Have your own classic film festival at home
Movie critic Odie Henderson headed to Hollywood for the TCM Classic Film Fest and recommends some gems
Greetings from the TCM Classic Film Festival. By the time you read this article, I’ll be on vacation in Hollywood for my second trip to the event run by one of the few channels I watch religiously, Turner Classic Movies. This year, in addition to a slate of classic (and not-so-classic) movies, the festival is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros. Several films from the studio with the grooviest logo of the 1970s will be shown, including a restoration of Howard Hawks’s “Rio Bravo” (the openingnight film), “Casablanca,” “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” and an R-rated movie I snuck into 40 years ago, “Risky Business.”
I may consider sneaking into “Risky Business” while I’m here, just for the nostalgic thrill. Maybe I’ll slide into the theater in my drawers and tube socks, just like Tom Cruise!
I’m always trying to drag non-critic friends to film festivals. I wish I could drag all of you with me, but I have an alternative: I’ll program a mini-TCM-inspired festival right here, based on this year’s roster.
Below are seven movies selected for your viewing pleasure, plus a few extras thrown in.
“Cool Hand Luke” (1967)
One of Paul Newman’s best performances. You know Lalo Schifrin’s famous score and Strother Martin’s “what we got here . . . is failure to communicate.” Newman made some great movies, but this is the only one that makes me cry. I always tear up when his titular chain-gang prisoner strums a banjo and sings “Plastic Jesus.” If you’ve seen this film, you know why; if you haven’t, now’s your chance to find out. (Available on HBO Max)
Still hankering for Newman? Make it a double feature with 1961’s “Paris Blues,” where he stars as a jazzman living in Paris. Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll, and Louis Armstrong co-star. (Available on Tubi)
“Larceny, Inc.” (1942)
Gangster movie legend Edward G. Robinson in a comedy?! Eddie G. spoofs his persona in this funny tale of three ex-cons who want to rob a bank but keep getting thwarted by the success of the business they built as a front. Look for Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason in early roles alongside Jane Wyman as Robinson’s adopted daughter. (Available via the TCM app, Watch TCM)
Want more gangster movie actors in comedies? Pair this film with Jimmy Cagney’s 1955 Naval comedy set on a WWII cargo ship, “Mister Roberts,” one of my mom’s favorite movies. (Available on HBO Max)
“The Killers” (1946)
Get your film-noir fix with this first screen adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s story, helmed by the great noir director Robert Siodmak. In his feature debut, Lancaster plays “The Swede,” a guy two hit men are looking for; when they show up, he’s expecting them. The Swede’s story, told in flashback after his demise, includes a sultry femme fatale played by a sizzling Ava Gardner. Siodmak turns up the heat, and for his trouble earned his only Oscar nomination for directing. (Available on The Criterion Channel, Prime Video)
Need more noir? Try Robert Wise’s 1948 Western/film noir hybrid, “Blood on the Moon,” starring Robert Mitchum as a man with “notches on his gun, but none on his conscience.” His nemesis is none other than “The Music Man”’s Professor Harold Hill, Robert Preston. (Available on Apple TV)
“Jason and the Argonauts” (1963)
Here’s an embarrassing secret: I’m terrified of skeletons. This movie is the reason why. Ray Harryhausen’s masterful stop-motion effects traumatized me as a kid. He gave cinema one of its best battles, a scene populated by an endless supply of fighting skeletons. The sheer scope of this five-minute sequence is awe-inspiring — the fight between the human actors and Harryhausen’s model skeletons had to be painstakingly choreographed. It looks amazing. Greek myth hero Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece gives Harryhausen several opportunities to stun us with his creatures. He does not disappoint. (Available on Crackle, Apple TV)
Want more stop-motion action? Join Harryhausen’s mentor Willis H. O’Brien as he creates the beastly star of the greatest New York City love story ever told, 1933’s “King Kong.” (Available on HBO Max)
“Hairspray” (1988)
John Waters made more overtly provocative movies, but this PG-rated musical is his most subversive — and his best. Ricki Lake stars as the “big, blonde and beautiful” Tracy Turnblad who, along with her friend Penny Pingleton (Leslie Ann Powers) fight for integration in 1962 Baltimore. Features musicians Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry as the funniest white supremacists ever to disgrace a movie, and R&B legend Ruth Brown as disc jockey Motormouth Maybelle. (Waters loves his alliteration!) The late Divine gives his best performance in a dual role as Tracy’s mom and a racist TV station owner. Surprisingly, Waters treats the integration subplot with more respect than most movies about race. Plus, he shows up as a mad doctor who tries to cure interracial love with a cattle prod. (Available on HBO Max)
Can’t get enough ’60s musical kitsch? The Dick van Dyke-starrer “Bye Bye Birdie” came out in 1963 and turned Ann-Margret into a star. Another of my mom’s favorites. Between us, I think it’s terrible. Seriously, don’t tell my mother I said that. (Available on Crackle)
“Crossing Delancey” (1988)
Director Joan Micklin Silver’s very funny romantic comedy stars an infuriating Amy Irving as Izzy and Peter Riegert as Sam, the cute pickle man who’s sweet on her. Of course, she drives him crazy. Sylvia Miles steals the show as the deliciously named matchmaker Hannah Mandelbaum. Reizl Bozyk steals the movie from Miles as Izzy’s Bubbie. (Available on Apple TV)
“Shadow of a Doubt” (1943)
I had to squeeze Alfred Hitchcock’s personal favorite of all his films onto this list. Joseph Cotten is the evil, murderous Uncle Charlie who may be the “Merry Widow Killer,” and Teresa Wright is Charlie, his niece, nemesis, and namesake. Cotten’s pitch-black portrayal must have warmed Hitch’s heart. (Available on Apple TV)
It’s only fair that I also give myself some festival homework to do. I don’t have many blind spots when it comes to Oscar-nominated best pictures. But I’ve never seen George Lucas’s 1973 film “American Graffiti.” Well, actually, my parents took me to see it as a double feature with its 1979 sequel, “More American Graffiti” at the drive-in (an appropriate locale) when I was a kid, and I fell asleep. I also fell asleep at my drive-in viewing of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
So, I’ll see “American Graffiti” and let you know what I thought of it.
Happy festivaling!