Last night, I watched a Netflix DVD that had been sitting in our house for about 3 weeks. Yes, we still get DVDs from Netflix. Long story. In The Intern, Robert De Niro (Ben) is a retired widower. His only son and grandchild live on the other side of the country. In short, he is bored, so he answers an ad for a senior intern at a startup Internet clothing company, run by Anne Hathaway (Jules). Jules has grown the company from 20 employees to over 200 in 18 months. She works too hard, has trouble delegating, and is being pressured to hire an outside CEO to manage the company. The Intern is formulaic, but I honestly don't have a problem with that. You have formulas for a reason, and The Intern departs from the formula enough to make things interesting. My expectation was that Ben would be a business wiz and help Jules to manage better, but the focus is more that Ben brings his life experience and helps those around him deal with their lives better. When Ben starts, he is assigned to work directly under Jules, and she flat out tells him that she would have very little for him to do and he might be better off with someone else. Ben says he would like to stick it out with her. Ben is in no way tech savvy, but learns quickly. I appreciate that they didn't go for the old guy doesn't know how to use a computer jokes. Out of a desire to make himself useful,Ben uses the time to learn the business and pick up the technology. Ben also mentors his 20-something intern colleagues but more on life skills than business. Ben eventually endears himself to Jules by cleaning up the desk that has become the equivalent of the office's junk drawer, one of Jules pet peeves. When Ben notices her driver drinking on the job, he confronts him and ends up becoming Jules' driver. As such, he meets her stay-at home husband and daughter. He gains her trust by helping her manage her personal life and that expands to the business. De Niro has great rapport with the entire cast. With Jules daughter, he becomes a surrogate grandfather. With the other interns, he helps them learn a little something about what it means to be a gentleman. In a way, Rene Russo is somewhat wasted in a small role as the company masseuse and De Niro's love interest, but in another way, she is perfect. The film is not about De Niro finding a girlfriend. This is just something that happens along the way. The film is about De Niro helping Anne Hathaway come to terms with being a business woman, a wife, and a mother, so minimizing the Rene Russo role kind of works. My only real problem with The Intern is this one scene. Ben and Jules take a trip to San Francisco, so she can interview a person for the CEO position. In Jules' room, they turn on the TV and Singin' in the Rain is playing. I'm not buying it. The only network that would be playing Singin' in the Rain is TCM, and they never have TCM in hotels. Never. I was going to give The Intern 4 (of 5) stars, but this whole TCM thing totally took me out of the movie, so I'm going to give it 2 stars. Okay, just kidding, but never having TCM in the hotel is a thing for me. Still, I will let the 4 stars stand. The Intern was a good movie, well worth checking out.
I love Pre-Code films, that rare period in American Cinema between the start of Talkies and the middle of 1934. The Hays Office was in place and guidelines for what was acceptable to show had been written, but the Hays Office had no teeth. The major studios had just invested in talkie motion pictures right when the Great Depression hit. For the first time, movie studios were losing money as Americans tightened their belts and cut back on going to the movies. The Movie Moguls knew that sex sells and pushed the envelope in terms of sex and violence, ignoring requests from the Hays Office for changes. The year 1932 falls right in the middle the Pre-Code Era and films from 1932 dealt with taboo subjects such as illicit drug use, rape, and homosexuality. When we think of classic film, we tend to focus on feature films and forget that this was only part of the film-going experience, albeit a large part. In addition to feature films, audiences enjoyed live-action short subjects often featuring top vaudeville acts, newsreels covering the top news stories of the day, and of course animated cartoons. One of the top studios of the era was Fliescher Studios, rivaling Disney in terms of quality. In the early 1930s, the big stars at Fleischer Studios were Koko the Clown and an animated dog named Bimbo, but by the beginning of 1932, a minor character from the earlier films was about to become Fleischer Studios biggest star, a Jazz Age flapper named Betty Boop. Betty Boop was a caricature of singer, Helen Kane. She first appeared as an anthropomorphic dog in the 1930 cartoon, "Dizzy Dishes," but morphed into a human character by 1932, where she became the star of Talkartoons as well as getting her own series of Betty Boop cartoons that year. Unlike Disney's Minnie Mouse, Betty was a sexual being, and the Pre-Code cartoons were about as racy as anything her her live-action counterparts, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Norma Shearer were doing. These early Betty Boop cartoons often combined live-action footage with cartoon animation. In the early 1930s, Fleischer Studios was based out of New York, giving them easy access to the Harlem Jazz scene. In 1932, Betty costarred with both Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong.
Selected Betty Boop Cartoons
What follows are plot summaries of all of the 1932 cartoons from the Betty Boop: The Essential Collection, Vols. 1-3, Blu-Rays, a great collection I heartily endorse. Yes, there are spoilers, but like most cartoons, the plot is usually just an excuse to do a bunch of gags centered around a certain situation. I also include for each cartoon, Pre-Code Shenanigans, something that would likely not get past the censors a couple of years later. I limit it to one thing per cartoon, but usually there are others.
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"Chess Nuts" – Starts with a live-action chess game between two older gentlemen. When one of the men drops a cigar ash on the black queen, Betty Boop's head pops out of the chess piece. She calls out to Bimbo whose head pops out of the white king piece. Another character Betty later calls Kingy appears out of a black rook. Kingy carries off Betty and ties her up. Betty calls for Bimbo to help but she's seems to be doing pretty well on her own. Ultimately, Bimbo beats up Kingy, and there is much rejoicing. Pre-Code Shenanigans –In trying to defend herself, Betty throws a vase and her dress rises up above waist. A table leg pulls it down for her. The vase hits the wall, breaking the plaster to reveal a mouse sleeping in a double bed with another mouse. The mouse gets out of bed, goes through the wall to another bed and climbs into bed with a different mouse. I swear the mouse almost winks at the audience.
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"Betty Boop, M.D." – Betty Boop. Koko the Clown, and Bimbo are snake oil salesmen, ummm, and woman, selling bottles of medicine called Jippo. No one wants to buy it until Betty sings a song and does a few demos of the medicine. Soon everyone is buying it and singing and dancing.
Pre-Code Shenanigans –Betty also pulls a stethoscope out of her bra.
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"Betty Boop's Bamboo Island" – Starts with live-action Hula dancing from a Polynesian group, The Royal Samoans. Bimbo is in a boat and way lost. Eventually he lands on a desert island and meets a dark skinned native-girl Betty Boop. Bimbo sings to her, and they see a group of natives. Bimbo puts a bone through his hair and applies black face to blend in. Betty Boop hula dances for Bimbo and the natives. It starts to rain, washing off Bimbo's black face, and Bimbo and Betty have to escape in Bimbo's boat.
Pre-Code Shenanigans – When Betty is Hula dancing it is real apparent that she is not wearing a bra, only a lei to avoid showing her breasts. Still, you're seeing lots of cleavage and the outline of side boob. The dancing itself is every bit as racy the live action Hula dancing at the beginning.
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"Betty Boop for President" – Betty Boop is running for president. She sings a song about all of the great things she will do as president. Her opponent, Mr. Nobody, sings too. They go back to Betty singing and there are numerous gags about what she will do as president. Betty wins the election. Pre-Code Shenanigans – In one of the gags, a prisoner is stripes is being led to the electric chair. He is mean and tough looking. When they turn on the juice, instead of electrocuting him, a bunch of gadgets pop out, combing his hair, brushing his teeth, shining his shoes, etc. When done, he looks like a complete dandy. He gets out of the chair and prances away like the most flamboyant gay man you have ever seen.
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"Boo-Oop-A-Doop" – Betty and Koko the Clown are performing in the circus with Bimbo selling peanuts in the audience. There are various circus gags. Betty performs as a lion tamer with a whip. She also walks the tightrope and sings Boop-Oop-A-Doop, wearing what looks like a strapless bra and panties. When she finishes, she goes to her dressing room, and the ringmaster comes in and harasses her, whispering what will happen if she doesn't succumb to his advances. She tries to get away, singing that she is not going to let him take her Boop-Oop-A-Doop away. Koko saves her and eventually beats up the ringmaster, ending with Koko kissing Betty. Pre-Code Shenanigans – When Betty and the ringmaster are in her dressing room, the ringmaster paws at her rubbing her bare lega from thigh to the end of her toes, several times. When she tries to run away, he pulls he back by grabbing her butt.
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"The Betty Boop Limited" – Betty has a train carry her vaudeville troupe from town to town. On the train, Betty says they have time to rehearse one more time before the next show. She sings a song. Bimbo juggles, and Koko the Clown does a dance. There a bunch of train gags, including they station master tying all of the switch levers in knots. This twists the train track into knots. Instead of crashing, the train follows the route of the twisted tracks and ends up going back the direction it came from.
Pre-Code Shenanigans – While Betty is singing, her trademark garter slides down her leg. A bug comes out and pushes it back up to her thigh, where it belongs. The bug's battle-ax wife comes out and hits him with a rolling pin and drags him off.
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"Betty Boop's Bizzy Bee" – Betty runs a lunchwagon where the specialty is wheat cakes (pancakes). Bimbo comes in and looks at the menu. The only thing listed is wheat cakes over and over again. After a long deliberation, Bimbo decides to have, you guessed it, wheat cakes. Koko the Clown orders soup, but it is cold, so Betty heats it by setting the soup on fire. Eventually a hippo comes in and orders wheat cakes and starts eating them as fast as Betty can make them. Wheat cakes are flying everywhere, and everybody is eating them. They fly out the kitchen vent, so the moon can eat them as well. Ultimately, everybody gets sick from eating too much, the hippo, all other customers, even the moon and the lunchwagon itself get sick.
Pre-Code Shenanigans – This was probably the tamest of the bunch. When Bimbo shows up, Betty is distracted and lets her wheat cakes burn. The wheat cakes stand up on the grill and their backsides are burned. Their backsides are not backsides, but butts. They rub them so that they won't be burned anymore. If you ask me they're getting into the whole butt rubbing thing a little too much.
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"Betty Boop's Ups and Downs" – This one is kind of surreal. Bimbo is helping Betty move because her house has been put up for sale. It turns out that all of the houses in the area are up for sale. Zooming out, all of America is up for sale. Zooming out further still, the entire world is up for sale. The Moon comes over holds an auction for the Earth. The other planets gather around. First, Mars portrayed as a roman soldier bids 50. Then, Venus portrayed as a woman with a bob haircut bids 40. Finally, Saturn portrayed as an old man with a Jewish accent bids 20 and wins the auction. Saturn decides to find out what will happen if he removes the Earth's gravity. He reaches into the Earth's core and pulls out the Earth's gravity magnet. Everything starts going off into the air, barnyard animals, houses, and so on. Eventually, the Earth is able to take back its gravity magnet, and things return to normal.
Pre-Code Shenanigans – While Betty is wandering around in mid-air, there is no gravity to keep her skirt from floating above her waist, so she has to keep pulling it down. Eventually, she solves the problem by turning upside down and walking on her hands.
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"Betty Boop's Museum" – Koko the Clown is running a tour bus to the museum. Betty takes the last seat, and they drive off. The bus gets four flat tires. Betty says she doesn't want to park. Koko puts four roller skates on the tires, and they skate off to the museum. At the museum, Bimbo is working as the caretaker. Betty get locked in after closing. Most of the exhibits are skeletons, and one of them demands that Betty sing a song. Betty sings, but eventually tries to run away. In chasing her, the skeleton knocks the discuss from an Olympian statue into a statue of Samson pushing two columns apart. The Samson statue gets mad and pushes down the columns completely, destroying the museum. Bimbo and Betty escape on a chariot sculpture.
Pre-Code Shenanigans – When Betty is singing, she gets emotional and has to wipe a tear from eye by wiping it away with tear with the hem of her skirt, pulling her dress all the way up.
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"Minnie the Moocher" – Opens with live-action of Cab Calloway and His Orchestra. Betty is at home with her parents. She refuses to eat her hasenpfeffer and sauerbraten. She decides to run away from home with Bimbo. It gets dark and scary, so they take refuge in a cave, a place even more dark and scary. There they meet Cab Calloway, portrayed as a cartoon walrus ghost. Most of the rest of the cartoon is Cab Calloway and His Orchestra performing "Minnie the Moocher." Cab's orchestra are portrayed by everything from skeletons to ghosts to cats to goblins. Meanwhile, Bimbo and Betty mostly just cower in fear. Betty decides to go back to her parents. Pre-Code Shenanigans – Not that much, this is more Cab Calloway's cartoon than Betty's. There is a nude statue on the baluster of the stairs in Betty's house. Betty is crying on the stairs because her parents were being mean. The statue has to clothe herself before she can comfort Betty. I had seen Minnie the Moocher on YouTube and I found a link to it, way cool (I'm sure you could find others if you looked):
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"I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You" – Opens with live-action of (a very young) Louis Armstrong and Orchestra. Betty is in the jungle wearing a pith helmet and sexy explorers outfit. She is being carried on a litter by Bimbo and Koko the Clown. Natives capture and carry off Betty. Bimbo and Koko have to rescue her, but end up in the native's cooking pot instead. They escape but are chased by a native singing, the song, "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You." The native morphs into a giant floating cartoon head which morphs into Louis Armstrong's live-action head, superimposed on the animated Bimbo and Koko running away. Most of the rest of the cartoon alternates between the cartoon natives and live-action Louis Armstrong and Orchestra, singing and performing the song. Eventually, they find Betty tied to a tree and are able to free her by shooting porcupine needles at the natives. Betty, Bimbo, and Koko escape when a volcano blows the natives sky high. Cut to live-action Louis Armstrong Orchestra, performing the last part of the song.
Pre-Code Shenanigans – As Koko is running away from the natives, he runs so fast he runs out of his clown outfit. He continues to run even faster until he runs right out of his underwear.
If you've been wondering why I haven't been updating as often as usual the last few weeks, I've been working on a mosaic on my back porch. It's taken the better part of the month of June, but is now done. The size is 6 feet by 4 feet.
What can I say about Witness for the Prosecution other than it is a great movie. There is a surprise ending. That is all I'm going to say. Well, yes, I do need to discuss aspects of the plot, but I'll avoid even hinting at it. The end of the film was even kept secret to the cast and crew. According to IMDB, the principal actors did not learn the ending until the final day of shooting, when the last ten pages of the script was given to them. The film contains a disclaimer over the closing credits, asking audience members to not reveal the ending. It was reported that at a Royal Command Screening of the film, members of the Royal family were asked to promise to not reveal the ending. Even the movie poster urged viewers to not reveal the ending.` Witness for the Prosecution is an adaptation of an Agatha Christie play of the same name, based on one of her early short stories. Christie said it was the only film adaptation of her work that she actually liked. Years later, she said similar of Murder on the Orient Express (1974). Tyrone Power said it was one of only three movies he was particularly proud of. The film was nominated for 6 Oscars:
Best Picture
Best Actor for Charles Laughton
Best Supporting Actress for Elsa Lanchester
Best Director for Billy Wilder
Best Sound, Recording
Best Film Editing
Conspicuous in its absence is the lack of a nomination for Marlene Dietrich as Best Actress. Her performance ties into the surprise ending, and the studio downplayed her role to keep the film's secret. Dietrich was devastated by the snub. The film also was nominated for five Golden Globes, including a win for Elsa Lanchester as Best Supporting Actress and a nomination for Marlene Dietrich as Best Actress.
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*** The following paragraph contains minor spoilers of the plot. ***
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Tyrone Power plays Leonard Vole, a man accused of murder, but who maintains his innocence. Charles Laughton is a lawyer fresh out of the hospital after recovering from a heart attack, under strict orders to avoid anything strenuous, such as a murder trial. After discussing the case with Power, Laughton believes him and agrees to take the case, at least partially to get out from under the thumb of his overbearing nurse, played by Laughton's real-life wife, Elsa Lanchester. Power is something of a ne'er do well, unable to hold a job, and is accused of murdering a rich widow he befriended. Tyrone Power's wife(Marlene Dietrich) is a former cabaret singer, that he rescued from the rubble of Post-War Germany, and she is portrayed as a gold digger.
From what I read, critics thought that Tyrone Power was too old for the role of Leonard Vole. It never even occurred to me. He seemed age-appropriate for Marlene Dietrich (in reality, he was more than ten years younger than Dietrich). According to IMDB, Dietrich had a crush on Power during the filming, and Billy Wilder said that Charles Laughton had a crush on Power as well. Personally, I like him in the role. He is good as the bewildered man accused of a crime he didn't commit. Witness for the Prosecution has to be my favorite role for Marlene Dietrich. She is absolutely great. Looking at the other nominees for best actress that year, it's a crime that she was not at least nominated. Charles Laughton is brilliant as the lawyer. His character combines a keen legal mind with the personality of a mischievous little boy as he sneaks brandy and cigars, whenever his nurse's back is turned. Elsa Lanchester is one of my favorite character actress. She has a way of making an impression in a small role and that is surely the case here. Rounding out the cast are Norma Varden as the murdered widow and Una O'Connor as her maid. Both are great. I don't want to discuss details of the case for fear of giving away too much of the plot. It is interesting that the film is set in England, to see the differences in their legal system, most notably the judge and barristers (lawyers) wearing wigs. The twist ending is one of the best ever filmed. I totally did not see it coming. With a director like Billy Wilder, it's easy to overlook really great films over their more famous films. I think that is at least somewhat the case here. Billy Wilder has a way of turning genre films on their ears, film noirs that are about people who aren't really criminals or comedies with a sense of pathos. In Witness for the Prosecution, Wilder combines a murder mystery with interesting characters and tosses in a great ending. The results are spectacular and one of the best courtroom dramas ever put on film.
Sunday at the TCM Classic Film Festival (TCMFF) started a little later for us. Since we only had three Falcons to give out on Sunday, we didn't have to get into Club TCM before it opened. That gave us about a half hour more sleep. While we were getting ready in the morning, my 16-year-old daughter/Social Producer partner Jasmine said something super cool. I had originally planned to go to Holiday in Spain, but decided the transition would be too tough to get to the second block of films. I ended up switching to M*A*S*H, so I was sure I could get to The Kid on time. Jasmine said, "Oh good, because if you were not going to The Kid, I was straight-up going to ditch you." I was so proud. My wife Mary went to the first two TBDs of the day, Double Harness and Shanghai Express, both of which she had been shut out of earlier. Jasmine and I went off to M*A*S*H. The thing I remember most about the introduction was a joke that Sean Cameron made. After welcoming the audience, he asked, why aren't you guys in church. Then continued with, if you're not going to church, shouldn't you be going to the screening of King of Kings.
Elliott Gould speaks at M*A*S*H (photo by Stefanie Keenan/ Getty Images for Turner)
Jasmine had never seen M*A*S*H at all, and I know I had never seen it in the theater. My goal in seeing it in IMAX was to see whether Sally Kellerman was a natural blond. Despite the huge screen, I still couldn't tell. If memory serves me, the interview with Elliott Gould was after the screening. What I mostly remember about it was that he seemed very modest and down-to-earth. Jasmine's #TCMFF16YO review of M*A*S*H: M*A*S*H, a.k.a. blackmail and sex, the movie After the screening, Jasmine and I hid a Falcon at the Chinese Multiplex.
Kellee Pratt's very talented husband Gary did this sketch of The Kid
Next it was on to the restoration of The Kid. One of the problems they had with the restoration was finding a print. Charlie Chaplin had left the U.S. in 1951 for the premiere of Limelight in London. At the time, Chaplin had been under investigation by the FBI for subversive activities. He was critical of the Communist witch-hunt in Hollywood, and at least one Congressman was calling for his deportation. Chaplin had never become a U.S. citizen. When he left the country, Chaplin gave the negatives to a friend who destroyed them out of fear of being associated with Chaplin. Despite this, the new restoration was beautiful. Jasmine absolutely loved it. The first classic film she ever watched was, City Lights, and she said it made her heart feel all weird. Jasmine's #TCMFF16YO review of The Kid:
I didn't know proper attention and care meant to shake the kid senseless and beat up their dad
Next, we hid a Falcon at the Chinese Multiplex, and Mary rejoined us for Horse Feathers. The introduction by David Steinberg was fun. We were sitting off to the side in the first row under where the hallway leads to the exit. I was able to get some really blurry pictures of him as he left. The one where he is closest, it's difficult to tell that you are even looking a human. The film was fantastic, absolutely hilarious. Jasmine's #TCMFF16YO review of Horse Feathers: When Harpo plays the harp, I stop seeing Harpo and I see a talented normal person I know hunger got the better of us, and we decided on food rather than going to see Eva Marie Saint and The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming. I think we went to Johnny Rockets again. At least, I tweeted the following picture of us (possibly Sunday was the day we bought the photos):
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to change for the evening. We ended up going downstairs to Club TCM. We hid the last Falcon and caught up another Social Producer Christy Putnam. We did an interview with her and played ping pong in the little patio off the pool.
We also ran into Ana Roland:
Then we went back to the TCL Chinese Multiplex and did an interview with Kendall:
Finally, Jasmine suggested we do an interview with the statue outside of the theater. We both were a little loopy at this point: Also I had made some buttons for the Festival of a couple of my own designs, and at this point, I was doing my best to make sure we didn't have to take any home.
I ended up talking to a woman, whose name now escapes me. I was explaining to her about Social Media and #TCMParty on Twitter. She said she didn't know anything about Social Media other than she had found this miniature Maltese Falcon that had something to do with Social Media. I was like, Oh, that was us. My daughter and I were the ones who did that.
Our last last screening was The Band Wagon. The host, Susan Strohman in her interview with Illeana Douglas, said that the shoe shine guy in the movie was a real shoe shine guy who had a knack for it. That was so cool as it was one of the most memorable scenes in the film. To me, The Band Wagon is sort of like one of those sci-fi films where you watch it for the special effects. The Band Wagon is not the greatest performance for Fred Astaire or Cyd Charisse or for Oscar Lavant for that matter, but the dance numbers are just so darn cool.
Jasmine's #TCMFF16YO review of The Band Wagon:
When I see movies like this it makes me wonder why I even have legs
On the way back to the hotel for the closing night party, we stopped at Rite Aid for a snack, and it was like the Grinch had struck. There was hardly anything on the shelves, nothing left but some hooks and wire. The entire store had been picked clean.
The closing party was fun though it ended way too soon. When you're last screening ends at close to 10, midnight just comes way too fast. To compound matters, when the party shut down at 12:00, all of the bars in The Hollywood Roosevelt were closed. You would think that with the prices they were charging, they would want to keep charging them as long as possible.
Still the party was a lot of fun, talking with new friends and old. I even met a woman, Denise Mankarious, from San Diego who I'd been talking with online for years but had never met in real life. Jasmine only stayed for a little while. She is fine with hanging out with grownups in small groups, but a party with a whole bunch of them, not so much. If I'd had let her, she would have not gone at all.
It all ended too soon and not having a bar open wasn't working. Ariel Schudson suggested we go to bar she knew, called Boardners. The Exodus was somewhat less than Charleton Heston would have inspired. Mary was wearing shoes, not meant for walking, so it ended up being just Ariel, Paula Guthat, and me. The drinks were good at about a third of the price back at the Roosevelt. Not a bad way to end TCMFF.
Saturday at the festival started once again with going into Club TCM before it opened to hide a Falcon. Then Jasmine and I met up with my wife Mary and went down to the Egyptian for the 90th Anniversary of Vitaphone.
Once again we ran into Joel Williams, who had the number 1 line number for the screening. The screening was awesome. It started with a little bit of history about talking motion pictures. There were a large number of attempts before Vitaphone finally got it right and made it commercially viable. The big problem was synchronizing the sound and the picture, and not just synchronizing but reliably synchronizing. Vitaphone solved this problem by recording the sound at the same time they were filming the actors. The sound was recorded on large-format vinyl records. Because both the film and the audio were captured at the same time, it was easier to synchronize later. They also spoke about the restoration efforts as it was a two-fold process. You had to find the film and then find the record that went with the film.
Vitaphone shorts were marketed as vaudeville in a can. They would hire the top vaudeville performers of the day and film them to sell to theaters. They went on to show a number of these short vaudeville performances. I've been embedded my favorite ones below.
I think I was most impressed with Baby Rose Marie. The woman who played Sally Rogers on the old Dick Van Dyke Show performing at about 5 or 6 years old and just killing it: Shaw and Lee:
Conlin and Glass (part of the film):
Jasmine's #TCMFF16YO review of 90th Anniversary of Vitaphone: I wish presentations at school could be as cool as this
We hid a Falcon in the Egyptian as we were leaving. On the way out we ran into Kimberly who is in the number one position for a face in the crowd.
We went directly to the TCL Chinese IMAX for Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. We got there pretty early but still had line numbers in the 300s. I still felt good about that because it is a huge theater, so even though the line ran all the way through the mall and almost back around to the front, I was sure we'd get in. We decided to sit further forward then we normally would for the sake of getting pictures and video. When we sat down, we sat next to an African American women, who I was convinced I had met earlier. I had not. Her name was Beth, but she was someone who I had been chatting with on Twitter #TCMParty for a couple of years.
The interview with Carl Reiner was after the film, but they had Eddie Muller there to introduce it. He started by asking the question why would they get him to introduce a parody of a Film Noir. He said that there had always been a grand tradition of doing Film Noir parodies that had started right in the middle of the Film Noir era, so he thought that Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid fit in perfectly well with all of that.
He also talked about the film from a technical standpoint. The way that modern footage was integrated with vintage films so seamlessly is nothing short of amazing. For me seeing Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid was mostly about seeing the old movies. I figured that it had been a lot of years since I'd seen it, I would now know most of the films they were showing. I did, but I had forgotten just how funny a film it is.
After the screening Carl Reiner was interviewed by Illeana Douglas. He was hilarious. He had such funny stories. One of the things that came up was Illeana asked him about who the character Alan Brady from The Dick Van Dyke Show was based on. He said that everybody always said that Alan Brady was based on Sid Caesar, from Your Show of Shows, but he was not. He was based on a combination of Phil Silvers and Milton Berle. He took some of the most extreme aspects of their personalities when they were working and added things from his imagination to turn Alan Brady into the monster he was.
He also talked about Mel Brooks and The 2000 Year Old Man. It started as a comedy routine that he and Mel Brooks would do at parties. It became so popular that someone finally convinced them to record it. He said that at one point Cary Grant came up to him and wanted 12 copies of the album. He asked Cary Grant why he wanted the albums. He said that he wanted to take them to England. He later found out that the Queen loved it. He also said that he, and Mel Brooks were still very close friends and Mel comes over to his house several times a week to watch TV together.
He also told a really off-color story about George Burns. He had directed George Burns in Oh, God. At the time Carl Reiner was in his sixties, and George Burns was in his eighties. George Burns was known for always having gorgeous woman with him wherever he went. Carl Reiner asked him about, now that he was in his eighties, what was sex like. George Burns responded it was like putting an oyster in a slot machine. One of the things that struck me about Carl Reiner was that he was very complimentary of everyone he spoke of. He would be asked about certain entertainers that he worked with in the past, and he would always respond with oh, he was a genius, she was wonderful. I got a couple of videos of Carl Reiner, one on Mel Brooks:
And another on Edith Head: Jasmine's #TCMFF16YO review of Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid: I would make a joke about Juliet being good at sucking but they already did that 3 times
We didn't stick around for the book signing. But we did stop to hide a Falcon in the TCM Chinese IMAX. By this point Jasmine and I had started referring to the Falcons as MacGuffins just in case somebody would overhear us.
We had a bit more of a gap between this screening and the next. We were too early to get line numbers for the next screening, so we decided to grab food again at Johnny Rockets. The hostess asked if we wanted our picture taken for a free postcard. I said, what the heck. She came with the free postcard and a couple of other pictures that were not free. I decided to be a sucker and bought a couple of them anyway.
This one's free, the others not so much.
Before the next screening, we hid another Falcon in the TCL Chinese Multiplex. Next up was The War of the Worlds. I actually wasn't all that psyched about it. Yes, I like the film, but it is not one of my favorites of 1950s sci-fi. The introduction by Ben Burtt was really great. It totally made it worth it.
Host Ben Burtt is a sound effects person who had worked on the Star Wars movies, but he talked about both the visual and sound effects. There were some effects that he wasn't sure about. For example, the beams that came off the ends of the wings of the ships, no one had documented how they did them. They started playing around with it and what they think they did was use a Jacob's Ladder and laid it down on its side and then used a fan to blow the sparks and filmed it with a green filter. Since the guy was mostly a sound effects guy, he talked a lot about the sound effects. One of these sound effects for some of the weapons was made by putting a mic at one end of a large spring and hitting it. Since the higher frequency sound waves travel faster than the lower frequency waves, you get this really cool effect. He had even set up a spring and a microphone and demonstrated it live for the audience. That was way cool. Turns out that despite my somewhat low expectations, this presentation turned out to be one of my favorite things of the Festival.
Jasmine's #TCMFF16YO review of The War of the Worlds: Don't fight back to aliens, just hide in a church and wait for it all to blow over
The original plan at this point had Jasmine and my wife Mary going to The King and I and me going to Endless Summer. But it turned out that Mary decided she wanted to see Forbidden Planet by the pool instead. Jasmine had thought that Endless Summer sounded cool but wanted to see if The King and I more. However. since her mom changed her mind, she decided to tag along with me for Endless Summer.
Doing my best surf pose before Endless Summer
I had decided that I wanted to wear board shorts for the Endless Summer screening, so I went back to the hotel to change. I stopped in Club TCM and hid the last Falcon of the day.
It was a real treat to hear Bruce Brown speak before the screening. Jasmine thought he was "totally cool and chill." If I had any complaints it was that the person interviewing him probably knew sports, but not necessarily the sport of surfing.
He asked Bruce Brown how he got Robert August and Mike Hynson to go with him. Bruce Brown thought this was kind of an odd question. I did too. It's not like these guys had agents or anything like that back then. When Bruce Brown was making surf movies he knew and was friends with almost every major surfer in the world. So I thought Bruce Brown's answer was absolutely hilarious. He said, "Well, I knew them and they could go." The interviewer also asked Bruce Brown about what he thought about Endless Summer being set aside for preservation by the Library of Congress. I don't know whether Bruce Brown was not fazed by this or whether he just didn't know that it had even happened. He just kind of blew it off. I kind of got the feeling the Bruce Brown really wasn't used to being interviewed and was a little taken aback by all the attention. He did say he would hang out in the theater afterwards to sign autographs and meet people.
Jasmine and I both loved the film. If I had ever seen it in the theater it would have been when I was very very young and I don't remember it, so getting the chance to see it now was a treat. Afterwards sure enough, Bruce Brown was out in the lobby shaking hands and posing for pictures.
My blurry proof that I met Bruce Brown
After I shook hands with him and took a picture, I thanked him and moved to the side to give other people a chance. He asked me if I surfed, and I said no, not anymore, but I still skateboarded. He said that was cool, and I got the impression that he would much rather be talking about surfing or skateboarding than being there taking pictures. Jasmine's #TCMFF16YO review of Endless Summer. Radical. Even the director is rad, he wore a freaking Hawaiian shirt and flannel to an interview! Next up, the original plan called for Band of Outsiders but I thought I was too exhausted to read subtitles and Jasmine was just plain exhausted. She went up to the room while I went out to the pool and caught up with Mary and watched the last 45 minutes of Forbidden Planet.
The last screening of the day was the midnight movie Gog in 3D. In the three years that I've been coming to TCMFF, I have never made it to a midnight movie.
Gog!
Gog in 3D did it. I had made some VIP candy, and I still had some of it left so I brought it to the theater and gave it out to people who were there for the screening. The introduction talked about the restoration. When you make a 3D film you have two separate pieces of film, one for each eye. The restoration was challenging because they had one good copy for the one eye, but the copy for the other eye was done with film that was printed with a very cheap process and almost all of the color had faded out of it. When you looked at the two side-by-side, it almost looked like the one have been filmed in black and white.
The film was a hoot. Not good mind you but fun all the same. By the time we got back to the hotel everything was closed, so we just went up to bed, end of another great day at TCMFF.
