Cable TV kicks me to the curb

Vintage Radio & Communications Museum of Connecticut, 

Windsor, CT, photo by JT Lynch

The day has finally come when my cable television company has, in effect, announced, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”   

In other words, they are dropping Turner Classic Movies from my subscription, and if I want it back, I must pay another $12 per month to subscribe to another tier of "service."

My company is Spectrum, but this obviously is not an uncommon event and many of you have already experienced this disappointment, or perhaps have never even been offered TCM as part of your package.  I've enjoyed the channel for over twenty years, at least, and it has made a great difference in my life and in the writing of this blog.  I'll miss it very much.

I do intend at some point to "cut the cord," as they say and find my way to cheaper, possibly better, service.  But at present, that's not possible.  I care for my older sister at home who has a number of serious medical issues and she is used to her own favorite channels (she watches far more TV than I do), and changing to a completely different setup would be too disruptive and confusing for her.   I can live without TCM for a while; there are certainly other outlets to enjoy classic films, and like many of you, I have a number of favorites on DVD and VHS that I continue to enjoy.

But it is something of a milestone for me, that I cannot help but look upon with some wistful remembrance.

 ************

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism.  Her latest book is Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Cartoons to feature presentations - bring back the roster

Celebrating Warner Bros.' 100th anniversary all this month on Turner Classic Movies has given us an enjoyable twist in their programming, and most especially for the showing of the famed Warner Bros. cartoons.

Many of us are old enough to remember Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, et al., as staples of Saturday morning, along with our cereal, until we could recite the dialogue verbatim.

I wish more cartoons could be shown on TCM showcasing the work of different studios.  It would be a nice experience, I think, to have for at least one morning or evening programming a slate that might be similar to the movie theater experience from the 1930s through 1950s, somewhat in the vein of the PBS program from the 1980s called Matinee at the Bijou (which I discussed in this previous post).

As we know, one did not just see a feature film, whether in the neighborhood movie house or the grand movie palaces downtown.  Before Humphrey Bogart or Bette Davis came on the screen, there was some other business to attend to.  First, as if to whet the appetite before the main course, the audience was given appetizers:  a cartoon, a newsreel, a short subject, a serial, a B-movie, and then the feature.  

(And the roster was continually repeated -- one could walk into a movie in the middle of the feature and just stay to watch the whole thing all over again when the projectionist rewound the whole business and showed it again.  For ten cents, or fifteen, or twenty-five, one could stay in the theater all day and night.)

If TCM could reproduce this roster of the old-time movie theater experience perhaps once per week, that would be great.  If they could find a way of delivering popcorn through the TV, that would be nice, too.  And uniformed ushers to kick us out of our living rooms in case we get rowdy. Just a suggestion.

************

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism.  Her latest book is Christmas in Classic Films. 

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Remembering Judy Garland this month on TCM

Judy Garland, having been chosen the Star of the Month, made June especially enjoyable for watchers of Turner Classic Movies. Seeing her filmography in bursts is especially poignant for allowing us to follow the bubbly, nervous, awkward girl with the phenomenal talents, as she marches toward maturity and the wonderful roles, but personal hazards, we know she will face.  There are times we just can’t study her hard enough.  Other times, knowing the perils of child stardom and harsh world that eats up the more emotionally vulnerable, we almost wish we could look away.

But we can’t.  Because she’s Judy, and she’s remarkable.

She is no stranger on TCM’s roster, particularly as most of her career was spent at M-G-M, whose films are owned by Ted Turner and WarnerMedia, the pre-1986 anyway, which is what we old movie fans cherish most.  So we do get to see her movies from time to time.  But to really feel the impact of her energy, her skill—which is an achievement above natural talent, for this girl worked hard at her craft—it’s best to see her in a string of her films, and this whole month has been a powerhouse of her impact, even in her smallest roles, which did not stay small for long. 

She did not, however, shoot to stardom on the wings of the publicity department as other stars did—it actually seemed like studio boss Louis B. Mayer didn’t really know what a gem he had.  But when it was time for her to take the lead, she shone.

Most fans and critics alike seem to think her moment came with The Wizard of Oz (1939), that resonated with generations of children—and the adults they became—possibly for the ironic image of a girl on the cusp of womanhood who was taking a perilous journey, scared stiff, accompanied by a misfit trio who were not always terribly helpful, but who in spirit had her back, and she defeated a terrible villain, saved a society even as she unmasked the phony leader—who, unexpectedly, was not a villain but yet another victim of his own weakness.

But generations of children who were not old movie buffs would never have seen this movie and it would never have become an iconic experience of American childhood without annual broadcasts on television.  For free.  No cable fees, no subscription.  Not today.

Will future generations of children still feel the warm sisterly bond with Judy Garland in their fascination for this movie without it’s being a regular and expected experience of their childhoods?  To be sure, their parents and grandparents may treat them to home video (in whatever form it may take in the future) and Wizard of Oz-inspired toys, but will that die off when national memory (aside from the classic film buffs’, that is) finally lets it go?  For so many people, this movie is their introduction to classic films.

It was not my introduction to classic films, but it likely was my introduction to Judy.

It's been lovely to hear the outpouring of expressions of enjoyment for the movies shown on TCM this month, but particularly for having the whole month devoted to Judy Garland, to giving her a showcase.  She would have been 100 years old this year, and the tragedy of having died young at the age of only 47 is part of the sadness of considering her career, that one is perhaps unable to completely enjoy her work in A Star is Born (1954) without almost subliminally remembering the train wreck of her own self-destructive demise.  In a sense, we still mourn her.  There are few people on the national stage we still acutely mourn after 53 years.

I’ve often thought what a shame it was for her that she did not live long enough if only to see her films celebrated particularly on TCM.  I like to think she would have enjoyed that, and would have made a heck of an interview for Robert Osborne.

I’ve enjoyed reading posts and comments on Facebook and on Twitter about how deeply fans feel about Judy Garland, and it is a kind of love that has little to do with awe of a big star.  There is something deeply personal she touched in people. 

This month reminded me of two very different people whose appreciation of Judy Garland made an impression on me.  One, was my father.

My parents were teens during the Great Depression, and spent, to hear them talk of it, pretty much the entire decade at the movies.  They were very familiar with Mickey and Judy.  When they were middle-aged and had a house full of kids, Judy Garland hosted her television variety show on CBS, The Judy Garland Show for one season from 1963-64.  Since I was a toddler at the time, I didn’t catch up with this program in until much later in life.  But I have it from an older sister who recalled that whenever the show came on, the kids had to be silent, the family plunked down in front of the TV, and my father’s face just lit up with rapture. 

Now, my father was not a movie musicals kind of guy.  (My mother loved them.)  He preferred Westerns, film noir, crime dramas, political dramas, war movies.  He liked his movies on the heavy side.  He wasn’t into fluff that much.  In fact, if Jerry Lewis had ever crossed his path, my father probably would have belted him because class clown-types annoyed him.

But Judy, sweet vulnerable, funny, offbeat Judy, she could do no wrong.  When she came on the 19-inch screen, in black and white and sometimes fuzzy depending on the reception, a woman in her early 40s that seemed to be pushing back with all her might at some new kind of physical frailty—well, that didn’t matter; he just beamed.  That was her power.

The second person whose devotion to Judy Garland was much younger, and I met her several years ago when she was in high school.  She was involved in the school drama club and she wanted to pursue a career in theatre.  Judy Garland was her favorite.  That surprised me, because I’d thought that young people today who have ambitions for an entertainment career might be drawn toward modern film stars, pop stars, TV stars.  But for her, Judy was tops. She knew all the songs in Judy’s career repertoire.  She identified with her in a way she perhaps did not identify with the glossier, edgier stars of her own era.  Judy was timeless.

Thank you to TCM for giving us a huge banquet of Judy this month.  For Judy’s 100^th birthday, it was a wonderful gift to us.

Have a look here at these previous posts of some of Judy Garland’s films: 

Summer Stock (1950) 

For Me and My Gal  (1942)

Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941)

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

    ********************

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.

Halloween -- Musicals and Monsters

Halloween is missing from the roster of holidays celebrated in musical numbers from Holiday Inn (1942).  At the time the film was made, Halloween was barely clawing its way out of the era of time-honored street urchin vandalism of petty theft and streetcar derailment to something different – an adult-supervised, tamer holiday of parties, party favors, and treats.  By the time the Boomers were kids, trick-or-treating exploded across suburbia.

Today, it’s the second-largest holiday of consumer spending in United States, with the National Retail Federation predicting that this year Americans will spend more than $10 billion on Halloween.  This is amazing considering the economy’s fragility while still dealing with a pandemic, and even more so that this is an increase of some $8 billion over last year.  So far, consumer spending on Halloween is still behind the level of Christmas—but for how long?

The single day of Halloween has become a season of a month or even more of decorating indoors—and most dramatically—outdoors.  One wonders if this is merely yet another example of the arrested emotional development of Boomers, Gen-X-ers, and Millennials not so much yearning for the fun times of childhood, but being oblivious to the fact that they might have to actually grow up at all. 

I confess a monstrous craving for candy corn this time of year (similar to the unaccountable monstrous craving I get for candy conversation hearts as Valentine’s Day approaches), so perhaps, like most of us, I have become well trained by the retailers. Though we joke about pumpkin-spice everything this time of year, at least that’s innocuous compared to the severed heads and skeletal displays of sometimes questionable taste on the neighbor’s lawn.

For classic film buffs, society’s growing enthusiasm for Halloween has led to that transfer of movies-as-holiday props such as we see during the approach of Christmas.  Christmas is a holiday wrapped up in nostalgia as much as consumerism, and for fans of old movies, this means dragging out not only decorations, Christmas music, and favorite recipes—but also the retrieval from our own vaults of Christmas movies to watch during December.  To be sure, Turner Classic Movies is there for a reliable backup, but we who have amassed our private stock of movies without which Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas really don’t rely on it, do we?

Holiday Inn is a teasing, tantalizing hybrid of holidays as Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Louise Beavers, Marjorie Reynolds, and Walter Abel parade through the calendar.  Most classic film buffs watch it during Christmastime, and are familiar with the tale that the song “White Christmas” was created for the movie and become an almost instant hit, now a national treasure.  Other songs written specifically for the movie include “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” for Valentine’s Day, “Happy Holidays” (for those smug, hypocritical fools who think saying “Happy Holidays” is somehow a sacrilegious insult to Christmas, a Bing Crosby recording should be played over and over as an answer to their foolishness), and “You’re Easy to Dance With,” which has no holiday connotation at all.

If precious filmstock was being devoted to non-holiday musical numbers, then why, we might wonder, could they not have filled that gap in the movie between Independence Day and Thanksgiving with a Halloween song?  Irving Berlin actually did write a couple that might serve:  “Down Where the Jack O’ Lanterns Grow” written sometime around World War I about a rural love nest and not particularly spooky.  I would vote for “The Haunted House,” a really cute ragtime ditty you can listen to here on YouTube:

As for giving September a little attention, perhaps a Labor Day sequence could have been thrown in with Berlin’s song “And Father Wanted Me to Learn a Trade” written sometime in the middle 19-teens.  We do have that burst of industrial war worker footage montage during the Independence Day sequence, so factory work had achieved a nobility not seen since. 

Also for the war, Irving Berlin wrote the pleasant if unintentionally comical “I Paid My Income Tax Today” which you can listen to here:

Maybe Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire would have a tougher time putting across Income Tax Day in their musical romp.

But it is on the calendar.

It does feel like something of a wrench for us these days to have no Halloween in Holiday Inn, but likely nobody missed it in 1942.  Halloween was strictly for kids.  For the grownups, there were scarier monsters afoot, and they came home to us when as partway through the filming of the movie, Pearl Harbor was bombed.

But classic movie fans, partly as a celebration of Halloween, have revived the popularity of the Universal monsters: Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, et al.  Because of Halloween and our movies-as-holiday props habit, monsters walk the earth again, at least once a year.

********************

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.

Requiescat in Pace - Jane Powell

 A memory of Jane Powell in a simple, elegant, long-sleeve gown with a bateau neckline at what must have been some televised awards show (how many years ago?), and especially comments made by some reviewers in effect that she outshone all the younger female entertainers.  It was true.  It was not a patronizing tribute to her representing a fond remembrance of Old Hollywood, like a treasured fossil we take down from the shelf and pay homage to that they don't make them like that anymore -- rather, it was the honest acknowledgement that this lady displayed class and that class is timeless.

I remember feeling proud of her, with that sense of ownership old movie buffs generally have for Old Hollywood.

One would suspect, however, that her elegance and her class on this evening was not effortless; a troubled childhood and difficult apprenticeship in the film industry -- a career she never wanted -- she revealed in her autobiography, The Girl Next Door and How She Grew.  

An interesting quality Jane Powell had, however, was that she was able to observe that world like a fly on the wall and inspect it for what it was, holding herself apart.  Her diffidence might have given her that quality, but her impressions, feeling as she did like an outsider looking in, give us a view of the studio system that we don't find in other memoirs. It's also interesting that Jane Powell finally found personal peace and happiness with another child actor with conflicting feelings on his film career, and first met Dick "Dickie" Moore when he was writing his own book: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Don't Have Sex or Take the Car.

She eventually accepted her role as an alum of that rare world, and took it in good grace, as evidenced in her appearances in film industry events, and especially taking over the host position on TCM in 2011 when Robert Osborne was on medical leave. She had a long career on film, television, and the stage, and if being the girl next door in her early movies was such a small part of her life, she seemed resigned to allowing us to cherish it, even if it did not mean quite so much to her.  

TCM Classic Film Festival - Read All About It

Today begins the TCM Classic Film Festival hosted at several Hollywood venues by Turner Classic Movies.  Though I've never been to the TCMCFF, I've always enjoyed a ringside seat through the wonderful descriptions of my fellow classic film bloggers.  Their adventures and their enthusiasm are a lot of fun to follow.  If you aren't able to take in the festival, then by all means, enjoy the recap posts of the four days of old movie lovers' heaven through classic film blogs such as these:

Laura's Miscellaneous Musings

Essays from the Couch

Out of the Past

Once Upon a Screen

Outspoken and Freckled

Classic Move Hub

...to name a few.  But for on-the-spot action, follow their trail on Twitter - #TCMFF.

Thank you to these bloggers and others who share their experiences on social media about the TCM Film Festival for those of us who don't get to go, and for sharing their love of classic films all year long.

Robert Osborne - Requiescat in Pace

When I recorded a movie on Turner Classic Movies, I often tried to get Robert Osborne's intro on the recording.  I will miss that very much.

Classic film fans mourn the passing of our Robert Osborne this week.  It is, for us, the end of an era.

We know something about the ending of eras.  To love classic films is to be acutely aware of the passage of time.  Fractures in the timeline are part of the study of classic films as much as they are in life.  Acknowledging them involves a degree of mourning, to be sure, but they always are accompanied by the sweet, blessed balm of pleasant memory and lessons learned.  So it will be with Mr. Osborne.

We'll always have Paris.

His appeal as a host to me and millions of old movie fans of all ages -- he is as dear to the millennials as he is to senior citizens -- is likely that rare mixture of wisdom, geniality, gentleness, and the respect he gives us as movie buffs.  Such gentlemanliness engenders our respect for him.  Also, for those of us who began our fandom long before the days of the Internet, who know what it was like to research a favorite film or actor from Who's Who volumes in the local town library -- we appreciate what effort it must have taken for him to compile his first book in 1965, Academy Awards Illustrated. Maybe we even used that book, if we were lucky enough that our library had a copy, for our own exploration of info on old movies.

Mr. Osborne is gone.  But that's almost like saying Humphrey Bogart is gone, or Clark Gable, or Barbara Stanwyck.  Are they really? If TCM gives us regular visits with our friends on the silver screen, then how are they gone?  We will still enjoy Mr. Osborne's influence in our lives, and enjoy the memory of his visits with us.

TCM is to hold a tribute weekend next week showing some of Mr. Osborne's many interviews.  I hope that they will make this a regular feature on the channel, perhaps at least once a week.  It will be delightful to visit with him again, in between our reunions with Hattie McDaniel, Bette Davis, and Paul Henried.

Several wonderful classic film bloggers have paid tribute to Robert Osborne this week.  Here are a few of them:

A Shroud of Thoughts by Terence Towles Canote.

Comet Over Hollywood by Jessica Pickens

Journeys in Classic Film by Kristen Lopez

End of an Era - Classic Film Fan Series - Final Episode

There are many issues under discussion today among classic film fans: the discovery of lost films, the expense of restoration, and most especially: what constitutes a classic film?

This last issue is, oddly, the most contentious.  It is often divided among age groups (though not always) that a classic is a movie made during the period of the studio system, i.e., from the early days of the twentieth century through the 1960s.  I have maintained that a classic film is one made before 1965.  I am not in favor of turning the word “classic” to mean something good, or beloved, or timeless (some of the best classic films are “dated” and this makes them valuable for study) but rather as it pertains to film, should only be a label to categorize a movie by its era.  Is a Three Stooges short better than The Godfathermovies?  Of course not. 

If someone enjoys Rocky (1976) better than they enjoy Golden Boy (1939), does that make Rocky the classic film instead of Golden Boy?  No.  Rocky is an Oscar-winning film from the 1970s.  It carries its own prestige.  But it is not a classic film.

I’m sure many classic film fans will read the above sentence and their heads are even now exploding in anger.  Sorry, but the point isn’t that your opinion is as good as mine, or that mine is as good as yours.  The point is to get beyond opinion and draft some sort of objective criteria so we may catalogue, describe, and share our information on classic films with future generations without muddying the waters about what we mean.  History has, for the most part, clear demarcation on eras:  the Jazz Age, The Restoration.  Art has clear demarcation on eras based on prominent style:  Impressionism, Dada, Modern Art.  Do we call an impressionistic painting Modern Art because it was painted in the 1960s?  No.  It’s an impressionistic painting produced in the 1960s.

This is the twelfth and final post in our year-long monthly series on the current state of the classic film fan.  We began this series musing on the unlikely campaign of Donald Trump. Our last post in November brought us to the stark and devastating realization that fascism is alive and well in America.  That’s quite a journey, one I had not expected to take.  Our movies, old and new, whether they address social issues or present fantasy, are a clear barometer of our pop culture, which makes them so important for study.

The label “classic” should be the least of our problems in our mission to promote these films, but if we can’t agree on even that, we won’t agree on which films to be worth saving.  We won’t be able to save them all.   

But to be honest, I must confess that my own definition of “classic” as films made before 1965 is only partly an objective assessment; in part, it is also a reflection of my age.  I was born in the early 1960s, and so when growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, the movies made in these decades were not classic; they were new.  In my middle-aged woman’s eye, they will always be in that vague category of “new”.  (With the same prejudice a younger fan will consider a 1970s movie as “old” because it was made before they were born.  The criteria is personal, and not objective.

When The Sound of Music (1965) was first shown on television in 1976, it was a monumental prime time event—but not because it was a “classic”, but because it was a modern blockbuster.  That will seem ludicrous to younger fans, I know.  When I was growing up in the Baby Boomer’s joyous embrace of “Nostalgia”, the old movies we resurrected were just old (and some not very old at that).  Nobody called them classic films.  Classic was a label that came much later, like Film Noir.  Nobody called it Film Noir when I was growing up.  We were not a cadre of geeks—pop culture was still in the backwash of the Golden Age of film, which was still the gold standard of entertainment.

These movies were shown on every channel (even if there were only four channels) at any hour of the day.  The stars and character actors and bit players of those old movies were, for the most part, not retired and they were still working on television.  They were still part of popular culture.

The deaths of Judy Garland and Bing Crosby rocked mainstream society—not just old movie buffs.  Conversely, we had not yet entered the age of deep mourning for the loss of anyone connected with classic films as we are today, when it seems that each year we cling to the fewer and fewer left, and it is we, not they, that do not go gentle into that good night.  Today our classic film fandom is one part celebration of discovery, and one part mourning the “in memoriam” reel.

Baby Boomers were spenders and collectors, and most of the books, posters, kitsch, VHS and DVD classic film releases were meant for their consumption.  Younger generations will take over, and their exploration of classic films, their expression of their fandom will take different forms.

But there will be less of them. 

We’ve discussed in previous posts in this series that Turner Classic Movies is, with few exceptions, the main source of classic film viewing in this country.  Current discourse on whether TCM is diluting its brand by showing modern films to the detriment of classic film programming (while recommending wine from the TCM Wine Club) will be a moot point if younger generations do not even subscribe to cable television, as seems to be the case.

Many younger people get most of their entertainment online, and most of what is offered them through streaming and download services are modern films.  Their choice of viewing becomes narrower as they veer towards only current movies and TV shows.  They will be exposed to little that does not already interest them.  TCM’s venture into streaming cannot yet replace the range of its network offerings.

The Warner Archives release of films to the home market is very welcome, and we may continue to wonder if Universal will ever get on board, but even these may have a limited future commercial exposure.  Future generations will not have developed an interest in them enough to make it financially worthwhile to producers of DVDs and Blu-ray, or streaming, in a world where future generations have not been exposed to classic films on a scale grand to begin with -- enough to once again make these movies a force in pop culture and consumerism.

It has been noted that the collectibles market is currently depressed because the Boomers, who were tremendous consumers and are now at a point of downsizing in their lives, are not finding buyers for their “stuff.”  Younger generations are not interested.

We classic films buffs naturally attempt to share our love of these movies with younger friends and members of our families.  That will have a huge influence in their lives, and is a great gift to them.  But this is not the same as being exposed to classic films not as a special event or peculiar hobby, but as mainstream entertainment—something not just their parents are talking about, but their friends as well.

I had suggested in an earlier post in this series to teach classic films in school.  Another way to broaden the exposure of these movies to younger viewers might lie with the Internet, where they turn anyway for their entertainment.  We’ve seen how TCM and others are streaming and making available films for download, but these are still paid services.  There may still be another and more effective way to get new classic film fans.

YouTube, Internet Archive, and other free Internet channels.

Paramount has already set up a channel currently showing 91 of its classic films for free viewing.  The beauty of YouTube is not only is it free, but the operation is such that the viewer is immediately exposed to a number of other similar choices.  We’ve all spent hours on YouTube, not intending to, just because we were looking for something particular and got sucked in to watching several other videos.  The search engine is also effective.  YouTube has the power to expose us to old movies and old TV shows we had not known existed.  It is a smorgasbord of video pop culture history.

The video quality on YouTube obviously does not lend the best viewing experience—it’s not like sitting in a restored Art Deco theater watching a shimmering nitrate film—but it’s something free and easy to obtain, to spread the experience of enjoyment and knowledge of old movies, and is a channel that younger generations already know about and use frequently.  Classic film buffs—and the corporations which have a library they’d like to monetize—would be well advised to create new fans by building up in them a taste for their product.

The Wizard of Oz (1939) would be forgotten today had it not been shown yearly on broadcast television for a couple of generations.  Its popularity spawned VHS and DVD releases, toys, games, books, clothing—a variety of merchandise that came in the wake of its popularity, which came in the wake of its familiarity.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) would be forgotten today had it not been shown yearly on broadcast TV, and became so popular that not only is it firmly established in pop culture, but the copyright, which had lapsed, was scooped up again, making it once again a valuable product.

We see the same scenario with A ChristmasStory (1983), which is not a classic film, but has become a beloved Christmas tradition, and again, firmly part of pop culture, with annual showings on the cable network TBS, which runs a 24-hour marathon every Christmas.  Because of this we can shout out lines from the movie.  Houses on the street where it was filmed have been turned into tourist attractions.  You can buy the iconic lamp, for heaven’s sake.

The popularity came with familiarity: an audience was not found, or mined, or marketed to—it was created from scratch.

The Boomers grew up watching movies on free broadcast television, became classic film fans in an era of a nostalgia craze fueling it.  However, the movies they watched were fading prints cut up for commercials.  The art houses showing them on the big screen were few and far between.  The only media by which favorite films could be owned and shown at home whenever they wanted was with 16mm film, a screen, and a projector.  Despite these challenges, an army of old movie buffs kept alive their interest enough for the media conglomerates to have a built-in consumer base when the technology developed to produce films on VHS and DVD for a new, huge home market.

To say that classic film fans have it easy today by comparison is not entirely true.  Yes, they have a better quality video experience, a large assortment of movies available for the home market, but their challenge is twofold:  having the money to purchase product that is continually being improved, restored and re-released (how many copies of our favorite films can we own?); and second, just being exposed to these films on a scale that enables them to digest them as part of their American heritage.

This last notion is, I think, something on which we need to focus more attention.  I am concerned not only on the astounding idea that a nation so passionately devoted to defeating fascism should recently embrace it—fascists used to be the bad guys, on that we could at one time all agree—but if a younger viewer cannot absorb a movie in the context of its era, then all the message, the art, the power, or even the technical beauty of a classic film will not penetrate their sensibilities.  They will consider classic films to be remote, incomprehensible, and merely weird relics of a primitive age.

In practical terms, there is a real disconnect for younger viewers in what they see in classic films—for instance, the racism, the sexism (as if these things have ceased to exist in their modern world), among so much else that they are unable to accept in a film when they looking for images that affirm their own experience.  It becomes not just a matter of taste—“my classic is not your classic”—but actually being intellectually or emotionally unable to critique the art form.  Finding little they can relate to in it, it becomes as lost to them as if they had never discovered it.

Take, for example, this review of a new release this year for the first time on DVD of A Woman’s Vengeance (1948), a movie we covered in this previous post.  The young reviewer is, as with many Internet writing gigs, reviewing the product, which is the new DVD.  She is not really writing an essay on the movie, though she attempts to discuss the plot as part of her product review.  She sounds as if she were reviewing a new gadget or cleaning product.  She displays an ignorance of the film, the era, the actors and classic films in general as an art form.  As a result, her tone is flippant, dismissive, lapsing into vulgarity in the modern attempt at communication that tries hard to be clever, and her judgment on the product is based on whether she feels is it a worthwhile purchase.  This is the most shallow and sophomoric “film criticism” that can be produced (not counting IMDb reviews, which are frequently baffling in their obtuse triteness and often rife with errors), yet it is now the prevailing style on Internet product sites.  Future classic film fans, however many they may be, will be getting the bulk of their information from such product surveys (assuming classic film blogs are not still floating around on the Internet and the algorithms are kind to us to generate at least some traffic).

There are a lot of movies still hidden in studio vaults, university archives, and a basement or two.  Will future generations seek them out, donate to have them restored?  Will they see any worth in even pursing this?  If Lon Chaney’s London After Midnight (1927) is ever found, will future generations care?

Are we, the current classic film fans—from Boomers to Millennials—the last audience? 

There is, as those who have attended the TCM Classic Film Festival and other such events know a joyous and exciting social aspect among gatherings of classic film fans.  My hope is that many more of these festivals will pop up around the country, or just in the form of small regional clubs, so that it may be easier for fans to connect in person with others who love old movies.  This breaks barriers between generations and demonstrates the genuine camaraderie and inclusiveness that exists among classic film fans—even if we can’t agree on what a classic is.  How much the corporations cater to our interests, based on their ability to profit from it, will largely depend on our numbers and our demonstrated passion.  It will also depend on their ingenuity to create a market for their product.

One hundred years from now, someone just discovering Buster Keaton, Myrna Loy, or Humphrey Bogart will be captivated.  We know that.

But how many like-minded fans will there be left to share the joy?

This ends our year-long series on the state of the classic film fan.  I wish I could end it on a more hopeful note, but hope is a fleeting thing these days.  This will be my last post this year.  I have a new book to get out, and so I need some time.  I’ll see you back here on Thursday, January 19^th for a new year of blogging.  I hope to accentuate the positive next year and find some hopeful and inspirational moments in classic film to discuss.  We’re going to need them.

Until then, may I wish all of you who celebrate a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, and very happy and hopeful New Year.  Thank you for the pleasure of your company.

 ***********************

Previous posts in this series are below:

Part 1 of the year-long series on the current state of the classic film buff is here: A Classic Film Manifesto. 

Part 2 is here: Cliff Aliperti’s new book on Helen Twelvetrees.

Part 3 is here: An interview with Kay Noske of Movie Star Makeover.

Part 4 is here: Evolution of the Classic Film Fan.

Part 5 is here: Gathering of the Clan at Classic Film Festivals.

Part 6 is here: John Greco’s new book of film criticism: Lessons in the Dark.

Part 7 is here: Tiffany Vazquez, new TCM host.

Part 8 is here:  Planet of the Apes at the Cineplex.

Part 9 is here:  Aurora & Classic Movies and More Interview.

Part 10 is here: A Canadian's Perspective: A Visit from Paddy Nolan-Hall.

Part 11 is here: Naïve Idealism.

*********************

The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.