ON THIS DAY in 1960, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced his country’s support of the Soviet Union. The 2001 film, FIDEL: THE UNTOLD STORY, directed by Estela Bravo, documents this and other events in Castro’s life.
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The TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL. Those words bring about an extra, few beats to my Lumiére Brothers-loving heart. That’s because I know of no other finer film experience, no more mind-blowing movie nirvana, no better Mt. Everest of cinematic entertainment, and… well I’ve run out of superlatives at the moment, and probably run out your patience. Of course, I’ve never been to Cannes, nor to Telluride or to Toronto for TIFF, so my points of reference are limited. But I do know that for a classic movie fan, Hollywood is the place to be in April of next year.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, I will join a couple of thousand film fans at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and its environs for the fourth edition of Turner Classic Movies’ feast for classic film fanatics next spring. It will be my third time. (I had to cancel out at the last minute on the first get-together in 2010 due to a schedule conflict. However, TCM generously gave me a refund, even though it was against their policy, and I am eternally grateful.)
The 2013 Festival dates (April 25-28) and its theme (“Cinematic Journeys: Travel in the Movies”) are expected to be announced very soon have just been announced. 2012’s theme was “Style”–a broad category that included, for example, film noir, fashion, art and architecture.
Running from Thursday afternoon through Sunday night, in the heart of historic Hollywood, the TCM Classic Film Festival is “a place where movie lovers from around the world gather to experience classic movies as they were meant to be seen: on the big screen, in some of the world’s most iconic venues, with the people who made them.”
Multiple simultaneous film screenings and events start early in the morning at about 9, and go into the late evening, the last one at around 10 or 11 p.m. All the venues–the Egyptian, Graumann’s Chinese and the Graumann’s multiplex, are within walking distance of each other, and all feature state-of-the art sound and projection. The splendid, art deco Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (site of the first Academy Awards presentation) is the headquarters for the Festival, and it hosts a variety of panel discussions, a nighttime gathering spot for fans (“Club TCM”), reception and information areas for attendees, a Festival gift shop, and a very retro and very good diner, the CineGrill.
The most difficult aspect of the festival (other than swinging the expense): deciding which of four or five films to see at any given time of the day. Second most difficult: somehow finding a minute or two to eat in-between screenings.
Some of my own memories from 2011 and 2012:
- Kirk Douglas, age 99, singing A Whale of a Tale at a screening of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- Bela Lugosi, Jr., and Sara Karloff talking about their dads, at The Black Cat
- Elvis in Girl Happy, poolside at the Hollywood Roosevelt
- Coffee in hand, attending a 9 a.m. screening of Becket, at the Egyptian, and Peter O’ Toole’s remembrances of Richard Burton
- How The West Was Won, in its original wide-screen, Cinerama, with Debbie Reynolds in attendance, at Hollywood’s Cinerama Theater
- Kim Novak introducing Vertigo at the historic Graumann’s Chinese
- Angela Lansbury reminiscing about meeting Ingrid Bergman, in Gaslight
- Frank Sinatra’s daughters remembering their dad prior to The Man With The Golden Arm
- Being with, and getting to know, other classic movie lovers–the best part of this film festival
My reviews of three films that were part of the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival: the glorious Cinerama presentation of HOW THE WEST WAS WON, a terrific and underrated film noir, FALL GUY, and the beautifully restored, utterly captivating silent film, WINGS.
I’m looking forward to posting updates and my thoughts about next year’s Festival in the days and months ahead, as well as reporting from the big event itself (when I’m not running between theaters!).
Update: The 2013 Festival will be held April 25-28. The theme, “Cinematic Journeys: Travel in the Movies”, and will, according to TCM, “explore how movies can carry viewers beyond their hometowns to distant or imaginary locales, where they can be transformed by great storytelling. Often, the mode of travel provides the filmic inspiration, whether it’s planes, trains, or automobiles. At other times, the trip itself serves as the central narrative, as in the case of many ‘road movies.’ With Hollywood as the starting point, TCM’s cinematic excursion will take festival attendees on a fascinating journey to cinematic worlds both familiar and new.” More info at the TCM Festival website.
Are you on Facebook? Thinking of going to the 2013 TCM Festival? Then you might want to look into joining the 100-plus member Going to the TCM Festival Facebook group.
1965 was a pivotal year for music. The British Invasion had just hit, the cultural revolution was right around the corner, and the country was still reeling from its loss of innocence with the assassination of JFK.
Floating on top of all of this was a new genre of film, Beach Pictures. THE GIRLS ON THE BEACH is Paramount’s feeble attempt at competing with the far superior American International entries that were being made at this time. Without the benefit of big stars, this movie relies on the musical talents of The Beach Boys, Leslie Gore and The Crickets, who seem to only know one song, an Americanized version of La Bamba.
Lesson learned: You can see The Beach Boys for free but you have to pay $5 to see The Beatles.
Leslie sings “Leave Me Alone” and everyone does…
The plot is interesting as a time capsule. A sorority house needs $10,000 because their house-mother took the treasure to pay for poor people’s medical bills. The girls all band together and plan to get the money back by entering contests and planning a big show at the local hangout and changing $5 to get in! Meanwhile some nasty boys want to get to third base with the girls so they tell them they are best friends with celebrities.
Duke: Fellows I’m telling you the next time we come down here we’ve got to bring Rock.
So the wackiness ensues when the boys convince the girls that they know The Beatles and they will come down and play for their show. The interesting thing is this is a movie where everyone talks about The Beatles for nearly an hour; meanwhile the Beach Boys and Leslie Gore are just floating in the background waiting to do their next number. Leslie’s songs “Leave Me Alone” and “It’s Got to Be You” are the highlights of the movie. Along with The Beach Boys singing “Little Honda” at the top of their custom car sound.
As an added treat is Linda Saunders, Bobbie Jo on ‘Petticoat Junction’ as the girl who really lets go when she hears bump and grind, belly dancing music.
Overall, THE GIRLS ON THE BEACH is not great, and it’s really not even good. But it does have a few camp moments and a couple of good musical numbers. However, it is so square and most of the characters are a drag that it seemed way longer than its 80-minute running time.
Speaking of drag… here the boys play dress up.
Lesson learned: Don’t you know all girls wear wigs.
Netflix Streaming Quality: C+ (it’s pretty low resolution)
Audience Reaction: C+
Spoiler Alert: Guess what?…The Beatles aren’t in this movie… They were too busy being famous and changing music history. And The poor Beach Boys they aren’t even mentioned in the trailer! But the Crickets are!
ON THIS DAY in 1996, the last of Ireland’s scandalous Magdalene asylums was permanently closed. In 2002, THE MAGDALENE SISTERS dramatized the stories of several of the institution’s inmates.
WHEN I FIRST SAW Robert Wise’s THE HAUNTING, which was adapted from Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, I had a writerish reaction: how dare they change her book so much? It wasn’t until I saw the movie the second time that I realized how brilliantly the novel had been adapted for the screen. If screenwriter Nelson Gidding had been faithful to every detail of the book, the result would have embarrassed everybody.
For this guest blog, I decided to write about the rocky road from print to screen, using the examples of NIGHT FLIGHT, THE THIRD MAN, and THE HAUNTING. (If anyone wants to know the alternate ending to THE THIRD MAN, just ask.)”
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Night Flight
I don’t remember why I recorded NIGHT FLIGHT, but when I got around to watching it, I was surprised to learn that it had been kept out of circulation for more than 70 years because the author of the book on which it was based, Antoine de Saint Exupéry, hated it.
How Saint Exupéry was able to suppress this film for so long is a mystery. Why he did it is less of a mystery, at least to me. The movie makers were unfaithful. His book Vol de nuit was not on the screen. In its place was a good movie—smart, emotional, and tough, with spectacular aerial photography. But Saint Exupéry did not see the movie. He saw the book that wasn’t there.
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The Third Man
Graham Greene wrote THE THIRD MAN as a movie treatment in response to a specific request by British film producer Alexander Korda. When director Carol Reed changed the ending, Greene could have been offended. Instead, he recognized that Reed was right and thanked him publicly:
One of the very few major disputes between Carol Reed and myself concerned the ending, and he has been proved triumphantly right.
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The Haunting
Nelson Gidding’s screenplay for the 1963 movie THE HAUNTING is a masterpiece of adaptation. Gidding was not all that faithful to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, although Jackson was a major author and the novel was a best seller. He knew when to stay true to her intentions and when to ignore them.
What Was Kept
The House as the Star. Hill House is the source of the terror and the mystery. If you read the book, you will find elements that do not match up with the movie, but you will recognize that spectacular house in every detail.
Eleanor, the Main Female Character. Eleanor is the most tormented visitor to Hill House. She and the evil presence in the house are drawn to each other. If Gidding changed her, he would also have had to rethink the house. He left her alone.
What Was Changed
All the Characters Except Eleanor. Theo morphed into a lesbian. Luke became a character meant to provide comic relief. Dr Montague—a bookish scholar in the novel—became the charming, handsome, and witty Dr Markway. Dr Montague’s wife, too, underwent a major transformation (more on that below).
The Event That Pushes Eleanor Ever the Edge. In the novel both Eleanor and Theo pursue Luke. In the movie Eleanor falls for Dr Markway, who is married but keeps quiet about it and sees through her as if she were made of glass. When he rejects her, the humiliation is intense. By making Eleanor’s pursuit of Dr Markway delusional, Gidding sets up the scene where she loses her grip on reality entirely.
The Funniest Part of the Novel. This really is a loss, although Gidding had no choice. In the book Mrs Montague blazes into the house with a ouija board and an assistant named Arthur, ready to give the spirit inhabitants of Hill House perfect love and compassion. She has a session with the ouija board where the spirits definitely communicate and she definitely misunderstands them (the other people in the house understand perfectly, and are terrified). In the movie Mrs Markway is a no-nonsense debunker of all things ghostly.
If you watch THE HAUNTING this October, there is another change to appreciate. The novel takes place in June. Gidding moved the time to just before Halloween.
Lindsay Edmunds blogs about robots, computers, life in southwestern Pennsylvania, and sometimes books and movies at Writer’s Rest. She is the author of a novel about love in the age of artificial intelligence: Cel & Anna.
ON THIS DAY in 1896, author F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. Fitzgerald was portrayed by Tom Hiddleston in Woody Allen’s 2011 film, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, starring Owen Wilson.
If you spent most of your time watching movies this past week, you might have missed these articles here at Home Projectionist:
- 10 Things About Greta Garbo
- On-the-Road Online Streaming Means More Than Entertainment
- Are Longer Movies Really More Competitive?
- Rating the Pi-rate Movies
- “Take me to the United Nations”: A Quiz
- Book Clubs Get All the Love — Why Not Movie Watching Clubs?
- More Cats on the Web Than in the Movies
- Night of the Saturday Double Feature
- Art Imitates Life: Reel History
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To celebrate their 20-years of hilarious success, the ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS gals have created three specials recently released to the U.S. market after airing to rave reviews on BBC. If you love Ab Fab, you need this in your stash of tv treasures.
Edina (Eddy), ditzy public relations agent, continues to struggle with aging; Patsy, her ever-stoned sidekick, continues to be confused. And Saffron (better known as Saffy) continues to be exasperated with the adults in her life.
For more information, go to http://www.bbcamerica.com/absolutely-fabulous/photos/20th-anniversary-special-3/#422
Thanks to today’s technology, we can hit the road and watch (or read) what we want, when we want, and just about anywhere we go. Passing time has never been more chock full of options.
I may be late to the realization party, but up until last week, I thought of the availability of online streaming while traveling only as a source of entertainment. I have learned that it can serve as a sort of vacation enrichment program in a box.
I recently visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and was thrilled to have the opportunity to roam through the rooms, the public spaces, and the grounds. Through an incredibly well done guided tour, I learned much about Wright the man and his vision. But I wanted to know more.
While wandering through the Taliesin gift shop after the tour, I happened to see a Ken Burns’ DVD on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright for sale. I was certain that a Burns’ documentary would provide the sort of expanded view I was seeking. I hoped the documentary was available online, and I’m happy to report that it was.
That night, as the sun was setting in the Midwestern sky, I sat on the back porch of a historic inn, with feet up and relaxed from a glorious day. It was time to fire up the tablet and learn more about this American icon. What a pleasure it was to be able to watch the entire documentary. While the live tour allowed time to savor the space and the beauty of the countryside, feel the history, and experience the physical and psychological reactions to Wright’s built environments, the video provided a more in-depth exploration of his early career, his philosophies, and failings–as well as successes. It was as if the live guided tour and the documentary were magical collaborative partners.
It wouldn’t have been the same if I waited until I got home to watch this documentary. I may have even forgotten about it. The sense of my tour experience would have faded. I may have even decided that I didn’t want to take the time, wasn’t as interested anymore. There would be something more pressing to do.
Watching the documentary was a delightful and satisfying way to end the day. Online streaming will now be more than an entertainment option when I’m on the road. It will be a very valuable and treasured travel companion.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
ON THIS DAY in 1909, the publication of Gaston Leroux’s Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (The Phantom of the Opera), began, as a serial, in the French newspaper Le Gaulois. In 1925, the first of several film adaptations of Leroux’s novel premiered– THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, starring Lon Chaney.
Hourglass Shoppe – signage detail (Photo credit: origamidon)
Once in awhile, bigger — and longer — can be better. But is a long movie really a measure of “aiming high”?
The recently convened Toronto Film Festival will “be known for extremely long movies, as directors aim high with ambitious dramas to compete with television and other media,” so notes an article from the Sept. 14 Wall Street Journal. Five films shown in Toronto broke the two-hour barrier, including THE MASTER at 137 minutes and CLOUD ATLAS at 172 minutes. But can a long movie really ever ever compete with our ability to devour an mini series for days on end?
I recently had the distinct pleasure of enjoying a fabulous dinner at the legendary Charlie Trotter’s restaurant. The experience lasted more than three hours, about the same time it takes to savor the impeccable film LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (216 minutes). A few weeks later, I was delighted with a stand-up dining experience at the Wisconsin State Fair, featuring grilled corn on the cob, a brat, and a Spotted Cow beer. After the fair, we settled in the back yard to watch REAR WINDOW in all of its brilliant 112-minutes. Neither experience trumped the other. Both perfectly memorable.
The extended cinematic experience has its place in our limited amount of time on earth. But too much of a good thing can always end up being too much of a good thing.
For a list of the longest movies ever made, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_films_by_running_time
ON THIS DAY in 1957, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier was elected president of Haiti on a populist and Black Nationalist platform. THE COMEDIANS, a 1967 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and based on a Graham Greene novel, was set in Haiti during the Duvalier regime.
Bon nuit. That’s good evening in French, as we just learned from our useful English-to-French phrase book. When it comes to the films of Alfred Hitchcock however, it comes up a bit short. For example, it does not tell us how to say, in French, “My mother is… not quite herself today”, or “Go away or I’ll kill you myself”. Nevertheless, we think you’ll enjoy this globetrotting quiz…
Good luck, Mr. Thornhill, wherever you are…
Take the Quiz!(*The quiz title was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest: “Something wrong with your eyes?” “Yes”, says the sunglass-clad Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant), “They’re sensitive to questions”. As Roger attempts to find out who Lester Townsend really is, he orders a cab driver: “Take me to the United Nations.”)
ON THIS DAY in 1897, author J. R. R. Tolkien published his novel, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. In 1978, Tolkien’s book was adapted for the Rankin-Bass animated film, THE HOBBIT, narrated by John Huston.
Book Clubs continue to thrive. People gather face-to-face and around the world via the Web to connect over the written word.
Why don’t Movie Watching Clubs get the same love and respect as Book Clubs do?
It was a smart move when booksellers started to leverage the concept of the Book Club to promote their wares. (And Book Clubs that champion reading are good things, of course. There was a time when booksellers promoted the installation of built-in book cases in new housing construction so people would buy more books. Never mind the reading part.)
But maybe booksellers are a little hungrier. There are less than 1 trillion books sold every year. In contrast, almost 3.5 trillion videos will be viewed through on-line streaming alone this year. The movie industry doesn’t really need to create and nurture an audience. The audience is already there, willing, ready, and able, remote control in hand.
Movie Watching Clubs are simple to organize, especially with the help of online tools like Facebook, where you can easily create an event notice and a group to facilitate communication. All a movie watching club needs is a host who enjoys selecting the programming and creating the event. It doesn’t matter if the movies are shown on a plain old tv or in a high-end home theater. The key element is the shared human experience. (Cue the Home Projectionist credo: It’s More Than a Movie.)
Johnny C., fellow Home Projectionist blogger, hosted his first group watching experience on his big-screen television back in the day when a big screen tv weighed about the same as a refrigerator. The night was a hit. “Let’s face it: SHOWGIRLS is an absolutely bust if you ever watched in the theater or on tv. But when I watched with a group, it was absolutely fabulous.”
He hosted a Sunday Dark Shadows group, which was featured on NPR’s This American Life. Listen Here: Dark Shadows
“Once I bought my first LCD projector and installed a 10-foot screen, I would just say ‘I’m watching this tonight and if anyone wants to come over….’ And it turned into a situation where a lot of people would come over.”
Fast forward, and the group of John’s movie-watching friends institutionalized their group with the name (courtesy of club member Daniel Starr), the “The ‘Bleeping’ Ravenswood Manor Film Society,” also affectionately known as the TBRMFS.
The first season of the Film Society featured only made-for-tv movies from ABC’s Friday Night at the Movies because, according to John, “They were only 72 minutes a piece. We could show more than one on a week night and it wouldn’t always turn into a late, late evening. But then again, we did watch SECRET OF HARVEST HOME, clocking in at three hours long, which was crazy.”
In those early days, the TBRMFS crew convened to watch a number of eighties’ treasures like DAWN: PORTRAIT OF A TEENAGE RUNAWAY followed up with THE OTHER SIDE OF DAWN; SAVAGES; DUEL; PRAY FOR THE WILDCATS ; THE LEGEND OF LIZZIE BORDEN; TRAPPED; SATAN SCHOOL FOR GIRLS; DYING ROOM ONLY; and CURSE OF THE BLACK WIDOW.
In its current iteration, the TBRMFS features Random Noir Nights for smaller groups and Saturday Night Themed Double Features such as “Women in Trouble Night” featuring Doris Day in JULIE and Barbara Stanwyck in JEOPARDY.
We humans are social animals who have a need to share collective experiences. Movie Watching Clubs deserve a little more attention and a little more love.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
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