TCM Fest Puts the "Class" in Classic Movies

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 11 April 2012 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

TCM Classic Film Festival, presented by Turner Classic Movies, celebrates movies like no other fest because it is all about showing the best of the past -- films that made memories and spawned dreams for so many people the world over since the medium first flickered to life over a century ago.

This year's Festival runs April 12 - 15, 2012 at venues along the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard: the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (site of the first Oscars ceremony in 1928), Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Chinese 6 Theatres and the Egyptian Theatre.

And it wouldn't be a TCM event without esteemed film historian Robert Osborne, who returns as the Festival's official host.

"Turner Classic Movies is a Peabody Award-winning network that presents great films, uncut and commercial-free, from the largest film libraries in the world... As the foremost authority in classic films, TCM offers critically acclaimed original documentaries and specials, along with regular programming events."

This year's Festival honoree is actress Kim Novak.

Events include:

• an in-depth conversation with TCM host Osborne, which will be taped before a live audience for airing on TCM
• Novak placing her hand- and footprints in concrete in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater
• introduction by Novak of the screening of Alfred Hitchcock's suspenseful classic Vertigo (1958).

The theme for this year's Festival is Style in the Movies. Whether in fashion, production design, graphics, or even cars, style in Hollywood films has had an impact on culture and society that still resonates.

One of the highlights is an extensive tribute to one of the most stylish actresses in cinema history: Audrey Hepburn. Screening are:

• Sabrina (1954),
• Funny Face (1957)
• Two for the Road (1967) in the world premiere of a new 45th anniversary restoration

The Noir Style is presented by Eddie Muller, founder of the Film Noir Foundation, who discusses the unique style of film noir with three examples:

• Raw Deal (1948), directed by Anthony Mann with cinematography by John Alton. The thriller stars Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt, Raymond Burr, John Ireland. Ms. Hunt will appear at the screening.
• Gun Crazy (1950), directed by Joseph H. Lewis from a script by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo (credited to Millard Kaufman). John Dall stars with Peggy Cummins, who will appear at the screening.
• Cry Danger (1951), directed by Robert Parrish, stars Dick Powell, and Rhonda Fleming, who appears for this newly restored film.  

Other guests talking cinematic Style are:

• Bob Mackie with a screening of Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra (1934)
• Barbara Tfank and Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
• Todd Oldham with screenings of The Women (1939) and Auntie Mame (1958).

The Opening-Night Gala features the 40th anniversary premiere of the new restoration of Cabaret, directed by Bob Fosse. The Weimar-era musical set in Berlin stars Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey, and won Oscars for Fosse (Best Director), Minnelli (Best Actress) and Grey (Best Supporting Actor).

Other newly restored works having significant anniversary screenings are:

• Wings (1927), directed by William A. Wellman, with Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow. The World War I melodrama is the first-ever winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. (85th anniversary)
• All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), directed by Lewis Milestone, starring Lew Ayres
• Call Her Savage (1932), directed by John Francis Dillon, starring Clara Bow, Gilbert Roland, Thelma Todd (80th anniversary)
• Grand Illusion (1937), directed by Jean Renoir, starring Jean Gabin, Erich von Stroheim, Dita Parlo (75th anniversary)
• Casablanca (1942), directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, S.Z. Sakall, Dooley Wilson (70th anniversary).
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952), directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, who starred with Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, Jean Hagen and Cyd Charisse (60th anniversary). This movie is presented in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Gene Kelly’s birth.
• How the West Was Won (1962), directed by John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall and Richard Thorpe. This story of several generations of pioneers stars Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Debbie Reynolds, Carroll Baker, Agnes Moorehead, Carolyn Jones, Eli Wallach, Robert Preston, James Stewart, John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Walter Brennan, among others (50th anniversary). Debbie Reynolds will appear.

The screening is presented in Cinerama, a widescreen process using simultaneously projecting images from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge screen with a curve of 146 degrees.

If ever there was a film to which DVD and other devices cannot do justice, this one is it. This film can be truly savored only on the Big Screen.

And speaking of anniversaries:

This is the year Paramount Pictures celebrates its100th Birthday.

Founded in 1912, this is the studio that brought forth Wings, that first Best Picture Oscar winner, as well as the films of

• Clara Bow
• Gloria Swanson
• Rudolph Valentino
• Harold Lloyd

Later stars who made their mark at Paramount were:

• Claudette Colbert
• Bing Crosby
• Paulette Goddard
• Bob Hope
• Betty Hutton
• Alan Ladd
• Veronica Lake
• Dorothy Lamour
• Carole Lombard
• Gary Cooper
• Marlene Dietrich
• the Marx Brothers
• Mae West

This studio is also where Cecil B. DeMille made his most successful film, The Ten Commandments, twice (1923 and 1956).

In the 1970s, Robert Evans retooled the studio to make some of the most iconic films of the period, including these being screened at the Festival:

• Love Story (1970) directed by Arthur Hiller, starring Ryan O'Neal, Ali MacGraw, Ray Milland
• The Godfather Part II (1974), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
• Chinatown (1974), directed by Roman Polanski, starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
• Marathon Man (1976), directed by John Schlesinger, starring Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider
• Black Sunday (1977), directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver

It wouldn't be "classic films" without Disney. TCM joins with D23: The Official Disney Fan Club for two special screenings:

• the 75th anniversary screening of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Disney's first hand-drawn feature-length animated film.
• the premiere of the newly restored 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) (from original camera negatives), presented by iconic actor Kirk Douglas, who starred in the film.

And, of course, this is the Year of the RMS Titanic, so the 1958 British film A Night to Remember will be shown. Directed by Roy Ward Baker from the book by Walter Lord, the cast includes such notables as Honor Blackman, David McCallum and Alec McCowen. (Look sharp, and you might catch sight of an uncredited Sean Connery as a deck hand.)

Also attending will be Don Lynch, author of Titanic: An Illustrated History and A Rare Titanic Family, for a discussion of the tragedy.

Filmmakers of the world have had their favorites among Godard, Fellini, Kurosawa, et al. But even the great ones got their early taste of film from right here: Hollywood.

For more information, go to www.tcm.com/festival.

TCM Classic Film Festival
April 12 - 15, 2012

Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
7000 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028

Grauman's Chinese Theatre
6925 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028

The Chinese 6 Theatres
6801 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028

The Egyptian Theatre
6712 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028

The Cinerama Dome
6360 W. Sunset Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028