lzcutter

>Is it fun to go to the festival when you don't know anyone? I'm pretty outgoing but not good about approaching people I don't know. Is it a welcoming, fun place to go if you're by yourself? I'd sure like to find a community of film lovers who I can talk to movies about. How much fun would that be?? Terry, In a word, *YES*. Attending the TCM Film Festival is an absolute dream come true for a film buff. Twelve or more hours a day, five movie screenings projecting classic films for almost four full days. The chance to hear the likes of Kevin Browlow, Peter O'Toole, Kirk Douglas, Leslie Caron, Walter Mirisch and others talk about their careers. The chance to see silent films like *The Cameraman*, *The Merry Widow* and *Metropolis* with live accompaniment. But, most of all, the chance to do all that surrounded by other film buffs who love films as much as you do. You meet them in the restaurants, in Club TCM, while standing in line, while standing at the traffic light waiting to cross Hollywood Blvd to get to the Chinese or the Egyptian, while walking to the theaters or waiting to get your morning coffee or at the concession stand getting your evening dinner of popcorn and coke (the JackBurley diet). You can strike up conversations with them and they will strike up conversations with you. It is like no other film festival in that everyone is there because they love classic films and they love TCM. Be sure to check out the Recap threads for 2010 and 2011 as well as SueSue's Travel Blog, all located in this forum to get an idea of how exciting attending the Festival can be. And start saving your nickels and dimes because once you go, you will be beyond glad you did.

Flashback, According to the WebAdmin, she has made the tech team aware of both problems and they are working on it! Here's hoping....

Rich, I CAN'T Wait!!!! What a mind-boggling poster. The ad text and imagery are kind of eye brow raising considering.... I'm sure the movie will be equally weird.

>Has anyone ever seen the 1945 Brewster's Millions with Dennis O'Keefe on TCM? have watched and waited for this movie to be shown and as far as I know TCM has never shown it Joe, The last time it was on TCM about a year, year and half ago so it has been on the channel before. As for the "Suggest a Movie" site, we are told by the WebAdmins that the site is being retooled and should be back up and running by the end of the month. Here's hoping.....

> Twenty years from now, will TCM do what AMC did and abandon traditional classic films altogether from their programming? Squaredancer, Thanks for the kind words regarding my previous post. Unfortunately, I can't help you with your handle but if you posted about it in the tech forum, the WebAdmin will see it and perhaps they can help you. As for TCM following AMC's footsteps, that topic comes up all the time here and the short answer is that 17 years after debuting TCM owns the classic film market and they know it. They are very proud of the fact that they have been awarded the prestigious Peabody award for being one of the few cable channels NOT to change from their original intent. There are plenty of threads in the message board archives that might be worth looking at as the discussion does tend to devolve into reading tea leaves and worse as the debate goes on. For what it's worth, many of the staff that work at the channel have been there for many, many years and they have said here on these boards and in public appearances that TCM (and Time Warner, their parent company) are not interested in following in AMC's footsteps. They are now the top of the pyramid in the classic film market. Why change the format and have to start over at the bottom of the barrel of modern movie channels and have to battle everyone from AMC to Starz to Encore to HBO and Showtime for supremacy when they can remain the king of the market they care most about?

King, The best thing to do when creating the voting thread is: 1) Enter each entry as a separate post. Because there have been upgrades since the last Challenge, it would definitely be worth checking with filmlover about the size of a post. In the old days, a schedule and the accompaning notes could be combined into one post but it's definitely worth checking with Filmlover to see if the software can handle the load these days, so to speak. 2) Be sure there are no emoticons in the entries or in the notes. Because of the size of the the posts, emoticons will wreck havoc with people trying to open the thread. Hope that helps!

Chief, Is it *Song of Love* ?

> I am totally perplexed why the network has not done a single month's tribute to one of my favorite actresses, Betty Grable. They've done tributes to every actress I can think of, some multiple times. Not once to Grable or another favorite Alice Faye, in all the year's I'm watching. Wish someone could explain that. The problem is that Betty Grable and Alice Faye did the majority of their work as actresses for 20th-Century Fox. TCM has to rent the films it shows from the various film studios and distributors. When TCM debuted in 1994, they had access to the MGM film library (pre-1986 MGM films, the RKO film library and pre-1948 Warners film library) and that made up the bulk of the programming. When Ted Turner merged his media empire with Time-Warner in the mid-1990s, TCM lost control of that film library as it became the property of Time-Warner and came under the care of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment. TCM began building relationships with other studios and distributors to broaden the base and scope of the movies they show. Building those relationships took a long time but as TCM started becoming viewed by the public and media as the home of classic films, the studios earnestly started taking notice. Where once they were reluctant or even down right stingy with leasing their films to TCM, over the last five to six years they have certainly gotten much better about. Today, TCM is able to show films from a number of American film studio libraries and international film libraries as well. Which brings us to 20th-Century Fox. Fox is one of the very few studios that never lost control of their film library, never sold parts of it off like Paramount and Warners did in the 1950s, so if TCM wants to air a Fox title, except in a few cases involving rights issues, TCM has to deal with Fox. Since the winter of 2007 when TCM and Fox worked together on the *Ford at Fox* series in December of that year, Fox has been more willing to work with TCM. However, the fly in the ointment (there's always something), is that Fox has its own movie channel, FMC and is rather picky about what films TCM can and cannot rent/lease. Fox prefers, for the most part, to keep the bulk of the films starring Tyrone Power, Betty Grable, Alice Faye and other heavy hitters from the Fox stables, for their own channel. That's why we have yet to see any of them as Stars of the Month. Until Fox changes it mind about that, TCM does not have access to the bulk of the films needed to do a SOTM properly for big named Fox stars. Over the last few years we've seen the relationship between Fox and TCM grow. We've enjoyed *The Grapes of Wrath*, *All About Eve*, *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn*, *The Rains Came* (Ty Power version), *Alexander's Ragtime Band* and other titles that many thought we might never see on TCM. So, hang in there. TCMProgrammr is a determined guy and one day, hopefully, we will see Ty Power, Alice Faye and Betty Grable each as SOTM. Here's hoping......

klyx, *The Beyond* was shown tonight as part of TCM Underground, a regular Friday late-night feature devoted to cult films. *TCM Underground* been part of the TCM line-up for about five years now. As for *LOTR* it was part of the *31 Days of Oscar*, an annual yearly occurance every February where TCM celebrates the entire history of the Academy Awards from the beginning through modern times. *31 Days of Oscar* has been part of the TCM line-up for 14 years and counting. Welcome to the boards!

> but did not know how to delete my post No problem. Just FYI, technically, you can't delete a post. Should you want to delete a post, just go in and edit it. You'll need to leave some sort of mark or word in the reply as the software won't let you post a blank reply. Welcome aboard!

Barb, Jacks new beau says "congrats, too!" I thought you were hanging out here: Glad to have you back!

As Kyle answered to your query in General Discussions, Pottery Barn. I'm glad he posted first, because I had Pier One stuck in my brain but I didn't think that was the right answer.

> Wouldn't it make more sense to simply have one schedule for the entire network? It would. Unfortunately, broadcast rights don't always make sense. Quite often, when TCM rents a film, the broadcast rights are cleared for both United States and Canadian airings. But, as in life, there are anomalies and certain films that TCM rents for showings don't come with Canadian broadcast rights. Why? Usually, it means that another channel in Canada has the broadcast rights or, as in the case of one particular *Topper* film, the rights ownership is unknown. Either way, without complete clearance rights for Canadian broadcast, TCM is forced to substitute a film for Canadian viewers. Hope that helps!

> We can be the Stan & Ollie of the Programming Challenge. That would be cool! King, As you may have guessed from smiley's post, I will probably go down to the wire (I always seem to) but I will have a schedule- out of competition, of course, but I will have one!

Chief, My bad, make that *Viva Villa* not *Pancho Villa*. Not enough caffeine this morning. Sorry.

There are many good actors of Bette Davis' quality, Bogie's quality, Cagney's, etc working today. You have to be open to enjoying modern movies and television in order to enjoy their acting and many here at TCM City don't like modern movies or modern actors. But, that doesn't mean they don't exist. They do. But are any of them Bette Davis, Tracy, Bogie or anyone else from the classic era? No. Why? Because those actors were unique screen personas created by a studio and star system that no longer exist. Also, those classic era actors were unique just as Meryl Streep is unique, Denzel is unique, Gary Oldman, Matt Damon and many others today are unique. Even Bette Davis knew that while her shoes could not be filled exactly, Meryl Streep had more than enough talent to make it on her own without being compared to Bette Davis. Same for Jimmy Stewart and Tom Hanks. The torch is passed every generation to a new group of actors who are more than up to the job. They show up on sets on time, hit their marks, deliver performances that touch our hearts or make us laugh out loud and go home and go about their lives. They are very different from the cult of celebrity that this nation has been celebrating for far too long because they are known for their talent and their professionalism and *not* for how much they over drink, over smoke, over drug, over spend or any of the myraid of other stupid behavior that has gotten an ever growing list of celebrities known for nothing more than their bad behavior and bad life-style choices on the cover of too many magazines and too many idiotic television shows like *Entertainment Tonight*. But good talented actors existed in the classic era and they exist today and they will likely exist 25 years or more down the road. But, thinking that today's actors should be Bette or Spence or Bogie or the Duke takes away from not only what those actors unique and so memorable to us but also only serves to try and diminish the just as talented actors who are working today under much different circumstances and in a much different cultural time.

If you searched using User Name from the main forum page, that function has never worked properly. If you search using the general search and use a poster's name when filling out the search function, it works better: Just from this year alone: http://forums.tcm.com/search.jspa?threadID=&q=&objID=f161&dateRange=thisyear&userID=PrinceSaliano&numResults=15 But he has been doing this type of thread since he joined many years back.

Maitre, This is the forum for the Film Festival. You will likely get a better response if you post it in the Information, Please forum up in the main forums.

*Pancho Villa* with Wally Beery and *Waterloo Bridge* with Leigh and Taylor. Chief, These are beautiful! Is the one with Myrna in the chic little hat from *The Thin Man* ?

> Do you have the link for it (I will search the forums)...my understanding is he was focusing on Universal horror films, unless I am thinking of someone else. He covers all the studios even the Poverty Row studios. He's been doing this type of thread for many years. If you check the archives, you should find them.

Didn't Larry Blyden host a movie-trivia game show back in the early to mid-1970s or am I thinking of someone else? It was a great game show, I really enjoyed it!

You should check this forum, PrinceS does this type of thread quite regularly and I believe did one just a few weeks ago. Granted, his is in English but it's the same basic thread.

> to say oh well that's close. But I'm still not figuring it out. Don't forget to use the right arrow at the beginning of the quote. No need for any arrow at the end of the quote, just the right arrow at the beginning. Then space down a couple of lines and type your reply. Then hit the preview and make sure the quote is in the white box. If it is, go to the Rich Text box and hit the post button.

>I've been trying all kinds of variations of that but still can't seem to get it. MN, Try using the Plain Text and hit preview before posting. That should do it.

> The first act was an amazing African jazz band with this incredible guy named Hugh Makela LP, His name is Hugh Masekela and here's some info on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Masekela He's really great. I first became aware of him thanks to Paul Simon's Graceland album back in the 1990s.