Our first day of the festival was April 13. We had spotlight passes which got us into the opening night film and the cocktail gala afterward. We had to wear fancier clothes than we normally wear, and frankly I felt a little uncomfortable. I'm not posting my photos from that event, because I hated my picture. But here is a picture of my shoes. This was the best picture I took of myself that evening.
Anyway, we were planning on seeing the opening night film regardless of what it was, because we wanted to be part of the festivities. In March, the opening film was announced to be a 4k restoration of "Rio Bravo." Directors Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson appeared before the film to talk about Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation (of which Spielberg and Anderson are members) and their restoration of not only "Rio Bravo," but hundreds of other films. Spielberg stated that they've restored almost 1000 films in the 30-ish years that the board has existed.
After the interview, star Angie Dickinson made an appearance. She is 91 and her interview was pretty funny, albeit a little scattered. Not sure if that was indicative of age, or nerves, or maybe a combination of both. Or maybe that's just how she is, I have no idea. Ben Mankiewicz handled the interview well and they both bonded over their love of See's Candies. As a side note, there are See's Candies in Oregon, but I never knew how big See's was in California. See's is everywhere, including the San Jose and Los Angeles airports. But I digress.
Pardon the quality of the photo. We were a ways back and so I took a photo of Angie on the screen.
"Rio Bravo" was also my first time in the famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre, now the TCL Chinese IMAX. For all intents and purposes, it is Grauman's to me. The ceiling is absolutely breathtaking and despite the name change, I'm happy that TCL is committed to keeping the theatre true to its original aesthetic. I will also say that the Ladies Bathroom at Grauman's is enormous. There is an entire round room full of floor length mirrors to walk through before you even get to the bathroom.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed "Rio Bravo." I had never seen it before, but knew it was a Western and it had John Wayne. I'm not a big fan of Westerns nor a big fan of Wayne (as an actor). However, the revelation in this film was Dean Martin who was absolutely fantastic. His acting talents were definitely wasted in those films with Jerry Lewis. Ricky Nelson was also a lot of fun. I was hoping for a Dean Martin/Ricky Nelson duet and Howard Hawks did not disappoint. Angie Dickinson was also fantastic and gorgeous in this movie.
We came out of the movie and it was raining. Par for the course in Oregon, but it was a little disappointing in Hollywood. Regardless, we walked through the rain and boarded the shuttle to go to the venue for the cocktail party. The venue was an Italian restaurant on Wilcox Ave. The food was fantastic. I'd never been to a fancy event like that where waiters walked around with hors d'oeuvres on trays and offered them to the guests. Jimmy and I wisely stationed ourselves near the kitchen so fresh trays of hors d'oeuvres were offered to us constantly. While standing next to the kitchen, we also saw the RZA from Wu-Tang Clan who was a scheduled speaker at the festival. Jimmy managed to get his photo taken with him. We surprisingly saw a lot of the RZA during the TCMFF. We also saw the hosts and met Ben Mankiewicz and Mario Cantone. I was surprised by how small Ben was. He's short and skinny. Jimmy is about 6' and Ben was at least 4-5" shorter. Eddie Muller was about the same height as Jimmy, maybe a little taller. The party was awesome. We had so much fun. If we go again next year, the cocktail party would definitely be an incentive to buy the fancy pass again.
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Friday, April 14 was our first full day of the festival. We started with the 9am screening of "Harvey," a film that neither Jimmy nor I had seen. During the introduction, there was a funny moment when Harvey himself, all 6'3.5" of him, made a special appearance at the screening. He was escorted to his seat and even had his picture taken. The film was absolutely fantastic, we both loved it and made a note to purchase it and add it to our collection.
We then headed into the screening of "Footlight Parade," which was being introduced by Bruce Goldstein, the director of repertory programming at NYC's Film Forum. He was hilarious and had put together an excellent presentation for both before and after the film. After this film was announced, I knew I wanted to see it, as I wanted to see Busby Berkeley's musical numbers up on the big screen. I'd seen "Footlight Parade" before, but it was absolutely fantastic on the big screen. Since this was my first festival, I'm not sure if a Bruce Goldstein introduction is a regular thing, but if so, I'd definitely make a point to see him again. In his closing presentation, he put together a montage of scenes from "Footlight Parade" that were censored and what countries/provinces/states banned them. Let's just say that Quebec should have just banned the movie all together and not even tried to salvage it for viewing.
After this we headed to the Roosevelt for the Looney Tunes panel which was excellent. Who doesn't love Looney Tunes? With the festival celebrating legacy as well as WB's 100th birthday, the Looney Tunes couldn't be left out. This presentation specifically focused on Looney Tunes' Oscar winning and nominated shorts. The presentation started with Bugs Bunny's cartoon where he tries to launch an Oscar campaign for his work. We saw an Oscar winning Sylvester & Tweety short which I'd seen before, but it was still hilarious. We also saw the Oscar-winning Pepe Le Pew cartoon, "For Sentimental Reasons," which I think I'd seen before but I couldn't remember. There was a hilarious short called "Mouse Wreckers" which I'd never even heard of, let alone seen. The presentation closed with the Bugs Bunny cartoon, "What's Opera Doc?" which I've seen multiple times, but it is still hilarious.
When the schedule for the TCMFF was announced, I told my husband that I wanted to do at least one of each of the special events (so to speak), I needed to do at least 1 panel, 1 poolside, 1 midnight screening and see each venue. I'm happy to report that we were able to do all four. If we go next year, I'll be a little more flexible, as I know what everything is about.
I'd read that to get one of the cushy lounge chairs by the pool, you needed to get to the Roosevelt pool screening early. Because of how the last two blocks of films were scheduled and how the poolside screening was scheduled, we would need to dip out of something early to make the poolside--so we opted to just skip those blocks all together. The poolside screening this evening was "Beach Party" with Frankie Avalon in attendance. Of the three poolside screenings scheduled ("Hairspray," "Beach Party," and "A Mighty Wind"), "Beach Party" was my pick. The big conflict of the evening was that George Clooney was scheduled to appear at the "Ocean's 11" screening across the street at Grauman's. I'm not one for watching only parts of movies, so dipping out of a screening early was not appealing to me. However, we were contemplating it to see Clooney. Anyway, we were very early for the poolside, first in line in fact. When we got to sit down, Jimmy and I sat in one of the big, round, cushy 2-person seats...UNDERNEATH A HEAT LAMP. It was chilly outside. Frankie Avalon appeared and was interviewed by Dave Karger. Avalon looked fantastic. He talked very sweetly about Annette and said that he missed her. Anyway, suffice it to say, with the cushy chair, the heat lamp, and the cocktail service, Jimmy and I weren't going anywhere. We watched the entirety of "Beach Party."
We were going to see the midnight movie, "The Batwoman" from 1968, but by now it was 10:00pm and we'd have to wait 2 hours for it to start. There weren't any other movies that were starting at 10 that we could see, and we were still exhausted from getting up at 5am for the Eddie Muller breakfast the day prior. We opted to go back to our room and watch TCM. On the TV, one of my faves, "Gentleman Jim" was starting. But prior to getting into our room, Jimmy and I found ourselves in the elevator with both Alicia Malone and Jacqueline Stewart!!
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Saturday, April 15
This was our big day. We were on-the-go from 9am to 2am. We started the day at the 9am screening of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" with Russ Tamblyn in attendance. Dave Karger interviewed him. Tamblyn was hilarious. He talked about how 'Seven Brides' could never be made today, then he pretended to be a filmmaker pitching the film to a producer. Tamblyn also talked about the day when he and all the brothers had to have their hair dyed red to play the Pontipee brothers. He said after all of them had their hair dyed, they all piled into Howard Keel's convertible and drove from the studio to somewhere else for lunch. Tamblyn said that the sight of 7 red-headed men riding together in a convertible turned heads as they drove down the street. He also gave a funny movie idea for a Mormon remake of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." He called it "Seven Brides for One Brother."
The barn raising dance was absolutely spectacular on Grauman's IMAX screen aka "the largest screen in North America." It was FANTASTIC.
Anyway, after that movie, we headed over to the Laurel & Hardy presentation. For this specific presentation, we were planning on leaving early. However, it was a presentation of 3 separate shorts. We'd already seen 2/3 of them. Fortunately the one we hadn't seen, "Going Bye Bye!" was showing first. We planned on watching the entirety of the first short and then leaving. Unfortunately the guest brought in to introduce the Laurel & Hardy shorts was very lackluster. They could have easily had a TCM staffer introduce the film and it would have had the same effect. Anyway, "Going Bye Bye" was hysterical; but then we left to go to "The Evolution of Henson Puppetry" panel, being led by Brian Henson, Jim's son and director of the Jim Henson Company.
This panel was absolutely fantastic and one of the absolute best things we saw at the TCMFF. We were explicitly asked to not take photos, so there are no pictures from this event. We had missed Brian Henson introducing "Muppets Take Manhattan" earlier that morning. Had Russ Tamblyn not appeared in person, I probably would have opted for the Muppets. Tamblyn was also present on Friday for a screening of "Peyton Place," but we opted to see the Looney Tunes panel instead, because I knew that I wanted to see the barn raising dance in 'Seven Brides' on the big screen. I digress. Brian Henson was fascinating and you can tell he really loves his dad and loves puppetry. He started with a demonstration of one of his father's early puppets and did an early routine. These were simple hand puppets and the presentation was funny and absolutely adorable. As the presentation progressed, Henson demonstrated how the puppets changed, hence the panel title, "Evolution of Henson Puppetry." He did multiple demonstrations of puppets that have built in gloves (for muppets that need to be able to hold things), and even explained how the scene of Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog riding bikes in "The Great Muppet Caper" was achieved. Even after his explanation, I still couldn't envision it. Henson concluded the presentation with a demonstration of their new technology--digital puppetry. It was absolutely fascinating. Unfortunately, we didn't see any famous puppets, e.g. Kermit, but I imagine that the security involved would be expensive and/or it could be too much of a risk.
After the panel, we were back at Grauman's for another special presentation--ANN-MARGRET being interviewed before a screening of "Bye Bye Birdie." When Ann-Margret was introduced as a guest, neither Jimmy nor I cared what was scheduled against it. We were seeing Ann-Margret. Dave Karger interviewed her and the interview was excellent. She also looks fantastic for 81. She said that she has the same energy now that she had 60 years ago when she made "Bye Bye Birdie." Good for her. She also just released a rock n' roll album. Ann-Margret talked about filming the famous scenes bookending the film and also briefly talked about Elvis being the inspiration for Conrad Birdie as well as being first choice for the part. She said it was surreal that her next film was "Viva Las Vegas" with Elvis. At the end of the interview, TCM presented Ann-Margret with a birthday cake inspired by her legs.
After 'Birdie,' we headed up to the multiplex (just regular old movie theaters, nothing special) to see "Sorry Wrong Number." This was Jimmy and my compromise because I wanted to see "In the Heat of the Night" and he wanted to see "Enter the Dragon." I have seen 'Night' before, so I agreed to 'Dragon,' which I haven't seen, but normally kung-fu movies wouldn't be my bag. We also hadn't been to the Hollywood Legion venue yet, so it seemed like a good opportunity. Anyway, because we still had some time before 'Dragon,' we saw "Sorry Wrong Number" with Eddie Muller introducing. I'd seen this film before and knew the ending, but a majority of the people in the screening hadn't seen it. That was exciting. After the film, we boarded the shuttle and headed down to the Legion for "Enter the Dragon."
"Enter the Dragon" was introduced by Jacqueline Stewart. Prior to the film there was a discussion between Stewart, the screenwriter Michael Allin, and Jimmy's BFF the RZA. It was an excellent conversation and then we ended up sitting behind the RZA during the screening! I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this film. It was also the first time I'd seen a Bruce Lee movie. I also didn't know that John Saxon had studied martial arts with Lee. Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie--so good choice Jimmy.
Then it was time for my midnight movie--XANADU. By this point, I had changed out of my Ann-Margrock shirt and into my Xanadu shirt. I also wore a silver sequin bomber jacket, sparkly shoes, and ribbons in my hair a la Olivia Newton-John in the movie. I love "Xanadu" and it was even better on the big screen. I absolutely loved it and Jimmy hadn't seen it before. The Gene Kelly "glitz makeover" scene is everything. And it's no surprise that the dance scene between Gene and Olivia that Gene choreographed himself was the best part of the movie. By the time we got out of "Xanadu," it was 2:00am and we were exhausted.
My favorite "Xanadu" gif:
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Sunday, April 16. The final day of the festival.
We were going to get up at 9am to see Leonard Maltin introduce "Heaven Can Wait" (1943). However, after having gotten to bed after 2am for "Xanadu," this screening was NOT happening. Instead, we got up at around 10am and went down to Ghirardelli for an ice cream/coffee breakfast. We then went over to Grauman's to see the classic to end all classics: "Casablanca." I've seen this movie 4 times previously in the theater, but not in the IMAX. Seeing it in a packed house (almost 1,000 seats!) on the biggest screen in North America was absolutely fantastic. Ben Mankiewicz and Eddie Muller introduced it. No theater experience can top this one. I probably won't be needing to see "Casablanca" on any of the puny Portland-area screens any time soon. Lol.
After "Casablanca," we went to see Leonard Maltin introduce the little known British film, "Mr. Cohen Takes a Walk." I literally just picked this film because Maltin was introducing it and I wanted to see him. It also fit perfectly between "Casablanca" and our 4:45pm film. This was a nice, sweet film. And I agreed with Maltin's assessment: this is not a great film, but it's a good film and deserves to be seen. After 'Mr. Cohen,' we got back in line to see Edward G. Robinson in "Larceny Inc." a film that neither Jimmy nor I had seen. This film was hilarious. After "Larceny Inc.," we got back in line again and sat down to watch Miriam Hopkins and Bette Davis duke it out in "The Old Maid." Mario Cantone's introduction was hilarious. He had actually introduced this film during the film's first showing on Friday (Part of Sunday afternoon is reserved to give people who missed popular screenings a second chance. We were actually watching "Harvey" during the first screening), and he was so popular he gave an encore performance. Miriam and Bette were amazing per usual.
This was our last screening of the festival. We closed out our festival and our vacation, with the closing party. It was very crowded, however, we were able to finally meet Dave Karger, the only host we hadn't talked to yet. He was so nice and friendly. All the hosts were extremely nice and amiable to the fans. That was refreshing to see. Anyway, we got our picture taken with Dave Karger, Alicia Malone, and Eddie Muller.
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This was an absolutely amazing trip. The TCMFF is expensive. I'm not going to pretend it's not. Our passes were expensive--more expensive than going to Disneyland. However, it was absolutely worth it because it was so much fun. We already want to go back next year, providing I can get the funds together. We'd probably stay at a cheaper hotel, get the same passes (I'd rather have the fancy passes than the fancy hotel room), and do a long weekend, without the extra days tacked on the beginning. I worked months planning and researching our trip and I'm happy to say that my efforts paid off. My husband said at the end of our trip: "I expected to have a great time; but I didn't expect to have as much fun as I did." While he watches classic films and even has favorites, he probably wouldn't watch them on his own. He's a gamer. But he said he had an absolute blast at the TCMFF and wants to go again next year.
Sorry this is so long, but thank you for staying with me!