John Greco - Harbor House and Other Dark Tales

John Greco, your friend and mine from the Twenty Four Frames blog, has released a new book that will raise the hackles on fans of horror and dark tales.  Harbor House and Other Dark Tales is a collection of 16 short stories, each with a twist you might not expect.

It's his seventh book of fiction.  In previous posts, I've featured his books Lessons in the Dark, a nonfiction collection of essays on film; and two other collections of sinister stories: Devious Tales here; and The Late Show and Other Tales of Celluloid Malice here. 

John's talent is not limited to writing; he is an exceptional photographer, and his art prints and photos, including many stunning shots of wildlife, can be purchased here at John Greco Art.

Harbor House and Other Dark Tales is available on Kindle and in paperback.  

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In the interests of transparency:  I received an ARC of John's book, with no requirement to write a review.

Lessons in the Dark by John Greco

Lessons in the Dark by John Greco is a thoughtful, contemplative collection of short essays on film.  Classic films are the focus, but two interesting devices are used to make the old favorites sharp and relevant to today’s social ills: first, using simple themes of War, Discrimination, Social Injustice, and the Media (the unit heading alone deliciously inferring that the media is, or can be, another social ill).  Second, comparing a classic film to a newer or modern film of the same subject.  I would suggest that comparing a classic film to a similar modern film may probably be a better way to introduce younger people, who are not classic film fans, to old movies.  It becomes not so much a contest as to which is better, but rather it serves as a bridge to understanding.

This is part six in our year-long monthly series on the current state of the classic film fan.

Author John Greco is known to many of us classic film bloggers for his excellent blog, Twenty-Four Frames. Here are a few of his interesting observations:

On I Was a Fugitive From a Chain Gang:

“An interesting point is the modernity of James Allen’s thinking after getting out of the Army. His mother and Reverend Brother want him to go back to his factory job, however, James doesn’t want to be tied down to a boring job he has no interest in. His brother calls him ungrateful for not accepting his former bosses offer to get his job back, but James wants something more exciting and wants to find himself. His mother actually uses these words after she comes around to his way of thinking. Finding oneself is such a modern notion, I was somewhat surprised to hear it spoken in a 1932 film.”

On High Noon:

“Ironically, over the years, people and even countries from both sides of the political spectrum have come to find their own personal values in this film. The former Soviet Union accused the film of being “a glorification of the individual.” Pro-McCarthyites saw the film as communist propaganda and anti-American. Yet, President Ronald Reagan loved the film for its lead character’s “strong sense of and dedication to duty and law.” Both Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton loved the movie. Clinton ran the film no less than 17 times while in office! He even recommended it to then incoming President Bush. So the question becomes, how can one film be interpreted and be satisfying to both sides of the political fence?”

John discusses the Pre-Codes, the Depression, M*A*S*H, and Lenny, and ties them together.  There’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Black Legion.  (My thanks to John for referring to my book on Ann Blyth in his essay on Brute Force, which is part of his Films of Social Injustice chapter.)  I was especially taken with his filmography of Orangey, a cat who most of us know from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, playing “Cat,” but who actually had a few other films under his belt.  Er, collar.

John and I discussed the notion that we are on the threshold of a new era of film criticism in classic film:

JTL:  I wondered, first, what you think about the idea that film criticism and film history are now in the hands of so-called (and I use this possibly disparaging word intentionally) amateurs -- because of blogs and the rise of self-publishing?  There was a time, and may still be among professional critics and academics, that film, theatre, drama critique was a rarified world.  It has now become gloriously egalitarian.  But there are pitfalls to that as well as a huge boon to compiling the chronicle of our pop culture.  What are your thoughts on that?

JG: I think it’s been both liberating and problematic. Self-publishing has opened up doors for many writers. Overall, I think it's a great opportunity for writers to get their work out there. If they go that route they should be professional and responsible for and with their work. Of course, like in so many other endeavors there is the good and the bad. Film history like all history can be distorted if not reported correctly. As you know yourself, being an historian, writing about film history like any subject requires a lot of research, and fact checking that research to see how accurate it is. You see a lot of misinformation out there. You got to do the investigative work. I’ve seen it even in books. You read one book and it states one fact. Another book says something completely different on that same subject. How do you incorporate this sometimes contradicting information into your own work?  For me, when I am writing an article with historical background I want to make sure I get the facts correct and check as many resources as possible. I hope all writers do this.  

Film criticism today runs rampant. You’ve heard the term everyone’s a critic and today that’s true more than ever before. Film criticism came into its own in the 1960’s with people like Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris and others. They took film seriously as an art form. They analyzed it and told you why it was a good film or not. Film criticism became legit, on the same level, with other arts. Today with the internet, the “everyone’s a critic” thing has become a reality and most of the time it’s things like “this film sucks” or “it’s awesome!” Maybe not in those words but what is said is no deeper than that. You see it all the time on IMDB or Letterboxd. To be a serious film critic or film historian one must have a good knowledge of the subject. One should read and study the reviews of critics like Kael, Ebert, Sarris and others. You can learn what to look for just by reading their work. Studying the technical aspects of filmmaking is important: editing, photography, lighting, etc. Film historians do their research, film critics need to do the same. You can’t just write about what you like saying how awesome it is. There’s got to be more.

JTL:  I was very intrigued with your taking a handful of topics - war, racism, etc., that are timeless and can be used on an equal footing to compare classic films with newer films.  It's a great template and I think could be used to introduce younger people to classic films more successfully than just saying, "Here's an old movie I love.  You should watch it too."  By comparing older and newer films on the same subject, you've hit upon a very useful model.  I'd love to hear more about your views on that.  You have one foot in the world of the newer or modern films, and I do not, so that is a great advantage and I admire that.

JG:  Thank you. When I first began to think about this book it was going in a completely different direction. Then, like I mention in my introduction, a few years back, I was writing a column for a now defunct pop culture on-line magazine. One of the publishers saw my blog, liked it, and asked if I would be interested in writing a column on classic films. His only caveat was I had to relate the films I wrote about to our world today in hopes of connecting with its target audience, today's youth market.  After thinking about I realized how life repeats itself and there were plenty of old films where we can learn modern day lessons. One of the first films I wrote about was Ace in the Hole. At the time, there were a couple of scandals going on about news reporters falsifying or creating stories presented as facts. It was perfect. The more I looked into this the more I found how so many classic films still talk to us today. You just have to listen. The absurdity of war is brought to the front in both Duck Soup and M*A*S*H.  More recently, a powerful film like “Spotlight” shows you investigative journalism at its best. Just like it did in All the President’s Men. These two films can be compared to more devious newspaper films like Blessed Event and Five Star Final which shows journalism in a much darker light. All art is timeless. People just have to be open to it. I recently watched Brian DePalma's Casualties of War and came away from it seeing it as not just another war film about Vietnam, but as a morality tale and the cost of war on the human spirit. Every soldier comes home from war damaged.  It's a price we are still paying for today.

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John Greco’s Lessons in the Dark is available in eBook from Amazon.  My thanks to John for allowing me to review his book here in exchange for a reviewer’s copy.  You can read his blog Twenty-Four Frames here.

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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.

A salute to two classic film bloggers

I'd like to shine the spotlight today on two fellow classic film bloggers and their splendid achievements: Raquel Stecher, and John Greco.

Raquel pens the Out of the Past blog, which is celebrating a ten-year anniversary. Have a look at her anniversary post here.  I've been a regular reader of her blog for many years, and probably among my favorite posts are about her annual participation in the TCM Classic Film Fest.  Her exploration of classic movies has brought her on a wonderful journey, which she shares with us with eloquence and enthusiasm.

John Greco, who writes the Twenty Four Frames blog likewise shares his passion and knowledge on classic film in very entertaining and informative posts, but John also has other talents: he is a professional photographer (you can peruse and purchase some of his work here at Fine Art America), and also a writer.

John's latest eBook is a collection of short stories called Devious Tales.  With a decidedly noir streak and some very surprising endings, this book of dark tales will intrigue and fascinate fans of mysteries.

Classic film bloggers seem to enjoy a wide range of interests and excel at many talents, and my admiration for Raquel and John is not only for their blogs, but that their blogs have led to other adventures.  Well done!

John Greco's THE LATE SHOW

Hat's off to fellow classic film blogger John Greco of Twenty-Four Frames for publishing his newest collection of short stories.  The Late Show - And Other Tales of Celluloid Malice offers readers a shadowy world where eight tales of crime and horror share a tantalizing link -- there is in each of them a hint, or taste, or even an obsession with movies.

Some of the stories have an ironic, Hitchcockian sense of humor to them, some have a surprise ending, and all are geared to fans of crime fiction who also have a familiarity with the pop culture world of film, especially classic film.

Here's a preview of coming attractions (or what we in the book biz call a blurb):

Eight dark short stories all with two things in common - Movies and Malice! Murder, revenge, greed and more are now playing. In the title story, Margaret Allen's husband is addicted to movies and she cannot take it anymore. Frankie Bosco's on the run after killing two people. With the cops chasing him he ducks into a movie theater showing two James Cagney films. Plus six more stories that may make you change your movie habits.

Congratulations to John on this new short story collection!  The book is on sale here at Amazon in either eBook or paperback.  

For more information, have a look here at John's website.  

He is also a talented photographer whose work can be viewed and purchased on this site.

Naive Idealism -- Part 11 of the State of the Classic Film Fan

It’s the idealism.  It’s the idealism (sometimes dismissed as propaganda, sometimes spurned as naiveté) that is most powerful about classic films and cannot be duplicated today.

We are in a more cynical age, where we mistrust idealism.  We also resent even the merest suggestion that a film might be preaching to us.  We don’t mind being preached to by hypocritical politicians, by hypocritical television advertisers who think they are telling us what we want to know or confirming our worse fears to induce us to buy their products, and by actual preachers whose personal wealth puts them in the camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle category.

But if a movie tries to make us rally around a simple concept of decency, honor, and patriotism – by suggesting that we are all decent, honorable, and patriotic – the modern audience that does not like classic films hoots in derision (or worse).

“One might suspect their morality,” says the haughty Nazi officer of the compromised crowd of partygoers at the German embassy in Watch on the Rhine (1943).

I love that movie, loved it since I was a teenager, and marveled at its message of idealism in action.  “So the time has come,” Paul Lukas, the professional antifascist says, “This time it is of the utmost importance.”

So it is.  We finally vote this coming Tuesday.  This nation has not been in such crisis in decades, or in such danger since 9/11.  Some weeks ago, we discussed several movies in a series about fascism as represented in classic films: The Mortal Storm (1940),  Address Unknown (1944),  Storm Warning (1951),  Keeper of the Flame (1942), and Seven Days in May (1964).

Eight years ago, I wrote another pre-election day post, a two-part series on Gentleman’s Agreement (1949), part 1 here and part 2 here.  In this passage from that series, I remarked on the surprising nastiness of the 2008 campaign year:

How interesting that today much of the former open vehemence of prejudice has shifted from the now socially unacceptable derision against race or religion to the more socially acceptable ridicule of political affiliation.

“Conservative” and “liberal” are used today like dirty words, accusing labels, where the opposing political party, or politician, or even individual voter, is vilified with a degree of condescension, arrogance, and meanness that would appall most of us were it applied against a person’s race or religion.  It is no longer enough to simply disagree.  We must condemn. 

How naïve those words sound today, like those old movies that espoused idealism.  Our level of political and social discourse has sunk far lower; open bigotry is accepted by society and unquestioned in the media.  I could not imagine then that the fascists who reviled, taunted, and condemned Barack Obama for his paternal African American heritage would continue to do so for his entire two-term presidency, unchallenged by a media that reveled in any controversy fired by lies.  I certainly did not imagine that an evil, idiotic piece of filth like Donald Trump would ever become his party’s nominee for the highest political office in this country and the leader of the (formerly known as) free world. 

This is the 11^th part of our year-long monthly series on the state of the classic film fan.  In my first post in January, I specifically referred to Donald Trump, in affirming our American idealism as such that he could not possibly be elected president.  From that post in January:

Today, we address the juxtaposition of classic films on the turbulent world in which we live today.  Are they merely an escape from a louder, cruder world?  Or, do they provide us with mental and emotional sustenance to cope with our modern, angry society?  Probably both, but that depends on the classic film fan.

So we find ourselves, we classic film fans, at a crossroads.  Are our old movies a model, or an escape?  In my youth, they were a model; for I had nothing to escape from that I was aware.  Now, in middle age, I don’t know.  My earlier confidence that Trump was not a threat to the vigor of our democracy was clearly foolish.  I did not imagine that so large a number of people in this country could be so devoid of intelligence or integrity to support him; nor a media so lazy, greedy and corrupt that it failed its duties as the Fourth Estate; nor a Republican party so eager to roll over and play dead. 

Frank Capra’s Prelude to War, the first in his World War II Why We Fight series would, understandably, be labeled as propaganda today, but it was a powerful teaching tool that easily instructed a populace about to face the greatest evil of modern times on why it would have to risk death doing so.  The film quoted politicians, scripture, the words of Confucius, and from the Koran, and talked about Americans as a diverse society free and strong because of its diversity.  It just assumed its audience agreed.  Such “propaganda” dragged conservative isolationists to the table, and to the fascists among us – certain Jew-haters and industrialists – it made them shut up.

Their brand of wickedness was no longer fashionable. 

How did it get to be fashionable again, and make idealism passé?

I love the old movies that lead off with a paragraph scrolling before the first scene.  We don’t have that anymore; nobody likes wordiness, or the feeling that they are being preached to.  Watch on the Rhine begins with these words:

In the first week of April 1940 there were few men in the world who could have believed that in less than three months, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland and France would fall to the German invaders.

But there were some men, ordinary men, not prophets, who knew this mighty tragedy was on the way.  They had fought it from the beginning and they understood it.

We are most deeply in their debt…

Such unabashed idealism, so unashamedly taking sides against fascism, without reserve.  Of course, the movie, unlike the play on which it was based, was produced during wartime, so it took little courage to point out our enemies for what they were, though Warner Bros. had a better track record on that that the other studios.

Another movie, Meet John Doe (1941), which we covered here, was even more courageous for picking out a fascist villain that was purely American: a businessman who wanted to take political control for personal gain.  Sound familiar?  James Gleason, in a wonderful scene of slightly drunken disgust, implores the very naïve Gary Cooper to open those beautiful eyes of his and see what is painfully apparent:

“You’re mixed up with a skunk.  A no-good dangerous skunk…

I get mad for a lot of other guys besides myself.  I get mad for a guy named Washington, and a guy named Jefferson, and Lincoln.  Lighthouses, John, lighthouses in a foggy world…”

The fascist businessman is…

“…trying to worm his way into the White House, so he could put the screws in, so he could turn out the lights in those lighthouses…”

Leave it to Frank Capra to have the guts to risk calling the common folk a bunch of saps, and then raising them to herculean majesty when they see their error, and put the brakes on evil.  The little guys convince Gary Cooper to carry Barbara Stanwyck off the snowy rooftop and back to safety and a new fight, as James Gleason, cynical and yet idealistic, and thoroughly righteous member of the Fourth Estate taunts the businessman fascist,

“There ya are Norton, the people.  Try and lick that!”  And the movie ends with ringing of church bells and the triumphant swell of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

No, that sort of thing wouldn’t happen today in a movie.  We’re too smug. 

I wonder what the demographic is among political affiliations among classic film fans?  From what I have observed on blogs and social media, old movie buffs are a wonderfully diverse group, where both liberal and conservative voters are equally drawn to classic films and can unite in our appreciation of their artistry and value to our culture. 

“But I do not believe for a moment that he will be elected president.”

That was my comment in January.  I did not think that by November I would be so ashamed of my country for laughing at a vulgar joke, for allowing a faction of stupid bigots to forsake common sense and common decency in order to vent their vileness.

In my complaint that modern critics found Gentleman’s Agreement too preachy:

Casablanca is also dated and preachy, but its bad guys were the Nazis, so we don’t mind speeches against them.  In Gentleman’s Agreement, we are the bad guys, or we could be if we’re not careful.  That’s the difference.

Now I wonder if there isn’t a very large segment of our population—Trump supporters—that would, if they were shown Casablanca for the first time, cheer for the Nazis?

We’ll see on Tuesday.  As Paul Lukas, the professional antifascist, says in Watch on the Rhine when he fears the greedy George Coulouris will sell him to the Nazis for a price,

“We will wait, and we will see.”

If the outcome is bleak, will classic films continue to inspire courage and decency, or just serve as an escape from a society decomposing?

I suppose I am waiting naively, idealistically, for the happy ending, the ringing of bells, and the soaring strain of Beethoven's Ninth in the background.  But it will never come again.

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Past posts in this series here:

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.

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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.

The Automat in the Movies

It's 1934, the worst year of the Great Depression, and Joan Crawford goes to the Automat in Sadie McKee because she can't afford better.  She can't even afford the Automat, scraping just enough nickels for a cup of coffee.

But The Little King, who is rich, and a king, also goes to the Automat in 1934 in Sultan Pepper, just for a lark, for the fun of it.

The Horn and Hardart Automat of New York City seems to bear the dual reputation of being a place of stark frugality and also a place of playful ingenuity.  It was nothing if not egalitarian.

It's fun to see it pop up in classic films from time to time.  Jean Arthur, down on her luck as Joan Crawford was, visits the Automat in 1937 for Easy Living, but finds rich boy Ray Milland slumming there, not unlike The Little King.  She determinedly tries to eat in the middle of riotous food fight.

By 1950, in Mister 880, which we discussed in this previous post, Burt Lancaster and the feds are trying to track Edmund Gwenn down for counterfeiting, and the Automat here seems less stylish, and more utilitarian.  A place where counterfeiters might hang out.

By 1956 and The Catered Affair, a serious young couple played by Debbie Reynolds and Rod Taylor discuss marriage.  Again, the Automat seems even more dour in this setting than it did for poor Joan Crawford in the depths of the Depression.  Perhaps it was no longer novelty and just another cheap cafeteria?

In 1962 in That Touch of Mink, Doris Day has a conversation with Audrey Meadows through the open food service slot, and because Doris is unemployed, pal Audrey, who works there, slips her food.  Here the Automat is fun again, and we don't take the hunger pangs seriously. 

For more on the Automat have a look at this brief documentary on YouTube.  Someone also put up a series of movie automat scenes, starting here.  Apparently one of the first, if not the first, was The Early Bird (1925).  The Automat had been around since 1912.  It closed in 1991.

Come back next Thursday for part six of our year-long monthly series on the classic film fan, and we'll have a look at John Greco's new book, Lessons in the Dark, a collection of essays from his blog Twenty-Four Frames.

COUNTDOWN TO LAUNCH - 6 DAYS TO GO - SWELL GUY 1946 DVD

Welcome to the countdown to launch, 6 days to go, when my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is published next Thursday, June 18th.

The eBook is now up for pre-order on Amazon here. 

The paperback will be available on 18th from Amazon, CreateSpace, and directly from me.  If you'd like a signed copy, just email me at JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com and I'll get back to you with the details.


Every day until the 18th, I'm going to give away a small piece of memorabilia I've gathered on this journey: photos, magazines, an audio CD of old time radio, a DVD of a film, of a television appearance, a few original lobby cards from Ann's films.  So stop by frequently and see what's happening.  I'll let you know day by day what the prize is, and I'll just pick the winners from a hat. 

Since a number of bloggers have kindly offered to review the book, I'll link to their blogs throughout the month, before and after the 18th, whenever they decide to post.  Other bloggers will be posting their interviews with me.  If you care to get involved, please send me an email at: JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com.

My thanks to John Greco for his interview with me at his swell blog, Twenty Four Frames.


You can read (or listen to) interviews with me and reviews of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. at these sites:

Twenty Four Frames
Old Hollywood Films
The Junot Files (YouTube)
Java's Journey
Wide Screen World
Vienna's Classic Hollywood
Silver Screenings

If you want put to your name in for the daily raffle of stuff, please, also, send me an email.  Don't just leave a comment in the comments box because I need some way to contact you if you've won.  Your email will never be published, I will NOT be putting it on my newsletter list, it will not be used for anything except contacting you tell you if you've won, and to ask where to send the stuff. 

Today's prize is a genuine home-made DVD of a not-the-greatest-quality-but-the-best-I-could-get of the rarely-seen film, Swell Guy (1946), a sinister post-war drama which we discussed here, and Ann's first movie after Mildred Pierce.

So, that's what's on the block for today.  If this suits your fancy, send me an email to JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com and just say something like "Give me the DVD."

Until June 18th, if you want to enter this daily contest more than once, even if you've already won a prize, go ahead.  I don't care.  I'm going to wait until the end of it to send out these items to the winners, in case some of you do win more than once, and it'll save me several trips to the post office if I do it one time at the end. 

Also, if you happen live outside of the United States, that's okay.  I will mail to our friends and neighbors around the globe.

That's it for today.  I'll see you tomorrow with more stuff.

Coming June 18th - Amazon.com, CreateSpace, and directly from the author: Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star., the first book written on the career of Ann Blyth.

Gathering of the Clan - at Classic Film Festivals - Classic Film Fans series Part 5

 What do you get when you gather thousands of classic film fans together?

Go ahead.  Think about a punch line.  Because I don’t have one.

This is our fifth post in our monthly series this year on the current state of the classic film fan.  Today we examine the gathering of the clan—at classic film festivals.  Such events are scattered throughout the year—climate and weather are irrelevant inside a movie theater—but just in the past three weeks three of the most popular have been held: The 18^th Annual Noir City Festival in Hollywood, the 2^nd Nitrate Film Fest in Rochester, New York, and the 6^th annual Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in Hollywood.

Hollywood, we may surmise, is not a bad place at all to hold a classic film festival.

Some festivals, like the Noir City, focus on a particular genre.  Some, like the Nitrate Film Fest at the Dryden Theater, Eastman Center, billed as The Nitrate Picture Show, the world’s first festival of film conservation, are geared more to the hardcore fan and film historian, those with a keen appreciation of “film” as opposed to digital movies.

The TCM Film Fest is a phenomenon of the modern—or we could even say younger—classic film fan’s expression of his fandom, with all the buttons and swag.  It seems, foremost, an emotional experience.

I have never been to the TCM festival, but perhaps as an outsider I can offer a few unemotional and objective observations.  I say that it is a younger festival not because there aren’t any Boomers in attendance—there most certainly are an army of them, but because I suspect that most of the some 26,000 projected attendees this year (TCM figures) are people without family constraints that prevent travel, and with disposal income to travel, and who specifically are geared to going to an “event” and being part of a event that is such a focus of social media.  I would love to know the demographics. 

The TCM fest is gloriously reported in social media, with in-depth reports by classic film bloggers (here’s a few by Raquel Stecher of Out of the Past, Kate Gabriele of Silents and Talkies, and look for an always thorough and articulate recap by Laura of Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, as well as her look at the Noir City Festival.  Laura goes to film festivals like some people go to Wal-Mart.).  Facebook, Twitter give us in-the-moment posts on what’s going on at the fest, and I love to read them.  I suspect there are a lot of us armchair fans.

Looking forward to when Theresa Brown gets back to her Couch and does some blogging on her impressions of the festival this year.

I get a kick out of Kate Gabrielle’s statement on one blog post of the rigors of attending:

I feel like TCMFF is actually kind of like practice for the apocalypse. Everyone around me could survive anything, making do without food or water for days while they plot out a plan to get movie projectors to work in a world without electricity.

Stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age, such as the wonderful Dame Angela Lansbury this year, are a major draw for fans.  One wonders, though, as there are fewer past stars to attend in future years, and with the increasing introduction of films that are from the post-classic era, how will the TCM Film Fest hold up in the future, and will its attendee demographics change as it becomes not so much a Classic Film Festival but a Film Festival?

TCM, always mining new opportunities and tweaking its brand, is slated to introduce TCM Backlot, an official fan club. Membership is $87 per year. There will be events across the country and exclusive content for subscribers. I’m interested to hear from classic film bloggers who join the club their impressions on the benefits and value of this membership.

Fan clubs have long been a part of Old Hollywood, a way for fans back in the day to connect with their favorite stars, and a way for the studios to promote the stars in their stable.  Today, merchandizing is obviously going to be part of the mix, but it’s a delicate balance to offer your members (customers—stores and theme parks may call us “guests” but we know we’re customers) something of value beyond just buying more junk on the credit card. 

An experience they are unable to get anywhere else is the genius of the TCM Film Fest, that emotional gathering of the clan, of like-minded people who share their passion for classic film in an environment that is fun, supportive, and obviously thrilling.  Most interesting is that this community appears to be wonderfully diverse: mixed in gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, and in the movie preferences of classic film fans.  Sci-fi fans may not enjoy musicals, and not everyone goes big for noir, but they can still meet in a jubilant carnival and form lasting friendships.

What would Sam Goldwyn, L.B. Mayer, and Jack Warner think of that?

Go ahead, think of a punch line.  I don’t have one. 

I would like to thank all classic movie bloggers who attend and shared their experience.  It’s fun to see the festivities through their eyes. 

Next month, in the sixth part of this series, we’re going to visit the work of another classic film blogger, John Greco and review his latest book, Lessons in the Dark.

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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.