TCM Classic Film Festival
WAMG Attends The Turner Classic Movies Film Festival
This past weekend, WAMG attended the annual TCM Film Festival (honestly this writer’s favorite event of the year) and as usual, it did not disappoint! There was a ton of great programming this year, with something for just about everyone.
Opening Night of the 14th annual TCM Classic Film Festival kicked off with a screening of Rio Bravo (1959) in celebration of Warner Bros.’ 100th anniversary, featuring a conversation with WBD CEO David Zaslav and The Film Foundation Board members Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson about the mission of The Film Foundation as well as Rio Bravo star Angie Dickinson.
The festival also celebrated 50th anniversary screening of The Exorcist (1973) featuring director William Friedkin and executive vice president, Library, Archive and Scitech for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Randy Haberkamp.
The official closing night film was the 40th anniversary screening of The Big Chill (1983) with discussion by actor Tom Berenger and actress JoBeth Williams.
In between that, we saw some pretty great films!
Airport (1970)
First up was a special 70MM screening of Airport (1970), pretty much the first of the great “disaster movies” that came out in the ‘70’s. It was filled with some of the big movie stars of the day, including Dean Martin, Burt Lancaster, Jacqueline Bisset, Maureen Stapleton, and the unforgettable Helen Hayes, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal as a ditzy senior stowaway. The highlight for me was the introduction of the character Joe Patroni, the hard-as-nails, but always optimistic Chief Mechanic played by George Kennedy. Kennedy was the only actor that appeared in all 4 of the “Airport” movies, including sequels Airport ’75 (1974), Airport ’77 (1977), and The Concorde – Airport ’79 (1979).
The Three Musketeers (1973)
Next was the 50th Anniversary screening of The Three Musketeers (1973), the fun swashbuckler starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, and Charlton Heston.
Interesting story: The film was originally intended to be an epic which ran for three hours including an intermission, but during production, it was determined the film could not make its announced release date in that form, so a decision was made to split the longer film into two shorter features, the second part becoming 1974’s The Four Musketeers. This incensed the actors and crew, since they were being paid for one film, and their original contracts made no mention of a second feature, resulting in lawsuits being filed to receive compensation for salaries associated with the sequel. This led to the Screen Actors Guild requiring all future actors’ contracts to include what has become known as the “Salkind clause” (named after producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind), which stipulates that single productions cannot be split into film instalments without prior contractual agreement.
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
The success of the syndicated The Muppet Show on TV naturally led Jim Henson’s creations to the big screen, starting with The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Great Muppet Caper (1981). With more time and a bigger budget, Henson and director Frank Oz were able to show Muppets in full form by combining marionettes with the hand and rod puppets seen on TV. They also tried to find new things for the Muppets to do, with a group of rats cooking breakfast to the tune of “Rat Scat” among the film’s highlights. The fantasy sequence with the characters as children inspired the Muppet Babies TV series.
Brian Henson, son of the late Jim Henson, was on hand to introduce the film, telling some great behind-the-scenes anecdotes and raving about director Frank Oz, whom he calls “extraordinary” in his directing style for the film. Later in the festival, Henson returned for “The Evolution of Henson Puppetry” – a discussion and demonstration that guided us from the very beginning of his father’s work, through the evolution of Henson inventions and techniques, to the magic of today’s digital puppetry and creatures – as created by the renowned Jim Henson’s Creature Shop™, which we gotta say was pretty cool!
Amadeus (1984)
Set in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the 18th century, the film is a fictionalized story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the time he left Salzburg, described as a “fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri”. Mozart’s music is heard extensively in the soundtrack. The film follows a fictional rivalry between Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri at the court of Emperor Joseph II. The film stars F. Murray Abraham as Salieri and Tom Hulce as Mozart. Abraham and Hulce were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, with Abraham winning.
Another plus was the work of Oscar-winning art directors Patrizia von Brandenstein and Karel Černy, who built convincing 18th century interiors in Prague’s Barrandov Studios while also turning historical streets and buildings, including the Count Nostitz Theatre in Prague (now the Estates Theatre), into credible facsimiles of the places rival composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri worked and lived.
A Mighty Wind (2003)
Every year, a favorite of festival-goers are the “poolside” screenings at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. This year we attended A Mighty Wind (2003).
With this warmhearted lampoon of the world of folk music, writer-director-actor Christopher Guest transitioned from the blistering satire of earlier films like Waiting for Guffman (1996) and Best in Show (2000) to a more affectionate tone. As with the earlier films, Guest and co-writer Eugene Levy created a detailed scenario and then turned their cast loose to largely improvise. With guest regulars like Catherine O’Hara, Levy, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Parker Posey, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, and Jennifer Coolidge on hand, it was a safe bet that they would come up with something hilarious. The surprise was that they also came up with something heartfelt—and a few clever earworms.
On hand to present the film were actor Michael McKean and wife, actress Annette O’Toole. Together, they are prolific songwriters; they co-wrote the Academy Award-nominated song “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” for the film.
Xanadu (1980)
Yes, this is one of the 2 movies that led to the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies, honoring the “worst of cinematic failures” (the other being the Village People floppo “Can’t Stop The Music”, also 1980).
But it’s so much more than that! It’s an explosion of vintage sounds and styles, from roller disco to flowing midi dresses, with musical performances by the Electric Light Orchestra, Cliff Richard and The Tubes, and stars Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly, in his last film role.
This one was especially bittersweet, as we just lost Olivia Newton John in August of 2022, but somehow the joy was not diminished at this year’s midnight screening. Yep, midnight. I didn’t think there would be that many interested night owls, but was I ever surprised to see a packed theater with a standby line! By the time we got to the title song at the end, it was a full-blown sing-a-long!
One of the more interesting stories told by host and superfan, Tara McNamara, Editor-in-Chief of 80sMovieGuide.com and the co-host of the podcast ‘80s Movies: A Guide to What’s Wrong with Your Parents, was that when Gene Kelly was first approached, he was long retired and said he would do it, but would not do any dancing. However, upon learning that he would be co-starring with Olivia Newton John, he agreed to not only dance with her, but he choreographed their dance number by recreating the dance number he did with Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal (1942).
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