SIGHTS & SOUNDS OF THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL 2014

 

Photo by Christian Esquevin
Photo by Christian Esquevin

The TCM Classic FIlm Festival held its 5th Annual event in Hollywood April 10-13, 2014, this along with the 20th anniversary of Turner Classic Movies. Amidst the various themes that the festival held for itself, it was its sounds that kept reverberating in my head throuout the three days and one night, and even now several days later.

Photo by Christian Esquevin
Photo by Christian Esquevin

My pass level didn’t get me into the Premiere of Oklahoma! on Thursday night but as I drove up to LA I couldn’thelp but hearing Gordon MacRae singing:

Oh what a beautiful morning,    Oh what a beautiful day                                       I’ve got a beautiful feeling,    Everything’s going my way.     

                                                    TCM oklahoma

 

Instead of the Premiere I sat poolside at the Roosevelt with Kimberly Truhler of GlamAmor. The night before we had dinner along with fellow blogger Kay Noske of Movie Star Makeover. Now we watched American Grafitti, while I reminisced  that it was only three years after this film was to have taken place that I was cruising in my own ’56 Chevy up and down the next street over, Sunset Blvd, then a  more intense cruising strip for high school kids than was Modesto. But here too, the sounds of Wolf Man Jack, broadcasting from the original “border blaster” radio station and the soundtrack of earlier top 40 hits like Buddy Holly’s “That’ll be the Day,”  The Diamonds’ “The Stroll,” and the Clovers’ “Love Potion No. 9,” kept me hopping through most of the night.

 

Photo byChristian Esquevin
Photo byChristian Esquevin

The next day I was still humming, pumped up and cruisin but now in bumper to bumper traffic, tho in time to see Zulu on the big screen at the Egyptian. I’d seen it several times on TV but I wanted to see this spectacular, Michael Caine’s first film, in itsTechnorama glory.  Alex Trebek gave a great introduction. It wasn’t long before the Zulu warrior war chants and whoops were the sounds that filled my head. I was able to briefly meet with Patty from The Lady Eve’s Reel Life before the next show. Quickly on to the next movie, the always fun tho nostalgia- twinged Meet Me in St Louis, starring Judy Garland – and I bet you can’t think of it without hearing  Meet me in St. Louis, Louis, Meet me at the fair, Don’t tell me the lights are shining, Any place but there.   Or there’s the Trolley Song, or the nostalgic, Have Yourself a Happy Little Christmas. This screening was made very special by the appearance of Margaret O’Brien, who nearly stole the show as littleTootie. She not only still  looks young but can apparently still can fit in the coat she wore in the film as a 7 year old. My technicolors changed to film noir and pre-code as I watched Double Indemnity along with a nightime wrap-up of Employees’ Entrance. Even then, as with Walter Neff, my drive through LA was filled with the sounds of Miklos Rozsa’s evocative score , his repetitive tremolos bringing on flashbacks, not of anklets and murders, but of brilliant classic movies, and their songs.

Photo by Christian Esquevin
Photo by Christian Esquevin

The next morning’s highlight was Mary Poppins at the El Capitan. The line for the movie, like with many at the TCM Festival, was jaw-dropping. But over the five years that I have attended, line management has improved dramatically since the first couple of years. But before long I was humming along to Chim-Chim-Cheree. And if you saw Saving Mr. Banks, you could sing along knowingly of the day-saving A Spoonful of Suger (makes the medicine go down).  But my favorite song and the one that keeps poping into my head is the joyous Let’s Go Fly a Kite ( up to the highest hights ).  On hand for the screening and talking with Donald Bogle was Richard Sherman, who with his late older brother composed the songs and wrote the lyrics to Mary Poppins and other Disney films.

Richard Sherman
Richard Sherman at right with Donald Bogle

I was  soon no longer flying kites as I entered the line at the Chinese Multiplex where 45 minutes later Stormy Weather started. There I was stomping my feet to this 20th Centurt-Fox musical with its all-black cast starring Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Fats Waller, Dooley Wilson,  and the Nicholas Brothers. Lena Horne was dressed in some fabulous Helen Rose glamour gowns and sang, “Stormy Weather,” and “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love (Baby),” while the one-of-a-kind band-leader, scat-singing, King of Jive, Hi-De-Ho-Man Cab Calloway sang and gyrated through “Geechy Joe” and “The Jumpin’ Jive,” while the Nicholas Brothers tapped and danced through their amazing staircase number. There’s no way you couln’t be skipping and jivin’ out of this theater.

TCM CabCalloway 2
Cab Calloway and his band in Stormy Weather

The Jive beat got me hopping up the stairs for a couple of slices of pizza – eaten while in another line (this is what passes for dinner at the film festival).

Photo by Christian Esquevin
Photo by Christian Esquevin

This line was for a completely different sound – the British Invasion and the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night, playing at the Chinese at 6:30pm Saturday night. It was a great movie to watch on the big screen and to recapture the youth of the Beatles (and my own), in this film from 1964. The songs that kept ringing in my head for the next several days were And I Love Her, and those beautiful harmonies by John and Paul in If I Fell (in love with you). Alec Baldwin provided a spirited introduction and interview with music producer Don Was. My night time viewing was unmusical, other than the sometimes hilarious repartee between Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Norma Shearer, and all the other women in The Women. But then again the fashions of Adrian positively sang throughout the movie. This was a restored version, and the fashion show sequence in Technicolor leaped off the screen, while the rest is in black and white, tho some of the fights between the women cast almost lept of the screen too. The next morning I was in the mood to see more cat fights so I went to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The whole family was fighting with each other in this classic, with ne’er a cheerful tune in the whole movie. But seeing Elizabeth Taylor dressed in the famous Helen Rose “Cat dress” was worth sitting through the entire film, and Paul Newman looked good too when he finally redeemed himself. I was ready for more music and here it was with a Sunday afternoon screening of Easter Parade. On hand were Leonard Maltin interviewing Judy Garland expert John Fricke about the making of the movie, shown below.

Photo by Christian Esquevin
Photo by Christian Esquevin

Soon after I was humming to It only Happens When I Dance With You, and wishing I could tap dance to Steppin’ Out with My Baby. The TCM staff was gracious and professional throughout the Festival, and provided interesting programs like the history of TCM programming and its branding as shown below, with Scott McGee, Pola Shagnon, and Tim Riley.

Photo by Christian Esquevin
Photo by Christian Esquevin

By Sunday night I was singing another song, that classic of the late Depression that was the song of hope for so many:

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow, Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true

Music and lyrics by E.Y “Skip” Harburg and Harold Arlen

 

WIzard of Oz  Dorothy