TCMFF Opening Night: The Produceres

AFI says it's the number 11 comedy of all time, I can find no reason to disagree.  Mel Brooks first film is a slap stick like Affair with lecherous men, providing sexual gratification to little old ladies in exchange for their investment in Broadway shows. Gene Wilder is a timid  book keeper who figures out a way to make money from a flop. So the search is on for the elements of a guaranteed failure.

Everyone remembers how great Zero Mostel and Wilder are in their parts. Special mention must go to Kenneth Mars as the deranged playwright.  His morose Nazi, seeking redemption for der Fueher is comically tragic.  No tragedy, just hilarity when Dick Shawn appears as the actor, supposedly destined for failure,  who steals the play with his loopy line readings. He almost steals the movie as well.

Springtime for Hitler was a show stopper in the film, and I'm sure the number had a huge impact on the decision to turn the film into a Broadway musical. The film made from the musical play does not quite deliver the same goods, but I remember enjoying it anyway. 

As usual, The TCMFF planned a great program for opening night. Before the screening,  Leonardo DiCaprio came out and presented an award named after the late Robert Osbourne,  to Martin Scorsese,  for his efforts at preserving films. Both gave nice speeches,  and Scorsese was particularly passionate regarding seeing films on the big screen. 

Then Mel Brooks came out, supposedly to be interviewed,  but he is a force of nature that cannot be contained. He basically riffed for twenty minutes on the background of the film and the actors.  Host Ben Mankiewicz cold barely ask a question much less get a direct answer,  but he knew that going in, he's done this type of thing with Brooks before. At 91, Mel puts the rest of us to shame when it comes to energy.

TCM Film Festival Day Four

Sunday mornings in Hollywood are a quiet time most weeks, but when the TCM Film Festival is in town, the pace gets quicker on the last day and it starts early.

Cock of the Air (1931)

This was a Howard Hughes production and it was pre-code so it is definitely a little racy for the time. Although mild by today's standards, this film must have had tongues wagging with it's story of a flirtatious aviator and a French Opera singer. The fact that the Opera singer is given a medal for moving away from Paris, where she is a distraction to too many officers, let's you know that this is not a chaste figure making a sacrifice for her country.

The dialogue is full of innuendo and then there are the stars costumes. They leave little of her decolletage to the imagination. The Hayes office forced 12 minutes of cuts in the film and it was thought that they were gone for good but a decade ago, the Motion Picture Academy discovered an uncensored print that lacked a soundtrack. Using the existing material and a copy of the script, four actors dub in the lines from the scenes that were previously cut. In the screening we saw, the sections that had been cut were identifiable by an icon on the screen that came and went as the story played out.

It was a fascinating experience to see the restored film in excellent shape, but even more so with the "lost" material reinserted and the censors cuts clearly indicated.

The film has a contentious romance at it's heart but there is also a lot of humor built into the story. There is not really much in the way of battle action but there are a few flying scenes and the bedroom farce sections will keep you in stitches.

Lured (1947)

It's completely normal to think of Lucille Ball as a television star. That is where she ultimately made her biggest mark, but she also starred in over 70 features and she was sometimes thought of as the Queen of the Bs of her era. This film is a noir inspired melodrama featuring a serial killer, dance hall girls, the personal columns and George Sanders. It is directed by 50s favorite Douglas Sirk, but features the glorious black and white of the late 40s noir films rather than the technicolor of "Magnificent Obsession" or "All that Heaven Allows".

Lucy is an American actress, stranded in London trying to make ends meet as a hostess in a dancehall. Her friend disappears and Scotland yard uses her to try and bait a serial killer who has been sending poetry inspired by a disturbed bard. It is interesting to see that the procedural of using a profile of a killer has been around a lot longer than "The Silence of the Lambs".  Working as a police undercover agent, Ball encounters suspects and falls in love with the stylish and snobby George Sanders. Sanders turns out to be a suspect as well. complicating the romance. The use of the personal ads and the cop falling for a suspect reminds me of the Al Pacino movie, "Sea of Love".

For a film that ultimately relies on suspense, there is a lot of humor and fluff. Balancing a romance with a serial killer story is awkward. Boris Karloff is another suspect, and at first he is played as a bit of a comic character but it does turn dark pretty quickly. I know that I have seen Cedric Hardwicke in movies before, but it is only days later that I realized he played the Pharo in "The Ten Commandments", I should have made that connection sooner. Charles Couburn as the head of Scotland Yard's team investigating the murders, makes no attempt to do an English accent, he gets by on his general charm and old man wisdom. Alan Napier was in "The Court Jester" yesterday and interestingly enough is Detective Gordon in this movie. I say interesting because that's one step away from a part that he did not have in his most famous role. He was Alfred in the 1960s Batman, and there he just answered the"bat phone" when Commissioner Gordon called.

Boris Karloff's daughter Sara was in attendee and she told a few stories about her father who was featured in this film.

Postcards From the Edge (1990)

Just as Robert Osborne's death hung over the Festival which was dedicated to him, the double whammy of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds was also heavy on many film lovers minds. There were two films being screened to honor the Mother/Daughter tandem that we lost in December. "Singin' in the Rain" was in the big house at Grauman's but we had been to a screening in January so chose instead to see the Roman à clef  "Postcards from the Edge", screenplay by Carrie Fisher. Although Fisher denied that it was based on her relationship with her own mother, the parallels are to obvious to ignore.

Meryl Streep first sang on screen not in "Mama Mia" or "Into the Woods" or "Ricki and the Flash", but rather in this film, where she plays the drug abusing actress daughter of a famous old time Hollywood singer Actress, played by Shirley MacLaine. There are a lot of Hollywood inside jokes, including a running story line concern the casual mating behaviors of people in the film business. The movie is littered with a variety of well known actors in brief parts including Rob Reiner, Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfess, Dennis Quaid, and in one last minor role before she broke out into stardom later in this year Annette Bening.

I can't say that there is a strong narrative but I can say that the two leads were great in their parts. You can see under the brash enthusiasm of MacLaine's character to her more vulnerable parts. As usual, Streep is excellent and she is called on to do several district moods. She plays it straight when acting in a not very good film, she is angry as the casual lover betrayed by her own casualness, and she is frightened by the stupidity of her own choices when it comes to drug use. I thought her best moments were with Director Hackman as he tries to be honest with her and rescue her career at the same time.

This was the second Mike Nichols film we saw at the festival. It is not a work as assured and ground breaking as "The Graduate" but it was typical of the kinds of comedic dramas he would specialize in most of his later career.

What's Up Doc? (1972)

We left the screening of "Postcards" before the guests, Todd Fisher and Richard Dreyfess came out, because scheduling was tight and we wanted to get in to see this second Peter Bogdanovich film. Amanda had seen the bleak but moving "Last Picture Show" the day before, and this was an opportunity to cut loose and see what else he can do. From one year to the next it is hard to imagine a bigger shift in tone that this revival of the screwball comedy, featuring Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neal.

Streisand has the role that in the 1930s would have been played by Katherine Hepburn or in the 1940s by Barbara Stanwyk. She is a slightly nutty misfit with a huge pool of knowledge on the tip of her tongue because she has been thrown out of so many colleges and so many majors. She latches onto O'Neal as a cute professor of Musicology with an interesting theory of music and rocks. His fiance introduces us to Madeline Kahn, in her first film role where she steals the whole picture. Kahn is the dowdy and dominating woman that runs the life of the absent minded O'Neal and Streisand is jsut the ticket to relieve him of that burden.

Throw in four identical suitcases with stolen jewellery, secret government information, rock specimens and clothes and underwear and you are all set for the kind of slapstick and mistaken identity that made those films of an earlier era so fun. There is literally a gag with people going in and out of hotel room doors that looks like it could have been cribbed from a Marx Brothers film.  Like most of those older films, this movie has scene stealing character actors and wild shifts in momentum. The last section of the movie features an astounding chase through the streets of San Francisco, on foot, bike and in cars. "Bullit" looks simple by comparison.

 Bogdanovich appeared before the film to talk about the actors and the process of getting the movie made. He seemed to have clearly understood that if he wanted to have the ability to wok in different genres, he need to get to direct this film. This was also a film written in part by Buck Henry, who had been the guest the night before for "The Graduate".

Speedy (1928)

We finished the festival with a silent film from Harold Lloyd. Along with Keaton and Chaplin, Lloyd is one of the cornerstones of not just silent films but comedy films specifically. This version of the film is apparently widely available but this screening had something extra special to recommend it. It was to be accompanied by a live orchestra playing original music for the film.

The Alloy Orchestra is really a four piece ensemble and they follow the action closely throughout the film. Sprinkled in the score are familiar motifs relating to baseball and carnivals, which are both featured in the story. A feckless young man with great confidence, goes from job to job, trying to impress the parents of the girl he is in love with. His failure as a soda jerk or cab driver is incidental to the wild moments he encounters on the streets of New York and Coney Island.

The film narrative is slight but there are dozens of visual gags and the actors do a nice job playing sweethearts who are unaffected by the upheaval that surrounds them. In the end, the young man saves the day for his future father-in-law, but he ruins a suit and Babe Ruth's day along the way.  Suzanne Lloyd, Harold's Granddaughter and keeper of his legacy was present to reminisce with film historian and critic Leonard Maltin.

If you want to see what NYC looked like nearly a century ago, this movie will give you an extensive tour and make you long for the days when Coney Island served cotton candy in paper sacks.

TCM Film Festival Day Three

So let's see if we can get the whole day in on one post rather than spreading it out over several. Saturday is always a densely packed day at the TCMFF. It begins with one of the movies I treasure from my nostalgia bank. A comedy takeoff on my favorite film.

The Court Jester

The film features the clown prince of movie comedy from the 1940s and 50s, the amazing Danny Kaye. Like most people my age, I encountered this movie in reruns on Sunday afternoon movie programs. It is a brilliant take off on "Robin Hood" and other swashbucklers.

The movie looks great on the big screen and this is one of the reasons I chose to see a movie I practically know by heart, because I have never seen it it a theater. The color bursts forth in amazing hues and the costumes look lush and detailed. The opening number with Kaye pretending to be The Black Fox and dancing with miniature versions of himself was a riot. The Foxes outfit was reproduced a dozen times for the diminutive actors playing the acrobatic troop that Hawkins once worked with.  Captain Jean shows up in a similar outfit, tailored for a woman and with a slightly different color. This is the start of the little details that make a big screen viewing extra special.

The audience was full and host Illeana Douglas and guest Fred Willard shared their stories about seeing the film and loving Danny Kaye. Outside in line for the next film, I encountered a woman who had a myriad of tattoos, but her most recent ones were the focus of my attention.  If you look closely you will see here on the wrist a Vessel with a Pestle, a Chalice from the Palace, and a Flagon with the figure of a dragon. She definitely is a fan. My fandom will not go so far as to paint my body, but I do have a full post on the film here. I think you will find the review and story there worth your trip.

The Awful Truth

This was a last minute call for me. I'd originally planned on seeing "The Last Picture Show" with director Peter Bogdonovicth , but I decided that since I'd seen it only a month earlier, I'd look for

something else. My daughter Amanda and I split up at this point and she headed off to see the 70's classic while I queued up for a screwball comedy that I saw three decades or so before and had only a vague memory of.

This was a chance for me to sit with some of the TCM Party People I know from on-line. Kellee Pratt and her husband Gary were there as was Aurora from Citizen Screen. I saved a seat for my local blogging buddy Michael, and there were a dozen others from the group around us as well. Some of those folks were introduced to me and some were not but all of the group was friendly and full of anticipation.  The excitement was completely understandable because this movie is a delight. As with most screwball films, the premise is a little far fetched and convoluted but once you accept that, everything falls into place. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are married couple who have some secrets that they keep from one another but they appear to be a little innocuous. Grant however lets his suspicions get the best of him and they pursue a divorce that neither of them really wants.

Ralph Bellamy plays the third wheel love interest who complicates the couples reunion. This is a part that he most have done in films a dozen times, including "His Girl Friday" where again his romantic proclivities are thwarted by Cary Grant. I'd just seen Grant in "North By Northwest" a few days ago, and It is amazing how great his range was. The picture at the top of this post was taken by TCM of the line for the film. If you look closely, you will see me giving the "Fight On" victory salute of my Trojan Family.

The Jerk

I saw this movie when it was first released and I thought it was hysterical but a bit of a thrown together piece of work. I must have watched bits and pieces of it over the years so that I knew it intimately. Watching the whole thing once more, it was much more coherent and professionally assembled than I remembered, although it was just as funny 38 years later.

Much of that credit belongs to the director Carl Reiner, who along with star and screenwriter Steve Martin, put together a series of loose sketches (much like they had done throughout their careers) to make a real movie. Reiner was present before the screening for a book signing that went on quite a while and caused a pretty big delay in the schedule.  I was worried I'd not make it in time to get to the next film where I was scheduled to reconnect with Amanda.

Reiner was much like Mel Brooks was, full of stories and very funny. He does digress a bit into some political themes that are prevalent these days. One of the reasons I  want to go to the festival is to get away from that subject matter and it was a little annoying. I was glad when he got the subject off his chest and went back to the film and his admiration of Steve Martin. Host Ben Mankiewicz, while interviewing him had a hard time understanding the baseball cap he had handy. The information that Reiner is not a Colorado Rockies fan, lead to realization that the hat logo had more to do with the guest than baseball. I'll bet you figure it out faster than Ben did.

I was Mr. Reiner last year at the TCM FF talking about "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid". At age 95, he has not lost his wit or enthusiasm for working. Apparently he has two other books coming out this year as well.

Best In Show

The least "classic" in terms of date released film I saw at the Festival was the most successful of the Christopher Guest directed improvisational films, "Best in Show". I suspect some classic film fans would be wondering why this movie is included in the program. It is barely seventeen years old and hardly the sort of thing that would attract this audience. It was however not only well attended but completely booked and I don't think anyone in the standby line got in.

Since the theme of the festival was comedy, it makes sense to have some of the funniest movies around included in your program. Since the Festival makes a great effort to add value to the screenings with special guests, this film really paid in spades because there were four actors from the film present to share some stories.

John Michael Higgins, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban and Jim Piddock sat down front and spoke of the process that is used to put these ensemble films together and they reminisced about the making of the film. Poor Bob Balaban had such a sore throat that he could not speak, but he participated with notes that the host or one of the co-stars would read. It seems appropriate that he was the one with a wing down since it was also true when they made the film. He had a large footbrace on his leg the whole time that they were shooting and had to have his slacks altered so that he could hide the fact but still wear the piece. Piddock recalled how difficult it was to play straight man to Willard. He also noted that all of their work was basically done in an afternoon and that there were no dogs present at the location where they shot.

We had an interesting encounter with a woman in line for the next movie. She had been in the screeing with us and she and her friend were discussing the film while we waited to get back into the main Chinese theater. She hated the film, and I think she represents many of the fans who would have questioned it's inclusion. However if you judge by the volume of laughter in the room and it's frequency, the movie was a success with most of the crowd.

The Graduate

While it may not be from the studio era that most fans of TCM would use to define "classic film", the rest of the world would certainly concede that this is at least a modern classic. "The Graduate" introduced Dustin Hoffman to the world and the themes of the movie reverberate throughout Hollywood for ten years after the film was released. As hard as it was for me to believe, my daughter had never seen it and I was anxious to get her take on the film.

The Simon and Garfunkel songs that are littered throughout the story are part of the soundtrack of we baby boomers lives. The opening sequence with Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin, being moved without any effort on his part by the people conveyor at LAX, with the blank tile walls behind him, completely forecasts the characters story and ambivalence. Much has been written about the final shots and the tentative smiles and uncertainty on the actors faces, but if you ask me, this was the moment that Mike Nichols earned his Academy Award.

Screenwriter Buck Henry was the guest and his was one of the most interesting interviews of the weekend. Mr. Henry is eighty seven years old and not quite as spry as Carl Reiner or his old collaborator Mel Brooks. He was in fact in a wheelchair, but he did not appear to be infirm. As he was interviewed, there were times when he seemed indifferent to or confused by the questions, but just when you thought he was out of it, he usually made an insightful comment or quip, and I began to think he was really just toying with us.

The fact that Robert Redford walked away from the part as Nichols continued to try and interest him in it might be well known. Henry added to the story however by explaining that Redford's reason given to the director was simple, he didn't get it. He also shared a piece of info that I was unaware of , Murray Hamilton was a replacement for an actor who Nichols let go. The actor was very capable but Nichols simply did not think he could play "rich". The actor was Gene Hackman, perhaps my very favorite actor ever. To me the bigger question was how he could play older. Hackman and Hoffman are pretty close to the same age and they shared rooms together at one point. Hackman moved on to "Bonnie and Clyde" which was not at all a bad trade for him.

The best part of the film came in the car on the ride home that night. I had the kind of discussion with my daughter that film fans always want to have. We had insights and disagreements and intelligent comments to make about a movie that inspired us. She has asked me several times what my favorite part of the festival was. I've not said it before but I will put it in writing right here. My favorite thing about this years TCM Film Festival was the forty minute ride home that night, talking to her about a great movie.

TCM FF Day 2 Part 4 Friday April 7

High Anxiety

I could have warned host Ben Mankiewicz that his notes would be worthless when interviewing Mel Brooks. I had the pleasure just a couple of months ago of watching Brooks participate in a presentation of Blazing Saddles. The man is a force of nature that cannot be controlled. The twenty or so minutes that Brooks was given was filled with laughter and applause. He repeated some of the same stories he told two months ago, but he added some new ones. I especially enjoyed hearing about his revenge on Harry Cohn and the pleading that was done on his behalf to keep his job.

High Anxiety is a pastiche of Hitchcock films that touches on several more than a dozen of the master's works or characters. I've heard it said that it is one of his lesser accomplishments, but since the story and jokes have to borrow from so many well known sources to begin with, it is a real achievement that it feels like a regular film and not a parody like one of the Airplane! or Naked Gun films.

The cast of this movie was packed with the funniest of actors from the 1970s. Madeline Kahn should have a statute somewhere to commemorate the day she entered our motion picture world. Her rendition of Hitch's icy blonde is spot on. Cloris Leachman has no vanity to serve when it comes to getting the laughs. He marble mouthed mustached nurse, is a nightmare version of the nightmare that was Mrs. Danvers seventy years ago. Harvey Korman was funny in almost everything he did and his fussy, emasculated psychiatrist is a character that can safely sit next to his role in Blazing Saddles.

Finally, Mel Brooks turns in a wonderful comedic performance as a psychiatrist with a major hang up that probably accounts for why he chose the profession in the first place. Brooks looks great in 1977, and could pull off a leading man role without having a matinee star like face. The two high points of the film for him are the shower scene where he effectively stands in for Janet leigh, and a musical turn at the piano bar. Brooks sells the title song as if it were part of the Great American Songbook, but also as a comic tune that sets the stage for events in the movie. The theme of this years Festival was Comedy, and this was one of the many films I saw that had the audience reeling. Of course they did get a big appitiezer to start the meal off with. 

Day 2 TCM FF Friday April 7 (Part 3)

The Bridge on the River Kwai

One of my on-line friends , in answer to a poll question concerning what movies are best on the big screen, answered "None". He believes that a movie isn't very good if it has to be experienced in a theater. Here is exhibit A in the case against this ridiculous claim. Movies were made for theaters not for TV screens, and the framing, cinematography, and spectacle can sometimes best be appreciated when it is thirty feet tall and seventy feet wide. "David Lean" is the answer to any of your friends who have a similar opinion. 

I've seen The Bridge on the River Kwai maybe a dozen times in my life. I own a beautiful Laserdisc edition. This however was the first time I think I have seen it on a big screen, and this was in the main theater at the famed home of Grauman's (now TCL). The expansiveness of the jungle can be appreciated more on the big screen. The Bridge itself, both as it is being completed and destroyed is much more impressive on the giant screen in this theater. The climax of the film looks more impressive and the madness of the characters involved is more completely noticeable as two of the principles lie in the foreground of the destruction.

It was the 60th anniversary of the films release and our host was Alex Trebeck, the quiz master of "Jeopardy". He shared the familiar story of how two blacklisted screenwriters were deprived of their credits for the film, which won the award for screenplay. The Award was given in 1958 to the author of the book, of whom one of the screenwriters said, "At least he had the good grace to not appear at the Awards to accept.".

William Holden manages to be even better in the film than I remembered, but it is Alec Guinness who really stands out and clear deserved to honor bestowed on him that year. The cast looks incredibly emaciated in the early parts of the film. It was probably as accurate as you could get without being accused of deliberately mistreating the actors. The battle of wills that dominates the first part of the movie is both tragic and comic. Col. Nichols remained dryly sardonic in spite of the hardships he had to endure. A Great Film in a great venue.

TCM Film Festival l Day Two (Part 3)

Friday April 7, 2017

Panique'

This was a restoration presentation of a film noir in French, made immediately after the war. It is based on a novel by a widely read and published Belgium author Georges Simenon. There is a combination of sadism, racism and voyeurism in the movie that makes it stand out. The actors seemed to be cast well and they were convincing in their roles.

Rather than being a procedural or a tradition femme fatale murder plot, the story opens with a crime having already been committed. A mysterious woman who does have the traditional markings of the dangerous woman, arrives in a provincial town and is immediately the subject of unwanted attention from a standoffish resident who others in the town dislike. She is just out of prison and is reconnecting with an old lover who she took the fall for. The loner knows more about the two of them then they are comfortable with and a cat and mouse game begins.

There is a slight hint of the paranormal, with a fortune teller at a traveling carnival indicating danger ahead. The loner turns out to have some pseudo scientific fortune telling skills of his own. The lover she has returned to is a complete cad and ultimately manages a betrayal of trust and the mob vengeance of the entire community. The stunning black and white composition, the clever plotting and the weirdness of the characters made this one of my favorites of the festival.

The son of Georges Simenon, an accomplished writer himself, came to the festival to discuss the film. His father had a wide group of friends and admirers and while some of his novels were turned into films. he was often opposed to the way that the stories had to be told. Once again, it was an interesting history lesson that included some international cinema. 

Day 2 TCM Film Festival Friday April 7 (Part 2)

Beat the Devil

If you have never seen this odd film from director John Huston and Star Humphrey Bogart, you are likely to be thrown for a loop when you do. It is not at all what you would expect. It started out as a serious project but some of the circumstances are odd and after Truman Capote signed on to work th script, it becomes an outright comedy.

Jennifer Jones is really interesting as a woman who is fickle in love and has a tenuous relationship with the truth. The oddball characters start stacking up and although there is murder in the air, the drama of the story never seems to be the focus. Instead we are anticipating the next outrageous turn of events or quip from Bogart.

The first half of the film takes place onshore as the cast of characters awaits repairs to the vessel they are supposed to sail on. We take in local ruins, and the cast mistakenly think that characters have died. When you have Gina Lollobrigda and Jennifer Jones as romantic interests, you are a lucky guy. At least in love, but the scheme seems to be going off the rails at times. Bogart's partners include Robert Morely and Peter Lorre and Italian actor Marco Tulli. Everyone is double crossing everyone else and you will have a hard time following the plot and scheme, but that is mostly not relevant to enjoying the picture.

The program featured a discussion of the filming by script supervisor Angela Allen, who told several amusing stories about working with the cast. Apparently, one day when they were shooting at sea, the captain misunderstood the directions and had the ship sailing off to North Africa for a couple of hours before anyone realized it. The cast and crew did not get back into port until many hours into the night and they were lucky they did not wake up in Tunisia.

Day Two TCMFF Friday April 7

Beyond the Mouse: The 1930s Cartoons of Ub Iwerks

This/morning we have animated fare on the plate. The works of Ub Iwerks are going to be the subject of the program, Beyond the Mouse. There were ten cartoons from the 1930 period, starting with an Oswald Rabbit short that was pretty primitive but very amusing. The level/of violence was a bit high but it was entertaining. Steamboat Willie was next and it is probably a bit harsher than you remember.

Iwerks was very much responsible for the Look of Mickey Mouse early on. The reasons he went off on his own for this period did not seem to be about a problem with his friend Walt Disney, but rather exploring his creative impulses. There were a couple of early color cartoons and some of the background stuff stands out a bit more.

The Skeletons Dance was a great Black and White, I think that was still with the Disney group, but there were two follow ups with a character named Flip the Frog. They were both amusing but definitely a bit different. There was one sequence that the frog ends up with his pants around his ankles for a/big chunk of time. That seemed awkward. There were two Willie Whopper cartoons, a character I was not familiar with who tells tall tales. One was kinda dark about a trip to Hell and the Devil. So we got a little history lesson to start our day.

TCM Film Festival Opening Night: In the Heat of the Night

Opening night at the TCM Film Festival was a double edged sword this evening. My plan had been to see the main event and then cruise down afterwards to see "The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)". Something created a hangup, and the screening did not start until forty-five minutes past the scheduled time. The late start meant that if we stayed for the whole film, we would miss the Hitchcock film. A real bummer because at the last minute it was announced that Martin Scorsese was going to introduce the film. Amanda had never scene the whole of "In the Heat of the Night" so it seemed wrong to leave, plus once the film gets started, you don't want to go anywhere. You get a chance to watch actors who are really good do what they do so well. Also, the guest list for the film is impressive.

Our host was TCM's Ben Mankiewicz, and his line up was amazing. Actress Lee Grant, who had been blacklisted and not worked for twelve years before this film, was there to talk about her experience. She was joined by the director Norman Jewison, who's CV is about the length of your arm. The producer of the film, who won the Academy Award that year for Best Picture, is Walter Mirisch. He is ninety-six years old, and still amazingly engaged with the film business. If you loved a movie from the sixties or seventies, there is a good chance his name is attached to it somewhere. He mentioned that he has lunch every week with the man he considers his best friend, the star of this film Sidney Pointier.  Mr. Pointier has voice issues so he could not participate in the discussion, so he just sat and watched the film from the row right in front of us.

Just on the other side of the aisle from us were Alan and Marilyn Bergman, who wrote the title song that was sung by Ray Charles. Their other musical collaborations are too long to even think about listing. Right behind them was actor Scott Wilson, who played the second suspect in the film. He is a personal favorite of mine because of his starring role in The Ninth Configuration among others. OK, now that the name dropping is over, let me share a little bit of what they shared.

Mirisch talked about his seventy year friendship with Poitier, and how the two of them found the property and spent a great deal of time developing it. The original treatment fixed a number of issues that the book had, but the screen writer had a job offer he could not turn down and he left the project to be replaced by Stirling Silliphant, who went on to win the Academy Award for best screenplay. Mirisch also told of how he negotiated the production cost of the film, based on the possibility that it would not play south of the Mason-Dixon line. He handicapped Director Jewison with a tight budget but a great script that they did not want to change. There was worry that the slap that Pointier gives to a white gentrified suspect might create race riots. Jewison regaled us with stories about how he and Rod Stieger worked out Chief Gillespie's character. The gum Stieger chews in the film is almost a co-star.

Of course the film holds up well in spite of the progress we have made as a country. The raw racism shown so casually would certainly shock today's younger viewers who would have a hard time seeing how blatant such prejudice was, not that long ago. The film is an important landmark in the transition from the Jim Crow attitudes of the day to more enlightened perspectives just a few years later. The murder mystery is a plot device to allow us to see racial tension boil over and remain in an undercurrent simultaneously.  Pointier was also in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" in the same year. He was the number one box office star, and it mattered that this film succeed as it did.

 

We got to walk the Red carpet before the movie, so for a brief moment, we felt like celebrities, but no one asked me "Who I was wearing?"

TCM Film Festival Plan

This is the plan, of course that is the thing that makes God Laugh. We will see what parts of it we manage to accomplish. I hope some of my blogging colleagues will be attending and will look for me. I'll be looking for them. [I know the first three things are Thursday and not Friday. Don't Worry.]

TCM Film Festival Coverage Finale: A Double Dose of Barron and Burtt

I've saved my favorite events for the end of the Festival post. This was a tough choice because so many special moments were had by me at this years festival. The Vitaphone Presentation was incredibly enlightening and educational. It certainly gets me in the mood to learn more about the process and to seek out the films of that early sound era. Francis Coppola was  a personal high point because he was the first director I knew by name as a kid and seeing him in person was just a great emotional moment. "Fat City" was the best rediscovery of the Festival, Stacy Keach was magnificent in the film. "Shanghai Express" was a wonder to behold, the technical sophistication of the film in 1932 is a wonder. Ultimately, my geek side won out because there is just something about a couple of tech guys, talking about their own fascination with the process that acts like a magnet for me.

Special Effects wizard Craig Barron and Sound magician Ben Burtt, are the Dynamic Duo that always seem to impress. My first visit to the Festival was two years ago when I crashed a screening of my favorite movie that was being discussed extensively by these two.  Their avuncular personalities and attention to detail really impressed me and last year they repeated the accomplishment with an excellent presentation on another early classic. So I had high expectations this year as well.

Everyone has seen "It's A Wonderful Life"  enough times I'm sure to be dehydrated from the experience. I think this was my first time seeing it on the big screen however. My companions included my daughter Amanda and my friend Michael, who blogs at "It Rains...You Get Wet". We saw several films at the festival in his company, but I suspect this one might be his favorite. He has thought very carefully and thoroughly about it as is evidenced by his "Favorite Scenes" post from just a week ago.  In addition to the waterworks we all experienced, our special effects guys did a very nice job showing how some of the visual and sound elements of the film were achieved. There was a very nice power point presentation which visualized the bridge that Clarence and George both jump off of. The imaginary river and the pretty perfect process shot that goes with it were a complete surprise to me. I'd never have guessed that this was a shot that involved a large amount of camera trickery.

The composites that go into this shot were really pretty amazing, but it is put together so seamlessly that you would think they filmed on a actual bridge. We also got to see some miniatures that were used for the Baily house in the opening and the matte shots that help make up the second story of the old Granville house

There was an extensive discussion of some of the sound elements in the film as well. The crowd noises and wind sounds and the tinny piano that young Janie Baily plays as George is having his breakdown were not accomplished without some effort. As an extra treat there were a few deleted shots of Mr. Potter's mansion thrown into the mix, just so we can say the Academy archives had been fully plunged.

The second film they presented was even more fascinating and right up the special effects alley that these guys own. The  George Pal production of "War of the Worlds" is a spectacular looking movie with enough effects shots to keep an audience involved for hours. The extensive footage shown which described a brief twenty second shot of one of the Mars War Machines attacking a part of the city before it crashes was compelling as all heck. They pointed out a very amazing shot in which the model actually caught fire from one of the squibs that was used to simulated explosions as the attack takes place.

The combination of shots that was required to produce the effect of the war machines shields was just great. It's always incredible to me how the early film guys figured out all the things that had to be done to get a great shot. This movie is more than sixty years old but the sophistication of the techniques is impressive without any computer work at all. 

This reproduction of one of the war machines was on display in the Club TCM area of the Roosevelt Hotel. The puppetry, electronics and mechanical engineering required to make it all come together was fascinating to see. As I sat with a capacity crowd in the theater, I felt like I was being delivered my own "live" version of a DVD Special Feature.

There was also a demonstration of the manner in which some of the sounds of the attacking machines made was achieved.  A student group from a local technical college had brought in a high tension wire, stretched from floor to ceiling and you could hear the dynamic and other worldly sound that it made.

A bonus to the screening was the presence of co-star Ann Robinson, who after being introduced in the audience, stood up and answered a few questions and shared a few memories of making the film. There was an interesting publicity shot of a make up and costume look that had next to nothing to do with the picture. Ms. Robinson told us that it was just some publicity material that was tried out at the studio and never really used.It was an unplanned little extra that sometimes happens at events like this. Barron and Burtt were pleased to be able to add a little to their presentation with her input.

The new fan zone planned by TCM promises some backstage material from the TCM archives. I suspect that these interviews, demonstrations and slide presentations will be among the featured items at the site. I hope I'm right on that, and when I spend my money on it and support the channel, I will be able to revisit some of these great Movie Conversations. Ben Burtt and Craig Barron are on the top of my list of things I hope to find on "The Backlot".

TCM Film Festival : Fat City 1972

If you have read on this blog to any depth at all, you know that i am a champion of 1970s films. This whole blog started as a project to catalogue the films I saw in the summers of the 1970s.  There is a sense of danger and grittiness to films from that era. They don't all end well, there are some very cynical views of life shown, and characters are often flawed in ways that real people are. They have their good points but the imperfections are substantial.

John Huston as a director is a solid choice for films featuring these kinds of characters. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Beat the Devil"" feel like they were warm up exercises for a movie like this. While it may not be a Forgotten Film for old movie geeks like me, "Fat City" is a movie that probably no one in any of my classes has ever heard of much less seen. The subject matter and the style of the director would be too grim for most cinema goers these days. Heck, I'm not even sure it could be made as an independent film in the current marketplace. The closest comparison to a contemporary movie I can think of is "The Wrestler". Both feature characters that are flawed and struggling to come to terms with their weaknesses. If you thought the end of  "The Wrestler" was tough, get ready to be punched in the gut because this movie is even more somber.  "Fat City" is a film of it's day and it belongs in the 1970s.

Susan Tyrell was the actress nominated for one of the least glamorous characters in movies this side of  Aileen Wuornos. Oma is a woman too used up and soaking in alcohol to be of much use to anyone. She sometimes seems like she has a heart but she is completely self centered and simply can't do anything to help the main character Tully with his own demons. She was one of the things I most remembered about seeing the film when it first came out and the last time I saw it, sometime in the early 1980s. Her subsequent career never seemed to give her a similar opportunity to shine and I recall that she passed away three or four years ago.

The greatest performance in the film is the lead and I am flabbergasted that Stacy Keach was not nominated for his role as the slightly past his expiration date boxer Billy Tully. From the dialogue free first five minutes of the film, Keach is magnetic. He feels so genuine as the abandoned former prodigy, embittered by bad luck in the ring and a wife who he loved deeply but who left him. He is coping with alcohol and working some of the toughest jobs there are to get by. The film is set in Stockton, California, an agricultural center and a city with a hard as flint personality. The actor seems to fit perfectly in this setting and as he starts to consider getting back into boxing, we have so much sympathy for him because he comes across as a guy trying to cope but in over his depth. The boxing sequences are fine but it is his scenes with Tyrell and a very young Jeff Bridges that gives the performance it's spark. There is a terrific scene where Billy returns to the gym where his former manager is training a new crop of prospects. We know that they stopped working together on bad terms and that the last time the down on his luck Tully saw his former coach, he borrowed twenty bucks from him. Unprompted, Tully acts as if the reason he is stopping by is to make good on that loan. We know how hard it was for him to earn that twenty bucks and how valuable it is to him, but he wants to pass it off as a trifling, to get back in with the crew. Keach gives a warm half smile and a shrug of his shoulders as a way of conveying all of this and it is a great moment.

The boxing milieu of this era may be long gone but it is shown here in all of it's difficult and hopeful sides. This is a life that seems truly hard, but it has the reward of accomplishment. Ernie Munger, the character played by Bridges is supposed to be an up and comer, discovered by Tully and groomed by his former manager, Ernie is himself something of a mess. He has a lot of potential but some of the same perils that Billy faced. It looks for a while like this movie will be about the two different trajectories these two are on. Instead, it is much more of a character and tone piece. Plot matters less than the feeling of sadness and hope that floats over all the characters. Despite the bad things that happen to each, there ends up being more compassion in this brutal existence than we have much right to expect. A cup of coffee, silently shared, holds the two boxers in each others orbt, long enough to see that although the battle is lost the fight goes on.

Stacy Keach received a very nice ovation as the guest before the screening. Eddie Muller, the noir expert and writer was the interviewer and he brought a nice sense of involvement to the event since the author of the novel the film was based on was a professional acquaintance, and his father wrote for the newspaper about fighters just like the ones we see here in the film. Keach was generous with his stories and clearly proud that the film has a great reputation at least among the cinema fans. He was probably already gone from the venue when the film finished which is too bad because the audience response was twice as enthusiastic. There was a literal roar of approval at the closing credits, which validates every positive thing you could say about this movie. This was one of my top three moments from the Festival. An unsentimental masterpiece by John Huston and actor Stacy Keach.

TCM FF: Cinema Paradiso

Movie lovers of all stripes should rejoice at an opportunity to see this ode to their own obsessions and especially on the big screen at the Chinese Theater.  This was the closing film of the festival and it was clearly chosen to celebrate the themes of the festival and the TCM Channel itself: Moving Pictures.  This sentimental story of a friendship between a little boy obsessed with the movies and the projectionist at the village theater, will surely bring one to tears if you let it wash over you without thought to anything more than the story and the feelings the film connects us with.

Cynics need not apply because this movie is manipulative as all heck, bit like a number of films shown at the festival, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", "It's a Wonderful Life", and "Rocky", it earns it's tears with characters and dialogue. It simply helps to come under the sway of it's spell to be an old movie weirdo. The last ten minutes of the film will evoke memories of our own passion for films and it will probably send you on a treasure hunt as well. You will have a strong desire to track down those movies that are referenced and enjoy them in their more complete form.

For the screening, actor Salvatore “Totò” Cascio, was present. He played the young boy who can't keep his mind on anything except the films playing at the theater in his Sicilian village. Almost forty now, he seems to have had a happy life trading on his role in the film and being beloved around the world. The translations were sometimes unnecessary because the laughter in his voice and the tone of his answers often said it all.

The Chinese theater is certainly more opulent than the Paradiso, with its benches and folding chairs. The magic of the projector, streaming images out of a lions head is captured almost the same as the image above. An audience is entranced by the wonders that take place in the dark. 

TCM FF: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

This film is so well known that it has been remade and there dozens of cultural references to it in the political world. In pop culture I just caught a reference to it in the new "Captain America: Civil War" film, as Tony Stark tries to talk to Steve Rogers, he asks Bucky, the Winter Soldier, to put down his weapon, and he refers to him as "Manchurian Candidate". This obvious reference to brainwashing comes up in a dramatic moment with a humorous context, and that is the way the whole film feels. It is a drama of political intrigue with assassination at it's heart, but it is filled with comic moments that make you shake your head at the audacity of the story telling and film making.

Amanda had never seen it before, despite the fact that it seems to be on our Retro Channel on a weekly basis (not TCM, I think it is a Fox feed). It was rediscovered in the mid 80s, and the story I heard was that Frank Sinatra asked one of his people why he never saw the movie on the late show, and they explained that he controlled the rights and had mostly pulled it from circulation after the JFK assassination. Frank decided it needed to be out and I remember going to a screening on the west side of L.A. when a baby shower was taking place at my friend Rick's house. He and I went to see it and had very similar reactions. We both thought the movie was great but it has some strange stuff in it.

Among the oddest things in the film is the meeting between Janet Leigh and Frank Sinatra's characters on a train. The pick up lines she uses on him and the daffy way he responds to her are just so different, you wonder if they are in the same scene together, much less the same movie. Leigh's character has no reason to exist in the film at all, so maybe the dialogue was tweaked to give  her character something memorable to do.

Just about everyone else who made the picture is dead, but 94 year old Angela Lansbury is still around and she graced this screening with her presence. She is an impressive figure who has a mind sharp enough to put guest interviewer Alec Baldwin to shame. She was quick to come up with names and moments that Mr. Baldwin seemed only to half remember. It's not that he did a bad job, it's just that he seemed so much less engaged than the woman 37 years his senior who still is as sharp as a tack.

The audience was very appreciative and they should be. This was Lansbury's last Oscar nominated performance and except for a very few occasions, she slipped back into theater work and only returned to Hollywood for the TV series that she starred in for 12 years and 260 plus episodes. Which by the way has been off the air for twenty years if you want to feel a little old. She was terrific in the movie, but had the unfortunate luck to be up against a sixteen year old in the part of a lifetime in 1962. In an odd coincidence Patty Duke, the winner from that year, passed away only a few weeks ago.  One of the things that make film great for we fans however is that these performances will be around a long time after the stars have moved on. Although in Ms. Lansbury's case, that may never happen.

TCM FF: The Longest Yard

It's unfortunate that Burt Reynolds had to cancel on the Film Festival this year. I heard someone say there was an illness but I never saw an official explanation. He was scheduled to do one of the up close interviews and his would have made a great companion piece to run through the year to the Faye Dunnaway interview that did get done. The 80 year old star is an under rated actor in my view and he was a fixture on the film scene in the 1970s. Some fans of classic films might cut the date off for "Classics" nearly a decade earlier than this movie was released. I do see that it is a different era but I also have a broader version of the phrase "Classic Film".

Producer Albert S. Ruddy, who won the Academy Award for Best Picture with "The Godfather" and "Million Dollar Baby", did make it to the presentation and he puts forward a persuasive argument that this movie was substantially responsible for the wave of sports films that followed in the next few years. The underdog story is in fact a theme of this film but it turns out to be a lot deeper as well. I remember seeing this with my buddy Art Franz at the Garfield Theater in my home town of Alhambra. At the time it was the funniest adult style comedy I'd seen and it still holds up today. On my original project of Summer Movies from the 70s, my daughter wrote about this film for me while I was on a cruse to Alaska. It was nice to get to see it with her in a theater and watch her have the same kind of emotional reaction to the game as she described in her post almost six years ago.

Also appearing at the film was football legend Joe Kapp, the only player to have played in the Rose Bowl, Grey Cup, and Super Bowl. In the movie he plays the Walking Boss and definitely looks intimidating. His interview was a little awkward because he is nearly deaf and could not get the prompts from either Al Ruddy or the Sportswriter who was conducting the session. I did get a chance to shake hands and say hi to him outside the theater when we had gotten back in line for the next film of the day. He is 78 and not as on top of things as some are at that age but he was friendlier than all get out.

They finally got the story out about the local cops locking up much of the cast after a bar room altercation. It was interesting to hear that the prison guards in the movie were in jail one night before they were playing jailers themselves. When I listened to a podcast covering the festival recently, I heard that several more recent films that had been booked in the bigger venues were not drawing very well. This was effeminately one of those. It was a very moderate crowd, I suspect because the feature attraction was unable to make it. Listening to Albert Ruddy however made me glad that I came. He struck me as the kind of guy that Hollywood does not make anymore and that they really need more of.

TCM FF: Double Feature with Elliot Gould

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Even though I am a 70s guy and have seen a ton of movies from the era, and the original project here focused on those kinds of film, there are still gaps in my experience. "The Long Goodbye" is one of those films I knew about but for some reason or another, I'd just not gotten around to see. Maybe the idea of a contemporary Philip Marlowe through me off. Anyway, the film festival this year afforded me the opportunity to see this on the big screen at the Egyptian Theater. In addition, it came complete with a brief discussion with the star Elliot Gould, conducted by TCM Host Ben Mankiewicz.

The opening of the movie is a deadpan ten minutes about a guy and his cat at three o'clock in the morning. Marlowe is no great shakes at housekeeping but he is a conscientious pet owner. He goes out of his way in two very different approaches to making the cat happy. It has nothing to do with the plot, it's all about establishing the character. Another character in the movie is the city of Los Angeles in 1973. The hippie chicks in the next apartment are naked most of the time, a guy like Marlowe with limited resources can still afford a canyon side apartment and the Malibu Colony is not packed with so many celebrities that people still can't get near it.

Everybody in the story has an agenda, and some of them are so difficult to figure out that you might as well give up. Sterling Hayden is a disturbed writer that is a client, a suspect and a friend at different points in the story. His wife is cryptic and distant from both he and Marlowe. The cops are pricks and Marlowe's friend, Terry, played by major league pitcher and notorious writer Jim Bouton, disappears after his wife is murdered. Director Mark Rydell, who made "The Cowboys" among many other films, plays a single minded mobster who is also looking for Terry, and he is truly psychotic.The story involves false leads,  hangdog characters and an aura of ennui  hangs over most everyone we meet. The plot is less important than the attitudes and the setting and it is a perfect embodiment of a 1970s movie. It may have been my daughter Amanda's favorite film of the festival.


                       

There was a nice tribute clip that they showed before the interview and then Ben asked Questions but Mr. Gould went all over the place in answering. It reminded me of the old days of talk shows when the guest and host would have wide ranging conversations and take as much time as they wanted to talk about a point. 

M*A*S*H (1970)

Sunday morning found us returning to the festival after a long day before, (but not as long as Friday) and we were seated in the big house at the Chinese theater. Robert Altman really begins his esoteric movie style with this film. The rambling mostly improvised dialogue and blocking which would be a signature of his work for the remainder of his career, comes to prominence in this iconic anti-war movie. Centered on the Korean war but overtly dealing with issues in Vietnam, the rebellious spirit of 1970 is evident everywhere. This picture is the bookend for the seventies, the film it lost to for Best Picture that year, "Patton", was also a war film but much closer to the sensibilities of the 60s than the 70s.

Gould and co-star Donald Sutherland are the least glamorous film stars you can imagine. In contrast to Newman and Redford in "Butch Cassidy" the year before, these guys were unkempt and often covered in blood. Their language was salty ant heir hijinks were more schoolboy naughty than cool. Still they were very funny and the film managed to inspire the long running, much awarded television series of the same name. It is the least likely success story I can think of , trying to make this movie into a TV show. That it worked is again a testament to the fact that characters were more important than the plot.

This is a movie that is easy to watch on a regular basis. First because it is so funny, and second because you will notice new little things about the film each time. A joke or a prop that slipped by the first time will sneak in and give you another moments pleasure when you were not expecting it. The supporting cast is filled with familiar faces and accomplished actors. The last supper of "Painless Waldowski" is filled with faces that could be in a portrait of 70s film and tv stars, and it does not even include Robert Duvall, although Tom Skerritt does make the picture.

This was one of the presentations where the guest appeared after the film screened and again Elliot Gould did not disappoint. He was a little more focused but just as fun and the stories were all different from the night before.