Mildred Pierce, directed by Michael Curtiz, is part of this year’s annual TCM 31 Days of Oscar under the theme, Oscar-worthy Moms. Mildred Pierce, the film’s lead character, is portrayed by Joan Crawford. Crawford came from Broadway and first distinguished herself in film as a “flapper,” with notoriety on par with Greta Garbo. Crawford usually portrayed hard-working women who achieved financial success. When her films began losing money Crawford took a two-year hiatus before returning for Mildred Pierce, another hard-working woman achieving financial success.
The film opens with a dark establishing shot of a car, headlights on, parked in front of a beach house. Gun shots are heard. A transition is made to a gentleman in a black tuxedo receiving the bullets. He falls to the floor and before expiring utters, “Mildred.” Non-diegetic music creates tension and suspense. Shadows move in the frame. A woman drives off through a wisping marine layer. A crime has been committed possibly by a woman named Mildred, a potential femme fatale. Mildred Pierce has all the ingredients of a tasty film noir.
Mildred is no slouch as the film shows her attempting to implicate her ex-lover, Wally, who earlier in the day took a large share of her highly successful business. After the police discover the body, the usual motive-based suspects, are brought in; Burt,the first husband, Wally, and Mildred. It seems everyone in the police department smokes cigarettes with second-hand smoke wafting throughout the common area. Wally and Burt are questioned first. Mildred is finally brought in to talk with Inspector Peterson (Moroni Olsen). The Inspector boastfully tells Mildred he knows everything, and that Mildred is cleared. Before she leaves, Mildred asks the Inspector who the killer was.
The Inspector tells Mildred it was her first husband, Burt Pierce. Mildred says it can’t be Burt and tries to get Wally charged. The Inspector tells Mildred Wally had no motive. Mildred retreats and claims Burt is too kind and gentle. The Inspector jumps on this – questioning Mildred, “Okay he’s kind and wonderful…why did you divorce him?” Dejectedly, Mildred sits back done and begins with, “Because I was wrong. It’s taken me four years to realize I was wrong. But I was wrong.” In a close up with vignetting Mildred begins telling her story from four years ago. A dissolve transition, indicative of time passing, retreats the narrative four years prior,
Mildred details her life with Burt marrying at 17. Burt had misgivings about how Mildred was raising the children Mildred told Burt the kids come first, and he can pack his things. Mildred remarries to a high society gentleman, of reported means, to help give her surviving daughter, Veda (Ann Blyth), a better world. But Mildred can’t seem to do enough for Veda. Veda becomes a conniving, irascible, young woman never appreciating the sacrifices Mildred makes for her. Finally, Mildred has had enough and takes an action well overdue.
Warner Brothers produced Mildred Pierce as a morality story, a fable. The film came out in 1945. World War II had ended. The need for working women diminished and was seen as no longer proper. Women were expected to leave their work and return to the home. Since Mildred Pierce is very successful as a businesswoman, the times propagate she must be punished for not being a happy homemaker. True to form, Mildred loses her hard-fought financial freedom and must confront her life choices. With a fast run time of one hour and fifty-one minutes, Mildred Pierce has strong production values, effective continuity editing, mesmerizing cinematography and a driving musical score. In addition, the film has a compelling narrative and an attractive, well-seasoned cast. Highly recommended.
Cabin in the Sky, another classic film from the 2025 TCM 31 Days of Oscar, directed by Vincente Minelli, is based on a jazz and blues-influenced, musical play with book by Lynn Root, lyrics by John Latouche and music by Vernon Duke. With an all-black cast the film is very dynamic with elements of folklore and spiritual themes. The film came out in 1943. Most all black cast films were known as “race films.” With the Production Code of 1930 in full force, most race films had to have music, religion, and down-home characters. In Cabin in the Sky, the Production Code would not give approval due to the character of Georgia Brown. The character was toned down. Lena Horne, a jazz singer, actress, civil rights activist and one of the first black performers to be signed by a major studio, portrays Georgia Brown.
The story revolves around Little Joe, portrayed by a comedian from the Jack Benny radio show, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson. Little Joe is a compulsive gambler with a devoted and religious wife, Petunia. Petunia is portrayed by Ethel Waters, a well-known Broadway singer. In addition, Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her won television show, and the first African American nominated for a Primetime Emmy. Petunia wants Joe to repent and be saved by Reverend Green, at the upcoming evening service.
The church is full and the congregation breaking into song as they work themselves up into religious fervor. It is a sight and sound to behold. As repentance begins, Petunia nudges Joe to go on up. Joe isn’t there. Petunia believes Joe has already go up to be saved for his sins. But three hustling polecats distracted Joe, who is now outside the church being coerced into a dice game with Domino Johnson, another ner’ do well. Joe tries to plea he’s given up gambling for Petunia’s sake. But when the hustlers tell Joe, he’ll be rolling with their money, their dice, and that Georgia Brown would be there, Joe seems to lose his will power and is dragged off to the dice game.
At the dice game, Joe loses all the money and is deeply indebted. Joe gets shot and as he lays on his deathbed The Devil and his “coal heavers” have come for Joe. Petunia gets on her knees bedside and prays to God and several of heaven’s soldiers appear to do battle for Joe’s soul. God decides to give Joe six months to turn his life around. But the Devil has given Joe a 1-A classification. This is where the film really gets interesting. New characters are introduced including Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, one of the most influential figures in Jazz history with such classics as “Hello Dolly,” “It’s a Wonderful World,” and “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” among many others. Armstrong is playing the trumpet at the private Hades Hotel Idea Dept., and his cohorts start dancing and clapping when suddenly Lucifer, Jr. (Rex Ingram) comes in and chastises them under the guise of office efficiency.
It doesn’t take the Idea Dept. long to come up with a way to get Joe’s soul. Joe wins the Irish sweepstakes. Lucifer, Jr., sends Georgia Brown to tempt Joe. In a misunderstanding with Petunia Joe goes off with Georgia Brown and is living fast. In a spectacular nightclub scene with Duke Ellington and his Jazz Orchestra, trombone player J.J. Johnson engages the crowd in a one-of-a-kind call and response number. Petunia shows up in a glittering gown and wants half of the money Joe won. Georgia Brown wants a cut, too, and Domino Johnson has come for Joe as well.
Not giving away the ending, suffice to say Cabin in the Sky is an enormously entertaining film. The costuming, set designs, acting, the narrative, and the choreography are special as they are spectacular. The song and dance numbers are fluid and full of vim and verve. Lena Horne, as Georgia Brown, is vivacious with her voice and look. There might be one or two moments where the audience can catch a breather. From start to finish, Cabin in the Sky is a gem. Highly recommended.
Written and reviewed by Larry Gleeson during the annual TCM 31 Days of Oscar
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), directed by Vincente Minelli and music by David Raskin, tells the story of an ambitious producer, Jonathan Shields, portrayed by Kirk Douglas. Minelli utilizes flashbacks with voice over narration from the individuals who had worked with Shields; Writer James Lee Bartlow, portrayed by Dick Powell, a star Georgia Lorrison, portrayed by Hollywood starlet, Lana Turner, and Director Fred Amiel, portrayed by Barry Sullivan.
Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner
Interestingly, The Bad and The Beautiful seems to loosely imitate Akira Kurasowa’s Rashomon, winner of the 1951 Golden Lion, the top prize at the oldest and one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. The film world was taken awestruck by Kurasowa’s work and style. Furthermore, the use of the voice-over-narration, especially in the first act of The Bad and The Beautiful, Minelli employs the technique in a fashion closely resembling Billy Wilder’s use in Double Indemnity.
While The Bad and The Beautiful is typically regarded as a drama, I argue it is on the cusp of being a melodrama with the stereotypical characters, exaggerated emotions, and simplistic plot. Raskin’s musical score is impressive, and it supports the musical styles in melodramas such as Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. What sets The Bad and The Beautiful apart is its cinematography by Robert Surtees, A.S.C., a three-time Oscar winner for Best Cinematography [King Solomon’s Mines (1951), The Bad and The Beautiful (1952), Ben Hur, 1960)]. Nevertheless, even the New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther provides a melodramatic opening to his review:
“The widely circulated notion that there are monsters in Hollywood, aside and apart entirely from the grim and ghoulish get of Frankenstein, is given unqualified endorsement, with no reservations and no holds barred, in Metro’s “The Bad and the Beautiful,”…
Back to the film. After the beginning credits roll with Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas receive top billing – in that order, the film transitions to black and a diegetic ringing is heard. The opening frame is of a solitary black rotary phone, the camera slowly pulls out as a man in a gray suit moves towards the phone and answers it. Meanwhile, the camera continues to pull out to a high angle “god shot” revealing a row of light stands spread out across the top of a large shelving apparatus above the phone.
Boom
The man answers the phone with, “Stage Five…Mr. Amiel’s on a camera boom rehearsing right now.” The film cuts to a moving elevated lift (boom) mounted with a camera, and Mr. providing direction. Also, an entire crew comes into frame as the boom moves in for a close up of a blonde-haired woman in a vertical position. Amiel directs the woman to move her hand up around her throat. The gray-suited man comes into frame with the phone announcing, “transatlantic, Paris, Jonathan Shield calling you. the camera moves into a tight-medium frame shot revealing a studio camera and Mr. Amiel operating it. Amiel doesn’t take the call and instead calls out direction for the next shot.
Camera Operator/Cinematographer
In my opinion, this is the film’s overwhelming strength. Minelli provides the viewer with an inside look at how films were made in the 1950’s and the people who are involved in the filmmaking process – everything from stories to scripts, producing, financing, make up, costuming, directing, and effectively handling the sensitivities of Hollywood stars in the era. The film is shot in black and white which helps with the idea of moral business ethics – one of the underlying themes of The Bad and the Beautiful. Stylistically, the film is very easy on the eyes with terrific lighting, attractive and alluring actors, and interesting mise-en-scen. Very warmly recommended, unless you’re a Lana Turner fan, then it’s highly recommended!
February 5th, 2025, The annual TCM 31 Days of Oscar is featuring notable films in a category, Best Original Story, that fell by the wayside in 1956. Best Original Story is often correlated with a film’s treatment. Today the Academy of Motion Pictures bestows Oscars for Best Original Screenplay, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Out of the seven films screening today ; The Doorway to Hell (1930), One Way Passage (1932), Manhattan Melodrama (1934), Action in the North Atlantic (1943), The Stratton Story (1949), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), and The Brave One (1956), I selected One Way Passage (1932), a Pre-Code film based on the story by Robert Lord.
One Way Passage is a Warner Brothers Production, directed by Tay Garnett, that tells the doomed story of a dying heiress, and a charming and sophisticated criminal who meet and fall in love on an ocean voyage to San Francisco without knowing each other’s secret. William Powell (The Thin Man (1935),My Man Godfrey (1937), portrays the criminal, Dan Hardesty, and Kay Francis (Passion Flower (1931), Trouble in Paradise (1932), portrays, the terminally ill heiress, Joan Ames. Powell and Francis made six films together with One Way Passage being their final film. Many dedicated cinephiles consider One Way Passage their finest work and one of the great love stories on the big screen.
Dan and Joan initially meet in a Hong Kong bar over a spilled drink. One of the dynamics that make the opening of the film so special is the cinematography and camera movement showcasing the idiosyncratic bar performers and bartender and it’s capped off with Joan turning around so the camera captures her in a stunning Hollywood medium close up. The two engage highbrow dialogue. And “trust that luck will come again.”
As Joan and Dan begin to separate with a troubled look overtakes her face and she quickly turns away. Dan is left standing with a bewildered and rueful look before turning and walking out of frame. The camera cuts back to Joan as she slowly watches Dan walk away. In a reverse angle shot Dan turns and looks over the swinging bar door. The camera cuts to a close up of Dan looking towards Joan before tipping his hat. Joan looks ecstatic waving as her friends call out her name to rejoin the group. She does to the chagrin of Dan who turns with a gun poking his ribs. Dan is caught by Steve Burke (Warren Hymer) after eluding arrest in Berlin. Burke has strict orders to return Dan in handcuffs to San Francisco aboard a luxury liner, the S.S. Maloa.
Once on board the S.S. Maloa, in a cunning move, Dan manages to have his handcuffs removed and reconnects with Joan. The luck has come back. Seeing Francis and Powell acting together is magic. In what could have been a tragic, sad, and grim story, Garnett manages to soften it with a touch of camp and a bit of screwball comedy through character development and snappy dialogue. In addition to Dan, Joan, and Steve, Frank McHugh (Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), The Roaring Twenties (1939) portrays Skippy, one of those character types that adds those colors as is Barrel House Betty, pretending to be a countess, portrayed by Aline MacMahon, (Gold Diggers of 1933, Kind Lady (1935). With a runtime of 68 minutes One Way Passage utilizes impressive pacing that doesn’t miss a beat. What unfolds is an elegant, highly watchable, Pre-Code, Depression-era film with an unpredictable conclusion. Highly recommended.
Foreign Correspondent (1940), part of TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar, is directed by Alfred Hitchcock and tells the story of a reporter caught up in an assassination of a Dutch Diplomat. Joel McRae (Sullivan’s Travels, The Barbary Coast) portrays John Jones in the film’s lead. Jones is a news reporter who has garnered a reputation for himself by running down a payroll robbery while beating up a police officer “in the line of duty.”
The film opens with a scrolling text dedicating the picture to the Foreign Correspondents, “the intrepid ones who went across the seas to be the eyes and ears of America. To those forthright ones who early saw the clouds of war while many of us at home were seeing rainbows…” Then, opens up to reveal a New York setting as the camera pulls out and then pushes in toward a window a dissolve reveals a newsroom for the New York Globe.
A cable gram has come in from London dated August 13th, 1939, reading that no war is imminent due to bad crops. This gets the ire of the Globe’s head man, Mr. Powers, who has an instinct Europe is under great stress. He wants facts not a daily guess, “a reporter who doesn’t know the difference between an ism and a kangaroo. A good honest crime reporter.” Powers is convinced a terrible crime is being committed in Europe when the light bulb goes on and Powers decides to send Jones, an “ideal person to go to Europe.” Powers is hell-bent on getting news out of Europe not correspondence.
As the narrative moves forward, Jones has a myriad of experiences on a steamship, at London Station, and inside a bar, before meeting Van Meer. Van Meer is the Dutch ambassador who reportedly has a treaty clause that can keep the peace in Europe. Much like the narrative in Hitchcock’s 39 Steps (1935), the clause becomes a McGuffin of considerable interest and moves forward the budding love romance between Jones, and Carol Fisher, portrayed by Laraine Day (Those Endearing Young Charms, The Locket). Carol Fisher is the daughter of Stephen Fisher, an international peace seeker. As with any Hitchcock film things aren’t always what they seem.
The pacing and spectacle, however, of Foreign Correspondent is vastly quicker and more extravagant than the 39 Steps. In particular, a stunning scene in the Dutch countryside occurs in an area with three enormous windmills. A master of suspense, Foreign Correspondent‘s scene inside one of the windmills is one of Hitch’s best. The action coupled with non-diegetic music helps the scene to not only create suspense, but it also causes tension. Truthfully, the windmill scene is where the action takes off and doesn’t stop until the denouement. It is also at the beginning of Act 2 in the film’s classical Hollywood three-act narrative.
Foreign Correspondent received six Oscar nominations in 1940 for Best Picture, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Special Effects, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Having come to the United States from Great Britain at the onset of WWII, Foreign Correspondent was Hitchcock’s second film under the start of his US production. Interestingly, Hitchcock’s first American production, Rebecca, nominated for Best Picture alongside Foreign Correspondent, is the only film of his to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Nevertheless, Foreign Correspondent has tremendous spectacle, witty repartee, head-spinning plot twists, and it ends with a symbolic gesture that would make Donald Trump proud. Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Larry Gleeson during TCM 31 Days of Oscar
February 3rd brought out the criminals for TCM 31 Days of Oscar featuring fan favorites, The Sting (1973), Bonnie & Clyde (1968), Double Indemnity (1944), The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and the lesser-known Algiers (1938), directed by John Cromwell and introduced Heddy Lamarr, portraying Parisian Gabby, to the big screen. Lamarr was proclaimed to be the most beautiful woman to appear before a camera. Not to be outdone, Charles Boyer turns in a tantamount performance in the lead role of Pepe le Moko, a jewel thief hiding out in the Casbah, a terraced labyrinth of interconnected walkways and living spaces in Algiers “where drifters and outcasts from all over the world have come. ..Criminals come to the Casbah find a safe hiding place from the long arm of the law.”
Hedy Lamarr as Gaby
Algiers opens with non-diegetic, tense-inducing music and scrolling text informing the viewer of the Casbah quoted above. A landscape image of the Casbah is visible behind the text. Rod Crawford’s storyline on IMDb reads: “Pepe Le Moko, a thief who escaped from France with a fortune in jewels, has for two years lived in, and virtually ruled, the mazelike, impenetrable Casbah, “native quarter” of Algiers. A French official insists that he be captured, but sly Inspector Slimane knows he need only bide his time. The suave Pepe increasingly regards his stronghold as also his prison, especially when he meets beautiful Parisian visitor Gaby, who reminds him of the boulevards to which he dares not return…and arouses the mad jealousy of Ines, his Algerian mistress.”
Charles Boyer as Pepe le Moko
What Crawford leaves out is what make Algiers the film it is. For starters the cinematography is exquisite with a multitude of shots and camera angles. Vignetting is seen in portraiture close-ups of the characters. And when Pepe and Gabby meet the cinematography and editing move into extreme closeups with reverse angles culminating in a screen full of Pepe’s smoky eyes and Lamarr’s luscious lipstick-red lips. The energy from the cinematography and editing was quite palpable. Furthermore, as the French Police Commissioner and his team of twelve are in pursuit of Pepe in the Cashbah, Cinematographer James Wong Howe juxtaposes a series of high and low angle shots to great effect. Furthermore, the use of shadows and light seemed like a precursor to the early 1940’s noir style that will come to the forefront of the film industry in just a few years.
Sigrid Gurie as Ines
There is a lot going on in this character-driven narrative. While the story surrounds Pepe, the orbital characters and their relationships to Pepe are well-developed and add depth. In addition to Lamarr’s beautiful Gaby, Sigrid Gurie portrays the jealous Ines with a firecracker temperament and a steel cold, penetrating gaze. Joseph Calleia embodies and personifies with costume specificity the cunningly patient, Inspector Silmane. Gene Lockhart, turns in an Oscar-nominated Best Supporting Actor in a rather macabre performance as Regis. In addition to the stellar acting, costuming, cinematography, and Arabesques musical score, Algiers’ production design augmented and aided my suspension of disbelief. The film had a fast runtime of one hour and thirty-six minutes and was nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Personally, I really, really enjoyed the artistic presentation of Algiers. Highly recommended!
The Life of Emile Zola (1937) kicked off the 2025 Turner Classic Movies annual “31 Days of Oscar,” with an introduction from TCM host, Ben Mankiewicz. The Life of Emile Zola is set in Paris, 1862, signified by an extraordinary opening frame coupled with a Gothic alphanumeric text overlay. For his work Anton Grot received an Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction. Moreover, the impeccable mise-en-scen follows the story’s timeline to a T within the trajectory of Zola’s life. The film stars Paul Muni {Scarface, 1932) in the title role and is directed by William Dieterle (The Life of Louis Pasteur, 1936). The film opens inside an artist loft containing French impressionist painter, Paul Cezanne, portrayed by Vladimir Sokoloff, and Zola, with a whimsical, non-diegetic score from Max Steiner, (nominated for Best Score, Music). Zola is in love with Paris and intends to write about her. Cezanne, on the other hand is much more pessimistic saying, “it’s hopeless.”
The film leaps forward from where the opening loft scene ended with Alexandrine Zola, portrayed by Gloria Holden, announcing Zola came into a job that would allow him to marry. Zola imagined time to write, finishing his book and publishing it. After Alexandrine implores Emile to ask for an advance to meet the rent, Emile is questioned by a police officer over his new controversial book, “The Confessions of Claude,” as well as assaulting Emile’s critical writings about the current state of French society. The police officer orders Emile to stop writing as his writings have upset the prosecutor. The situation results in Emile’s discharge from his employer. Emile thanks his employer for now allowing him to write critically full-time and proclaims to continue his critical writings “until the stench is strong enough that something will be done about it.”
Zola, one of France’s most significant 19th century writers, enters a period of great literary productivity and comes to a point where he concludes his work is complete. He is well-respected having received a letter of admittance to the French Academy, a legendary council established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu to protect and purify the French language in all matters pertaining to the French. Without much ado, then with great consternation, Zola risks his own well-being as he sees his Cezanne portrait, and undertakes the cause of Alfred Dreyfus, portrayed by Joseph Schildkraut. Dreyfus is a French Army Captain falsely accused of treason and is serving out a life sentence on France’s infamous Devil’s Island (Papillon, 1973). With Zola’s pen what unfolds becomes known as the Dreyfus Affair, an historic, unjust moment in French history, that culminates in a restoration of France’s shining commitment to truth, liberty and justice.
The Life of Emile Zola is an exceptional work that stands the test of time. Zola is shot on 35mm black and white film stock, with a runtime of one hour and fifty-seven minutes and has the distinction of being the first Warner Brothers film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture as noted in Mankiewicz’s introduction. In addition, Schildkraut garnered an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as did the writing team of Norman Reilly Raine, Heinz Herald, and Geza Herczeg, for Best Screenplay. The film was nominated for ten Oscars, a record at the time, and is still considered one of the greatest biographical, big screen films of all time. Interestingly, the film uses dissolves in editing to show the passing of time. The make up and costuming support the narrative as well. But what really caught my eye was the film’s camera work and its subtle panning and tracking shots. The Life of Emile Zola is a highly recommended film.
TCM Classic Film Festival Announces More Stars and Directors: Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Nancy Meyers, David Fincher and More to Attend
Additional Talent and Programming Announced for 15th Annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood
(Courtesy of TCM Classic Film Festival)
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) today announced additional talent and programming for this year’s 15th annual TCM Classic Film Festival running April 18– 21, 2024 in Hollywood, including a closing night screening of 1987’s comedy Spaceballs presented by writer and director Mel Brooks. The lineup for the weekend will also include:
Steven Spielberg in Q&A with UCLA Film School’s Howard Suber ahead of the director’s cut of Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
A Little Romance (1979) with star Diane Lane in conversation with TCM Host Ben Mankiewicz
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) with stars Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in attendance
Filmmaker Nancy Meyers introduces the world premiere restoration of one of her favorite movies, North By Northwest (1959), completed by Warner Bros. and The Film Foundation
Director David Fincher presenting a world premiere restoration IMAX® screening of his 1995 thriller Se7en
A cast reunion for Little Women (1994) featuring Trini Alvarado, Samantha Mathis and Eric Stoltz
A world premiere restoration of The Searchers (1956), completed by Warner Bros. and The Film Foundation, introduced by writer/director Alexander Payne
Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings introduces a U.S. premiere restoration of The Small Back Room (1949), restored by The Film Foundation and courtesy of Rialto Pictures
In addition, TCM and Warner Bros. will present That’s Vitaphone!: The Return of Sound-on-Disc. For the first time in more 90 years, six hilarious, often outlandish, Vitaphone vaudeville shorts of the 1920s will be projected in 35mm, with sound played back from their original 16-inch discs on a turntable designed and engineered by Warner Bros. Post Production Engineering Department. In 1926, Warner Bros., with technology developed by Western Electric, introduced Vitaphone, a system of adding high fidelity synchronized sound to motion pictures, using discs mechanically coupled to the movie projector. Vitaphone would usher in the talking picture with the premiere of The Jazz Singer in October 1927. By the early 1930s, though, sound-on-disc would be replaced industry-wide by the less cumbersome sound on film. This replica of a Vitaphone machine, the only in existence, marks the first time modern audiences will be able to experience these films as they did in the 1920s, using discs restored from the era. In attendance to provide context will be Bruce Goldstein, founder and co-president of Rialto Pictures, Warner Bros. post-production engineers Steve Levy and Bob Weitz, and Vitaphone expert Shane Fleming.
After a successful Opening Night and a full day of classic film screenings, today brings more films, a tribute to Russ Tamblyn at Club TMC and a screening of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954). “It would be easy to get lost in a film featuring 14 major roles, particularly with Howard Keel and Jane Powell, two of MGM’s best musical performers, as the leads. But one highlight is Russ Tamblyn—who turned 20 during production—as the youngest brother, Gideon. MGM cast its contract players alongside professional dancers like Tommy Rall and Jacques d’Amboise, who might have been expected to carry the bulk of Michael Kidd’s athletic choreography. But Tamblyn’s experience as both a dancer and a gymnast led to his being given a standout moment in the film’s big “Barn Dance” number, while his acting skills delivered some of the film’s most memorable scenes.” (TCMFF)
Russ Tamblyn on the 2023 TCM Classic Film Festival Red Carpet (Photo cr. Larry Gleeson)
In addition, Donald Bogle is set to receive the Robert Osborne Award later in the evening at the Hollywood Legion Theatre. “Turner Classic Movies pays tribute to our late host, Robert Osborne, with the Robert Osborne Award, presented annually at the TCM Classic Film Festival to an individual whose work has helped preserve the cultural heritage of classic film for future generations. In 2023, TCM honors film historian, author, and professor Donald Bogle for his pioneering studies of African American cinema and his tireless efforts to elevate the achievements of Black performers and filmmakers. ” (TCMFF)
Donald Bogle on the red carpet at the 2023 TCM Classic Film Festival (Photo cr. Larry Gleeson)
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Donald Bogle is one of the foremost authorities on African Americans in the movies. In a series of provocative, culturally significant books, Bogle almost single-handedly pioneered the study, appreciation, and value of the work and achievements – as well as the heroic struggles – of Black artists working in films, primarily in Hollywood, where they boldly helped alter the face and landscape of American cinema. The range and scope of his coverage of Black film history has been breathtaking: from the silent era and the films of the Lincoln Motion Company, headed by Black actor Noble Johnson; to Oscar Micheaux; to the controversial but invigorating performances of such Black stars as Paul Robeson, Hattie McDaniel, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, Fredi Washington, and Louise Beavers; to such breakthrough performers as Ethel Waters and Lena Horne; to the work of Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier; to the arrival of such later African American directors as Melvin Van Peebles and Gordon Parks; to the rise of such filmmakers as Spike Lee, John Singleton, Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Kasi Lemmons, Carl Franklin, Antoine Fuqua, and Ryan Coogler; to such iconic stars as Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Whoopi Goldberg, and Viola Davis. Bogle has chronicled them all in his distinctive, lively, witty, and piercing style that has made his books highly readable, enjoyable, and enlightening. Film historian Leonard Maltin has commented: “No one knows more (or has written more extensively) about the history of African American contributions to cinema than Donald Bogle.” Vogue hailed him as “that pioneering safekeeper of the history of blacks in films.” “Let’s all nod in appreciation to Donald Bogle for putting everything in historical perspective,” filmmaker Spike Lee has written. “Mr. Bogle continues to be our most noted Black-cinema historian.”
Many know Bogle best for his book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. The winner of the Theatre Library Association Award for Film and now in its 5th expanded, updated edition, TCMMB is considered a classic study of Black movie images in America and is used in courses at colleges and universities around the country. In his recent book Hollywood Black: The Stars, The Films, The Filmmakers — published by Turner Classic Movies in 2019 — Donald Bogle continued his pioneering examination of African American film history. Its Foreword was written by John Singleton, the late Oscar-nominated director of the classic Boyz N the Hood (1991).
Among Bogle’s other books is his groundbreaking Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography, which was praised by critics and led to a rediscovery of Dandridge, the mesmerizing and tragic star of Carmen Jones (1954) and the first African American (female or male) to be nominated for an Oscar in a lead acting category. Enthralled by the book, Whitney Houston wrote: “Dorothy Dandridge’s talents and gifts, like those of Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, and Paul Robeson, were never fully appreciated. She was, quite simply, ahead of her time. Donald Bogle’s book brings her triumphs and tragedies to life with richness, elegance, and dignity.” Houston optioned the rights to the book and was initially set to play Dandridge in a production for Disney. Ultimately, Houston did not play the role. But the book is now considered a classic Hollywood biography, and a new edition was published in 2021.
Bogle is also the author of the critically acclaimed Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters. The New York Times Book Review wrote that “Bogle . . . has researched Waters thoroughly and presents, fastidiously, the great many facts of her long life and career.” Hailing the Waters book as “an exemplary biography,” Liberty Journal wrote: “Bogle masterfully uses Waters’s story to examine the economic, aesthetic, and racial politics of the 1920s-60s popular culture. This work is everything a biography should be.” “Powerful biography,” commented Publishers Weekly. “Bogle’s thorough and unflinchingly honest look at Waters’s brilliant and flawed life will undoubtedly be the definitive biography of this great woman.”
An updated, expanded edition of Bogle’s book Brown Sugar: Over A Hundred Years of America’s Black Female Superstars – which is a stunning examination of the lives and careers of African American entertainers from the early years of the twentieth century to the present with rare, seldom published photographs, from the eras of Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker to today’s Beyoncé – has also been published. Brown Sugar was adapted by Bogle into a four-hour, four-part documentary for PBS and German Educational Television. Bogle wrote and co-executive-produced the series that was a winner of the American Women in Radio and Television Commendation Awards “in recognition of excellence in programming that presents a positive and realistic portrayal of women.” He is also the author of such books as Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood; Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television; and Blacks in American Films and Television: An Illustrated Encyclopedia.
His book Elizabeth and Michael: The Queen of Hollywood and the King of Pop, a Love Story was praised by columnist Liz Smith, who devoted one of her last columns to discussing the book. “A surprisingly comprehensive, sensitive, and entertaining look at Taylor and Jackson, and not just their friendship,” wrote Smith. “Bogle has, essentially, written three books in one: Taylor’s biography, Jackson’s, and the tale of their mutual coming together, the how and why. . . The writer knows his subjects and his back-and-forth bios of Taylor and Jackson are extremely well done.” In a starred review, Kirkus commented: “Exhaustively researched. . . with a fresh and fair-minded perspective. . . Devoted fans of either star. . . will appreciate the balance and compassion underscoring Bogle’s treatment. A grounded and consistently absorbing biography.” In the fall of 2016, People magazine named it one of the best new books.
Bogle has also appeared as a film/cultural commentator on numerous television programs, including Henry Louis Gates’s Peabody award-winning PBS series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (2013). In this ambitious, sprawling documentary series, which traces African American history from the period of slavery to the present, Bogle was initially interviewed at length by Gates about the careers of African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux; singer/actress Ethel Waters; and Ebony magazine’s importance in the cultural life of Black America in the late 1940s/1950s. The New Yorker.com praised “the very sensitive interviews that Gates conducts with important thinkers ranging from the feminist scholar Paul Giddings to the film historian Donald Bogle.”
He has served as a commentator on numerous other documentaries. His articles have appeared in such publications as Film Comment, Ebony, Elan, Essence, Spin, and Freedomways. He curated a major retrospective on Sidney Poitier at the American Museum of the Moving Image and another on Dorothy Dandridge at New York’s Film Forum, as well as retrospectives on Blaxploitation Cinema and on Images of African American Women in the Movies, also at Film Forum. At the American Museum of the Moving Image, Bogle also conducted onstage public interviews with Spike Lee and Sidney Poitier.
Bogle has a long association with Turner Classic Movies. Previously, he was the cohost and commentator with Robert Osborne for TCM’s award-winning 38-film series, Race and Hollywood, which traced the depictions of African Americans in Hollywood from the silent period, with D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), up to Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) and Spike Lee’s Get on the Bus (1996). He conceived the series, selecting all the films to be broadcast. Later he served as one of TCM’s on-air guest hosts, introducing over twenty films, including such classics as Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) and Fred Zinnemann’s adaptation of Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding (1952) with Ethel Waters. In 2018, he co-hosted a two-night series for TCM with Ben Mankiewicz on Slavery and the Movies. He has made other important appearances on TCM from 2019 to the present.
Bogle has been one of the principal film historians who have participated in Turner Classic Movies’s annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles. He has introduced films for packed screenings and conducted on-stage interviews with directors John Singleton and Spike Lee; Academy Award-winning actor Louis Gossett Jr.; actor Richard Roundtree, the star of the Blaxploitation era film Shaft (1971); Katharine Houghton, a star of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967); Nancy Kwan, star of The World of Suzie Wong (1960) and Flower Drum Song (1961); Richard Sherman, the Oscar-winning composer of Mary Poppins (1964); pop star Lulu, featured in To Sir, with Love (1967); and numerous others. He also moderated the Festival’s highly attended panel discussion on the controversial “Cultural Legacy of Gone with the Wind.”
His other appearances at the TCM Festival have included engrossing visual presentations on his books Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams and Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, which received rousing ovations. Bogle also provided the commentary for an evening screening of a series of controversial Black cartoons that had been taken out of circulation by Warner Bros. in 1968 because of their inflammatory stereotyped content. The Festival marked the first public screening of the cartoons in over forty years. Bogle was also one of the commentators for TCM’s seven-part documentary series on the history of Hollywood, titled Moguls & Movie Stars (2010). ” (TCMFF)
Poolside screenings of BEACH PARTY (1963) with actor Frankie Avalon in attendance, A MIGHTY WIND (2003) with actors Michael McKean and Annette O’Toole in attendance, and the previously announced HAIRSPRAY (1988) with actor Ricki Lake in attendance
A 35th anniversary screening of STAND AND DELIVER (1988) with actors Edward James Olmos and Lou Diamond Phillips and author Luis Reyes in attendance
A 40th anniversary screening of RISKY BUSINESS (1983) with actor Rebecca De Mornay in attendance
A 75th anniversary screening of THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) with Danny Huston in attendance
A screening of the Sam Peckinpah Western THE WILD BUNCH (1969) presented in 70mm
The CLUB TCM presentation THE EVOLUTION OF HENSON PUPPETRY with Brian Henson – producer, director and son of the legendary Jim Henson – and a team of master puppeteers in attendance
WARNER NIGHT AT THE MOVIES, a recreation of the typical moviegoing experience from Hollywood’s golden age, complete with cartoons, short subjects, and trailers from the era, followed by a new restoration of the feature film THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE (1941)
And much more!
To view the full schedule including films and presentations, click here.
