The actress hadn’t been slated to appear in any of the advance press materials, but once the festival got underway, it was quickly announced that Barrymore would be present at a screening of the film that was the last pairing of her grandfather John and great-uncle, Lionel. Whenever her appearance was announced (and it was often), a ripple of excitement went through the crowd — a real movie star, with a real, tangible connection to past movies! It seemed like the perfect merging of the past and present for the festival. And though the movie itself was little known, people started putting it on their calendars for the final day.

On Sunday morning, the film itself started half an hour late, due to popular demand, and depending on who you talked to, it was either an undiscovered gem or the movie where a lot of festivalgoers finally hit the wall (I heard both sides throughout the rest of the day). However, the audience was on their feet as soon as Ms. Barrymore came in the door — and boy, did she charm everyone in the room and then some. In case you didn’t know, Drew (like a number of other celebrity attendees) is a rabid fan of TCM; in fact, her quote, “This is no lie. I have TCM on my television at all times” quickly made its way across Twitter, quite possibly the most transmitted quote of the festival. Barrymore chatted with Robert Osborne about her family, her legacy from them (including the most pronounced part of John “The Profile” Barrymore she inherited — the nose!), and the movies that she loves: of her grandfather’s, her favorite is Twentieth Century. It was her energy and enthusiasm for classic movies and for TCM in particular that was infectious; Osborne said he hoped to get her as a guest programmer, and she quickly rattled off five films she would want to showcase: Annie Hall (which she called the “ultimate kitchen sink” movie in that it tried everything at some point in its running time), The Lady Eve, The Wild Ones, Jailhouse Rock, and Lost in America. In a lot of ways, Barrymore was both the perfect celebrity host and TCM fan, as her enthusiasm was unflagging, upbeat, and engaging; she’s the ultimate TCM evangelist.

And on that note, thanks for reading and coming along with us (virtually) to this unique, celebratory festival — and in case you’re wondering, yes there will be a third, and there will even be a TCM celebration of filmmaking cruise (!) in December as well. Check out all the photos from the festival, video (including Peter O’Toole’s handprint ceremony, our Twitter feed for highlights from the fest — see our special section for all of it.

* They were packed in like sardines at Peter O’Toole’s early morning hand and footprint ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Onhand with Mr. O’Toole and his family were The Stunt Man co-star Barbara Hershey, actress Anjelica Huston, and TCM stalwarts Robert Osborne and Rose McGowan (who did a high amount of flirting). The Oscar-nominated-but-yet-to-win actor provided the sound bite of perhaps the entire festival by quipping, “It’s been many years since I had an intimate relationship with cement.” You can check out video from the event here.

* Hayley Mills dazzled Leonard Maltin and numerous others with appearances at both Summer Magic and The Parent Trap; at the identical twin comedy, the communal spirit brought out the kids in all the adults, who happily laughed along and hissed at villainness Joanna Barnes.

* When the Alec Baldwin/Warren Beatty Q&A for Reds got moved to after the screening of the three hour epic (it had been slated for before), word went out on Twitter faster than wildfire; not a few followers sadly noted they’d be attending the screening Niagara with Joseph Cotten and Marilyn Monroe instead. Who knew Joseph Cotten was still a box office draw?

* Apparently Nancy Sinatra did most of the interviewing of Robert Osborne, and not the other way around, at a screening of The Man With the Golden Arm.

* Film historian Donald Bogle led the audience in a quasi-sing-a-long to the theme from Shaft before introducing star Richard Roundtree.

* Three classic films with surprise appeal filled out the TBA slots for Sunday with additional screenings:  Cary Grant’s first film, This Is the Night, the Nicolas Ray film Bigger than Life, and Clara Bow’s last screen appearance, Hoop-La.

I was actually at the first screening of Hoop-La on Sunday, which brought out the film geek in me to the n-th degree. Not familiar with Bow’s career, I decided to use my iPhone for good instead of evil and looked up her (rather extensive) bio on IMDb and Wikipedia. Bow’s life was fascinating and tragic: growing up in the Brooklyn slums with a schizophrenic mother, her ups and downs in the movie industry, her reign as one Hollywood’s highest paid stars, and then her decision to leave the industry before even turning 30 (not to mention her life after). I was checking out a biography by David Stenn, Runnin’ Wild, when the pre-movie discussion began — and there was Stenn himself, talking eloquently about Bow’s life, and this particular film, one of her talking pictures that was financially successful but not enough to lure Bow into a continuing film career. In an amazing Museum of Modern Art restoration (we were the first audience to see it!), Bow is so viscerally alive onscreen that she seems practically contemporary (or is that timeless?), as a loose carnival dancer with a heart of gold, who sets out to seduce the son of the carnival manager as a paying gig, but winds up falling in love with the young boy instead. You can tell this is a pre-Production Code film: Bow’s amoral character is never punished for her mis-deeds (she even gets a happy ending), and wears a final revealing costume that probably would have shocked censors out of their seats. My copy of the Stenn bio is already being shipped…

I had planned on trying to get into the Reds screening (though the idea of another three hour epic after Spartacus was daunting), but as I left the Hoop-La screening, the line for Reds was already forming — or rather, had formed. With people camping out. With pizza boxes. The end of the line stretched far within the Hollywood and Highland complex, so I decided to cut my losses and get in line early for Breakfast at Tiffany’s at Grauman’s — good thing I did, as even at an hour early I found myself in the mid-hinterlands of Hollywood Boulevard outside the Hard Rock Cafe. Serendipitously, however, my place in line was marked by Julie Andrews’ star, a good omen since the Oscar winner and wife of Tiffany’s director, the late Blake Edwards, would be introducing the film. Andrews, chatting with Robert Osborne, was gracefully and funny (as always), though the intro might have worked better had she been introducing one of the films in which she appeared, such as 10, S.O.B., or Victor/Victoria. No matter – the Breakfast at Tiffany’s print was pristine, and Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard (and Cat!) have never looked better. Seeing the plethora of boyfriends in attendance at the movies, I couldn’t help but wonder how many would go home only to be compared — unfavorably — to the charming and gorgeous Peppard. And if you think you’ve seen this movie too many times, give it another whirl: Hepburn is still incredibly moving and funny, and while the New York setting will put contemporary reviewers in mind of Sex and the City, Holly Golightly could take on Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha with one hand tied behind her back and a tassled earplug still in place, and still have time to go to the powder room afterwards.

After Breakfast at Tiffany’s I had hoped to get into a screening of Gaslight, the Oscar winning thriller starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, the ubiquitous Joseph Cotten, and a young Angela Lansbury, but as I found my way to the end of the line, I found myself closer to my hotel than to Grauman’s itself. I wished festivalgoers the best and left to put more photos from festival on the site (check them out here), passing a rushed Nathan Fillion and date — my first non-festival celebrity sighting. I only hope he ran the gauntlet of festivalgoers more adroitly than I did.

As always, check out the latest photos, see our special section and visit the official TCM Classic Film Festival site to find out more.

In fact, it was Ms. Fontaine with whom I started the festival on Friday morning, deciding to opt for a screening of the rarely-seen love story The Constant Nymph (1943), for which Fontaine received her only non-Hitchcock Oscar nomination. I had opted for this from-the-vaults choice because: 1) it was so rare, the kind of rare film that makes festivals intriguing and memorable; and 2) I didn’t think there would be much of a crowd at 10am on a Friday. Boy, was I wrong – it was quite the surreal experience to find 100 people in line ahead of me (press access gets you… access, but no short lines for you!), and then to wait while a constant stream of people walked by asking, “Is this the line for The Constant Nymph? Constant Nymph? Nymph?” I have never heard the word “nymph” in such steady progression, and I even did a paper on Lolita in college!

Fortunately (as I found to be the case throughout the day), long lines gave way to plentiful room in the auditorium, so there was no worry of seat scrambling in the slightest. The man of the weekend, Robert Osborne, was on hand to discuss the legal wranglings that kept the Fontaine movie out of circulation (novel rights, play rights, who owned what… quite the tangle) and to let us know that yes, while they would have loved to have her, Ms. Fontaine is in retirement in Carmel, CA, and no longer makes public appearances. The film itself is quite the intriguing curiosity — as helmed by director Edmond Goulding (Grand Hotel and Dark Victory, among others), it’s the kind of melodramatic love story where every other shot is a tableau and people are in love just… because they’re in love. The kick comes in with the set-up: composer Charles Boyer is friend to the daughters of his late mentor, most notably Tessa (Fontaine), who harbors a lifelong crush on him… and is supposed to be about 14. Fontaine, who already had Rebecca and Suspicion under her belt, is all of 36 when this was made; watching her assay the role of a young (ahem, very young!) ingenue clambering about in bare feet and clad in girly dresses when she’s not shoved into a schoolgirl uniform, is quite the disconnect. That said, Fontaine is game and able, more relaxed than in her Hitchcock films, and in looks and temperament she surprisingly resembles Anna Paquin’s Sookie Stakehouse during the first season of True Blood when Sookie constantly and awkwardly mooned over vampire Bill Compton. If anyone has a biopic of Fontaine and sister Olivia de Havilland in mind, find Paquin’s agent… and get me 10%!

After Nymph-ing it up, I ducked into a panel for “The Best Trailers Ever Made” which offered a glimpse into the business of the Hollywood machine; the emphasis was most definitely on how a trailer could get you a big opening, as success seemed most measured by the first weekend gross (trailers on display: V for Vendetta, What Lies Beneath, and Black Hawk Down… I’ll let you take that as you may). After that, it was another line for To Kill a Mockingbird at Grauman’s; the big screen didn’t hold all of the close-ups perfectly, but otherwise the Oscar-winning iconic drama more than held its own. After seeing this movie innumerable times, it was amazing to re-discover Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch on the big screen. Peck seems to do almost all his acting with his eyes, moving and occasionally darting behind those horn-rimmed glasses, conveying subtle nuances and immediacy with just a flick of his pupils (watching Peck watching his defendant on the stand should be a requisite film actor’s exercise). Before the screening, the Peck family (wife Veronique and children Anthony and Cecilia) held a brief discussion, which touched upon Peck’s honor as the first actor bestowed with a “Hollywood Legends” stamp; afterwards, Scout herself, Oscar nominee Mary Badham, shared some eloquent reminiscences about making the movie, and how she got to be an honorary Peck during filming. Most notably, she said (happily) that To Kill a Mockingbird had “taken over her life” — she constantly gets requests for appearances, and enthusiastically embraces her role as ambassador for the book. (It’s a little known fact — her brother is director John Badham, of Saturday Night Fever fame.)

It was back out into the sunset and back in line for the Grauman’s screening of Spartacus, with none other than Kirk Douglas — man, that guy is spry! Though a ramp had been placed to help him to a small platform, Douglas took the stage with gusto (faster than I probably could have), and despite his speech difficulties, regaled the audience with a variety of backstory tales, including a great one on his acquiring of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; as he wryly noted after the story, “For a guy who can’t talk, I’m saying a lot!” Hearing and seeing Douglas banter with Robert Osborne reinforced why festivals like this are exciting and amazing — seeing Douglas in person saluting screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is far better than any DVD extras you can imagine;  I counted three standing ovations, though I may have missed one trying to convey the excitement via Twitter. Also of note: Douglas said his favorite film of his own was Lonely Are the Brave, though he cited Spartacus as his most important. And the print of Spartacus…. wow! I had seen Spartacus but I hadn’t really seen it like this; as soon as I saw the bluer-than-blue skies, I was hooked, and stayed for all three-plus hours. They don’t really make epics like this anymore (or did they ever?): it’s certainly a showcase for gigantic epic-style filmmaking, with those big shots, gaudy costumes, over the top sets, crowd scenes galore and sometimes clunky dialogue, but with more ideas than you would imagine, and great performances, even if nobody’s style seems to mesh. And though it’s the least Kubrick-esque of Stanley Kubrick’s oeuvre, the filmmaking is phenomenal; the final battle, as the Romans marshal their ranks to intimidate the slave army, and the ragtag retaliation that looks like, for a few moments, that it just might work, is transporting.

Exhausted but happy, I departed Grauman’s post-midnight, trying to figure out what I could work in for Saturday. Among the options: Warren Beatty and Alec Baldwin doing Q&A after Reds, Julie Andrews introducing late husband Blake Edwards’ Breakfast at Tiffanys, live music accompaniment with Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman, Angela Lansbury hosting Gaslight… a plethora of options! As always, check out the latest photos, see our special section and visit the official TCM Classic Film Festival site site to find out more.

Soon, though, I was distracted by some rather pronounced whooping outside (there’s no other word for it), so in checking out the hubbub, I found the man of the festival himself, Robert Osborne, shooting promos for the festival to air on TCM. Rather than celebs, though, Osborne was chatting up festivalgoers who were making the return trip this year. Which was fine with the audience — to them, Osborne was something of a rock star, with people walking in, spying the silver-haired and silver-tongued host, and dropping their jaws to the floor. I’m not kidding – audible gasps were heard. They barely needed the almost-superfluous “applause” signs the tech crew held up to help create atmosphere.

After basking in Osborne’s glow — and the expanded offering of souvenirs available to festivalgoers — I prepped for the night’s big event, a 60th anniversary world premiere restoration of An American in Paris, the 1951 Vincente Minnelli musical that nabbed a Best Picture Oscar, cemented Gene Kelly’s star status forever, and introduced the world to Leslie Caron, who made one of the most auspicious screen debuts in history. In keeping with the expansion of the festival, the red carpet was moved away from the entryway of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and into half of Hollywood Boulevard. That was cool because it meant tons of room; not so cool (literally) was the fact that there was no shade whatsoever for celebs and journalists alike to keep from sweating in the glorious L.A. sun. But when any red carpet is spread out, celebrities and stars are soon to follow.

Some decided to forsake the press gauntlet (I’m looking at you, Jennifer Love Hewitt), but most gamely braved the line to chat it up with various outlets, including a surprising number of UK ones that desperately tried to tie the event in somehow with the impending wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Peter O’Toole strode regally in, looking like he wanted to chat but was ushered along by his own personal entourage. A number of celebs from last year made reappearances: Illeana Douglas in a gorgeous dress, Eva Marie Saint chatting up everyone in sight, Diane Baker looking resplendent and sparkly, Margarte O’Brien trotting about in another feathery dress (black this year instead of electric blue), and the last Gone With the Wind gals, Ann Rutherford and Anne Jeffreys. Hugh Hefner was puzzlingly but warmly welcomed back, even as one of his dates spent more time looking at her phone than at anyone else around.

Leslie Caron herself traipsed gamely down the line, striking a few poses and extolling the virtues of the film to reporters who’d probably never seen it. Other newbies to the fest included sisters Hayley and Juliet Mills (Hayley is getting a special tribute), Mary Ann Mobley (there to introduce the Elvis flick Girl Crazy), and Mickey Rooney was lively and energetic in the extreme, appearing to berate a group of journalists only to have the last laugh. Young stars came out for exposure too: Marshall Allman of True Blood (who ingratiated himself by copping to his character’s dislikes), General Hospital star Brandon Barash (who expressed hope that his appearance would boost his StarMeter number), and the two stars of an upcoming Cinemax (?!) series called Femme Fatales, whose winning smiles and low cut dresses dazzled many of the male reporters.

This year’s outstanding red carpet presences were Tippi Hedren, who made sure everyone got an interview who asked (it was hard to resist her, since she wore an awesome black outfit with leopard-print high heeled shoes), and, surprisingly, Chris Isaak, who was on hand to introduce the aforementioned Girl Crazy with Mary Ann Mobley. Leaning against the press railings as if hanging out as a bar, he charmed everyone with ease, talking about how he hoped to honor Elvis with his hairstyle, how he wished he could dance like Fred Astaire, and deftly avoiding all those royal wedding questions (“You know, I know absolutely nothing about them, and I’m sure they know next to nothing about me. I’m an American!”). Ms. Mobley practically gave him her phone number at the poolside intro for Girl Crazy, but ever the gentleman, he let her have the spotlight and made sure the movie got started on time — a fitting start to a festival celebrating the intersection of movies and music.

Friday: I’m planning on going black-and-white with the rarely-screened The Constant Nymph (starring Joan Fontaine in an Oscar-nominated role) and the classic To Kill a Mockingbird, featuring Gregory Peck’s family and Scout herself, Mary Badham. Then it’s off to see the man who stole the Oscars, Kirk Douglas, as he is expected to be onhand to discuss the legendary Spartacus.

Check out the first red carpet photos, see our special section and visit the official TCM Classic Film Festival site site to find out more.

Much like last year, the festival aims to bring back that exciting sense of moviegoing as a destination event — and having spent a number of hours last year at Grauman’s Chinese Theater watching classic flicks like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Metropolis, and even Saturday Night Fever unspool in monumental cinematic fashion, I can tell you it’s an unparalleled sensation, thousands of times better than watching DVDs on my flat-screen at home. Ah, if only Grauman’s could be my personal screening room…

This year’s overall theme is music and the movies, and a number of the screenings and panels will highlight the interaction of the two mediums. The opening night film is the Oscar-winning An American in Paris, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, and directed by Vincente Minnelli, one of the great unsung auteurs of mid-20th century movies; Caron herself is expected to be on-hand for the red carpet event on Thursday afternoon. Last year’s red carpet turned out to be a surprising mix of old and new Hollywood, with newly-minted stars and classic ones rubbing elbows. Unlike a red carpet premiere for the latest blockbuster, nobody seemed to be on the clock trying to promote their latest project or already looking past the cameras at next weekend’s box office numbers — everyone was there to have fun.

And with the line-up of movies anticipated, I’ll be making a game plan to catch some recent classics, some insightful Q&As, pop in on a few panels at the Hollywood Roosevelt, and all around forsake the gaudy tourism outside on Hollywood Boulevard for the old school glamour of big-time moviegoing. Check out my list of potential must-sees, see our special section and visit the official TCM Classic Film Festival site site to find out more. I’ll be updating Facebook and Twitter while I’m there, as well as posting photos and blog entries each day.

The last day of the festival was focused on the epic: things kicked off at 9am with a screening of 1963′s Cleopatra, featuring co-star Martin Landau, who had sardonically stated yesterday, “I’m going to have to bring a boxed lunch to that thing!” The 100-year-old Luise Rainer, the first actor to win back-to-back Oscars, did indeed make it to the screening of The Good Earth (Jerry Lewis, however, did not make it to The King of Comedy). And Eli Wallach was on hand for a pre-screening discussion of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But the crowning achievement of the day — if not the festival — was the North American premiere of a new restoration of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Though the film has gone through copious restorations since the 80s, in 2008 a complete print of the film was discovered at a museum in Buenos Aires, and this new restoration, minus one scene near the end that was damaged beyond repair, is now just beginning to circle the globe.

To be honest, I did not cotton to the idea of sitting through 2 1/2 hours of silent film at the tail end of an already exhausting film festival. I’m glad I didn’t trust my instincts — the print that unspooled onscreen was pristine beyond belief, and seeing it on a huge screen literally took my breath away. Lang’s iconic images are just as potent today as they were over 90 years ago, and leave most any of today’s quote-unquote epic filmmakers in the dust; anyone who has helmed most any summer blockbuster of the past ten years should see this film and then hang their head in shame at Lang’s mix of action, suspense and drama. Osborne told the audience beforehand that, because the found print was 16mm, the newly restored scenes would be grainy from their age as well as being enlarged to accommodate the restoration. The difference is immediately apparent; the “new” scenes are scarred with lines, sometimes blurry, sometimes grainy. That said, after about 30 minutes (while you’re playing a game of could-this-scene-have-been-cut?) you forget the disparity and just become enveloped in the film. The acting does indeed tend toward silent-film histrionics, but in a movie dominated by men, it’s the female lead, Brigitte Helm, as the saintly Maria and her evil doppelganger robot impersonator, who captivates through and through. Helm has the unenviable task of playing both madonna and whore, but wow! As the “machine-man” version of Maria, Helm seems like a punk-rock queen, and a raised eyebrow from her conveys more than most recent Academy Award-winning performances altogether. If you get a chance to see this restoration, you must.

And, if you can, see it with live music accompaniment. The Alloy Orchestra provided live music for the Grauman’s screening, and live pulsating rhythms for the first time made me understand the magic that silent films must have conveyed when first unveiled to the public, seeing images you could never conceive in your own mind set to the musical version of a live heartbeat. It’s truly magical.

And, that magic was what was celebrated throughout the four days of the fest in various forms — the visceral experience of true moviegoing. Loath to attend movies at my local cineplex, I found myself completely enjoying the communal experience — hearing laughs where I may not have expected, smiling ruefully as audience members clapped at various names through the opening credits, feeling the tension that pulls people together; it was a great reminder of the power that movies still hold in the era of ultra-modern technology that can isolate us from audiences. Hopefully, this kind of classic moviegoing will never go out of style.

Thanks for reading and coming along with us (virtually) to this unique, celebratory festival:  check out photos here, our Twitter feed here for highlights from the event, and our special section on the festival here.

Sierra Madre is screening at 10am at Grauman’s Chinese; tourists have already gathered outside to gawk and take pictures with the celebrity impersonators, but inside the famed theater it’s quiet, red and soothing, filled with fans very excited to see the Hustons and experience a brand-new print of the film. Robert Osborne, whom Eva Marie Saint has referred to as the “rock star” of the weekend festival, introduces a succinct short film tracing the careers of Hustons Walter, John, Anjelica and Danny, heavy on clips and admiration. The adaptability of all four is deftly showcased, showing Walter as both matinee idol and grizzled character actor, Anjelica as both Morticia in The Addams Family and the struggling femme fatale of The Grifters, Danny as characters both sympathetic and threatening (mostly the latter), and John both behind the camera and in front of it, most notably his chilling turn in Chinatown. Afterwards, Osborne brings the siblings out to a standing ovation — my stalking instincts are finely honed, as I’ve inadvertently picked a seat about 20ft away from their offstage position. The two talk warmly about their father and the film, which Anjelica says she’s seen about 50-70 times and Danny remembers as being shown at home on a “deliciously noisy little projector.” Danny also gives props to some of his father’s lesser-known films: Fat City, Wise Blood and The Misfits, among others. Fortunately, this print is deliciously crisp and the projector isn’t noisy in the slightest; the images jump off the screen and Huston’s framing and cutting still feels amazingly contemporary. Though Humphrey Bogart is phenomenal as a man undone by greed, Walter Huston’s performance is less grizzled than I remember and much more nuanced; a nearly wordless sequence in which he revives a young Mexican boy comatose from drowning is breathtaking and favors awe and fascination over sentimentality.

After a lunch break, it’s time for a 3:30pm screening of Crimes and Misdemeanors, and for the second day in a row, I’m discovering that the mid-afternoon screenings provoke  the longest lines, as earlier screenings run over due to Q&A discussions and the TCM staff wrangle all the appropriate people into the right lines. I manage to score a seat high up in the auditorium at Mann’s Chinese for maximum celeb sighting, but no one shows and my mind wanders until the girls behind me give a tiny squeal when a spectacled Alec Baldwin quietly slinks in, his nose in the TCM program and guided by either an assistant or handler (he gets one of the reserved seats). The Huston troupe arrives just in time for Ben Mankiewicz (who appears to have honed his hosting duties at weddings and bar mitzvahs) to introduce the Huston short film; later he’ll also refer to Anjelica as John Huston’s “son”, a point she classily and breezily corrects him on. Anjelica and Ben chat a bit before the screening, and she refers to her family as a “lovely band of gypsies” and recalls how for Crimes and Misdemeanors the first scene she had to shoot was the first in which she appears in the film, where she has to hit the ground running in high neurotic and paranoid style. C & M still remains one of the later great Allen films, and despite some of the ham-handed symbolism (most notably the blind rabbi), the cast finds the heart amidst the philosophy. After 30+ years of Allen films, it’s now easy to spot the actors who can handle Allen’s sometimes stilted dialogue: Martin Landau, in an Oscar-nominated turn, does well, as does the scene-stealing Alan Alda as an egomaniacal TV writer. In retrospect, the film is something of an elegy for the Woody Allen-Mia Farrow relationship, as they seem both utterly relaxed and entranced by each other as actors, in comparison to the brittle edges of Husbands and Wives three years later after… well, you know.

Post-screening, Mankiewicz brings up Anjelica and Martin Landau, and the two embrace warmly as if they haven’t seen each other in forever; he remarks affectionately that she smells like an “Oreo cookie”. With the house lights up and safely ensconced in the back, I’m able to Twitter a few of the most notable observations of the conversation, which you can read here. Anjelica tackles head-on the question that popped up in my mind watching the film again: are her clothes and hair really supposed to be that terrible? Apparently, yes – she was “horrified” when she went to her first costume fittings. She and Landau also chronicle her attempts to meet with Allen before filming; she tried to meet him for coffee in New York weeks before shooting started, but Allen was down with the flu. Then, Huston and Landau trailed him across the set until Landau officially engineered an introduction that culminated with a succinct, “Hi.” Anjelica warmly recalls the incident and notes how carefully Allen cast his actors, that he didn’t need to meet or rehearse with them before filming began, and Landau concurs, noting the lack of rehearsal time and minimal takes Allen required. One anecdote that didn’t make sense: apparently Allen’s character, at the end of the film, was meant to be caught in a clinch with… Sean Young?! Sound a little too 80s for me; wisely, it was scrapped.

After C&M& it’s straight into the screening of The Proposition, and again both Anjelica and Danny are in tow, with their nephew Jack, son of Tony Huston. Looking him up on IMDb, I find that Jack is slated to appear in the next Twilight film, Eclipse — good thing Ben Mankiewicz didn’t mention that, or else there might have been a mob scene on hand. In the smaller auditorium at Mann’s Chinese, this screening feels much more intimate (you can hear Danny’s signature laugh throughout the film) and the conversation between Danny and Mankiewicz is appropriately loose. Being closer to Danny in this smaller space makes you realize how downright uncanny his voice resembles his dad’s, and you can hear intimations of Chinatown‘s Noah Cross in his inflections. Danny is very obviously grateful and excited to give this little-seen film exposure at the festival (he even talked about it on the red carpet Thursday night) and gives props to director John Hillcoat and especially co-star Ray Winstone. Mankiewicz quizzes Danny on his roaming accent — which Danny wryly refers to as a “tax haven accent” given the various locations in which he grew up — and which directors asked him to do what accent. Danny’s most notable point for that question is on his experience working with Sofia Coppola on Marie Antoinette, where when he asker her what kind of accent she’d like, she told him, “Be yourself.” Huston’s reaction: “I was totally perplexed.” The Proposition itself is a visceral little film set in the late 19th century Outback, where an outlaw brother (Guy Pearce) is given the titular proposition to kill his brother (Huston) in order to recevie a pardon and save the life of his younger brother. It’s filled with very good performances (including Emily Watson as Winstone’s porcelain-china wife), but also filled with bloody violence, lots of sweat and flies and dirt, and many actors with very, very bad teeth (which I assume are prosthetics). It’s more than a little nihilistic, and after death three times over this day, I’m in need of a little palate cleanser.

So after a quick stop at the Roosevelt, I bolt over to Grauman’s Chinese again for the 10pm screening of Saturday Night Fever and if anything, there are more tourists at night than during the day. The auditorium is maybe 2/3rds full, and I sit back waiting for the film to start up promptly, as there’d been no mention of Q&A in the festival program. To my surprise, a spotlight finds its way to “rock star” Robert Osborne, who introduces the director of the film, John Badham. Aside from the fact that they refer to the film as a “musical” (which I guess, in a way, it is), they chat about the genesis of the movie and how Badham became involved. Based on an infamous New York nonfiction magazine article “Tribal Rituals of the New Saturday Night” (which later was revealed to be entirely fabricated), Saturday Night Fever was initially to be directed by Rocky helmer John G. Avildsen; however, after Avildsen protested just a bit too much at the script, he was promptly replaced with Badham, who had only star John Travolta and five songs by the Bee Gees on hand before he went to New York to start filming. Badham recounted how he cast the film entirely with New York actors, had the set decorators put up aluminum foil and Christmas lights to give the infamous Oddysey (that’s how it’s spelled in the movie) disco a “glamorous” feel, and how everyone at Paramount expected the movie to close within a week; apparently, when then-studio head Barry Diller got the first weekend grosses, he exclaimed, “There’s a mistake! There are too many zeroes!” The rest is cultural history.

For those who remember only the white disco suit, the multi-million selling soundtrack, and Travolta’s smile and gold chains, Saturday Night Fever still remains something of a revelation. It’s a scrappy, low-budget movie low on glamour and high on lower-middle-class angst, as Tony Manero, still acting like an overgrown boy, struggles to find the man inside himself, and a purpose in life (not for nothing do the lyrics of “Staying Alive” feature the refrain, “Life going nowhere/Somebody help me/Somebody help me, yeah”). It’s truly a star-making performance for Travolta, who effortlessly holds the screen and can go from cocky to insecure in a heartbeat — and oh yes, the dancing is still pretty amazing, especially Travolta’s solo to “You Should Be Dancing”, which prompted spontaneous applause from the audience. It still remains a coarse, rough movie to this day — the profanity would not be out of place in a Tarantino film, and the sexual politics are not something 21st century political correctness would ever tolerate — but echoes the course of its protagonist: unsure, occaisonally confident, coasting on charisma when needed, sweating when it has to, and reaching for something greater than its origins.

Sunday: As the weekend winds down, the festival is given over mostly to re-screenings of previous movies and a handful of new screenings, so the highlight will be the closing night showing of Metropolis, in a North American premiere of a new restoration, with accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra. As always, check out photos here, our Twitter feed here, and our special section on the festival here.

But once you find your way inside, things get much calmer — especially before 9am. Decreeing it far too early for the psychedelic fantasia of 2001: A Space Odyssey, I decide to go old-school Hollywood with an early screening of 1952′s The Bad and the Beautiful, a behind-the-scenes Hollywood melodrama starring Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Dick Powell and Gloria Grahame (who won a supporting actress Oscar), and directed by Vincente Minnelli. There’s a surprisingly robust crowd for the early hour, and turns out even Robert Osborne is up this early too, and introduces Lana Turner’s daughter, Cheryl Crane, who was about 8 years old when filming commenced. They chat for about 10 minutes or so, and the conversation turns toward Lana’s sense of humor, a tangent that seems jarring — until you see the movie. This is probably Turner’s best performance ever, and as an alcoholic actress with daddy issues and an inferiority complex, she’s more relaxed than you’ll probably ever see her on screen, and handles Minnelli’s shifts from melodrama to cynical wit with amazing ease. Her tour-de-force is the quintessential nervous-breakdown-while-driving-a-speeding-car-in-the-pouring-rain scene, which she still probably owns to this day. The film itself is not perfect — it feels like a Hollywood knockoff of All About Eve, with Kirk Douglas as the schemer everyone’s entranced by — but Minnelli, who still remains an underdog in the auteur-appreciaton sweepstakes, knows how to handle a camera with balletic skill, and takes unparalleled care with his actors. There isn’t a false note in the cast, and Grahame, who’s in only a handful of scenes, waltzes off with the film as a steely, ambitious, yet loving and naive southern belle, a prototype steel magnoila.

As it turns out, directors will emerge as the theme of the day, as I next make my way to “Club TCM” for a conversation between Leonard Maltin and director Peter Bogdanovich. As the two enter, Maltin looks even more gee-whiz in person than he does on TV, and Bogdanovich is wearing what I now take to be his trademark cravat. The two get comfy in easy chairs among an audience of 100 or more, and begin talking about Bogdanovich’s early career. Things start off with The Last Picture Show, and Bogdanovich proves to be an easygoing yet compelling raconteur, talking about the casting process of the film (he let Ellen Burstyn choose her own role) and Orson Welles’ initial disapproval of the script (it was “dirty”). Being only an hour, the conversation doesn’t progress further past Paper Moon in Bogdanovich’s filmography, but does include a variety of tales about famous directors, from John Ford to Orson Welles to Alfred Hitchcock and even Fritz Lang. Two observations of Bogdanovich’s stand out: his matter-of-factness when talking about how Tatum O’Neal was “old beyond her years” even at age 8 thanks to the life-experience crammed into such a short time, and the director’s response to an audience members question about the industry: “The industry today? There is no industry… It’s gone to hell… The B picture is now the A picture,” he responded, with the caveat, “There’s always hope, I think.”

Two other directors — Douglas Sirk and Richard Rush — dominated my second half of the day, as I waited in a surprisingly long line for Imitation of Life; apparently, everyone waiting had also seen Valley of the Dolls copious times. The print itself was a tad disappointing, but the Sirk strings, after all these years, were effectively played and pulled. The audience laughed outright at Lana Turner’s oblivious racism (and numerous costume and hair changes), but when the melodrama kicked into high gear, snuffles were loudly apparent throughout the theater. Later, the film’s two Oscar-nominated stars, Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner (mother of director Chris Weitz), chatted with Robert Osborne about the movie. Dashing from there, I somehow managed to breeze into the screening of The Stunt Man at the festival’s smallest venue, the less-than-200 seat auditorium at Mann’s Chinese. Ben Mankiewicz introduced Oscar-nominated director Richard Rush before the film, which was being presented on a brand-new print just struck last week. The film, from 1980, still holds up amazingly well — Peter O’Toole is arguably at his career-best as an egomaniacal director toying with a Vietnam vet (Steve Railsback, almost crazier than O’Toole) on the run from the law. If its mix of comedy, action, drama and meta-Hollywood still strikes you as fresh now, imagine what audiences back in 1980, when Ordinary People was the year’s Oscar winner, made of this unique, one-of-a-kind, behind-the-scenes tall tale. While obviously and lovingly choreographed down to the nth degree, the movie still retains a kind of 70s/early 80s spontaneity most usually associated with Robert Altman and Alan Rudolph. And there are echoes of Fellini as well, with the driven auteur-director and the occasional bursts of circus-style music; this would make a fantastic double bill with 8 1/2. Afterwards, Railsback and co-star Barbara Hershey joined Mankiewicz and Rush for a 15 minute discussion of the movie. What was most notable weren’t bon-mots but the effortless camaraderie the three still shared after 30 years. It felt like absolutely no time had passed between what was seen on the screen and the present day.

Elsewhere today: Mel Brooks finally got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (where not a few TCM head honchos developed sunburn), and hosted a screening of the original 1968 The Producers; Jean-Paul Belmondo appeared at the screening of Breathless; Tony Curtis cameoed at Sweet Smell of Success, and special effects guru Douglas Trumbull of 2001 fame hosted his own panel at Club TCM. TCM is discouraging massive photo-taking at screenings and events (the lighting sure doesn’t help either), but is providing official photos, which we’ll be publishing throughout the weekend in our special section on the festival. And make sure to check out our Twitter feed @ IMDbLive as well.

Saturday: I’ll be following the Hustons around all day, as the festival celebrates the cinematic family with three films: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and The Proposition. If energy allows, I’ll try to pick up the 10pm screening of Saturday Night Fever, which is already garnering retro-buzz among festival-going 20-somethings who have never seen John Travolta’s disco moves on the big screen — if ever.

There was no pretend glamour at the red carpet for the opening night of the festival (a screening of a restored edition of A Star Is Born, with two of Judy Garland’s children — Lorna and Joey Luft — on hand), held across the street at the legendary Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Over the classic handprints and footprints of stars past and present walked a number of stars both past and present, ranging from TV ingenues to Oscar winners. Some reporters and photographers couldn’t place all the names to the faces, but that didn’t stop them from flagging down whoever they could — Tony Curtis, Eva Marie Saint, Ernest Borgnine, Eli Wallach, Tippi Hedrin… Everyone wanted a piece of Martin Landau, who managed the gauntlet adroitly. Alec Baldwin, half-scowling and half-amused, went about halfway before forsaking the rest of the press line for the company of film critic Leonard Maltin. Some stars just sauntered by, or hung out with friends: the lovely Diane Baker (you may remember her as the senator in The Silence of the Lambs) chatted up everyone with such ease many took her to be a press agent. You could turn around suddenly and there would be Jacqueline Bisset, lovely as ever and just as charming; ditto Illeana Douglas, who seemed to materialize out of thin air only to disappear just as quickly.

The stars skewed definitely old-school, but they were anything but snooty — Tab Hunter greeted everyone with a handshake and the declamatory, “Hi, I’m Tab.” (Like you wouldn’t know…) Eva Marie Saint leaned over the velvet rope to confide favorite stars and scenes. Margaret O’Brien pranced about in a little electric-blue outfit, complete with feathers she was happy to show off to anyone. There were a handful of the recently-minted famous, most notably Andrea Bowen of “Desperate Housewives” and Kate Flannery of “The Office,” but the past reigned supreme: heck, even Hugh Hefner showed up!

The Mr. Congeniality award definitely goes to Danny Huston, who talked charmingly about his family, his movies, and what he was looking forward to over the weekend; he went out of his way to thank reporters who mentioned The Proposition (screening this weekend), and projected ease, charm, and classic good looks — you wouldn’t recognize him as the evil villains of some of his blockbuster films. And director Peter Bogdanovich, rocking a cravat, was the last man standing, making sure everyone who wanted an interview got one.

Once the red carpet was rolled up and the velvet ropes down, it was over to the pool at the Roosevelt for a photo-op featuring Esther Williams and Betty Garrett, the stars of Neptune’s Daughter, which was slated to screen that evening by said pool. The two stars posed with some modern-day bathing beauties known as the “Aqualillies” and later chatted briefly with host Ben Mankiewicz before the film rolled. As the sun gradually set, one couldn’t help but feel concern for the performing Aqualillies, who did a water ballet in honor of Williams in what could not have been very warm water. Considering there were only six of them, it was a fun performance, the highlight being when one swimmer/dancer sprang out of the water as if she were part-dolphin. The large crowed around the pool gave Williams and Garrett warm standing ovations, especially when both crooned lines from the film’s Oscar-winning song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

And that it was. An overcast LA day gave way to chilly night on the first evening of the fest, but judging from both the stars and the attendees, warmth was going to be on hand for the rest of the weekend. More people are passionate about classic film than you might think, and it gave the opening night a definite sense of fun, camaraderie, and excitement for things to come.

Check out our photo gallery for more pics, and our TCM Classic Film Festival section for more.

What that means for classic movies is that we rarely, if ever, seek them out in the way they were meant to be presented: on the big screen. Back before television co-opted the viewing audiences — and even during the early years of TV — movies were meant to be big, and that meant a big screen. It also meant a communal experience, the promise of glamour, and a destination experience — a movie wasn’t something you just happened upon, it was someplace you went, with excitement, with a purpose, to take in fully and enjoy.

The first-ever TCM Classic Film Festival, being held this Thursday through Sunday, aims to bring back that sense of excitement, that sense of bigness, to classic movies over a four-day period in — where else? — Hollywood, California. With films ranging from silent classics to nascent films of the 80s independent movement, it presents a smorgasbord of offerings, complete with actors, writers, and filmmakers on hand to lend insight and, of course, glamour. Herewith are some of the screenings that I’m most excited about — you can find out more about the festival in our special section.

• A Star Is Born: The opening night film on Thursday April 22 promises a return to old-style Hollywood glamour with a showing of major stars who will be seen throughout the festival, and a restored version of the Judy Garland-James Mason classic.
• Neptune’s Daughter: What better place to see the seminal Esther Williams flick than poolside — at the Hollywood Roosevelt, no less?
• 2001: A Space Odyssey: Special effects master Douglas Trumbull will be on hand to introduce a 70mm presentation of the Stanley Kubrick flick, and will preside at the “A Cinematic Odyssey” panel.
• Sweet Smell of Success: The first appearance of legendary leading man Tony Curtis at the festival.
• Imitation of Life: For Douglas Sirk fans, the screening of this is a can’t-miss, with appearances by its two Oscar-nominated stars, Susan Kohner and Juanita Moore.
• The Producers: Don’t be stupid/Be a smarty/Come and join the Nazi party! Well, come join Mr. Mel Brooks!
• Breathless: The mere idea of having leading man Jean-Paul Belmondo on hand leaves us in the titular state.
• Midnight Cowboy: Remember when Best Picture winners were daring adventures into cinema? Film writer/historian Peter Biskind and star Jon Voight will introduce the film.
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre/Crimes and Misdemeanors/The Proposition: The Huston family dynasty gets a three-film treatment, with Anjelica Huston and Danny Huston present.
• The Graduate: No plastics, but instead writer Buck Henry on hand.
• The Good Earth: 100 year old (!) Oscar winner Luise Rainer is slated to attend; she’s also the first actor to win back-to-back acting Oscars.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg — see our special section and visit the official TCM Classic Film Festival site to find out more. We’ll be blogging from the event, and posting photos as available!