Quotes of the Day
Before I got hooked up to Turner Classic Movies, which turned 15 years old in April, a few friends issued this promise or warning: "It will change your life." Like me, they were FOOFs — friends of old films — and in the late '90s, the repertory cinemas of our New York youth, the oldies houses, had pretty much vanished. There were exceptions: one could see many artifacts of Hollywood's golden age on videocassette, the eight-track of its day. And the commercial-free American Movie Classics channel was still showing Paramount and Universal goodies from the '30s and '40s; it also staged annual Film Preservation Festivals of, say, silent and early-talkie John Ford pictures. (Then AMC changed its format, emphasized "newer" movies, and devoted so much time to advertising that it became known as Always More Commercials.)
But when they spoke of TCM, the FOOF's voices fell into whispered reverence. People scheduled their vacations around it, obsessively taped its movies; there's a clique of Turner Classic Monastics who record, then trade, every premiere of an antique film on TCM. From its airing of films from the rowdy 1930-34 period, a new genre called pre-Code entered the FOOF phrase book along with auteur and film noir. To the faithful, TCM was the Lamborghini, the Mouton Rothschild, the very Callas of movie channels. Eventually, I got to see what all the rapture was about. And yes, it changed my life. (See TIME's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009.)
Enriched, that is. For anyone who believes that the first hundred years of movies possess treasures that the last few years can't touch — and that's most of the professional film folks I know — TCM is an utterly essential part of the culture, our own American cinematheque. I can't imagine what the business model is, and I don't want anyone to ask, since TCM is owned by the same media company that pays my salary. Whatever it is, the network remains free of commercials. All movies, and movie specials, all the time. (See the All TIME 100 Movies)
Here's how it came about. In 1985, Ted Turner, who'd made money from his TBS superstation and the Atlanta Braves, bought MGM/UA, a blending of two legendary film companies — one the dominant and most glamorous studio from the '20s to the '50s, the other a kind of filmmakers' cooperative that nurtured indie-minded directors from D.W. Griffith to Woody Allen — both of which had fallen fallow. Almost instantly, Turner was obliged to sell the studios and their California real estate; but he held on to the library of 3,000 old MGM, Warner Bros., UA and RKO films. These were the programming staples for his TNT channel (Turner Network Television), which went on the air Oct. 3, 1988; the first movie shown was Gone with the Wind.
There were revelations aplenty, especially in the early-'30s Warner melodramas; they instructed a new generation of old-film fans in the urban snarl, panache and breathless efficiency of the young James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis, plus a bunch of directors that scholars had mostly ignored. But TNT was clogged with commercials, sometimes 15-20 mins. an hour. In time, the oldies format gave way to basketball and reruns of '70s TV shows. The FOOFs were disconsolate... and ecstatic when free TCM premiered Apr. 14, 1994 (again with Gone with the Wind). The same library would be ransacked, but the new channel was free of commercials, more smartly programmed and anchored each evening by Robert Osborne, the silver-maned columnist for the Hollywood Reporter and a comforting, cohesive presence.
TCM started out good and just got better. So in homage to its decade-and-a-half on cable, I offer 15 reasons to cherish Turner Classic Movies.
1. The basic collection. Even when TNT had commercials and AMC didn't, the Turner network had an edge because its library was stronger than its rival's. Turner had (and has) the grandeur of MGM, the grit of Warners, the swank of RKO. And the movies usually look great. This is a living archive; it keeps restoring classic films so they look as pristine as when they premiered. That's thanks in large part to George Feltenstein, whose title is senior vice president of theatrical catalog marketing at Warner Home Video, but who is really the boss of all things old and beautiful in the Turner trove.
2. The pickups. Two years ago TCM got access to old films in the Columbia Pictures catalog. This led to star-of-the-month tributes to Rita Hayworth and Jack Lemmon, to screenings of rare early Frank Capra dramas, and to a fresh batch of underseen 1930s-40s B movies for viewers to discover and analyze. Lately, the network has been showing British films of the same period. Along with stars like Leslie Howard and Robert Donat, shining on their home turf, we've seen important oddities like the 1939 The Frozen Limits, featuring the Crazy Gang, the comedy sextet that set the anarchic tone for the Goons and Monty Python.
See TIME's photos: The history of muscle cars in American movies
3. Silent films. Once a larger part of TCM programming, mute cinema is now mostly confined to a Sunday-midnight niche — a glorious grotto, whose saints are Lon Chaney, Lillian Gish, John Gilbert, Marion Davies and other stars of MGM silents. The slot also is home to early masterworks from France (Jacques Feyder's Queen of Atlantis), Germany (F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh) and Sweden (Victor Sjostrom's Phantom Carriage). The country doesn't matter; all these films speak an eloquent visual language.
4. Foreign-language films. A late Sunday-night slot, right after the silent movie, goes to non-English-language films: official classics, often from the superb Criterion and Kino collections, but also outre items like Munchhausen, a lavish Germany fantasy made in the last years of the Third Reich. A rich month was devoted to Mexico, the second largest film industry in the Americas; another to Italian neo-realism, curated and introduced by Martin Scorsese. (One disappointment: in the recent month dedicated by Sophia Loren, only five of the 23 films were Italian.) A season on Asian faces in Hollywood movies veered eastward for two extremely rare Chinese silent films starring Shanghai's original tragic movie diva Ruan Lingyu.
5. Short films. In the golden age, an evening at the movies was just that: an A feature and a B feature, buttressed by selected short subjects. In the first years of sound, dozens of vaudeville acts achieved their only immortality. Blacks rarely had prominent roles in feature films, but Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith and a seven-year-old Sammy Davis starred in shorts. TCM runs Robert Benchley and Joe McDoakes comedy shorts and Fitzpatrick travelogs. The weirdest series: MGM's early-'30s Dogville Comedies, one-reel movie parodies (The Dogway Melody, The Big Dog House, Trader Hound), in which pooches were dressed up and made to walk on their hind legs and "talk" with fish wire. Paging PETA?
6. Series and serials. For 40 years or so, movie theaters lured the kids with Saturday matinees, often featuring a thrillingly primitive 12- or 15-chapter serial. TCM revived the tradition earlier this year by showing two 1930s Zorro serials, a few chapters each week. They've also opened the vaults to show B-movies detective series from the '40s: Sherlock Holmes, the Crime Doctor, the Whistler and the Lone Wolf sleuth again.
7. August Under the Stars. Since TCM's mission is to rekindle old Hollywood glamour, it makes sense to focus on a star a day for the month of August. Such a scheme can lead to laziness — drag out the old faves for the 30th time — but the staff often spotlights less obvious names, actors whose careers merit a close look: Marie Dressler, Constance Bennett, Peter Lorre and Trevor Howard all have shone in what amount to one-day retrospectives. In June, TCM will try a similar tack with the stars behind the camera: two directors a day for 30 days.
8. Special Seasons. If there's one thing you see a lot of in TCM's basic collection of old movies, it's white people. When blacks and Asians were depicted, they were usually seen as slow or wicked menials and often played by whites in blackface or with spirit gum on their eyes. TCM has wisely annotated the old era by devoting prime-time months to the Hollywood images of blacks, Asians, gays and, in May, Hispanics, the programs curated and introduced by specialists in the fields.
9. The hosts. TCM viewers are a demanding lot, and raising Robert Osborne's name at a dinner party with the right people can stoke spirited debate. The 76-year-old host has acknowledged he occasionally mangles an unfamiliar name or movie title (the Japanese director Kon Ichikawa came out "Ron Ichikawa," the French film La Terre was La Ter-ray); he once said that Stephen Sondheim emails him when he catches an Osborne gaffe. But his avuncular or grandpaternal demeanor puts the home audience at ease even as it charms the celebrities he chats with. Weekend afternoons go to Ben Mankiewicz, third-generation Hollywood royalty and a slightly spikier presence, who has also done a few trips to such old L.A. monuments as Musso & Frank's restaurant and a star-studded cemetery.
10. Private Screenings. Since the early days, Osborne has sat down with venerable actors (and a few directors) for a clips-heavy discussion of their lives and work; the conversations usually run a little under an hour. It's a treat, and occasionally poignant, to see stars who've been out of the klieg lights for decades sit for one last closeup. Don't miss the Betty Hutton interview: she erupts into laughter and tears with exactly the gale force she exuded in her '40s comedies.
See TIME's photos: The history of muscle cars in American movies
11. The Essentials. Osborne loves to talk movies, even with other people. He invites guest programmers in for an evening; people like director John Landis and author James Ellroy choose four pictures and explain why they did. A fuller version of these conversations are slated each Saturday, when Osborne and a year-long guest co-host movies from the collection in a series called The Essentials. So far his partners have been film historian and glamour gal Molly Haskell, writer-actress Carrie Fisher, actress Rose McGowen and multimedia bad-boy/cool-guy Alec Baldwin. The taping must be an ordeal for the guests — Molly told me that her 31 intros and wrapups were recorded in a day and a half — but it often provides surprising insights into the films.
12. Original productions. TCM sponsors documentaries on some of the top stars in its catalog (Brando, Joan Crawford, John Garfield) and probing issues of bygone days (political messages in '50s genre films). These give context to the programming and serve as valuable extras on TCM DVDs. The policy also means that my long-TIME colleague, Richard Schickel — who's done exemplary studies of Scorsese, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard for TCM — doesn't have to go on food stamps. The channel runs some Schickel doc nearly every month. Tune in for a fun film education. (See Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel's All-TIME 100 Movies.)
13. The graphics. Whoever designs the lead-ins to the various programs deserves a Milton Glazer Award for ingenuity and elegance. Osborne used to be fanfared with a shot of the grand (and imaginary) TCM Building, a Deco marvel. The late-night movies are heralded by glimpses of a counterman at a diner, a woman seen dressing in a high window, a fellow waiting for customers in the ticket booth of a 24-hr. theater. The most elaborate intro assembled nearly 30 musicians on pieces of a bandstand assembled by workmen and coming together to create a sumptuous aural-visual orchestration. It's as if the network wants to re-create the aura of a movie palace in the viewers' home. That they've done.
14. The website. A few years ago, TCM went online, purchasing the database of the American Film Institute, which used to publish huge volumes detailing virtually every Hollywood and off-Hollywood movie. As an evocative hoard of info it's up there with the Internet Movie Database. This snazzy site also encourages readers to suggest films for airing. Of course it sells stuff, including the TCM-related DVDs produced by Warner Home Video. But you'll find recommendations books and new DVD collections that are issued by competitors. Very collegial.
15. The DVDs. Maybe there is a business model: Feltenstein uses the network to promote the classic DVD collection, and vice versa. The video stores and Netflix are groaning with TCM collections, the best being three editions of Forbidden Hollywood, multipacks of Warner and MGM films from the pre-Code era that TCM helped revive. (Must-buy: Vol. 3, with a half-dozen rough diamonds directed by William A. Wellman.) Last month TCM began offering personalized movies: you choose a title from a list of films that haven't yet made it to DVD, pay about $15, and get one of these rare relics sent to you. Now if only your name were inscribed on the label...
Nobody's perfect, not even TCM. We could quibble that, a few times, films (Li'l Abner, Lovers and Lollipops) have been shown in the wrong format, so that the actors look either too fat or too thin. Once in a while a picture doesn't quite fit its time slot; it will start before the designated time, or conclude after it, and if you're recording you miss the beginning or the end.
The biggest complaint about TCM, however, is that it has virtually no competition. Fox Movie Channel also runs its library's films without commercial interruption, and we're grateful for all those gorgeous '40s musicals, but the catalog is severely limited. As for oldies from Paramount and Universal, they're almost impossible to find, except in bootleg editions. The rumor that surfaced last week about Time Warner possibly buying NBC Universal was cheered by FOOFs, because then those two invaluable archives would be under Feltenstein's loving aegis. If the rumor isn't true, couldn't the Paramount-Universal films stock another channel? As TCM has proved, you can make money by showing old movies that shine like new.
For now, fans of the golden-age films can be happy they have TCM — a movie network that itself is a classic.
See TIME's photos: The history of muscle cars in American movies
- Richard Corliss