By James David Patrick
Let’s pause the festivities here to talk to some of the people who might be interested in attending the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival in the future. I’ve done a lot of jabbering about the movies, as is expected, but attendees like to talk about the art of picking their schedule. Average humans shoot us side-eye, but I know you’re my people. You’ll get why this feels so important.
With the potential of six difficult movie decisions to make per full day of the festival, you’ll experience a lot of indecision. And that’s not even factoring in the special events like interviews, special presentations, book signings… and food. Many attendees use a sort of slippery weighting system. Some just see what they want on the spur of the moment because they’re capable of just going with the flow. I’m not really one of those people. I plan this event down to the minute before I even set foot on that PIT to LAX flight.
It comes down to this simple question: What’s your priority? Is it watching new-to-you movies? Enjoying old favorites on the biggest of stages? Seeing classic film stars in the flesh and listening to their stories about making movies? Saturday’s 2023 TCMFF schedule provides the perfect playground for discussing the thought process.
In picking my hypothetical schedule (because, yes, I still downloaded the TCMFF23 app and selected the movies I would have attended because I am in fact a masochist), this day became a tale of conflict between prioritizing new watches and old favorites that would be fun with the crowd. If we’re honest, it’s all a high wire balancing act that supports who we think we are as cinephiles and old movie weirdos.
Scenario #1 – First Watch Cinema Shame Club
9:00am – Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
I could have also gone with the rare screening of the pre-code comedy The Wiser Sex (1932), but Paths of Glory is a bigger movie. And it’s a big blight on my movie-watching resume. I definitely should have watched this WWI-set drama starring Kirk Douglas by now. I think it’s the only Kubrick film I haven’t seen. (Yes. That’s confirmed. The only one.) There’s no better way to do it.
12:00pm – Play It as It Lays (Allison Anders, 1972)
I fell in love with Frank Perry’s David & Lisa (1962) at a past festival and I’d love to rekindle that Hollywood love affair with a movie I’ve wanted to see for years. Availability is the problem with Play It as it Lays. This is one of the screenings I’m most frustrated to miss because I’ve held off watching this film on YouTube and it’s going to be shown at the TCM in 35mm. 35mm! With star Peter Reigert and director Allison Anders. If you’re reading this and you’re attending the TCMFF, please see this one for me.
2:45pm – The Jackie Robinson Story (Alfred E. Green, 1950)
I love baseball movies. Somehow I haven’t seen this. I’ve written at length about my affection for the national pastime on screen in an excerpt I posted on my blog from an unfinished manuscript. This doesn’t have the greatest reputation, but it holds a significant place in baseball and film history because it stars Jackie Robinson as himself, three seasons into his color-barrier-breaking Major League Baseball career.
If you can’t track down The Jackie Robinson Story, feel free to substitute the excellent 42 (2013).
5:00pm – The Crimson Canary (John Hoffman, 1945)
A B-movie murder mystery about a jazz trumpeter with an “innovative” score and appearances from the great sax-man Coleman Hawkins and bassist Oscar Pettiford? I’d never even heard of this movie until the TCMFF schedule appeared. Those are the screenings I add to my schedule straightaway.
6:30pm – How to Steal A Million (William Wyler, 1966)
Blessed be the 64-minute B-picture that allows time to theater hop into this 6:30pm caper comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. I own the Blu-ray but haven’t seen it. Two of my favorite screen icons in their one and only pairing? An easy choice in the “Cinema Shame” Saturday schedule.
9:45pm – Unfinished Business (Gregory La Cava, 1941)
I have a hunch this will be a super popular choice in this time slot, but we have the benefit of a soft time cushion between features to hop into the line for the Theatre 4 Thunderdome. (If you missed my introduction to Multiplex Theatre 4, go back to Day One to catch up.) Irene Dunne could charm the pants off a window mannequin, and director Gregory La Cava had a deft understanding of comic timing. His My Man Godfrey (1936) and Stage Door (1937) established a new standard for sophisticated screwball comedy. In this one, Dunne’s a small-town choir singer who takes off for New York and winds up operating the switchboard at a nightclub and accidentally marries a wealthy drunk (Robert Montgomery). But, again, I haven’t seen it so we’re just going on gut instinct and my gut says this one could be a festival highlight.
12:00am – Xanadu (Robert Greenwald, 1980)
I’ve seen Xanadu. You’ve probably seen Xanadu. But have you seen Olivia Newton John’s Classical Greece-inspired roller disco odyssey with a crowd… at midnight? And note, please, that this was the seventh movie of a beautiful seven-movie unicorn day that everyone hopes to someday achieve at TCMFF. You’ve done it.
Okay. Now that we’ve looked at the “Cinema Shame” schedule, let’s look at how this day shifts if we focus on time-tested favorites. If nothing else, it will prove, once and for all, that there’s no wrong way to TCMFF.
Scenario #2: Spin the Favorites
9:00am – The Muppets Take Manhattan (Frank Oz, 1984) / Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen, 1954)
I can open my day at TCMFF with Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Miss Piggy and friends seeking fame and success on Broadway? Plus, Elliott Gould (and we know how I feel about Elliott Gould). You could also do pure fun in another musical form with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with Russ Tamblyn at The TCL Chinese Theatre! How do you choose? If you’re at home, just do both!
12:00pm – The African Queen (John Huston, 1951)
I haven’t seen this one in a couple decades, but I haven’t had a Bogie or a Katherine Hepburn fix this festival. It’s not a personal favorite, but maybe an invested crowd and the biggest screen will give me a new angle of approach.
3:00pm – Bye Bye Birdie (George Sidney, 1963)
Ann-Margret will be inside the TCL Chinese Theatre to share her movie with you. One of the great pleasures of my TCMFF experience was seeing the infectious Ann-Margret in person. I would love to hear what she has to say about Bye Bye Birdie’s magnificently kitschy opening sequence.
You could also have struck another Bogie with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) over at Mutiplex 1, but it gets out a little later making it harder to hoof it over to the Hollywood Legion for…
6:00pm – Carmen Jones (Otto Preminger, 1954) and the Robert Osborne Award Presentation
Dorothy Dandridge took the world by the throat and paved a path for actresses of color with her powerful, Oscar-nominated performance as a wartime worker who seduces Harry Belafonte, a soldier charged with arresting her for fighting on the job. The all-Black musical adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen became a major box office success but has fallen somewhat under the radar in the last few decades. The movie’s potent and poignant and full of smolder.
The Robert Osborne Award will be presented to film historian Donald Bogle for his “pioneering studies of African American cinema and his tireless efforts to elevate the achievements of Black performers and filmmakers” before the feature.
9:15pm – Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973)
Bruce Lee’s finest Introduced by Enter the Dragon and Flash Gordon (1980) screenwriter Michael Allin and the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA. Nowhere else could you enjoy that roster of entertainment.
Rent Enter the Dragon
12:00am – Xanadu (Robert Greenwald, 1980)
Followed by a midnight showing of Xanadu? Now that’s entertainment.
Now off to bed. You must be exhausted. We lived TCMFF Day 3 twice. Day 4’s a little less intense, but you’ll still be bleary-eyed and exhausted. There’s no room for doing this festival by halves. I don’t care if you have to peel your eyes open tomorrow morning.
James David Patrick is a Pittsburgh-based writer with a movie-watching problem. He has a degree in Film Studies from Emory University that, much to everyone’s dismay, gives him license to discuss Russian Shakespeare adaptations at cocktail parties. He hosts the Cinema Shame podcast. You’ll find him crate diving at local record shops. James blogs about movies, music and ‘80s nostalgia at www.thirtyhertzrumble.com. Follow him on Twitter.