The Frame

TCM Film Fest 2015: Chimes at Midnight

On April 16, 2015

Orson Welles’ career is the stuff of legend – wunderkind Hollywood golden boy with Citizen Kane, then losing most of his subsequent films to studio interference, and eventually finding it impossible to raise enough money to even complete the films he wanted to make. By 1965 when he made Chimes at Midnight, the funding came from Spain and Switzerland, and the film barely got a release in the US. Even before becoming a big shot Hollywood actor/writer/director, Welles was already a noted Shakespearean scholar and actor, and in the late 1940s, his film output shifted to Shakespeare as well, with versions of Macbeth and Othello. He’d long intended to do a Falstaff story, combining the five plays featuring the characters – a stage version called Five Kings hadn’t quite gotten off the ground as early as 1939, then he staged it in 1960, when it was also unsuccessful. Undaunted, he focused on a film version, which became Chimes at Midnight (sometimes known as just Falstaff). Unlike many of his projects during his later career, Chimes at Midnight was finished, and finished pretty much according to Welles’ wishes.

Upon initial release, the film was dismissed by critics, but it has since gained a reputation as one of Welles’ greatest films – Welles himself felt it was his best work. Rights issues have plagued the film, however, and it’s been very difficult to see in any kind of decent quality (it is watchable on YouTube). Rumor has it that the print screened at TCM Fest (courtesy of Filmoteca España) will soon make its way to DVD/Blu-ray, which would be great. As of now, though, the people who saw it at TCM Fest have probably seen the best version of it since its original release.

TCM Film Fest 2015: Another Great Experience

By Jandy

On March 30, 2015

In TCM Film Festival

There are plenty of great reasons to go to the TCM Classic Film Festival – seeing movies you love on the big screen, discovering forgotten and long-unavailable films, learning about film history firsthand, seeing some of the greatest actors, directors, and behind-the-scenes talent in the history of motion picture, etc. But one of the things that makes it so enjoyable year after year is getting to do all these things in the company of classic film fan friends old and new. Thanks to Twitter, I have a number of friends who come to the TCM Fest every year, and half of the fun is meeting up with them and flocking from film to film together.

Last year, I was only able to attend a few screenings and a lot of the friend magic wasn’t quite there. I still had a great time seeing the films, of course, but one thing I was determined to do this year was work harder to meet up with people I knew and enjoy the atmosphere of the festival, and I succeeded royally. Even when I happened not to be near friends in line, I chatted with a bunch of random cool people – because, I mean, you’re pretty much automatically cool if you come to TCM Fest, right? Right! I still only attended two days this year instead of all four, but they were two of the best fest days I’ve had.

I’ll do full posts on everything I saw later, so I’m going to focus on the festival experience here. Of course, I realized as I start putting this together that I didn’t take ANY photos during the fest, really, so I’ll still have to illustrate with film stills. Oops.

Friday

I spent Thursday evening with visiting family, and I worked Friday morning, so I missed a few notable programs, especially the Dawn of Technicolor program, but I got there in time for Chimes at Midnight. I’ve recently begun planning to complete a bunch of director’s filmographies, and when I checked up on Orson Welles to start sourcing his films, Chimes at Midnight was one that I simply couldn’t find anywhere, so when it showed up on the TCM Fest program, I had to get to it. I ended up pretty early in line, and chatted for a while with the lady in front of me. She and her daughter were there from the Seattle area, and they were returning festival fans. It’s great how many people come year after year, and not just local people – people who come from all over the country and beyond. The lady really loved Orson Welles, and was probably even more excited than I was to see this rarely screened film.

I’m not sure there was anyone I actually knew ahead of time at this screening, though – most of them seemed to pick Young Mr. Lincoln in this time slot (it was a TOUGH time slot; Chaplin’s Limelight was also playing at the same time) largely because it left more time to get in line for pre-Code Don’t Bet on Women in the following timeslot. Scheduling is everything, folks, especially when you’re trying to get into a film playing in Chinese 4, a tiny room that always, always, always sells out. I took my chances with a fifteen minute break between Chimes at Midnight and Don’t Bet on Women, but I hedged my bets a little by sitting on the aisle and skedaddling as soon as the credit started. It worked, I made it in, and my friends Kristen (@salesonfilm) and Marya (@oldfilmsflicker) had saved me a seat right in the center, and I got to meet Kaci (@kacik11) for the first time. Perfect!

Previewing the 2015 TCM Classic Film Fest

By Jandy

On March 23, 2015

In TCM Film Festival

The Sixth Annual TCM Classic Film Festival is nearly upon us – four glorious days of immersion in classic film in the heart of Hollywood along with hundreds of our fellow classic film fans. It’s the best time of the year for those of us who love Hollywood’s golden era of filmmaking.

This year hasn’t been without its controversy, as the early press releases announced programming such as Hollywood’s enduring classic…Apollo 13 (1995)? Malcolm X (1992)? Out of Sight (1998)?! But never fear – though TCM is bringing some newer films to the table, in order to woo some fans who haven’t quite made it as far back in Hollywood history as others, to expand the reach of their theme History According to Hollywood, and honor certain guests like editor Anne V. Coates and stunt coordinator Terry Leonard – they’ve still got PLENTY of pre-1970 films to choose from.

In fact, choosing is the hard part! Some of these time slots are so packed it’s nearly impossible to choose what to see. Such is our burden. I’ve gone through each timeslot, and detailed the choices in each one – basically what to look for if you want to catch all the essential films, if you’re looking for lesser known discoveries, or if you want to make the most of experiences you can’t get anywhere else. Obviously, these are all subjective to some degree.

A few general suggestions to start with, based on my five years experience of this festival.

Plan Meals and Bring Snacks

The schedule is VERY packed if you want to see something in every slot. You’ll often be running directly from screening to another line without a break. Plan ahead and make sure to eat in any hour long breaks you have. It’s not a bad idea to bring some small bags of chips and a bottle of water with you, in case you end up crunched for time. The theatre doesn’t really make a big deal out of it for festivals – if you’d rather not sneak in food, they do have actual restaurant food and a bar as well as regular theatre food. Plus there are several relatively quick restaurants scattered around the top level of the Hollywood-Highland Center, including a pizza place, a Quizno’s, a Johnny Rockets, a Mongolian Barbecue, and a few more right next to the theatre.

See Something at Each of the Palaces

TCL Chinese, the Egyptian, and El Capitan are the centerpiece theatres and they are all pretty amazing venues. The Egyptian is a bit plainer these days than the other two on the inside, but the balcony is very nice. Head up there, because a lot of people don’t know it’s there and the middle front has the best view in the theatre.

American Movie Critics: William Troy

By Jandy

On March 4, 2015

In American Movie Critics, Film

[Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and I are reading through the American Movie Critics anthology and discussing each chapter as we go, crossposting on each of our blogs.]

Our own era is dominated by special effects blockbusters, and a lot of our ongoing cultural love of oversize entertainment stems from one of the films under discussion today. Critic William Troy wasn’t overly enamored of King Kong as a whole, but expressed in a succinct and thoughtful review, he does get at a lot of why audiences were and remain so. He prefers the somewhat quieter horror of The Invisible Man, a film from Universal’s original horror cycle that tends to be highly regarded and perhaps ironically underseen. Ryan and I greatly enjoyed Troy’s mastery of the short form review, finding ourselves ruminating ourselves on why certain films remain forever popular while others die out of the zeitgeist.

JANDY HARDESTY
In this pair of short reviews, we have a distinguished literary critic and professor reviewing two pioneering special effects films from 1933 – King Kong and The Invisible Man. It’s interesting that he praises both films for their technical ingenuity, but he seems to believe The Invisible Man is much more successful in its story and setting than King Kong, which he thinks failed by trying “to unite two rather widely separated traditions of the popular cinema – that of the ‘thriller’ and that of the sentimental romance” and in so doing “strained our powers of credulity.”

RYAN McNEIL
So first of all, what I loved about the Troy pieces was the way they were – as the introduction tells us – an “occasion for some larger essayistic rumination”. While I’m a believe in the long form, I also understand that there’s a need and a want for shorter “capsule reviews”. But what I love about these posts is that they prove that a short piece can still be a way for a critic to get into an idea a film prompts…and not waste valuable words and space recapping what the movie is about.

And all of this back when there were so fewer places to learn what a film was about!

JANDY
I wondered if you’d latch onto the idea of Troy’s reviews being “larger essayistic ruminations.” No joke, I wrote in the margin “Ryan does this with his reviews, too.” Not to get off track on this, but it’s one of the things I like about your reviews – I always know I’m going to get more than just “here’s what’s in this film and it’s good/bad/mediocre.” Troy does it in a very small space indeed. You’re right, I hadn’t thought of it, but he barely recaps the movie at all – recapping can be done well and intertwined with thoughtful criticism, but Troy makes the best use of the space he has to tie the film to something grander and more thought provoking.

RYAN
Easy there, Hardesty – youâ€™re makinâ€™ me blush.

American Movie Critics: Pare Lorenz

By Jandy

On February 17, 2015

In American Movie Critics, Film

[Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and I are reading through the American Movie Critics anthology and discussing each chapter as we go, crossposting on each of our blogs.]

Several of the critics in the American Movie Critics anthology have multiple pieces (or excerpts) included, but I don’t think we’ve come across a critic with one piece we almost totally agreed with, and another we totally disagreed with. Pare Lorentz, a 1920s-1930s critic-turned-documentarian, dismisses Greta Garbo and her first talking film with a cursory hand wave, and then goes on to give an extremely astute assessment of the state of documentary filmmaking. Simply a question of documentary clearly being more his thing, since he focused on documentaries himself as a filmmaker? Merely a personal distaste for Garbo? With only these two pieces, it’s difficult to tell. Whatever the case, these pieces certainly got us talking!

RYAN McNEIL:
The first thing that jumped out at me about the first of these two pieces is that Pare Lorentz’s post on Anna Christie felt like the most mean-spirited thing we’ve read so far. He seems to want to take down an icon and openly wonder about why she’s a draw.

I understand that in a “Why is Dane Cook so popular?” sort of way, but when Lorentz says that his opinion on Greta Garbo matters as much as his opinion on a hat check girl…I wonder if he’s trying to undercut his own authority or deliver a backhanded swipe?

Shouldn’t a critic of Lorentz’s ilk be more concerned with what’s happening on the screen than the popularity of the person in it? And likewise, what’s to be learned by something so obtuse that it merits inclusion in this collection?

JANDY HARDESTY:
This is such a weird piece, for a lot of reasons. From the introduction, it looks like Lorentz was a regular critic for several magazines starting in 1926, and this feels like an assignment review for a film he simply had no interest in. We’ve all had those times, where we’re given a screener or go to a press screening and we’re just not feeling it, but we have to turn something in, so we dash something together and just move on. At one point, he says that “Miss Garbo gave an original and surprising interpretation of the heroine.” That sounds like a GOOD thing, but apparently it’s not? He doesn’t really seem to connect this statement to the rest of the piece – was it original and surprising because it’s bad? Whereas a good performance would’ve been familiar and expected? I don’t even know.

Greta Garbo in Anna Christie (1930).