The end of April brought yet another long weekend of pure film celebration back to the bustling heart of Hollywood with the 4th annual TCM Classic Film Festival, a distillation of some of the greatest motion pictures produced for the big screen. With approximately eighty films screened between Thursday and Sunday, predictably the biggest challenge was charting out the best course of action for maximum viewing pleasure. The movies on display offer an embarrassment of riches, and with so many of the film’s creators present to speak on their work, a memorable cinematic experience is almost guaranteed. Hollywood royalty was on hand as well, when ageless Jane Fonda took to the fabled Grauman’s Chinese courtyard to cement her hand and footprints in history. True to her strong activist roots, Miss Fonda used the occasion to become the first ever to imprint the Peace sign in the fresh cement slab, which fittingly will be placed right next to her father Henry’s in this famous locale.
The festival got off to a roaring musical start with a 45th anniversary gala screening of Funny Girl, the film that launched Barbra Streisand’s career, winning her the Best Actress Oscar for her film debut. Although Streisand was unable to attend the restoration’s opening at the Chinese, substitute diva Cher sat down with respected TCM host Robert Osborne beforehand to help kick off the festival.
One of the most exciting events of the TCM fest (for fans and talent alike) is the late-afternoon stroll down the Opening Night Chinese red carpet, and this year’s promenade was no exception. TCM fest passholders who’ve travelled from around the world for this whirlwind cinematic weekend make the most of their trip down the carpet, dressing to the hilt and in many cases outshining the stars of yesteryear with whom they walk. Kate Beckinsale strode up the carpet, mistiming her fashionably late entrance and arriving after most of the press had already decamped. Anne Jeffreys looked chic in white, though it’s sad that Ann Rutherford (her companion on the carpet two years earlier) is no longer with us. To Sir With Love‘s Lulu (“Just a girl from Glasgow“) rocked the carpet in aviator shades, and later sang her iconic hit at the Vanity Fair afterparty.
Two of Alfred Hitchcock’s coolest, most iconic blonde heroines (and tribute honorees this year), Eva Marie Saint and Tippi Hedren, returned yet again to their favorite film fest, strolling the carpet in the warm Southern California sun. Saint would sit down the following day to film an in-depth interview with Osborne to be screened on TCM in the run-up to next year’s festival, while Hedren would speak of Hitchcock’s formidable effect on her career in the intimate setting of the Roosevelt’s historic Blossom Room.
Also feted this year for their varied and unique contributions to cinema were Max von Sydow and Ann Blyth. When I asked the serene Miss Blyth (the antithesis of her scheming Mildred Pierce character Veda) about her memories working with Joan Crawford in that classic film, she had nothing but praise for Crawford’s professionalism, friendship, and support. It was hard to reconcile that this charming, beautiful woman was the same actress who so convincingly portrayed Joan Crawford’s viciously manipulative daughter nearly seventy years ago in Mildred Pierce – the one of whom Eve Arden said in the film, “Alligators have the right idea … they eat their young.”
The legendary Max von Sydow (with family in tow) seemed a bit out of place on the bustling Hollywood red carpet, yet his towering presence and deep distinctive voice left an indelible impression. As he slowly worked his way up the promenade, I took the opportunity to say how impressed I’d been by his powerful, troubled performance in Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf. He remarked on what a “very dark” experience that film was, and seemed somewhat surprised when I related that David Lynch had selected it to screen inside Grauman’s Chinese directly behind him at the 2010 AFI film fest. Later in the weekend Von Sydow appeared at the nearby Egyptian to introduce a screening of his first Bergman film, 1957’s The Seventh Seal.
A handful of faithful TCM nonagenarians made return appearances at this year’s celebration. Puckish Mickey Rooney was on hand for a Cinerama Dome fiftieth anniversary screening of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (alongside an empty chair where the late, great Jonathan Winters was to have sat). Marvin Kaplan, whose gas station attendant so memorably battled Winters in that film’s most hilarious scene, joined Rooney on stage to discuss the comedy before it screened. Diminutive dancer/choreographer Marge Champion (model for Disney’s Snow White, and here to introduce her film The Swimmer opposite Burt Lancaster) spryly walked the red carpet in baby-blue slacks this year, but was just edged in years by Fay McKenzie, whose career dates back to the silent era. McKenzie brought along and narrated some of her wonderful color home movies, which screened inside the storied Blossom Room, a fascinating presentation featuring intimate behind-the-scenes glimpses at Hollywood legends Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Alfred Hitchcock, Bogart and Bacall, among others. It was thrilling to see these great stars’ unguarded private moments (particularly in that historic setting), with highlights including some amazing color footage of Dietrich and (current) lover Douglas Fairbanks Jr. cavorting in Austria, Hitchcock precariously riding a bicycle, and color footage of a beaming Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine on the location shoot of Gunga Din.
Yet it was TCM mainstay Norman Lloyd who ultimately won the age honors at this year’s fest – he’ll hit the century mark later next year. As a member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre, Lloyd made his debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (where he memorably fell from the Statue of Liberty), and would work with, among others, Jean Renoir and Charlie Chaplin in his lengthy career. Still sharp as a tack, Lloyd helped introduce two of the four films by his lifelong friend Hitchcock screening at this year’s festival, and I suspect he’ll be back for many more visits in the future.
Among the TCM fest’s most loyal troupers, a playful Jane Withers ambled up the red carpet with the help of a walker, ever animated, enthusiastic and full of life. Baby Jane would speak before the World Premiere restoration of Giant, her film with James Dean, and it was interesting to note that 57 years earlier she’d also attended that film’s opulent Grauman’s premiere at this very same spot (along with Ann Blyth, Clark Gable, Rock Hudson and 10,000 adoring fans). Having begun her film career over eighty(!) years ago, Miss Withers remains a ball of fire, and brought an infectious sense of fun and history to the proceedings. I’m curious as to what became of her James Dean footage in the above photo, and would’ve loved to have been present for her talk before the Giant screening. (Ah, the alternative festival that might have been …)
But perhaps the liveliest of the attendees at TCM fest 2013 (picking up where Debbie Reynolds left off last year), was spunky force of nature Mitzi Gaynor, star of 1958’s most popular film South Pacific. In lieu of viewing Funny Girl at the Chinese, I instead navigated across Hollywood Blvd. and headed straight to the Roosevelt Hotel’s palm encircled pool for an open-air screening of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s memorable musical. With guests wearing Hawaiian leis (and some even in sailor garb), the evening started with a troupe of Hawaiian fire dancers setting the mood in a performance at the edge of the glowing pool.
TCM host Ben Mankiewicz (consistently the funniest guy at the fest) began the evening with a fairly sober discussion with the film’s ingénue France Nuyen but soon lost all semblance of control when frisky Mitzi joined the fray. While not exactly swearing like a sailor in her tight white jeans, Gaynor bawdied up the proceedings substantially (a Rossano Brazzi inspired crotch-grabbing punchline never hurts), and try as he might it seemed as if Ben had ultimately met his match. As the enchanted evening darkened and the sounds of ‘Bali Hai’ wafted over the hypnotic poolside setting, one sensed that TCM fest 2013 would once again be another unpredictable, unforgettable experience.
One of the joys of this essential film festival is that nearly every screening is introduced by one of the film’s creators or by an ardent admirer (either celebrity or scholar), helping to personalize the screening and make it unique. Two of my favorite ’60s films – Bonnie and Clyde and From Russia With Love – were introduced by screenwriters Robert Benton and (Bond alum) Bruce Feirstein, and their insight into the respective films truly enriched the screenings. While many of the anecdotes may be already familiar to cinephiles, to hear them firsthand from the filmmakers themselves adds significantly to one’s appreciation. And to see a masterpiece such as Bonnie and Clyde on the towering Chinese screen immediately after Benton’s talk, made for a truly visceral experience. Although I’ve viewed this seminal film countless times before, the perfect state-of-the-art presentation made this the first time that its brutally violent finish really felt like a punch to the gut. After years of becoming inured to increasing screen violence, if this ending could still seem so shocking today, I can only imagine the impact it must have had on audiences back in 1967.
The final ’60s film I opted for was Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. (What would Hollywood film festivals do without Hitch these days?) Seen on Grauman’s Chinese giant screen in the presence of its leading lady (just as with Kim Novak and Vertigo last year), it was an unforgettable experience. Sitting down for an hour-long discussion in the Roosevelt’s glowing red Blossom Room, an incandescent Tippi Hedren delved into her traumatic memories of the two films she starred in for the great director. While the tale may be familiar to those who’ve seen HBO’s The Girl, Hedren’s firsthand account of her fraught working experience with Hitchcock was an enlightening behind-the-scenes look into the master’s troubled psyche. Signed to a long-term contract before she’d even met Hitchcock (making a mere $500 a week for The Birds, upped to $600 a week for Marnie), she said that things initially went well with her director, but then quickly crumbled as she became the object of his frightening, stifling obsession. While Hedren respectfully praises Hitchcock for being her drama coach, teaching her about character, script interpretation, and on-set dynamics, she still has strong feelings about the malignant obsession he focused upon her.
Matters got increasingly tense towards the end of The Birds shoot, culminating in the terrifying attic room scene at the film’s climax. Told for months prior that mechanical birds would be utilized in filming that scene, Hedren was shocked to be informed the morning of the shoot that live birds would be flung at her by trainers “wearing gauntlets up to their shoulders.” The brutal week spent shooting this one scene came to a head as Hedren lay on the floor with birds tethered to her body, when one suddenly jumped and came dangerously close to lacerating her eye. “I just said I’m done. I’m done,” related Hedren. “And I got all the birds off of me and just sat in the middle of the set, just sobbing of sheer exhaustion.” Ever-sensitive Ben Mankiewicz at that point injected, “Well … it’s a … good scene ?!” to great audience laughter.
Despite Hedren’s pleasure at working opposite Sean Connery at his sexy best in her follow-up collaboration Marnie (she queried the director as to how her character could possibly be frigid married to the virile Connery), Hitchcock’s unwelcome obsession with his star made for increasingly unbearable working conditions. When he refused to let her out of her contract, she relied on her strong family upbringing to help weather the storm, not allowing hatred to take hold in her heart. “Hitchcock said that he would ruin my career, and he did,” stated the confident, beautiful actress. “But he didn’t ruin my life.” Her enigmatic performance is The Birds’ calm center, and one reason she believes the film has endured so long is because Hitchcock never explains the reason behind the mysterious bird attacks (nor did he ever intimate any logic or causality to his cast).
Today Hedren runs Shambala, a preserve which cares for 47 rescued big cats, and she’s worked tirelessly on legislation to ban their breeding for shows and circuses. At feeding time on her compound (close to 500 lbs. of meat is fed to the cats daily), a resident flock of ravens follows the staff hoping for cast-off scraps. Despite the harrowing experience of filming The Birds, Hedren is completely enamored of these “awesome” creatures, even installing a skylight above her bed so she can gaze on the flock as they fly overhead each morning. Ben Mankiewicz added, “And don’t you think those ravens know that there are a lot of places those ravens could be, but I think they know who lives there.” And Tippi Hedren, the triumphant survivor, with a lilt in her voice happily admitted, “I think so too.”
A festival highlight was a pair of ’40s noir melodramas screened in beautiful black-and-white inside Grauman’s neighboring movie palace, the Egyptian. While 1945’s Mildred Pierce may finally have brought Joan Crawford her long-desired Academy Award, the film also delivered a Supporting Actress nod to Ann Blyth for her wicked turn as Mildred’s venal daughter Veda. One would be hard pressed to find any trace of this scheming character in the lovely woman who took the stage to chat with Robert Osborne before the full Saturday night screening. Despite Crawford’s dragon-lady reputation, Blyth has nothing but great memories of Joan, and credits her support for making Mildred Pierce a wonderful learning experience. “She was kind to me all during the making of the movie,” said Blyth. “And kind to me in private afterwards for many, many years. I have lovely memories.” While Blyth’s film career was relatively short (her last film was 1957’s The Helen Morgan Story opposite Paul Newman), she does regret missing out on the role that might well have extended it, the lead in The Three Faces of Eve, which incidentally won an Oscar for her final co-star’s wife, Joanne Woodward.
Early the next morning, Debra Winger took to the Egyptian stage to introduce one of her all-time favorite films, Gilda, starring Glenn Ford and the ravishing Rita Hayworth in her star-making role. Winger professed her love for the TCM festival, particularly as a showcase for multiple film genres, and vowed to convince her 15-year-old son to join her for the following year’s outing (a tall order for a typical teenage boy, she realizes). Happy that so many dedicated film fans had shown up for a 9am Sunday screening, Winger went on to share her favorite line from the classic film (which she jokingly referred to as unfortunately covering most of her Hollywood career) … “If I were a ranch, they’d call me Bar None.” The digital print of Gilda looked stunning, and the film turned out to be one of my favorites of the fest as well. Having seen the iconic ‘Put the Blame on Mame‘ number countless times, I’d mistakenly assumed I’d watched the complete film before, so was thrilled to experience the entire steamy noir for the first time in such ideal conditions. As lovers with a past reuniting in a Buenos Aires casino, Ford and Hayworth emit dangerous sparks as they struggle against their kinky, cruel natures. It’s unfortunate the Academy Award category for hair design didn’t exist at the time, as Hayworth’s luxuriant coif is almost a character in itself here. The cynical noir dialogue and memorable supporting cast made this the perfect start to the festival’s final day.
To counterbalance these two dark dramas, I sought out two wonderful screwball romances which remain among the best Hollywood has ever produced. Coincidentally, both films happened to be introduced with infectious enthusiasm by author and Academy scholar Cari Beauchamp, who has obvious affection for films of this era, and made a point of singling out the brilliant supporting casts. While it’s debatable whether It Happened One Night deserved its impressive Oscar haul (becoming the first film to sweep the top five categories), Frank Capra’s heiress-on-the-lam road picture is still a delirious, crackling delight. While Actress winner Claudette Colbert may have given better performances in Midnight or The Palm Beach Story, in my opinion this is indeed Clark Gable’s finest hour, and he gives a loose, charismatic, very funny performance well deserving of his only Academy Award.
A film all but overlooked by the Academy in 1941, Preston Sturges’ sublime The Lady Eve emerged as perhaps the highlight of the entire festival for me. With a brilliant supporting troupe of lovable connivers (Charles Coburn, Eugene Palette, Eric Blore), this marvelous comedy stars Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda at the very peak of their acting powers. Known primarily for their dramatic chops, these two inimitable stars deliver the funniest, most romantic performances of their impressive careers. According to Beauchamp, the late, great Roger Ebert even stated that his favorite (and funniest) scene in any romantic comedy was the three-minute uninterrupted take of Stanwyck playing with Fonda’s hair in the cruise ship stateroom. While Joan Fontaine and Gary Cooper may have won the lead Oscars that year, I have a hard time believing anyone truly thinks they gave superior performances to what Stanwyck and Fonda have so magnificently created in this film. The Lady Eve is a cinematic miracle, and what made this particular screening even more meaningful was that earlier that morning, Henry Fonda’s daughter Jane was invoking her father’s name, certain of his spiritual presence, as she cemented her hand and footprints in Hollywood’s most famous courtyard.
On a warm and beautiful Southern California morning, crowds gathered outside of Grauman’s Chinese theatre to honor Jane Fonda for her esteemed half century of indelible film contributions. On hand to fete the accomplishments of their beautiful, talented, controversial friend were Maria Shriver, Eva Longoria, Alexander Payne, Rosanna Arquette, and in a nod to her often overlooked comedic chops, Jim Carrey and 9-to-5 co-star Lily Tomlin. In the morning’s most moving testimonial, Tomlin praised Jane as a “visionary” who has proven that one person really can make a difference in their lifetime. “Through her entire life she’s been speaking words that needed to be said,” praised Lily, “before many of us were ready to hear them.”
Surrounded by family (brother Peter, son Troy, partner Richard, stepmom Shirley, granddaughter Viva, and beloved pooch Tulea), Jane strode confidently to the podium, wiping away tears at the heartfelt tributes. With humor, class, and genuine emotion, Fonda recalled growing up in Hollywood, standing before the iconic Grauman’s Chinese and being awestruck seeing all the prints and stars’ names. She had felt certain that the curtain on her life’s ‘Third Act’ would come down before she’d be able to contribute her own to the glittering array. “And then to my great joy and surprise and honor, along came Turner Classic Movies!” effused the former Mrs. Ted Turner. “I mean do we love this network, oh my lord?! This network that preserves and treasures and makes available to us the great classics of Hollywood history,” said Fonda as she singled out for thanks the indefatigable Robert Osborne. Voice choking with emotion she continued, “One thing that’s particularly meaningful to me is that I’m going to be right next to my dad, and I can feel his presence right now.” Gesturing to her father Henry’s nearby prints (laid down in 1942, soon after The Lady Eve), she continued, “And he used to say to me, ‘Jane, don’t let this town walk all over you.’ Well Dad, right now the town can walk all over both of us … forever!”
With that Jane got down on her knees (humorously executing one of her exercise tape’s leg lifts) and forever memorialized her name and prints in the cement of this fabled depository of Hollywood history. And true to her iconoclastic, rebellious spirit, Jane couldn’t resist being the first ever to imprint for posterity a perfectly formed Peace sign into her cement slab. Touché, Miss Fonda, for staying true to your ideals and continuing to fight the good fight. Now about portraying Nancy Reagan in your upcoming film …
Continuing further back into Hollywood’s storied past, one of the unique pleasures of each year’s classic film fest is the loving focus TCM gives to the long (and mostly) lost Silent era. With approximately 90% of silent films no longer in existence, each new discovery and painstaking restoration is a cause for celebration, and this festival has always provided the perfect opportunity in which to view the proud results.
Once again, Academy Award-winning author and historian Kevin Brownlow was on hand to share his voluminous knowledge of the era, sitting down for an in-depth hour-long discussion in (appropriately) the Roosevelt’s Blossom Room (site of the first Academy Awards ceremony where all of the winners – aside from an honorary award for The Jazz Singer – were from silent films). A silent film fan (fanatic?) ever since he was a young boy in England, Brownlow turned his love for the Silents into a vocation and in the ’60s travelled to America to interview as many of these film pioneers as he possibly could (though he slyly admitted that rather than chasing silent cinema on his first trip to New York, he was in fact chasing a girl). Unable to land an interview with Mary Pickford on his initial trip to Hollywood, he eventually landed a face-to-face with the silent legend when she requested Brownlow screen her deceased brother Jack’s great silent film The Goose Woman, which resulted in a “very emotional meeting.”
Also attending Brownlow’s enlightening discussion was director Allison Anders, who rose during the Q&A to ask Brownlow for further details and memories of Jack Pickford. Chatting with Anders after the talk, I discovered that her obsession with Mary’s charismatic brother runs deep, so much so that she’s even working on a screenplay of his life which she hopes to turn into her next film. As fellow silent-film aficionados, our talk ended up turning to a discussion of some of the recent homages to the genre. I suggested that she might be interested in Spain’s visually fascinating Blancanieves, and then couldn’t resist asking her opinion on recent Oscar champion The Artist. Anders said that she’d put off seeing the film for as long as possible, but when she finally did succumb she felt it wasn’t half as bad as she’d feared it might be. (On that we must differ.) The character of Peppy in The Artist was apparently modeled after Clara Bow, and another highlight of this year’s fest was the screening of It, accompanied by a live 15-piece orchestra.
Clara Bow’s Call Her Savage had been presented at the previous year’s TCM fest to much acclaim, so it was with great excitement we learned that Bow’s breakthrough film would screen this year accompanied by an original score by silent film master Carl Davis. Sadly, at the last minute he was unable to attend the fest and conduct his new score, but Davis’ music spoke for him, illuminating and elevating the images up on the screen. Biographer David Stenn (Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild) introduced the film with fascinating insight into the woman whose background was “the most horrific of any movie star ever,” and whose obvious charismatic charms obscured a grounding in technique and forethought. It broke countless box-office records upon its release in 1927 and catapulted Bow to the top of the Hollywood heap, where she’d henceforth be known as “The It Girl.” With her unbridled, naturalistic performance here Bow became a near revolutionary force in cinema, and a role model for a generation of women. (Stenn proclaimed that the sexual revolution didn’t first occur in the ’60s, but instead here in the ’20s.) While possessing no formal training to speak of, it was the power of Bow’s personality that worked as a liberating force, not just in movies but in society as well. It’s hard these days to fully appreciate the impact Clara Bow made at the time (when women had just been given the right to vote, joining the workforce in greater numbers, etc.), but this delightful film goes a long way in helping to explain. The film’s delirious final image of a dripping Bow hauling herself up onto the It yacht’s anchor is etched in my memory – such ecstatic gleeful determination, a mere 86 years fresh.
Kevin Brownlow returned to introduce the most popular film of the silent era, King Vidor’s The Big Parade, starring silent heartthrob John Gilbert and Renée Adorée as WWI star-crossed lovers. A beautifully restored digital print was screened (featuring yet another memorable Carl Davis score), with members of John Gilbert’s family in the audience to view the restoration’s premiere. Brownlow feels that “Gilbert gives one of the most naturalistic performances, one of the most unforgettable performances in all of silent film,” and according to Vidor when the director first met the star on the set, his initial words to him were, “Grauman’s Chinese, baby.” A groundbreaking film upon its release, this first great anti-war motion picture was notable, Brownlow felt, for its utter lack of hatred. Before directing the first Best Picture Oscar winner Wings, William Wellman screened this film over thirty times for inspiration.
Kevin Brownlow himself feels a special connection to The Big Parade, as director King Vidor was his very first filmmaker interviewee when he started his journalistic career over fifty years ago. Referred to by Cari Beauchamp as “the Guiding Light” for his invaluable work with silent film, Brownlow acknowledged that he is a direct lifeline to these motion picture pioneers, and somewhat ruefully noted that when he passes, all of the memories he carries of these early cinematic artists will go with him. Thankful that he has recorded so many of these essential interviews for the historical series Hollywood, he hopes that silent-film aficionados will lobby AFI (who has shown some interest) to get them to release this essential work on DVD. Additionally, Brownlow believes it would be a great benefit to the cause of silent-film recovery (a mere 10% of such films remain), if international cinephiles could research foreign titles to countless lost films, in hopes of discovering the mislabeled works on dusty warehouse shelves around the world. A cause definitely worth getting behind.
The queue for the closing film of TCM fest 2013, Buster Keaton’s The General, started forming in the Grauman’s courtyard hours before its evening screening. One of the many delights of this festival is knowing that one is surrounded by like-minded cinephiles, whose enthusiasm for classic film is infectious. Most everyone I spoke with during the fest had flown in from out of state, and they were always eager to converse about their favorite films, their unique cinematic obsessions. The woman next to me in line for The General happened to be a huge Richard Barthelmess devotee, and when I mentioned my admiration for his Tol’able David, she laughed because her vanity license plates in fact read ‘Tol’able.’ To be surrounded by such dedicated aficionados (of nearly hundred-year-old films) is definitely a fun aspect of this cinematic love fest.
Once inside the cavernous Chinese theatre, Robert Osborne took to the stage for his final introduction of the festival. After thanking the packed house for making this year’s celebration such a success, he suggested that everyone look around and soak in this historic theatre’s beautiful interior one last time. The General, he informed us, would in fact be the penultimate screening in the theatre’s current incarnation, as its new owners (Chinese television manufacturer TCL) were about to gut it to install stadium seating and a new IMAX screen. Not surprisingly, this news elicited a chorus of boos from the audience (TCMers prefer their films and cinemas to remain classic), and Osborne jokingly pleaded that the crowd please not throw things. Whether this upgrade will be an improvement or a desecration remains to be seen, but in a way it foreshadowed what the Alloy Orchestra would soon inflict upon Buster Keaton’s brilliant 1926 masterpiece.
My excitement that The General would be preceded by one of my favorite Keaton shorts (1919’s One Week, the oldest film screened at the fest), was soon tempered when the three-piece troupe of sound-effects musicians struck up their incessant, noisy accompaniment. Like a hammer over the head, the Alloy Orchestra’s wall-to-wall frenetic score drowned out all hints of subtlety in Keaton’s magnificent work, and rather than complementing Buster’s beautifully wrought images up on the screen, instead overpowered them, turning the focus back upon themselves. One of the joys of viewing Keaton’s work with a large, appreciative audience is the sound of shared laughter rippling through the cinema, and I’d anticipated that this would particularly be the case in this special setting. Alas, it was difficult to hear any laughter at all over the relentless bombast, and what I’d hoped would be the perfect culmination to the four-day fest, turned into a major irritation. And yet the power and comedic brilliance of Keaton’s film still was able to overcome this aural assault, thrilling the packed house with its audacious visual mise-en-scene in a stunningly beautiful 4k world premiere restoration.
A short while later, while leaving the Blossom Room’s closing night party, a chance encounter brought me face-to-face with that ultimate silent-film expert, Mr. Kevin Brownlow himself. We struck up a conversation and when he asked me what silent films initially sparked my interest in the genre, I explained that it had in fact been an extended Buster Keaton retrospective screened many years ago at Munich’s dedicated film museum. Knowing that Brownlow was a champion of his friend Carl Davis’ sublime silent film scoring, I couldn’t resist asking him his thoughts on the Alloy’s accompaniment of Buster Keaton’s masterpiece we had just viewed. Ever the gentleman (and likely not wishing to diminish the enthusiasm many in the Chinese audience felt towards the Orchestra), Brownlow left me with a quote that had me smiling the entire way home. “Some people refer to them as the Ann-oy Orchestra,” he dryly noted with a mischievous smile. Touché Kevin, and once again heartfelt kudos to the entire TCM family for making this fourth incarnation of their classic, essential film festival yet another incomparable success.
All fest photos by Steve Striegel, exclusively for ICS
