started to do this post a couple weeks ago, before this last batch of films dropped. When I do a post like this I always say, because it is always true, it's unlikely that I will see more than one or two of these. By the time the full schedule drops and I have to choose between these five and three or four others at the same time, likely most will fall by the wayside, and probably a couple of my top five will end up opposite each other.

I do have four honorable mentions:

• Spirited Away - I love Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, but if the film chosen was Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (the first Miyazaki film I ever was in the Anime room at Comic-Con) or My Neighbor Totoro (my second favorite Miyazaki film), this would be a different conversation.
• Talk of the Town - Really great Cary Grant movie and considering how the law is currently being twisted into a pretzel, seeing a 1940s take on the law would be refreshing.
• Ben Hur and/or Apocalypse Now - I'm lumping these two together these two together, because I'm making the assumption that the version they are showing is Redux, which at 202 minutes makes it almost as long as Ben Hur. With films this long, you end up having to choose between a epic-length film and two others, always a tough sell at TCMFF. 

So without any further ado, I give you my top five: 

5. Beau Geste - I haven't seen it, and I've never seen a movie with the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Also, it's been a while since I've seen a silent with live accompaniment. I can't say for sure that this one is going to happen, but I do hope it will fall into place.

4. The Divorcee - Norma Shearer is so good in this. This Pre-Code is so far ahead of its time, and I really do need to hear Norma Shearer say, "the echo of my misdeeds as I thundered up and down Broadway."

3. Mothra -  There are a bunch of really great SciFi/Fantasy films. I could have just as easily put in any of the following here: Earth vs. Flying Saucers, Superman, or The Time Machine. My guess is that one of these will happen depending on what is opposite when the final schedule drops.  

2. The Lady Eve - This is one of Preston Sturgis' finest, and unless they have a nitrate print (they don't mention on the website), I'm sure this will be showing at the Chinese IMAX. Seeing this film at the Chinese with 900 people in the audience has to be a treat. 

1. Jaws - What can I say about Jaws. It's the grandaddy of both action movies and blockbusters. I saw it on the big screen when it came out. I would've been 12 going on 13 when I saw it. It is so good. Even though, it's the type of movie that shows up in theaters in the summer, even in a town like San Diego, where we don't have a super good classic film scene. At this point, Jaws is the film I want to see more than any other.

See you all in April.

TCMFF Survival Guide Part 1 – How TCMFF Works

This will be my tenth year attending the TCM Classic Film Festival (TCMFF), held April 24 to 27, 2025. In addition, I have been going to Comic-Con and other fan conventions for decades, so I know what it’s like to spend four or five days in a strange city living out of a hotel room and running around from the time you get up in the morning until the time you collapse in your room late at night. 

This is the ninth version of this guide I've done, and it's split this post up into four parts:

• Part 0 was posted in late September and covers when you should come and where your should stay.
• Part 1 (this part) covers the nuts and bolts of how TCMFF works. 
• Part 2 covers making the most of your experience. 
• Part 3 covers trying to preserve your sanity in the craziness of TCMFF.

We should be far enough past the pandemic to not have to worry about COVID-19, but it is still around. I got it for the third time this summer. Rest assured that if the situation changes, TCM will take whatever steps are necessary to keep those attending safe. 

That said, in 2023, I tested positive for COVID on Sunday morning and had to miss the entire day. Near as I can tell, none the of the people I interacted with at the Festival got it. The one possible exception is a woman from Chicago I had dinner with on Saturday night. Like me, she tested positive on Sunday morning, but none of the other people we had dinner with got it. I'm guessing we just both got it at about the same time, but not from one another. Still, I did just get a booster vaccine, and hopefully, that will work. If you are worried, consider wearing a mask in screenings, maybe in lines too. That's where you're exposed to the most people. I will probably bring a test kit, just so if I'm feeling off, I don't have to run out and find a 24-hour drugstore like in 2023.

With that out of the way, let's move on.

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Most of the following is kind of a dumbed-down version of what's on the official TCM Classic Film Festival page, the definitive source of all of this information. In other words, don't take anything I say as Gospel unless you've confirmed it on the TCM site.

Date announcement

Pre-COVID, the dates of the next year festival were announced in the Summer. Since the pandemic, the dates of TCMFF have been announced in October. I'm guessing that this is just the way it works now. Bear in mind that TCM, along with their parent company Warner Brothers, has been bought out a couple of times since 2019. They are now part of Warner Brothers Discovery, and I don't think they have the same level of autonomy they did back when.

Passes

Festival passes/badges will be exclusively available for Will Call pickup at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel beginning Wednesday, April 23, 2025. No passes will be mailed for the 2025 TCMFF. While this may be an inconvenient, TCM has their act together, and I found the process fairly painless even in 2022 when it included COVID test/vaccine verification. Your mileage may vary. At this point, I'm guessing that this is a cost-saving measure. It probably costs somewhere between five and ten dollars a piece to send passes, once you figure in the cost of postage, packaging material, the labor to ensure that each package has the correct number of passes, passholders, and lanyards, etc.

I know what you're thinking, say it's $7. That's not very much, but multiply it by however many passes TCM has sold, and it's a nontrivial amount of money. Bear in mind that TCMFF is a business, and as such, it needs to turn a profit. We want it to turn a profit, because if it does not, it won't be happening in the future.

Passes went on sale in December with an early bird discount through early January. At the time of this writing, Spotlight and Essential pass levels are sold out, and Classic and Palace passes are still available. Currently, there is a waitlist for Spotlight and Essential passes. See the TCMFF site for details.

The following graphic shows the benefits of each type of pass:

From top to bottom, the pass levels break down as follows (prices below do not reflect the early bird discount):

• Spotlight Pass ($2649)
• Essential Pass ($1199)
• Classic Pass ($949) 
• Palace Pass ($499)

Note: The Palace pass does not grant access to any Festival venue or event prior to Friday, April 25 nor to any of the TCM 6 Multiplex or Club TCM events.

The cost of passes did go up by $100 for Spotlight, Essential, and Classic passes and $50 for the Palace pass this year. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time they raised prices since COVID. I can guarantee that the costs of running the Festival have risen substantially in that time, especially big ticket items like theater rentals, hotel meeting space, catering, etc., so this does not seem unreasonable.

Individual Tickets. After all passholders have been seated, any open seats will be sold on a first come, first served, standby basis. Last year, I think, individual tickets were $20 for most screenings and events. Students with valid student ID could receive a 50% discount off all individual tickets. I think there were one or two screenings that were considered special and charged $30. I seem to remember that they only took cash, but I can't say that for sure. I do remember seeing a tweet a couple of years ago saying that sometimes individual ticket holders got in late and often missed the film introductions. Again, your mileage may vary. Individual tickets are not available to the Opening Night Red Carpet screening or Club TCM events. See the TCMFF site for more details on Individual Tickets. The info there now is fairly sparse, so check as we get closer for better details.

I do want to stress that I make no claim that the above information is definitive. You should always consult the TCMFF site for details on passes.

Line numbers

No, not these...

These. By the way, these are the lowest line number we ever got at TCMFF.

If  nothing has changed, line numbers are given out an hour before the screening starts. If you get there early, you can wait in line until they give them out. Most of the time, when you get in line for a screening, you will be given a number as you enter the line in the order you enter the line. This means you can leave the line and go do something if need be, use the rest room, grab a snack, or whatever. I would check to see when they're going to move the line. Usually the people giving out the numbers have a good idea. That way, you know how much time you have. You need to make sure you get back in line before your number moves in. They will not hold a seat for you just because you have a number. Take advantage of it when you can. It could be the difference between a sandwich for dinner and Red Vines.

It's really simple if the line doesn't get messed up, which does happen sometimes, especially on Thursday night. Say you and the person you're with get line numbers and want to leave to get popcorn. You get back to the line and figure out where your number should be. Most people put the numbers in the pocket of their badge, so you can usually see where you need to go. If you need to ask someone what number they are, go ahead. People are really good about helping you out. Say you and the person you're with have numbers 75 and 76. You find the people with numbers closest to yours. It might be 72 and 77. So you get in line in front of 77 and behind 72, knowing that 73 and 74 have to get back in line in front of you. For certain lines where it's practical, they will put up signs on the walls, 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, and so on to help guide you approximately where to be.

If you get in line and decide to just stay in line, it's better not squish the line forward. There's are always going to be people who will need to get back in ahead of you. Sometimes the line will be really full, and you don't want to make it worse. Just figure out where you need to be and find out who has the numbers around yours. Then when the line starts to move you can get back in at the proper spot.

Venues

Egyptian Theatre, ceiling fresco

The important thing to keep in mind about the venues is where they are and how big they are.  The schedule for TCMFF can be very tight. You generally want to get in line by about a half hour before a screening, earlier if it's something you'd be devastated if you missed it. Know also that even if you get there an hour early, you still may get shut out. 

Last year, I got shut out three times, more than ever before. Twice, it was on Saturday. In both cases, I was coming from a certain theater and immediately got in line for the next screening in the same exact theater. On the first one, I used the time to go have lunch with a couple friends who were in the same boat. The second time I was able to switch gears and was among the last dozen or so people let in the theater on my second choice, and it turned out to be a really great special presentation on newly restored Fleischer Studios cartoons. The third time was my own damn fault. My hotel was only a couple blocks from the Egyptian, where the screening was. I thought I would have time to run back to the room and change clothes for the Sunday night party.  I was wrong. Again, I used the time to get a meal and then make sure I got my last screening extra extra early, and yes, I made that one, Space Balls with Mel Brooks introducing.

One of the theaters in the TCL Chinese 6 is very small. You probably need to get there even earlier for those screenings, because they are the most likely to have to turn people away. 

I’ve arranged the venues by how close they are to the Roosevelt Hotel, since that is the host hotel:

• Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel – Home to Club TCM and the Poolside screenings. Club TCM is where a most of the guest interviews and certain special programs will be. It's the same room where the first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929. In years past, there was a fairly low stage, rows of chairs and a standing area behind the chairs. If you’re at the back of the standing area, you might not be able to see very well. If there is an event that is really important to you, make sure you get there extra early. The pool is just that, a swimming pool with a screen at the one end.  Everybody says get there extra early if you want one of the lounge chairs. I've only been to a coupled of the poolside screenings. I sat in the the rows of chairs in the back. It was fine, and you can have a drink while watching.
• Chinese Theatre IMAX (916 seats) – This is the original Grauman’s Chinese theater. If you cross Hollywood Blvd. from The Roosevelt, you’re there. Okay, it's down a little bit, but it is very close. For lines, they usually run some Disneyland-style switchbacks in front of the theater and then break the line and start up again up the stairs in the Ovation Hollywood mall. Don’t panic if the line goes back a long way. It’s a huge theater. In the past, I've seen the line wind through the mall, out the side of the mall and almost all the way back to the front of the theater, and I still got in. Though last year, I did get locked out from the Chinese IMAX when I didn't think I had that high of a line number.
• TCL Chinese 6 Theatres – Located inside the Ovation Hollywood mall. The following screens will be used:
• House 1 (350 Seats)
• House 4 (148 Seats)
• House 6 (239 Seats)

Note: House 4 is tiny. It fills up at the drop of a hat. This will likely be the worst theater for filling up and having to turn people away.

• Egyptian Theatre – The Egyptian Theatre is an absolutely gorgeous venue, and the renovations have modernized while retaining the character of the original. Seating capacity is down somewhat with the renovation. The new capacity is 520, down from 616. The balcony is no more, which would account for most of the seating loss. I miss it. I loved the balcony. Still, 516 seats makes it the second largest venue. The Egyptian has the ability to show films in digital, 35 mm and 70 mm film, as well as nitrate prints. 
• There may be other venues that may be announced as we get closer. For example, last year, TCMFF did one screening of 101 Dalmatians at the El Capitan Theatre. The El Capitan is Disney's flagship theater, so I would be surprised if anything other than a Disney-owned film is shown there. 

Regarding the TCL Chinese 6, a word of warning about the Ovation Hollywood mall. It was designed to be explored. There are multiple levels, and it's not always easy to know what level you are on and how to get up or down, and more importantly where you are in relationship to the TCL Chinese 6 and/or the Chinese IMAX/Roosevelt. There are a few tricks to getting around which I will cover in Part 2 of this post. The abridged version is that if you have any time before TCMFF starts, go to the Ovation Hollywood mall and at the very least figure out where the TCL Chinese 6 is. It is very easy to get lost, and the time you get lost is bound to be the time you only have a very short window to get to the next screening.

Schedule

The full schedule is posted online about three weeks before TCMFF (with the smartphone apps being released about a week or two before the Festival). For the most part, films are scheduled in blocks, with all  theater venues running films at the same time, not counting Club TCM events, etc. For example, on Friday and Saturday, there is usually a morning block, a mid-day block, an afternoon block, an early evening block, a late evening block, and one midnight movie each, on Friday and Saturday nights only.

There's roughly an hour between blocks, and you would think that leaves you plenty of time to get from one screening to the next, but it doesn't always work out that way. Let's say, one person goes to a screening of a 90-minute movie that starts at 9 am, and another person goes to 2-hour movie that also starts at 9 am. The 90-minute movie person has an extra half hour between blocks and probably won't have much trouble getting to a second screening at 12, whereas the 2-hour movie person might be scrambling. All films have someone introducing them. Sometimes, it's a simple 5-minute intro like we're used to seeing on the network. Other times, it may be a 20 minute presentation or interview with one the film's stars or director. You really need to pay close attention to start and end times.

Epics, like Gone with the Wind or Lawrence of Arabia will take up two blocks. Sometimes blocks will pair a longer movie, say a 2 1/2-hour movie opposite a pair of short movies, like a 70-minute pre-code and an 80-minute film noir.  It can get pretty complicated, and the time windows between blocks of movies do not always align perfectly well.

The TCMFF program schedule is normally broken into a number of categories:

• Essentials – Classics that pretty much every one knows, The Maltese Falcon, Twelve Angry Men, Singing in the Rain
• Discoveries – Lesser known classic and sometimes foreign films, Larceny, Inc., Blood on the Moon, Bicycle Thieves
• Special Presentations – Films with more in-depth discussions/celebrity interviews, collections of short films, silent films with live accompaniment, and so on
• Often, there are films grouped around themes. This year will have Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film and Tribute to Michael Schultz. There may be others.

Finally, on Sunday, there are four or five To Be Announced (TBA) screenings. These are almost always repeat screenings of particularly popular films that had to turn people away, so if you do get locked out on something, there's still a chance you can see it on Sunday. The TBA films are announced by early evening on Saturday. A list will be updated on the Apps, social media, etc., and posted at the Info Desk at the Roosevelt, and the film intros late Saturday will usually announce them as they become available.

I know what you're thinking. How do you choose and when do you eat? Both are good questions. The answers are a bit complicated, but I'll do my best to answer in subsequent parts of this Guide.

My Take on #inkober

Every October, professional and amateur artists and people who just like to draw participate in #inktober. The general idea is to do one ink drawing a day for the entire month of October. In addition, there is a list prompts for what to draw, though there are usually a number of different lists of prompts put out by different sites. This year, what I believe was the main site had a prompt list that started like this:

• Day 1 – Backpack
• Day 2 – Discover
• Day 3 – Boots
• And so on...

I decided not to follow any of the standard prompts, but rather do drawings related to films I like. I tried to do mostly props though looking at them, you could probably argue that at least a couple of them are not props. Also, I didn't do a drawing each day I probably missed about 6 days. I was hoping to make these up but only got to one of them.

#inktober Day 1

#inktober Day 2

#inktober Day 3

#inktober Day 4 [makeup]

#inktober Day 5

#inktober Day 6

#inktober Day 7

#inktober Day 8

#inktober Day 9

#inktober Day 10

#inktober Day 11

#inktober Day 12

#inktober Day 13

#inktober Day 16

#inktober Day 18

#inktober Day 19

#inktober Day 21

#inktober Day 22

#inktober Day 23

#inktober Day 24

#inktober Day 25

#inktober Day 26

#inktober Day 27

#inktober Day 28

#inktober Day 29

TCMFF Survival Guide – Part 0? When Do You Come and Where Do You Stay

If you follow this site, you know that every year I do a survival guide for attending the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival (TCMFF). Over the years as I've refined and added info, the guide has grown to three parts covering different aspects of attending TCMFF. I normally publish this guide in the months/weeks leading into the Festival. 

TCMFF is normally held in the spring, mid-April-ish, meaning that the Survival Guides post somewhere between late-January and mid- to late-March. As a result, there are a couple of parts of attending the Festival that I have purposefully ignored and those are when do you come and where do you stay. I've always figured that if I'm posting my guide in the two or three months before the Festival, by that time, most people have already locked in their arrangements, so why bother talking about it. Now, it's early enough that it makes sense to cover it.

When Do You Come

TCMFF is held over a four-day period starting mid-day Thursday and running until late Sunday, so does that mean you arrive early Thursday and leave late Sunday? You could, but I wouldn't recommend it. Adding a day or two to the beginning and/or end of the trip makes a lot of sense. If you're a first timer and have never been to Hollywood, you're going to want to explore a little, but I should warn you that the bloom on the Hollywood rose was gone a long time ago.  In addition, though the official events start about mid-day Thursday, there are a number of unofficial and semi-official events that you might be interested in. 

The big event is the TCMFF Going to TCM Classic Film Festival! Facebook group TCMFF Pre-Fest Party (the Wednesday night before TCMFF). This is something I would not miss even though it seems to always be scheduled opposite the TCM Media mixer, which I often get to attend. I always end up going to the start of the party, leaving in the middle for the Media Mixer, and making my way back for the end of the party. On the Tuesday night before TCMFF for the last several years, I've organized an Unofficial Opening Party at a bar within walking distance of the Festival area (shameless plug). In addition, last year, TCM did a live recording of their Talking Pictures podcast with Ben Mankiewicz and Mario Cantone on Wednesday night at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. If you had already booked a flight that arrived in LAX at 6 pm on Wednesday, it's very unlikely you could make it to Hollywood in time to attend. This event was announced less that a week before it happened. I'm guessing that the late announcement was a way of limiting attendance, as the room where this happened and also serves as Club TCM during the Festival only holds so many people. 

Will TCM be doing something similar next year. No promises, but it wouldn't surprise me. There are quite a few other unofficial events. I cover these in my TCMFF Survival Guide Part 2 – Making the Most of Your Experience post. I will update that for 2025 in the coming months. By that time, I should have details on at least some of them. The 2024 version of this post is located here.  

In addition, you probably wouldn't mind doing one of the studio tours or a visit to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. You might think that you can squeeze this in on a morning or afternoon during TCMFF. Yes, you could but you might have to sacrifice seeing one of your all-time favorite films on the big screen at the TCL Chinese Theater, which is the whole point of coming to TCMFF in the first place. When you attend TCMFF, you are bound to make new friends. A day or two on the beginning or end of the trip gives you a chance to hang out with them. Finally, Hollywood and Los Angeles is also the home to a lot of good movie theaters, some of which screen classic films, and if you're in town before or after, you might be able to catch something cool. 

A little confession, I've lived my whole life in San Diego, and San Diegans, we like to look down our noses at our neighbor to the north. The traffic and the smog are terrible. It's too crowded and too expensive. While this may be true, with the exception of Comic-Con and possibly craft brewing, everything we have in San Diego, they have bigger and better up in LA. Don't get me wrong, I love San Diego, but down here, we tend to let this provincial snottiness blind us to a lot of great stuff happening just a two hour drive away, okay, three hours with traffic. LA is a great town. There's amazing restaurants and entertainment and tons of cool areas to explore. Where am I going with all of this? Well, if you haven't figured out by now, you really need to add a day or two to your itinerary. For me, a trip to LA is not a big deal, but if you're coming from somewhere else, you may as take advantage of it while you're here.

I have been coming to TCMFF since 2014, and every year, I've left on the Monday after the Festival. I know me. Even before I attended my first TCMFF in 2014, I knew I would be exhausted by the time Sunday rolled around. That's why I've always opted for adding days to the beginning of the trip and not to the end. Your mileage may vary. In the years I've attended, I've arrived on Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday, and one year when Noir City Hollywood was the weekend before TCMFF, I arrived on the Saturday before and stayed through the week.

Where Do You Stay

Bear in mind that I am not necessarily an authority on lodging in the area around TCMFF, but maybe some of what I picked up will be of help. 

The host hotel for TCMFF is the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. That's where Club TCM and the poolside screenings are. It's pretty much across the street from the TCL Chinese and the mall where the TCL Chinese Multiplex are. Okay, it's actually across the street and down a little bit. The Roosevelt is an expensive hotel. My guess is that the rates go up considerably for the week of TCMFF, but to be honest, I can't say that for sure. I do know that anything that is considered a low-priced room at the Roosevelt is going to sell out almost immediately once the dates are announced. 

I stayed there in 2015 and 2016. In 2015, I booked a room at about 4 pm (Pacific time) on the day they announced the dates, and by the time I booked, the cheapest room available was a minisuite at $700 a night (and that is in 2015 dollars). It turns that I ended up taking my daughter that year, and the minisuite worked out really well for us. My advice is if you want to stay at the Roosevelt, book as early as possible the day TCM announces the dates. And when is that, well, pre-COVID that was sometime in mid-summer. Since COVID, the dates have been announced in October, so I assume that's when it will be for TCMFF 2025. Keep an eye on your email. The dates should be announced in the next month or so. 

Another thing to bear in mind is that the Hollywood Roosevelt is an old hotel, built almost a hundred years ago in 1926. The history of the place is very cool. The elevators, not so much. The elevators are tiny and least by modern standards, and at least when I stayed there in 2015 and 2016, they were very slow. That was my only real complaint about the hotel. They may have upgraded them since, so they my run faster, but I'm pretty sure they haven't made them any bigger. Still, one time we got on the elevator, and a very hot older woman got on with a distinguished gentleman, who turned out to be Dick Cavett (one of the guests that year). We got to talk to him the whole way down, one of the few times, the slow elevator worked in our favor.

I have heard rumors that some people book every weekend in April and then cancel the ones they don't need, but I've never spoken to anyone who has actually done that. When I look at Google Maps recently, the Hollywood Roosevelt shows up for $232 a night. A few weeks ago, I checked a random weekend Wednesday-Monday stay in November, I could get a room for $240 a night (close to what Google was listing). Then I tried the same thing (Wednesday-Monday stay) for every week in April of 2025 and prices started at a low of $317 to a high of $425 a night. A while back, someone posted something on Facebook showing that one week in April on the Roosevelt booking calendar was blacked out. That may or may not have had anything to do with TCMFF. It didn't look like that when I checked it few weeks ago and just now when I was doing the final edit on this post.

Another good option is the Loews Hotel Hollywood, which connects to the mall where the TCL Multiplex is. This may be the next best bet if you have to be a nice hotel that is very close. There are plenty of other hotels in the area, but I've only stayed at a few of them. The last couple of years I've stayed at least part of the time at the Motel 6 on Whitley. It's cheap and clean, though it can be kind of noisy, depending on the neighbors and about a 5 minute walk from the Egyptian Theatre (the furthest venue from the rest of TCMFF this year). I've also stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on Highland, which was a bit more pricey, but did include breakfast and worked well if TCMFF was using the Legion Theater, which has been used in years past, but was not in 2024. 

To be honest, of the other hotels/motels in the area, I've heard both good and bad things. Another option that you might not think about is the Orange Drive Hostel. Yes, it is a hostel, but not a youth hostel, open to all ages, and it is very close to the Festival area. Apparently, you can get a private room at a reasonable price if you act early. I spoken to a few people who stayed there and loved it. 

For a few years, I stayed at AirBnBs, but since COVID, there doesn't seem to be as much available. I really liked AirBnB. Before COVID, there were tons of rooms everywhere, but since then their inventory seems low and fewer with reviews of people who have stayed in the place they're advertising. It may be that more becomes available as you get closer to the TCMFF dates, but if it's two months out and I don't know where I'm going to be, I get panicky and book something else.

Now, you may be thinking that booking a hotel is something of a feeding frenzy, and that's probably at least partly true if you want to be at the Roosevelt, but not really if you're staying elsewhere. You are probably better off booking a room fairly early. Hotels have a way of raising their prices as more rooms sell. Me, I usually wait until the beginning of the year to book and possibly that's a bad mistake. I may try to get it together earlier for next year, but we'll see what happens. I hope that this has been at least somewhat helpful. If anyone has any tips, and leave them in the comments, I'd really love to hear from you. Please leave a comment.

If you follow this site, you know that every year I do a survival guide for attending the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival (TCMFF). Over the years as I've refined and added info, the guide has grown to three parts covering different aspects of attending TCMFF. I normally publish this guide in the months/weeks leading into the Festival. 

TCMFF is normally held in the spring, mid-April-ish, meaning that the Survival Guides post somewhere between late-January and mid- to late-March. As a result, there are a couple of parts of attending the Festival that I have purposefully ignored and those when do you come and where do you stay. I've always figured that if I'm posting my guide in the two or three months before the Festival, by that time, most people have already locked in their arrangements, so why bother talking about it. Now, it's early enough that it makes sense covering it.

When Do You Come

TCMFF is held over a four-day period starting mid-day Thursday and running until late Sunday, so does that mean you arrive early Thursday and leave late Sunday? You could, but I wouldn't recommend it. Adding a day or two to the beginning and/or end of the trip makes a lot of sense. If you're a first timer and have never been to Hollywood, you're going to want to explore a little, but I should warn you that the bloom on the Hollywood rose was gone a long time ago.  In addition, though the official events start about mid-day Thursday, there are a number of unofficial and semi-official events that you might be interested in. 

The big event is the TCMFF Going to TCM Classic Film Festival! Facebook group TCMFF Pre-Fest Party (the Wednesday night before TCMFF). This is something I would not miss even though it seems to always be scheduled opposite the TCM Media mixer, which I often get to attend. I always end up going to the start of the party, leaving in the middle for the Media Mixer, and making my way back for the end of the party. On the Tuesday night before TCMFF for the last several years, I've organized an Unofficial Opening Party at a bar within walking distance of the Festival area (shameless plug). In addition, last year, TCM did a live recording of their Talking Pictures podcast with Ben Mankiewicz and Mario Cantone on Wednesday night at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. If you had already booked a flight that arrived in LAX at 6 pm on Wednesday, it's very unlikely you could make it to Hollywood in time to attend. This event was announced less that a week before it happened. I'm guessing that the late announcement was a way of limiting attendance, as the room where this happened and also serves as Club TCM during the Festival only holds so many people. 

Will TCM be doing something similar next year. No promises, but it wouldn't surprise me. I usually cover unofficial events in my TCMFF Survival Guide Part 2 – Making the Most of Your Experience post 2024 version here.  

I'm guessing that if you're still reading this, you like movies, and you probably wouldn't mind doing one of the studio tours or a visit to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. You might think that you can squeeze this in on a morning or afternoon during TCMFF. Yes, you could but you might have to sacrifice seeing one of your all-time favorite films on the big screen at the TCM Chinese Theater, which is the whole point of coming to TCMFF in the first place. Hollywood and Los Angeles is also the home to a lot of good movie theaters, some of which screen classic films, and if you're in town before or after, you might be able to catch something cool. 

Me, I've lived my whole life in San Diego, and San Diegans, we like to look down our noses at our neighbor to the north. The traffic and the smog are terrible. It's too crowded and too expensive. While this may be true, with the exception of Comic-Con and possibly craft brewing, everything we have in San Diego, they have bigger and better up in LA. Don't get me wrong, I love San Diego, but down here, we tend to let this provincial snottiness blind us to a lot of great stuff happening just a two hour drive away, okay three with traffic. LA is a great town. There's amazing restaurants and entertainment and tons of cool areas to explore. Where am I going with all of this? Well, if you haven't figured out by now, I'm suggesting you add a day or two to your itinerary. For me, a trip to LA is not a big deal, but if you're coming from somewhere else, you may as take advantage of it while you're here.

I have been coming to TCMFF since 2014, and every year, I've left on the Monday after the Festival. I know me. Even before I attended my first TCMFF in 2014, I knew I would be exhausted by the time Sunday rolled around. That's why I've always opted for adding days to the beginning of the trip and not to the end. Your mileage may vary. In the years I've attended, I've arrived on Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday, and one year when Noir City Hollywood was the weekend before TCMFF, I arrived on the Saturday before and stayed through the week.

Where Do You Stay

Bear in mind that I am not necessarily an authority on lodging in the area around TCMFF, but maybe some of what I picked up will be of help. 

The host hotel for TCMFF is the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. That's where Club TCM and the poolside screenings are. It's pretty much across the street from the TCL Chinese and the mall where the TCL Chinese Multiplex are. Okay, it's actually across the street and down a little bit. The Roosevelt is an expensive hotel. My guess is that the rates go up considerably for the week of TCMFF, but to be honest, I can't say that for sure. I do know that anything that is considered a low-priced room at the Roosevelt is going to sell out almost immediately. 

I stayed there in 2015 and 2016. In 2015, I booked a room at about 4 pm (Pacific time) on the day they announced the dates, and by the time I booked, the cheapest room available was a minisuite at $700 a night (and that is in 2015 dollars). It turns that I ended up taking my daughter that year, and the minisuite worked out really well for us. My advice is if you want to stay at the Roosevelt, book as early as possible the day TCM announces the dates. And when is that, well, pre-COVID that was sometime in mid-summer. Since COVID, the dates have been announced in October, so I assume that's when it will be for TCMFF 2025. Another thing to bear in mind is that the Hollywood Roosevelt is an old hotel, built almost a hundred years ago in 1926. The history of the place is very cool. The elevators, not so much. The elevators are tiny and least by modern standards, and at least when I stayed there in 2015 and 2016, they were very slow. That was my only real complaint about the hotel. They may have upgraded them since, so they my run faster, but I'm pretty sure they haven't made them any bigger. Still, one time we got on the elevator and a very hot older woman got on with a distinguished gentleman, who turned out to be Dick Cavett (one of the guests that year). We got to talk to him the whole way down, one of the few times, the slow elevator worked in our favor.

I have heard rumors that some people book every weekend in April and then cancel the ones they don't need, but I've never spoken to anyone who has actually done that. When I look at Google Maps recently, the Hollywood Roosevelt shows up for $232 a night. A couple weeks ago, I checked a random weekend Wednesday-Monday stay in November, I could get a room for $240 a night (close to what Google was listing). Then I tried the same thing (Wednesday-Monday stay) for every week in April of 2025 and prices started at a low of $317 to a high of $425 a night. A while back, someone posted something on Facebook showing that one week in April on the Roosevelt booking calendar was blacked out. That may or may not have had anything to do with TCMFF. It didn't look like that when I checked it.

The Loews Hotel Hollywood connects to the mall so that may be the next best bet if you have to be a nice hotel that is very close. There are plenty of other hotels in the area, but I've only stayed at a few of them. The last couple of years I've stayed at least part of the time at the Motel 6 on Whitley. It's cheap and clean, though it can be kind of noisy, depending on the neighbors and about a 5 minute walk from the Egyptian Theatre (the furthest venue from the rest of TCMFF this year). I've also stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on Highland, which was a bit more pricey, but did include breakfast and worked well if TCMFF was using the Legion Theater, which has been used in years past but not in 2024. 

To be honest, of the other hotels/motels in the area, I've heard both good and bad things. Another that you might not think about is the Orange Drive Hostel. It's very close to the Festival area, and apparently you can get a private room at a reasonable price if you act early. For a few years, I stayed at AirBnBs, but since COVID, there doesn't seem to be as much available. I really liked AirBnB. Before COVID, there were tons of rooms everywhere, but since then their inventory seems low and fewer with reviews of people who have stayed in the place they're advertizing. It may be that more becomes available as you get closer to the TCMFF dates, but if it's two months out and I don't know where I'm going to be, I get panicky and book something else.

Now, you may be thinking that booking a hotel for TCMFF is something of a feeding frenzy, and that's probably at least partly true if you want to be at the Roosevelt, but not really if you're staying elsewhere. You are probably better off booking a room fairly early. Hotels have a way of raising their prices as more rooms sell. Me, I usually wait until the beginning of the year to book and possibly that's a bad mistake. I may try to get it together earlier for next year, but we'll see what happens. I hope that this has been at least somewhat helpful. If anyone has any other tips, and please leave them in the comments, I'd really love to hear from you.

2024 TCMFF Wrapup

I'm really late getting to the TCM Classic Film Festival (TCMFF) wrapup post this year. The weeks following the festival were a bit of a blur. I ended up getting sick, not COVID, just sick, about three or four days after getting home. Then right as I started feeling better, my wife got the flu, and I in turn got it as well. Then work got crazy, such is life.

I had a total blast at the 15th annual TCMFF, which incorporated the 30th anniversary celebration of the TCM network. The show was great as always, and I was very impressed with the caliber of guests they had this year. As always, the schedule of films and programs was diverse and had something for everyone. I did get shut out of more screenings than ever before, but even that was not a huge issue, or at least, it didn't work out that way for me. Normally, I would cover the things that happened before the festival, but since I'm running so late, I'll try to get back to that later. 

Though TCMFF officially opened on Thursday, April 18, there was one event that spilled over into Wednesday evening, a live taping of the Talking Pictures where TCM host Ben Mankiewicz interviewed actor/comedian Mario Cantone and much hilarity ensued. Announced less than a week from the festival, probably many were unable to attend due to prior commitments. I'm guessing the late announcement was at least partly because it was held in Club TCM, which is not exactly a big room and can only accommodate so many people. Personally, I had to blow off a prior engagement for which I had already bought tickets. I have to say it was worth it. This brings us to ....

Thursday

Thursday is normally a somewhat abbreviated schedule with just a couple of programs in the afternoon, leading into the opening reception and the evening screenings. Most years, the first event on Thursday is a Meet TCM question and answer session, but with it being the 15th annual Festival, they mixed things up with a So You Want to Put on a Classic Film Festival program instead. This was a good change of pace. If you watch the network regularly as most people at the Festival do, you already have a pretty good idea of what is going on. The So You Want to Put on a Classic Film Festival program featured Scott McGee, Genevieve McGillicudy, and others talking about how the Festival came into being and shared lots of great stories about the early TCMFF events.

On the break between the two afternoon panels, a bunch of the Twitter #TCMParty people gathered for a group photo.

#TCMParty Crew [Courtesy of @TCM_Party Twitter Feed]

Next up was the So You Think You Know Movies trivia contest. Bruce Goldstein, founder and co-president of Rialto Pictures and Founding Repertory Artistic Director of New York’s Film Forum, puts together what are quite possibly the hardest questions imaginable about classic film. Left to right below, our team consisted of Laura, Joel, me, Pam, Vernon whom I'd only just met, and Aurora. Though we gave it a good try, we crashed and burned pretty hard.

Our Trivia Team, I Think Vernon Knew We Were Going to Lose

I was hoping to find someone to grab a quick bite with, but couldn't find any takers. Ultimately, I ended up running into Aurora. She was holding a rather sad looking slice of pizza, which she said was the worst pizza she'd ever had in her life and was looking for a trash can to toss it after just one bite.  

I asked her if she wanted to get something else, and we ended up in this Japanese place, right across the street from the Egyptian (Kino Sushi and Ramen, $$ and 4.3 of 5 stars on Google). It was really good. Aurora had teriyaki chicken, and I had a teriyaki chicken and sushi combo, but I also ordered a pork belly appetizer. Oh my, the pork belly was so good. It came with some sort of pickled red stuff, bell peppers, maybe, crunchy fried garlic slices, and jalapeno peppers, all on a bed of fried onions, absolutely amazing, well, all except the jalapenos. After trying one, I had to push the rest to the side, too hot for me. 

Afterwards, I headed back to my motel to change. I usually like to wear something at least somewhat dressy on opening night. I figured I had just enough time to change and go back to the Roosevelt for the opening mixer for a hot second. Then back to the Egyptian again for White Heat. In the courtyard, I ran into a couple lovely ladies.

April and Ruth, Decked Out in Opening Night Glamor

Inside the theater, I realized I should probably get some coffee, so I went to the snack bar. As soon as I ordered, I discovered something bad, I didn't have my debit card. I knew that I had it at the restaurant and had either left it there or in my room when I changed. I was about 90% certain that it was one of those two options. Of course, the other 10% had me worried. I didn't want to call credit union and take a chance that they'd want to cancel my card, and I'd be without it for the rest of the Festival. A lot of places in Hollywood don't even take cash. 

Should I go to White Heat and risk the having my debit out in the ether for two hours or do the smart thing and likely miss the movie. Of course, I did what any financially responsible TCMFF fan would do in the situation: I went to see the movie and tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head telling me how stupid I was being.

Eddie Muller introduced White Heat, and as always, his intro entertaining and informative. He said that James Cagney, by this point in his career, was into improvising, and often just about everybody on the set had no idea what he was going to do. If you think about his character, Cody Jarrett, this is the perfect way to play it. By the time, I was about five minutes into the film, I'd pretty much stopped worrying about the debit card. 

When the film ended, I rushed back to Japanese restaurant. They seemed to be in the process of closing, but after checking they hadn't seen it, but they took my cell number in case it turned up later. I booked out of there and went back to the motel. On the way, I realized I didn't have my room key either. I took this as a good sign. I showed my ID to the clerk at the motel to get a new card key for the room, and sure enough, my debit card and my old key were right on the bed where I left them. Whew.

Back out the door again and speed walking down Hollywood Blvd. By this time, I only had two options, well, three if you count getting drunk at the Roosevelt, Gambit and The Small Back Room, which had been my second pick anyway. By the time I got to the theater for The Small Back Room, they had already let in most of the line, and it looked like it might be drinking at the Roosevelt after all. It turned out I got in anyway, all the way down in the front row, probably one of the last six or so people to make it into the theater. At least, I made it, and it put me in a position to get some great photos of Jeopardy champion/host and author, Ken Jennings, as he introduced the Powell and Pressburger film. Jennings highlighted the roughly 15-minute bomb defusing scene and how it compared favorably in a totally different way with the climax of The Red Shoes.

Ken Jennings

Despite having had a cup of coffee before White Heat, I was having a real tough time staying awake through The Small Back Room. I kept nodding and jerking myself awake. Then it happened. I fell asleep as hard as I ever have in any screening in all the years I've been coming to TCMFF. I was awoken when the woman next to me, sort of tripped over my legs as she got up to leave. She didn't fall or anything. She just steadied herself..., on me, I think, and left. Meanwhile, I was so fast asleep that I wondered what this person was doing in my motel room. After a second or two, I realized that I was still in the theater. On a side note, I ran into her the next day, and she apologized for tripping over me. I said, it was fine. In fact, I was glad she did. Had she not, I might have slept through the whole thing. The last thing I would want is to be woken up by some 19-year-kid with a broom and stick dustpan. "Mister, you have to leave now."

The film was good, but admittedly kind of talky. In London during World War II, a scientist works in a lab for the war effort. He has a prosthetic leg that is a constant source of pain. His two options are a pain drug which makes his leg feel better, but makes him feel worse, or drinking which makes him feel better, but doesn't do a thing for the pain. The result is he's terrible to get along with, and this causes friction between him and his girlfriend, who works in the same building as the lab. This is where the film was when I fell asleep. When I woke up (woman tripping over me), the man was drinking and the bartender at the pub couldn't tell him where his girlfriend was. He went home and she was nowhere to be found. She wasn't there. All of her stuff was gone. The picture of her on his desk was gone. Her cat was gone. Obviously, something had happened to lead to that, but I had no idea what, but I did manage to stay awake for the rest of the film and yes, the bomb diffusing scene was quite good. 

As I was leaving, I noticed Joel ahead of me. He'd been in the same theater. I caught up to him, hoping he could fill in the gaps. Turns out, he had fallen asleep so much in the film that he didn't have the foggiest idea what any of it was about. He was in no position to fill me in on the however many minutes I had missed. 

With Alicia Malone at the Media Mixer on Wednesday

Friday

First up was One Hundred and One Dalmatians. In line, I ran into a couple who were doing their first TCMFF. They were still a bit confused about the lines worked. I did my best to explain it. Well, it turns out they had been in The Small Back Room and managed to stay awake and were able to help me fill in the gaps, or the one big gap.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians was the one and only screening held in the El Capitan Theatre. That and the fact that it featured an intro from Disney animator Floyd Norman and comedian/actor Mario Cantone made it a must-see. The El Capitan is a great venue and features a pipe organ and live music before every screening. It's also a beautifully restored vintage theater I built in 1926. The theater is the Disney flagship theater, so I assume that's why we have only seen Disney films there in recent years. One Hundred and One Dalmatians is not necessarily my favorite Disney animated feature. Still, it was good, much better with an audience than I remember it being. I was really glad I got to see it.

El Capitan Theatre

Next up was Them! and a presentation by effects gurus, Craig Barron and Ben Burtt. With only a half hour in between films, the timing was a bit rough, despite the El Capitan being right across the street from the TCL Multiplex. With Hollywood Blvd craziness, you never know. I did make it, but was fully prepared to go to my second choice. Craig Barron and Ben Burtt did about a 20 minute presentation on the making of the film, which was entertaining and informative. For me, their presentations are always a highlight of the festival. Toward the end, they brought out a special guest, Sandy Desher, who played the little girl from the beginning of the film. They did a toast of "formic acid " and had her and the audience scream in preparation for the film. 

Barron and Burtt Presentation of Them! [Courtesy of Laura's Twitter Feed]

I had a full hour before the next screening, and if memory serves me, I headed down to Subway about a block away for a sandwich, so I could eat before my next film. It Should Happen to You has a great cast, Judy Holliday, Peter Lawford, and the film debut of Jack Lemmon. It's directed brilliantly by George Cukor from an amazing script written by Garson Kanin. I love this film. It Should Happen to You is all about the nature of fame and centers around  a woman (Holliday) who becomes a celebrity by virtue of being famous, a 1950s version of a modern reality show personality. The film is amazingly prescient.

Afterwards, I immediately got in line for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I had a fairly high number, I think in the high 300s. I wasn't worried as the Chinese IMAX is a huge theater. In addition, it was playing opposite Rear Window at the Egyptian, and I'd heard many people saying that was their choice in that block. I got in just fine and had a chance to get a seat where I good get a good view of the Ben Mankiewicz interview of Steven Spielberg before the screening. My favorite thing from the interview was when Spielberg told how he manipulated child actor, Cary Guffy. He said it wasn't like the stories you hear about a director telling a child actor that their mother was dead to get them to cry or anything. For the porch scene where Guffy looks up at the alien ship, he wanted to capture a sense of wonder in the child. He told the Guffy that he had a present for him. With cameras rolling, he got up on a ladder with a big box all wrapped with ribbons and very slowly made a big show of unwrapping it, taking off the ribbons and slowly undoing the paper, so the child was mesmerized in anticipation long enough to get the shot. 

Ben Mankiewicz and Steven Spielberg

To be honest, I've never been a huge fan of the Close Encounters, at least not like other Spielberg favorites, Jaws, Duel, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but seeing it on the big screen made a huge difference. I loved it. I was as captivated by it, just as little Cary Guffy was by his present. I still don't think it is as good as many of his other films, but I do have a new level of respect for it.

I had already decided to skip the late night show and get some food. I ended up getting Indian take-out and eating in my room and unwinding a bit before the midnight movie. It had be a long time (years) since I had done a midnight movie at TCMFF. The Road to Ruin (1934) has one thing that most midnight movies at TCMFF lack, a very short running time, meaning I could be back to my room not all that much later than I would had I had a couple of drinks after the last late-night film. 

The Road to Ruin is a Pre-Code film, independently produced and directed by Dorothy Davenport, aka Mrs. Wallace Reid, and it pushes the limits even by Pre-Code standards. The story centers around a high-school girl who gets involved with a bad crowd and ends up in tragedy, involving smoking, drinking, pre-marital sex, and an illegal abortion. While the premise sounds like one of those films we used to see in health class, The Road to Ruin treats the subject matter realistically and hits pretty hard. I liked it a lot.

Saturday

With Eddie Muller on Wednesday at the Media Mixer

Saturday started with a screening of Dirty Harry. Though I had read the description, the name of the guest, actor, Andrew Robinson, didn't ring any bells for me, so it came as a nice surprise for me that Andrew Robinson was one of the stars in the film. He played the killer in the film, a performance that to this day is chilling. Eddie Muller did the interview, and it turns out that Eddie's sister has a small role in the film as the mayor's secretary. While shooting, Eddie Muller mentioned that Harry Guardino started hitting on her. Andrew Robinson confirmed that Harry Guardino hit on everybody. Well, it turns out that Eddie Muller's sister dated Harry Guardino for about a year and a half. Eddie Muller said that he knew even at about 14 that he was no good for her.

For Andrew Robinson, Dirty Harry was his first film role, and it left such an impression that when had an appointment with a casting director a year or two later, she had to cancel at the last minute, just from the sight of him coming up the walk to her office. He said that he was really pissed because it was a long drive to get in only to have it cancelled with no notice. He said he met her years later, and she confessed what she had done. Also, Robinson mentioned that his son has a small part in the film. He plays the kid fishing in the last scene at the rock quarry.

The film itself was great. It was the first time I'd seen it in the theater. I would have been about 9 when the film released. I really think that Dirty Harry doesn't get the respect it deserves. It came out just a few years after another San Francisco cop movie, Bullitt, yet, Bullitt is in a fairly regular rotation on TCM, whereas they rarely if ever play Dirty Harry. I actually like Dirty Harry a lot better than Bullitt.

Next up was to have been The Big Heat, and in years past if you got out of one theater in the multiplex and immediately got in line for the same theater, it was almost a given that you would get it. Well, it didn't work out that way, even on House 6 (the second smallest theater). By the time I got out of Dirty Harry and found the line for The Big Heat, also in House 6, all of the line numbers for the screening had been given out. I might have got into A Little Romance, another great film, but I started talking with Laura and her husband Doug. They too had been in Dirty Harry and had been planning on seeing The Big Heat.  We decided to go get lunch at Fat Burger on Hollywood Blvd. This also gave me some time to go to Larry Edmunds Bookstore and run back to my room with my purchases.

Laura and I Outside the Egyptian

Next up was my absolute favorite Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest. Though I have seen it on the big screen several times, this was a first for me seeing at TCMFF and a really first-rate theater, the Chinese IMAX. The film intro was by writer/director/producer Nancy Meyers who has done some of the best romantic comedies of the last 20 years or so, Something's Gotta Give, It's Complicated, and The Intern. It was a real treat hearing her speak. For the screening I had made some replicas of the ROT matches (two boxes of 50 matchbooks) that Cary Grant uses in the film. I had given out a small number early in the Festival, but gave out most of the rest I had in line and in the screening itself. 

Writer/Director/Producer Nancy Meyers

My next choice was The Shawshank Redemption, and I immediately got in line for it. My line number was somewhere in the 260s, so I thought I was good. The line started moving and everything seemed fine, but then as we were getting close to the stairs that lead down to the courtyard of the Chinese IMAX. The line stopped. Fortunately we were close enough to the front of where it stopped to hear the line people talking. They were saying that they were just checking to see how many seats were available.

We moved forward a bit, until I was about four or five people from where the line stopped. From where we were, I couldn't tell whether there were more people in the courtyard below us. About 5 minutes passed with nothing much happening. Then I heard the line person say something to the effect of, they had already started the talk. A few more minutes passed, and I heard the thing about the talk being started a couple more times. I started thinking, what am I doing here. I've seen The Shawshank Redemption in the theater four or five times. Also I saw it at TCMFF 5 years ago in the Chinese IMAX with director John Darabont introducing. The main reason I wanted to go to this screening was to hear Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins speak. If they had already started their talk, and there was a good chance I would miss most of it, what was the point. 

At that point, I bailed and went upstairs in hopes of getting into my second choice, Back from the Ink: Restored Animated Shorts with Seth MacFarlane introducing. To be honest, this was actually my toughest call in the whole festival, so the switch was a no-brainer. They had already let in the line when I got upstairs, but they're only about a dozen people ahead of me, and it looked pretty good for getting in. After a few minutes, we got in. Yea. I was way in the back. I would have preferred to be way in the front where I could have seen Seth MacFarlane better, but I was glad to be in, period. Most of the talk beforehand centered around restoration. McFarlane said something that he attributed to Martin Scorsese, though he wasn't sure that it was Scorsese who actually said it: When asked what do you restore, you restore what needs to be restored the most. McFarland said he took that to heart, and decided to put his money where his mouth was and fund the restoration of a group of animated shorts mostly from Fleischer Studios.

The screening included nine animated shorts including one silent. The silent, "Koko's Tattoo" from 1928, featured live accompaniment from Ben Model, one of the nations leading silent film accompanists. Several of the others were technicolor and looked absolutely gorgeous. Bear in mind these are not what you expect from Fleischer Studios, which is better known for their Popeye cartoons and Betty Boop, but these were mostly other titles that don't have established characters, so there wasn't the same impetus to have them restored.

Greedy Humpty Dumpty [Courtesy of TCMFF Web Site]

Afterwards, I didn't have any plans for the next movie. Nothing had really moved me, and several of us who had just been in the animation screening we're milling about. I really wanted to just get some food, real food, you know, the kind that comes on a plate, with utensils made out of metal. Well, it turns out Annette, whom I'd known for years online, but spoken to only a small handful of times in real life, she was in the mood for food too, so we decided to grab some dinner. I made a few suggestions. I make a point of finding restaurants that are outside of the mall. Annette wanted to go to Musso and Frank. She'd never been there before. That was fine by me. I just wasn't sure whether we'd be able to get in on a Saturday night with no reservations. We decided that if we could get in without too much wait, we'd go there or if we couldn't get in, we'd find someplace else. 

Well, it turns out they could seat almost immediately at the bar, which on the Saturday night with no reservations was fine with both of us. Turns out the guy on the one side of us was a TCMFFer as well, so we spent the meal talking about old movies and the festival. I had schnitzel, something I'd never had before. My family background is German, so you'd think I would have been raised on the stuff but no. Anyway, it was very good. Previously, I had more or less decided I wasn't going to see anything in the late night block. Annette was planning to see On the Waterfront which started at 10:00. It really wasn't on my radar. It's a great film and I love it, but I have seen it in the theater. Still, with a full stomach, it sounded pretty good. I asked Annette if she'd mind if I tag along, and she said okay. She was meeting a friend inside the theater, and I'm so glad I went along.

The intro was with Eddie Muller and Jacqueline Stewart. They mentioned how they only rarely ever got to appear together. I really think they are the most knowledgeable of the TCM hosts. On the Waterfront was great as expected. Afterwards, because Annette's friend was staying at the Magic Castle. I offered to walk them there, and we all hung out until Annette's Uber came.

It was after midnight, but I decided to stop at the Roosevelt and have a drink. Or two. There were a lot of people hanging out and drinking in the lobby, so we ended up doing what you normally do in odd moments at TCMFF, talked about movies. It was pretty close to last call when I decided to leave. Harlan who lives in Pasadena and drives in everyday offered to give me a ride. I told her I was fine, but she insisted. It really doesn't bother me walking around Hollywood late at night. The streets are always crowded, and I've lived in areas way sketchier than Hollywood on a Saturday night. Still, who was I to look a gift ride in the mouth. I accepted. Thank you very much, Harlan.

George Chakiris in Club TCM on Thursday, That Harlan's Back, the Only Photo I Got of Her

Sunday

First up was Double Indemnity with Eddie Muller interviewing Kate MacMurray, Fred MacMurray's daughter. Double Indemnity is my all-time favorite film noir. I saw it the first time in a film class when I was about 19. Bear in mind that I grew up in the '60s and '70s, so I grew up with Fred McMurray being the perfect TV dad figure and Barbara Stanwyck as the matriarch of the Barkley clan on The Big Valley. Seeing them young and hot looking and plotting murder for insurance money just about broke my little 19-year-old psyche. It will always hold a special place in my heart. When I was a kid, and you only had about four or five channels on the TV. you ended up watching a lot of old movies because that's what was on, but seeing Double Indemnity for the first time in college, and seeing just how good an old movie could be, it turned out to be kind of a gateway drug for me. Naturally, I wasn't going to turn down a chance to see it at TCMFF in the Chinese IMAX. 

Eddie Muller and Kate MacMurray

Next up was Sabrina. The intro was by an actor named Kin Shriner and if memory serves me, Dave Carter interviewed him. I had never heard of Kin Shriner before, mostly because he's best known for General Hospital, which I've never watched in my life. When he started talking, he seemed to be as big of an old movie fanboy as the rest of us. It was really amazing the enthusiasm he had, way cool. 

Sabrina of course is a big favorite of mine. It's hard to say where I would put it with all of the other Billy Wilder's films, because he has so many diverse films. For a lesser director, it would be one best, but it's hard to compare it to Sunset Blvd, Stalag 17, or Witness for the Prosecution. Still, Sabrina is a fun, light-hearted movie, and I adore it. Of course, the elephant in the room when it comes to Sabrina is the age gap between Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Then again, there's not a whole lot of difference in the age gap between Bogie and Audrey Hepburn vs. Lauren Bacall. I think part of the reason that it works is that Bogart has no interest in Hepburn. He just ends up falling in love. It just happens, so you can kind of forgive the age difference. Otherwise, it might come off as way creepy. Anyway it was great to see it on the big screen.

My next pick was supposed to be the 70 mm restoration of The Searchers at the Egyptian, the operative words here being, was supposed to be. I made the mistake of going back to my room to change clothes for the evening. My room was very close to the Egyptian, but I probably didn't have enough time to pull it off. When I got back to the theater the courtyard was very crowded I got a line number somewhere in the high 160s and figured hey it's a big theater. I should be fine. No such luck.

My wife sometimes attends TCMFF, but this was not one of those years. We live in San Diego. Normally, we drive up together early in the week. She hangs out for a while until the Festival starts. Then she comes back up on Sunday, spends the night, and the we drive back home on Monday. She made it to Hollywood about the same time I was getting out of Sabrina. She said she was starving and wanted to go eat. I told her to hold off for a little while because I wasn't absolutely sure, I was going to get into The Searchers. It turns out I didn't make it, but that gave us a chance to grab a late lunch/early dinner at the Japanese place that I've been to on Thursday. Yea, pork belly, again. 

Mmmmm

This also gave me a chance to get to the screening of Spaceballs even earlier than I anticipated. At this point, I didn't want to take any chances on missing out on Mel Brooks. I ended up getting a line number 94, the lowest I got the whole Festival. I was pretty sure I was good. And yes I was. Before the film, Mel Brooks came out for his intro, and I have to say he's a really good shape. I was half expecting him to be in a wheelchair or using a walker, He is 97 after all, but no, he walked right out and didn't even use a cane. He was taken fairly small steps and moved like an old man, but he moved right along at a good clip. The intro was great. Ben Mankiewicz was doing the interview, and he more or less just let Mel Brooks go. He just launched into various stories that may or may not have had anything to do with Spaceballs, but it didn't really matter. It was very funny, and everybody ate it up. For me, I hadn't seen Spaceballs in the theater, since it came out in 1987, and it was awesome to see it at TCMFF.

Ben Mankiewicz and Mel Brooks

That just left the closing night party at Club TCM. The room was jam packed, but the back door was open allowing the crowd to spill out into the pool area. They had a toast to the 15th TCMFF/30th Anniversary of the network, and I have to say that I teared up a little bit. Then again, I'm an easy crier.

A Toast from the Hosts [From Aurora's Twitter Feed with the Most, Sorry, Sounded Better in My Head]

After the toast, the crown in Club TCM thinned out considerably, which turned out to be a good thing. You could actually mill about. I almost completely forgot to take pictures, was too busy talking and drinking. I ended up staying until about 1:30 when the last the last of the die hards were still at it. Once again, Harlan offered to drop me off at my motel. This time I didn't argue. As much. Thanks again, Harlan.

Nickie, Theresa, and Me

The 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival was absolutely awesome. I can't wait until next year.