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