The TCM Classic Film Festival (Part 1)

Fraser Heston introduces Touch of Evil

I'm out here in Hollywood attending the TCM Classic Film Festival. Turner Classic Movies, the cable channel that shows uninterrupted classic movies, started this festival five years ago. They feature a wide assortment of classic movies over four days. Several movies feature stars or directors introducing the showing. The Festival has seen very thick crowds, filling most screenings.

Highlights include Mel Brooks introducing Blazing Saddles, Shirley Jones introducing a restored Oklahoma, Richard Dreyfuss introducing The Goodbye Girl, Maureen O'Hara introducing How Green Was My Valley, Ryan O'Neal introducing Paper Moon, and Kim Novak introducing Bell, Book and Candle. The Festival screens many other classics this year on the big screen, such as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, The Lion In Winter, A Hard Day's Night, the Godfather Part II, The Quiet Man, Gone With the Wind, and the Wizard of Oz. Later this weekend, the Festival will hold a Jerry Lewis tribute, complete with his putting his hand and feet prints in cement outside the Chinese Theater.

The Festival screens at several classic Hollywood movie theaters, including the Egyptian, El Capitan, and the old Graumann's Chinese Theater. These are across the street from the Cinegrill and the Roosevelt Hotel.

Yesterday I attended the Festival opening, a restored version of Oklahoma, with Shirley Jones discussing the movie briefly before it ran. This was a red carpet event, with several stars and lots of industry attending. Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak, Margaret O'Brian, and Alec Baldwin attended. Oklahoma was her first movie, and she recounted several stories about its making, proudly reflecting she was 18 and the time, and now is 80.

After that, I saw a really cool, underrated movie for the first time-1939's Bachelor Mother, starring David Niven and Ginger Rogers. Comedian Greg Proops introduced it, drawing laughs before this romantic comedy started. Rogers plays a down on her luck single woman who, through a series of misunderstandings, takes custody of a baby boy. Employer and rich playboy David Niven connects with the baby and then with Rogers, leading to the inevitable screwball happy ending. Niven never really did fulfill his promise as a romantic lead, but carried the role originally meant for Cary Grant very well. Ginger Rogers likewise never seemed to escape Fred Astaire's shadow, which was a shame because she clearly had the chops to do so. Both displayed impeccable timing with a great script. Oh, and let me just add, Ginger Rogers was HOT. Who knew? And, yes, she was originally a Texan.

Today I saw three movies, all at the Chinese Theater. The first, the restored director's cut of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, really stood out. Imagine the Citizen Kane treatment for a pulp B-movie. Throw in a stellar cast: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Welles, Marlene Dietrich, and many of the Welles regulars, a Henry Mancini score, and gorgeous black and white photography. Very ahead of its time. 

The second was the MGM standard bearer, Meet Me In St. Louis, the old Judy Garland standout. Classic MGM musical, depicting a year in the life of a St. Louis lawyer's family. Pretty much what you'd expect, though its pretty much the whitest movie ever made. Garland shines. Other actors may have done certain things better than she did, but no actor ever possessed more overall talent than Judy Garland. She could do everything.

Then I met my friend Donna for dinner at the complex, before queuing for Blazing Saddles. After an hour and a half wait, we finally got in (Donna didn't have a festival pass, and basically had to talk her way into the nearly full theater). Mel Brooks, despite being in his 80s, still possesses enormous energy and enthusiasm. He came out and sang the theme song's first verse before settling down to answer host Robert Osborne's questions. I'd heard most of his stories before, such as Gig Young originally taking the Waco Kid role but dropping out due to alcoholism, or Richard Pryor being intended for the Sheriff role. Brooks confirmed what many have said, that he couldn't get the movie made today. He said someone high up with Warner Bros. gave him extensive notes on what he had to cut. "You can't have someone farting. You can't hit a horse." Those cuts would have left a 12 minute movie. Brooks said he didn't cut a single word or even concept. He agreed to a limited release at first, but if it did well in New York and LA, the studio agreed to a national release. Brooks did say one new thing. They had debated how much, if at all, they could use the "n-word" throughout the script. Pryor pushed for using it extensively. He argued it was necessary to convey the townsfolk's evil, and also to justify the Sheriff's triumph when he finally won them over. That makes perfect sense. How could you portray a late 1800s Western town supposedly hating a black sheriff, without using a word that whites (and even blacks) used almost casually until the late 20th Century? Brooks is right-political correctness has run amok. This movie represents a potent, timeless, attack on racism. As Brooks once said as to why he could justify using humor about the Nazis, the worst thing he can do to them is laugh at them. And painting them as ignorant, unthinking, dumb, dullards...you know...morons, is much more devastating than any deadly serious frontal attack. Yet, today's pandering, patronizing, soundbite politics would totally ignore (or fail to grasp) that great reality and would focus only on the "word" (much like those ignorant blowhards who want to ban Huckleberry Finn).

That's the first two days. Coming up, I plan to see Mary Poppins, either the Goodbye Girl or How Green Was My Valley, Bell, Book and Candle, and the Women. Also Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Quiet Man, and The Wizard of Oz.

Check back for updates. Or I'm tweeting too.

ETA: a serendipitous moment occurred during Blazing Saddles. (Spoiler alert-though if you've never seen Blazing Saddles you're either 12 or you've been stranded on a desert island). Late in the movie, Harvey Korman ducks into a movie theater to hide from the Sheriff and the Waco Kid. We see him buy a ticket, walk in, and then watch a bit of Blazing Saddles, albeit he is in Blazing Saddles. The theater he goes into is Graumann's Chinese, which is where we were watching Blazing Saddles, 40 years later. At one point, I was sitting in the theater and watching a screen that showed an actor in that exact same theater watching the same screen, and the same movie on the same screen. Kinda mind blowing huh? Kismet.