The 16th annual TCM Classic Film Festival gets underway Thursday night in Hollywood with a 45th ann
The 16th annual TCM Classic Film Festival gets underway Thursday night in Hollywood with a 45th anniversary screening at the Chinese Imax Theatre of the acclaimed second Star Wars feature, 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, with creator George Lucas on stage to talk about it. It certainly fits in with this year’s theme, “Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film,” though it is difficult to wrap my head around the fact that this movie is now ancient enough to fit snugly in with so many of the classic titles TCM regularly features on their channel and at this festival, which brings them back in all their glory to the huge screen.
The bulky programming of more contemporary box office hits this year does provide some irony to the title of one of the festival’s panels happening Sunday, “They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To,” featuring among others Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman.
‘Back to the Future’
Everett
Among other highlights of box office blockbusters are 1975’s Jaws and the Covid-delayed premiere of the Imax restoration of 1985’s Back to the Future celebrating its 40th anniversary. It had been slated to open the 2020 edition of the fest with Michael J. Fox in attendance, but the pandemic forced the cancellation of the festival that year.
Other popular titles probably more familiar to later generations include 1979’s Apocalypse Now in 70MM; 1995’s The American President and 1990’s Misery, with both having director Rob Reiner on hand (the latter also with its Oscar-winning star Kathy Bates onstage too); 1982’s Blade Runner; 1975’s cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show; 1989’s The Fabulous Baker Boys (with Michelle Pfeiffer also getting her hand and footprints in the Chinese forecourt Friday); 1995’s Babe; 2001’s animated Spirited Away; 1978’s Superman (with Warner Bros head Mike De Luca present to also promote the studio’s latest Superman); 1995’s Clueless; 2008’s Mamma Mia; 1985’s The Last Dragon and 1976’s Car Wash (with director Michael Schultz for a tribute to him); 1978’s The Wiz; David Lynch gems Wild at Heart and Blue Velvet; and closing-night film 1995’s Heat with director Michael Mann talking about the making of the revered film starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
(L-R) Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss in 1975’s ‘Jaws’
Courtesy Everett Collection/Universal
These kinds of popular and familiar films have grown more and more common as the TCM Festival evolves, but that isn’t to say the channel and their exceptionally well-organized in-person festival which draws movie fans from around the country, even the globe, is ignoring the bread and butter that made them — meaning films from the Silent Era, and ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. This is not a place where black & white is verboten, so for “classic” film geeks and purists there’s 1933’s Moonlight and Pretzels (introduced by Jeopardy host Ken Jennings); 1930’s The Divorcee; 1934’s Servant’s Entrance; 1939’s Carefree; 1933’s The Private Life of Henry VIII (presented in conjunction with a tribute to the BFI); 1925’s Harold Lloyd classic The Freshman; 1930’s Morocco and the Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers; and 1935’s Diamond Jim (with an intro from Leonard Maltin, who keeps the torch burning for early cinema).
‘Ben-Hur’
Everett
And there’s plenty more including certified ’50s classics like Oscar winner Ben-Hur; Sunset Boulevard; Lili; Oklahoma; To Catch a Thief; Disney’s Cinderella; Suddenly Last Summer; and more. Also on the list are a very frosty sounding pair of movies shot in VistaVision (the ’50s answer to Cinemascope): 1957’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and 1955’s We’re No Angels, both to be presented with the original VistaVision projectors, a widescreen format that died in 1963 and was notably revived in shooting recent Oscar winner The Brutalist last year.
‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
From the ’40s, Mildred Pierce, Mrs. Miniver, Now Voyager, Suspicion and A Guy Named Joe to name a few. And the ’60s are represented by the likes of Splendor in the Grass; 2001: A Space Odyssey (with star Keir Dullea for a conversation preceding); Hud; Thunderball; and The Time Machine. Well, you get the idea. Something for everyone, with whoever is still alive from the making of many of them there in person to tell the behind-the-scenes stories.
Another highlight will be the presentation of the Robert Osborne Award, named for the tardy great original host of Turner Classic Movies. This year it goes to 93-year-old George Stevens Jr., who will be on hand at the Egyptian Theatre on Friday night to accept it, followed by a screening of the 4K restoration of the highly praised documentary he directed about his father, 1984’s George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey. He will also be on hand Sunday to introduce a screening of his dad’s 1942 comedy The Talk of the Town.
“If you haven’t seen The Talk of the Town on a big screen, Grover Crisp of Columbia tells me it was the favorite restoration at Bologna last summer — and a conversation piece because of the theme of due process and fair trial,” Stevens told me this week about the film, which proves many “classic” movies never go out of style with their timeliness to today’s world. In between those TCM appearances, Stevens Jr. will also be on hand, of course, on Saturday night next door to the TCM Fest Chinese headquarters where the 50th annual AFI Life Achievement Award dinner honoring Francis Ford Coppola will take place at the Dolby Theatre. Stevens Jr. founded the American Film Institute in 1967 and its Life Achievement Award founded in 1973 and first given to John Ford. It is still going robust dedicated as always to movies and their makers who “stand the test of time.”
You could probably say that about the TCM Classic Film Festival as well, and its movies standing the test of many different times.
The TCM Classic Film Festival will continue through Sunday.
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