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According to a couple of in-the-know sources, a likely aspect of this "refresh" is shifting TCM's studio production from Atlanta to the Warner Bros. studios in Los Angeles. This would cut down on production costs considerably, with no need for flights and easier access to Hollywood-based talent and film history resources. Considering that all five permanent TCM hosts now live on the west coast (Ben, Jacqueline, Dave and Alicia in Los Angeles, Eddie in San Francisco) this would make a lot of sense logistically. The network has previously used a studio in NYC for Robert Osborne beginning in 2011 so he no longer had to commute to Atlanta in his last 4-5 years with the channel, so such a move is not without precedent.

come see the ALL NEW Turner Classic Movies. Proactive. Innovative. Intuitive. The future is here. The future is now. Let's movie...

I want to see them convert the set to the interior of Barbara Stanwyck's house in "Double Indemnity" and all the hosts have to come down that staircase wearing nothing but a towel and an ankle bracelet.

Radio Days--Uncle Abe brings bags of them home, much to his wife's dismay James Stewart has a fridge full in Anatomy of a Murder In Riffraff, Spencer Tracy catches them and Jean Harlow can's them and, of course, the password in Horse Feathers is....swordfish

The incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) To Have and To Have Not (1944) The Perfect Storm (2000)

I agree, lol, that movie has one of my favorite endings when he tells her to get out.

Sounds like much ado about nothing, rearranging the deck chairs on the Queen Mary. But please keep the Let's Movie slogan, one of the most inspiring, clever, and witty catchphrases around.

Wow, I'm completely unfamiliar with HELLO DOWN THERE. Wish they would have included NO DOWN PAYMENT as part of his line-up today. Tony is excellent as an alcoholic suburban car salesman. He was a very fine dramatic actor.

Change is a fact. Whether it's an improvement or not is subjective and no one can make their own individual assessment on that until September 1 rolls around. People will either like it and embrace it, dislike it and tolerate/get used to it, or dislike it and drop TCM. And opinions both pro and con will be expressed here and on other more visible social media outlets, but it probably won't change a thing we see on the network, but it might make people feel better to get their opinions stated. My bet is that it's mostly a cosmetic change with perhaps some new programming concepts thrown in down the line, or old ones resurrected. These have come and gone over the years, so that's nothing new.

I want to see them convert their set into the interior of the house from Ray Milland's The Uninvited. No pun intended, it's just a cool house.

As part of SUTS with the wonderful Tony Randall, they substituted THE BRASS BOTTLE for FLUFFY. I will bet that many were disappointed, since FLUFFY is probably Randall's least-known and seen movie. I was looking forward to my first viewing. Nothing with Tony can ever be considered bad but, and my apologies to Jeff Bailey, THE BRASS BOTTLE comes the closest.

"An Affair To Remember". Why do all of those people on the cruise care so much about what two strangers do? Is this just what the 50s were about? If I'm on a cruise I'm only interested in what I want to do. And if nobody shows up on the specified date - just do nothing? Don't look for them and find out what happened? But I guess they need this silly plot point for the rest of the movie to happen. I also think that the dialogue was over the top too. Just not my movie.

The Quiet Man (1952) Ward Bond trying to fishing The Godfather (1972) sleeping with the fishes Cannery Row (1998) Tortilla Flat (1942) more fish canning with Steinbeck

A River Runs Through It Libeled Lady Splash The Little Mermaid

Did you save a photo of yourself as I did?

two thousand one hundred seventy-sixth category Something fishy is going on THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA (1958) FLIPPER (1963) MAN’S FAVORITE SPORT? (1964)

A quick DVD spin, now that our Blockbuster-shelf public library is open-with-masks again: - Alice's Restaurant (1969) - [Abandoned] Rented this one just because I didn't know the song, and much as I liked a slightly older ex-60's Arlo Guthrie in the late 70's on the Muppet Show, the young folksinger-activist's first attempt at vanity movie gets pretty insufferable fast. The late 60's had just discovered Angry Satire, ie., too angry to be funny, and for the first half hour, we get a narcissistically unbroken parade of We're-Right-and-They're-Wrong depictions of the Draft board, Middle America, mom-and-dad, religion, commerce, etc., before his counter-culture friends buy out an old retired church to create their new Commune pad, just in time for the Vietnam draft to interrupt, and...Eh, forget it, these people are despicably indulgent parasites, and Easy Rider had better songs. - The Sugarland Express (1974) - 👍 Always wanted to complete my stubborn-retentive Steven Spielberg completism collection by tracking this one down, as even showoff experts who talk about his "emerging style" in Duel never seem to mention his first feature before Jaws. Clearly he'd just gotten the job on the grounds of being able to film long desert car chases after Duel, but for being the "least" Spielbergian movie--if we're not counting 1941 or The BFG--there's still some occasional hints of his signature visual irony, eg. long slow crane-lifts over a scene of destruction, that lets us see the lighter side of the scenes. Goldie Hawn gets a good role (that nobody noticed her acting until Private Benjamin six years later) as a colorfully red-state mom who breaks her husband out of jail, and leads a Blues Brothers-sized fleet of Texas highway patrol on a cross-state chase to get her baby back from foster care. I was going to say "Imagine Raising Arizona played straight", with Hawn in the Holly Hunter role, but Spielberg's light touch, and an equally early script by fellow wunderkinds Hal Barwood & Matthew Robbins (that we didn't notice until Dragonslayer, seven years later), manage to keep a cuddly sympathy with the characters, without delving into the middle-America freak show that the Coens wouldn't have been able to resist. In fact, it becomes more a sort of Midnight Run, with Michael Sacks as their sporting young rookie-trooper hostage who tries to cajole sense into the amateur fugitives, in the Charles Grodin role. - Charley Chase collection - 👍 I always saw Chase shorts turn up on those public-domain collections of "silent comedy" that local stations used to show on TV, but never could attach the name to, and it was only Leonard Maltin's recommendation of his humor on the cover that made me give the disk a try. So who the heck was he and is he funny? B ), yes 😅 , and A) a handsome gent who's trying for the same "Normal, occasionally mousy, average guy in embarrassing situations" territory as Harold Lloyd, which he's rather good at. Only problem is, as good as he was at complex gags, silent comedy needed larger than life clowns--it was easy to spot Lloyd by his big nerd-glasses, and could believe he'd end up hanging from a building--and Chase as a good-looking chap with a natty mustache doesn't...quite...cut it. Like the old comic saying, there's nothing funny about the man whose clothes fit perfectly. Chase later ended up taking his humor to talkies, where he was probably better at it (might look those up, if they're anywhere), and wrote for most of the Curly-era Three Stooges shorts under his real name of Charles Parrott, but here, even if the silent humor is droll, the sampling of shorts I managed to see--the standouts being Be Your Age, where Charley is blackmailed into wooing a 60-yo. widow, while her grown son (a pre-Laurel Oliver Hardy) objects, and Bromo & Juliet, where our hero has to perform in the local amateur dramatics, despite ending up drunk and chased by police--were twenty serviceable minutes of off-label Silent Comedy.

Ride the High Country Next: bathtub

Many sports movies have the hero team facing a sports rival, such as DAMN YANKEES (hint—their rival is the Yankees) Most movies with Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson portray them as romantic rivals with the leading lady, such as IT’S A GREAT FEELING titles— Rivals 1972 Rivals 1981 The Rivals 1963 ……and here’s a good one for our times: Quarantined Rivals 1927 You read my mind! This song from VIVA LAS VEGAS was my first thought:

A Most Wanted Man (2014) An espionage thriller based on John le Carre. It's been sometime but I remember finding Carre difficult to read. I have only recently started watching a movie or two and am finding them fascinating. It's seems to have so much I want in a movie, character driven, great dialogue, intriguing plot, and a much desired dearth of action sequences. I am not dead against 'action' but I don't like movies that are termed actioners. I recently watched the famous The Spy Who Came out of the Cold (also by le Carre) where the protagonist (played by Richard Burton) is vulnerable and ensconced in a situation representing that chronic palpable sense of danger of a spy in enemy territory. My interest was totally sustained and I admired the restraint required of seeing what might possibly be adapted for the stage, so much like a play it could be, and for my money there is nothing wrong with that. The dialogue (as opposed to extravagant sequences of relentless action befitting an adolescent) is enough when it is as good as this. AMWM is much like this. Briefly, a political refugee enters Germany. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his last movie, plays the head of a covert agency, something like the CIA but on a smaller scale, able to initiate activities that conventional law enforcement cannot due due to legal restraint. It is Hoffmann's shtick to corner such refugees and convert them if possible to informers leading to arrest of higher ups. As opposed to that, conventional law enforcement prefers to capture immediately for after all they say, "he may set off a bomb." The plot thickens. Hoffman is overweight and slovenly, smokes like a chimney, and looks as if he might die of a heart attack at any moment. This fits some of the rogue aspects of his character. He is totally convincing. The Rachal McAdams role could have been played by any number of actors and it's interesting they would choose such a gorgeous one to play it, on the other hand, it's probably not so bad to have something pretty to look at once in a while, so heavy is the story. The ever solid Willem Dafoe, who is very good with sinister roles, is more on the other side here and his talent is somewhat wasted but nevertheless plays it well enough. I hope this isn't a spoiler but it seems from the two films mentioned that the protagonist have something in common, [possible spoiler, don't look, watch the movie instead➡️ ...namely, they don't seem to have all the facts. Perhaps a vintage le Carre theme. I remember---and I give myself some cover by emphasizing that this was a long time ago (as if I'm smarter now; ha, that would be scanned)---being totally lost in the PBS production of Smiley's People with Sir Alec. I remember endless conversations that I found difficult to follow, maybe I would be more amenable to it, as that seems to be what I am touting here. I watched yesterday and erased this movie from the DVR and today I hastily booted up to see if I could recover it, recently deleted programs hang around for a short while for that. Alas, it is gone. Luckily, it's on again tomorrow on EPIX tomorrow at 9:24pm PST. I could watch this again, though so soon after. /// .

Apparently the last two pages’ worth of commenters haven’t seen TCM’s replies on Twitter saying they will continue showing Golden Age Hollywood films, won’t be adding commercials, and that people will be able to watch the channel as they currently do. I don’t think we’re looking at any drastic changes.

The first female heist film? not sure...aside from some painful dialogue from Jane Curtin, I like this one: How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980 )

l worked with Tony Randall a few times. I mentioned to him how much I liked 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, and that it wasn't shown that often. He was an erudite man and a great actor, with an appreciation for classical theater. He lived in the Beresford, up on 81st Street/Central Park West. The Beresford

This is more a legal question than an instrument question but I suspect it has to do with wanting to avoid giving free advertising to name brands who are not paying for placement. You tube may have blacked it out. I know Hoyt Axton's guitar had the tape on the headstock in his WKRP episode. The Everlys had their own J200 model so they were already paid endorsers. Edit: The Gibson Everly Brothers model came out in '62, so this photo would be before they were signature artists. But tv shows do seem very careful about logos. Even when you see a car featured prominently you also see an end credit usually saying "automobiles provided by" whatever motor company. Watch the Partridge Family and you will see early Ovations all over the place. I can't recall if they took a credit but they provided the instruments. Edit 2: Then with Gibson's reputation for lawsuits, people may want to avoid hearing from their legal department about some infringement and cover the logo out of caution

In My Humble Opinion... Never ceases to amaze me that whenever TCM comes out with any type of news regarding potential changes to either it's message boards, website or actual potential programming decisions, posters come out of the woodwork to discuss ad infinitum the impending demise of the channel or gloom and doom. Meaning... surprise, dismay, or exasperation. Get a grip folks...

Nanook of the North (1922) The Little Mermaid (1989) Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)

Moby Dick 1956 The Shoes of the Fisherman 1968 Jaws 1975 Orca 1977

2008 and I’ve also seen …. Night and Day (2008) Sang-soo Hong, South Korea A young man has left his wife in South Korea to flee to Paris from the police. The set up may sound interesting but the film is not. It could easily have had an hour cut from its running time. The protagonist is dull and he is more interested in cheating on his wife with another Korean ex-pats than doing anything else.

The Boys in the Band, 1970

HOOSIERS (1986)

That's a shame, because she really was a talented lady, very much underappreciated in today's age of modern viewing.

Interesting discussion. And no, not everyone spends all their time on Twitter. And it's not an "age thing," it's just an effort by many people to avoid a deluge of spurious content being pushed to them every day. So, moving the sets to Warner's make sense, of course. I can live with that. I have long disliked the "main set" that Ben is shot on. It's such a mish-mash of styles. So a new set, or a set that can accommodate multiple hosts, would be fine. What I wouldn't like is any effort to eliminate the hosts. I realize that "hosted movies" is a real anachronism in TV/cable these days. It was once very common on local TV and on cable, but long ago that was ended, for various reasons; one of which was cost. The hosts on TCM are now unique and they help bond TCMs viewers to the network. Would we watch anyone? Sure. But they are, to my mind, a critical part of TCM's brand. Also, TCM relies on the film festival as a money maker and you can't do something like that without hosts who draw people. And indeed a move to LA/Burbank would allow the network to bring in more current day stars/directors/producers for interviews. I've long thought this is a huge missing element in their on-air product. In the same way that Robert used to interview golden age stars, TCM needs to get many of the 50-70s era people to sit down for interviews. Many of them were influenced by golden age styles and mentors and there is a deep well of talent there that needs to be plumbed before it's too late! Another missing element is historical stuff, both around LA/Hollywood as well as around the country. I know this is a cost issue, but vignettes that celebrate where people were born and raised, or where famous films were shot, are fascinating to me. They ran those 4-5 pieces (like the Forest Lawn and Formosa ones) to death. Time to get back up on that horse! Graphically I'd be fine with changes. However, I will miss many of the old elements that made TCM unique, including the fun iconography of guys with fedoras and such. The over reliance on motion graphics and the lack of live action is something I personally don't like. It has sanitized the look too much, IMHO. So, we wait and see, I guess. Here's hoping that TCM is still TCM...

Nina Foch

Watched 7 FACES OF DR. LAO.....I actually quite like it. Tony Randall turns in a dignified turn as the Oriental Dr. Lao, who dispenses wisdom along with a bit of magic to a skeptical and disillusioned bunch of townspeople, easy pickings for a scoundrel for a guy like Stark (Arthur O'Connell plays him to perfection). Yet even Stark doesn't remain unaffected by Lao's presence. Some of the wisdom dished out can be painful....like Lao's insisting to Mrs. Cassin she will never marry, never have children, will live and die as if she had never even existed. She learns nothing from this and continues to see things how she perceives them, not how they really are. I have no doubt his prediction about her uninvolving future will come true. Interesting to see Barbara Eden in an early role, a far cry from blonde Jeannie. Still I think she and Ed would make a cute couple, if she only gives it a chance. It was quite interesting to see her 'seduction' by the God of Joy. Helped to loosen her up. The special effects may seem dated but I enjoy them for what they were at the time. I especially like that snake-like creature who somewhat resembled Stark. Also the nagging wife who gets turn into stone by Medusa. Dr. Lao restores the dignity of many folks in that town, his presence having a profound effect around everyone (except those two fools of Stark's who let loose the sea loch). Anyway I give it a 8/10. It's always nice to discover a cinematic gem now and then.

Saturday, August 28 Lee Marvin SUTS 10 p.m. The Professionals (1966). This is one of my favourite westerns.

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)

Topper (1937) The Young in Heart (1938) Topper Takes a Trip (1938) Next: Spencer Tracy & Hedy Lamarr

A Note. Back in the 1990s I wrote to Lillian Gish she lived in New York. She sent me a lovely little note back and a little book about her sister, Dorothy. A lovely lady and very kind.

Morning Glory (1933)

If I Was To Choose my favourite Randall Feature it would be 7 Faces of Dr Lao. Easily. With that said ive always liked all his work. Happy Birthday Barbara Eden.

Words To Live By From The Five Little Peppers: "If you don't say pass and please, you don't get syrup." - Phronsie Pepper in Five Little Peppers At Home

Albert Finney Next: Played Miss Marple

They need to hold on to (and attract new, if possible) subscribers that are willing to pay whatever their TV provider charges to offer TCM to their customers. They don't really care how many are actually watching at any given moment (from a money perspective) as they get your money when you pay your TV bill every month, whether you watch it or not. Only ad-supported networks care about actual viewership numbers, because that sets their ad rates, which directly impacts the bottom line. According to the LA Times article below, they had 68 million subscribers at the end of 2020, accounting for $286M in revenue. They lost 5M subscribers from 2019 to 2020. And that concerns a lot of people. It's not just cord-cutters, or cord-changers (switching from "cable/satellite" to internet-based streaming), but also the cable (mostly) providers that moved TCM to more expensive tiers, and people not ponying up the extra cash to get TCM and whatever else the TV provider put on that tier. Those numbers work out to the cable/satellite/streaming TV providers paying an average of $4.20 per year per subscriber to carry TCM, in 2020, which amounts to 35 cents per month per subscriber. Compare that to ESPN's estimated charges to cable providers of over $7/month per subscriber. ($9/month if you get all the various ESPN channels). Those rights fees ESPN pays for live sports are pricey. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-06-22/tcm-fights-to-keep-classic-film-alive-on-tv-in-a-streaming-world TCM's goal is to make their content compelling enough to get people to pay for the subscription - no different than HBO, Showtime, etc. or the various streaming services. If they went to a full streaming delivery model and dropped their linear cable channel, they'd need 4.8M subscribers to their streaming service at $5/month to equal what they got in 2020 (if the article is accurate) from various TV providers. I'm pretty sure their accountants and controllers look at this on a continual basis! We already know TCM has stated in their Twitter feed that they aren't changing anything related to their delivery model on 1 September. But it's something that will probably happen eventually. TV in 2030 will likely look a lot different.

I'm sure Eddie Muller can tell us how it's really a noir.

They would have gotten away with more if it weren't for those meddling kids.

Cure (1997) Japan/Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa - A troubled police detective (Koji Yakusho) investigates a series of gruesome murders, each committed by seemingly normal, non-violent person. Things are further complicated when a strange amnesiac (Masato Hagiwara) arrives on the scene. This is a generally well thought of thriller, but I found it a tad disappointing, more than a little dull and drawn out. The acting is good, and there is some unsettling atmosphere, but it all added up to not much. (6/10)

Oh, my. Where do I begin? Sounds reminiscent of what local TV station news directors do when they arrive upon the scene. Change the logo, change the set, change the graphics. While the sets have been pretty awful for YEARS and I would totally celebrate the demise of the idiotic "Let's Movie" slogan, I would/will really miss the "classic graphics" -- the only thing left from the early days of TCM when they hired a series of incredibly creative designers to come up with truly amazing, evocative graphics -- the way I really miss the old website. Yes, let's make TCM (if it even continues as TCM) look like any other network and toss all remnants of the old regime. If they lose the name Turner (which I think is a good guess) from the name of the channel, that's really too bad. Say what you will, Ted Turner was the chief architect of all that we loved about TCM in the early days. Systematically, over the years, all of the special things about TCM -- the graphics, the website, the "celebration" of special programming like SUTS have been eliminated to put more $$ in the hands of owners and investors. For example -- the newsletter now is nothing more than a series of links to existing info on the website (no calendars with themes of the day, etc.) so what is the point of even sending it out? I used to look forward to getting it online -- now it's a joke. Gone (seemingly forever) are: Special programs about classic stars (remember the 60 minute programs on Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Barbara Stanwyck, etc, etc.) , New material/star interviews to go between movies (now all we see are snippets of interviews which have played a thousand times before OR endless commercials for stuff they are trying to sell ) Actual TIMES next to upcoming films, Voice-Overs about upcoming films, Special promos and/or graphics for SUTS, 31 Days, SOTM (remember when Stars of the Month had promos done specifically about them??) and the list goes on and on.

Hopefully they're just updating their sets, which wouldn't be a bad thing. Maybe some new graphics too. An end to the incessant Bonfire podcast promos would certainly be an improvement, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

From August 25-27, 1921, the Poli ran The Ghosts of Yesterday, starring Norma Talmadge in the double role of Ruth Graham and Jeanne, and Eugene O’Brien as Howard Marston. The film was released in January of 1918, at six reels. The Library of Congress holds the first four reels, and fragments of the others. Although the film did play in Bridgeport during its initial release in 1918, it did not play at the Poli. Plot: Ruth Graham, a young seamstress, is in poor health but works to support her father and herself. Howard Marston, a wastrel, has decided to commit suicide. Ruth finds him in the park just as he is about to shoot himself. She convinces him not to commit the act, then takes her to her home. The two eventually marry. Ruth’s father dies, and her health becomes worse. Howard cannot make enough money to send her to a warmer climate. Ruth dies from exhaustion sitting for a portrait Howard is trying to complete. Despondent, Howard goes to Paris to forget his loss. There he meets Jeanne, a cabaret entertainer, who is Ruth’s double. He asks her to sit for his unfinished portrait of Ruth, and she accepts. Jeanne tries to be like Ruth, even though she is her polar opposite. But Howard keeps his distance. Count Pascal, Jeanne’s former suitor, persuades her to return to her old life, and she leaves Howard. Howard pursues her, and finds her in Pascal’s room. A fight ensues, and Howard’s eyes are seriously injured. Jeanne nurses him and they learn to love each other. Now blind, Howard is able to see the beauty in Jeanne and the two find happiness. Unfortunately, I could not find any contemporaneous reviews in the trade journals. For a cabaret scene set in Paris, some two hundred extras, along with five hundred pounds of confetti. Talmadge emerges from an eight-foot champagne bottle, against a backdrop of American Beauty roses. The entire cast and chorus from the Palais Royale (a New York City cabaret) also appear in the scene. The other acts on the bill were certainly diverse, to say the least. Frederick Burton appeared as Abraham Lincoln in the play “A Man of the People,” written by Thomas Dixon (author of “The Clansman”). Dixon even appeared during one of the performances. Kokin and Galetti performed a routine with two monkeys in a barber shop. On a tragic note, the Pathe news showed pictures of the American victims who had been killed in the crash of the British dirigible ZR-2 on August 24, 1921. The airship had been rocked by two explosions, and had fallen into the Humber River in England. Among the 50 men on board were 21 American sailors. There were six survivors, including at least one American. Lieutenant A. H. Mann, of the British Air Service, also survived the crash, and was credited with averting a greater disaster. When the ship began to buckle, he turned it towards the river and away from the city of Hull. Reports suggest that a broken longitudinal girder, which then pierced a fuel tank, was the likely cause of the disaster.