The accessibility of digital streaming has made watching movies and television shows all the easier,
but that also means that films are not getting watched in the proper format, and with the number of streaming choices, it means that classic films aren’t getting watched altogether. This is why events like the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival are so important these days, to promote watching classic movies. This year, Nelson Tracey and I were accredited to attend the festival where we both caught up on films we have never seen. Read below for the films we saw, and be sure to try to attend the TCM Film Festival next year for a weekend that you will truly love and appreciate.
Windjammer (The Voyage of the Christian Radich) (1958)
Nelson: From the outset, I knew that among the classics long overdue for me to see and the hidden gems of the past I may never find otherwise, there was one film of 2018’s roster not to be missed – which thankfully Ryan and I both caught at the fest. Prior to the release of this year’s festival lineup, I was unfamiliar with Windjammer, and even my enthusiastic expectations couldn’t have been surpassed any higher. Released in 1958, the part documentary, part travelogue, part music movie was the only film ever created in the “Cinemiracle” format, a 3-camera process designed to rival Cinerama in creating immersive cinema. After a short prologue in standard 16mm, the curtains opened up on the Windjammer, a massive schooner sailboat charting the open seas in a pristine, uninterrupted concave image that emulates panoramic eyesight. It’s spectacular, and that’s just frame one. We follow this massive sailboat from Norway, with a crew of young men ages 14-21, all learning their ways in a boy scouts-meets-boot camp program that will take them 250 days to traverse 20,000 nautical miles. Miraculously, the film isn’t a one-trick pony, it continues to up the ante at every destination, from Portuguese islands to Trinidad to New York City, and finally, a spectacle involving the U.S. Navy and a submarine.
There is much to analyze in the film: by taking a sailboat in 1958, the characters themselves are, in a sense, living in the past by holding on to an antiquated tradition, aware of it as something worth holding onto despite technological advances. In the film, call-backs to the past are present everywhere, in the indigenous cultures at every destination, and a Philadelphia fire parade which pulls out fire carriages from the turn of the century. And on a meta level, watching the film today is the same experience: it’s a pure specimen of a bygone era that in a generation will be completely obscure if not already so. We heard two different people in the audience (fairly well-attended but not enough for what it deserved) share that they had seen the movie in cinemas in 1958 as boys under the age of 10. It’s emotional to vicariously imagine what that must have been like to return to such a movie a full sixty years later. Of the many movies at this year’s festival, Windjammer and all that came with it stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Ryan: To say that seeing Windjammer in the ArcLight Hollywood Cinerama Dome was undeniably one of the most incredible movie moments I’ve ever experienced would not be an overstatement. The moment that the screen projected the Cinemiracle shot onto the Cinerama screen was breathtaking, and it didn’t let up for the rest of the runtime. In terms of immersive experience, WIndjammer gives Dunkirk a run for its money. This was an unforgettable experience and perhaps the best time that I had at this or any other TCM Film Fest before it.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Nelson: This was the classic movie on my festival roster most overdue for me to see, the type of movie that everyone’s seen clips or parodies of but is now multiple generations removed from its source. It’s got the patriotic wide-eyed wonder of Forrest Gump, and the wholesome underdog spirit of Rudy. It’s impossible to see a film like this and not feel a little more optimism for American democracy, and rather than painting it with rose-colored glasses, even in 1939, Mr. Smith was willing to acknowledge its corrupt fallacies and that authenticity makes it endearing and a great match for a heroic, naive protagonist played to perfection by Jimmy Stewart. The odds will always be stacked against change, but that doesn’t make good any less worth fighting for. Frank Capra’s film captured this timeless spirit ages ago and yet it resonates so much today as any classic film can do so well.
Ryan: If you were to take a look at the schedule of films from this year’s festival, it wouldn’t be any surprise to say that no film was more politically relevant to these times than this Frank Capra classic. I was eagerly looking forward to seeing this film in today’s political climate. Like most people, I was at least aware of the clip of Jimmy Stewart in the Senate building giving an impassioned speech of sticking to moral rightness in the face of a corrupt system, but to see the complete film is to also see the complete arch of a performance that was mesmerizing. What comes before this fiery speech is a story of a fresh-faced boy scout turned Senator that’s so wide-eyed that he can’t help but stand out from his corrupt and cynical peers. To see Stewart start from the most innocent of places to turn so physically strained and horse-voiced shows a leap that reveals a star-turning a performance unlike any I’ve ever seen. Capra’s staging of Stewart on the Senate floor to command a room of Senators and mezzanine-viewers becomes more than an iconic image but the visual representation of fighting for moral rightness.
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Ryan: Seeing this film for the first time and in the best viewing experience I could ask for (the TCL Chinese IMAX theater) was overwhelming and humbling. It made me remember why we reserve the word “masterpiece” for these sorts of artistic achievements, and why we also make the effort to see them in the best viewing experience possible. Although my personal film diary is admittedly weak on Westerns, any sophomoric cinephile worth his salt would be able to associate the name Sergio Leone with being responsible for creating the best Westerns of American cinema. Before watching, I read that Once Upon a Time in the West is unique for a number of reasons: the film was made and released after seminal classic westerns like Shane, The Searchers, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly came out and which Leone then consciously used these conventions from. Which is to say that this film used the very best of what came before it to tell this tale. To see the most amazing landscapes, masterfully composed compositions, amazing editing, was all breathtaking. But what makes it all immaculate was the score by Ennio Morricone which brought tears to my eyes. This will stand as one of the moving movie moments in my life.
Hamlet (1948)
Nelson: Directed by and starring the iconic Laurence Olivier, the Best Picture winner of 1948 is the definitive cinematic adaptation of the Shakespeare play. At two and a half hours long and screened on the last day of the festival, this was a real test of stamina – not because it wasn’t worthy of my attention, but because it’s so much to take in after having viewed many films before it. But alas, that’s the spirit of TCM: when else would I get a chance to spend all afternoon watching Shakespeare in the dark? And in my lengthy journey to see every Best Picture winner, why not take a chance to check this one off? It would only prove to be worth it.
If I may be honest, this viewing took me around a solid hour to settle into: with the density of Shakespeare matched with 1940s cinematic elegance, Hamlet is not film school 101. And yet, while it certainly isn’t the experience most audiences would rush out to a theater for, once the wheels started turning, it’s a true towering force of nature. Influenced largely by Citizen Kane, Olivier’s Hamlet combines the theatrics that made Shakespeare the very best with cinematic deft that allows them to reach new heights. Hamlet’s soliloquies are given an authentic reading here: he alternates between voiceover in his head and audibly speaking the words to himself (isn’t that how we all talk to ourselves?). And yet I’ve never seen a movie do this with such intentional elegance. Tracking shots through Xanadu-esque cathedrals give it a timely, ominous nature that, despite being shot on soundstages, feel truly lived in and vast (it also won Oscars for Art Direction and Costume Design). While the climax is stunning and the numerous tragic deaths are unforgettable, the highlight of the film is the midpoint, where Hamlet instructs his theater cast to put on a play of murder designed to agitate his uncle. It’s a brewing of Shakespeare, cinema, and Olivier, and while it’s no casual viewing, the concepts you can glean from this work are vast.
Stage Door (1937)
Nelson: Screened on a nitrate print, this 1937 Best Picture nominee depicts a New York City boarding house for young aspiring theater actresses. The ensemble cast is led by Ginger Rogers, the house’s unofficial ringleader, who is forced to room with the new girl, Katherine Hepburn, who, unlike the rest of the house, comes from aristocracy. The ensemble piece is comedic and snappy throughout (as to be expected from the premise), yet equally human and emotional. I walked away with more empathy for actors and their internal struggle than I ever have had before, and do not take that lightly. The cast is entirely made up of young women at different stages of trying to catch a break in an industry that can chew them up and spit them out, only to replace them at a moment’s notice. All artists struggle with this, even today, but the actor’s plight, in my eyes, is one of the most challenging. If you want to be an actor, the sheer numbers are insurmountable, and yet if you let that stop you, you shouldn’t be there in the first place. And it took me a film this old to properly come away with an understanding of this timeless struggle. Add some great comedy, great performances, and a surprising topicality thanks to a subplot that resembles the #MeToo strife, and you have yourself a truly classic movie.
Finishing School (1934)
Nelson: You know you’re at TCM when the host announces the film is “pre-code” and the audience oohs and aahs with the same level of enthusiasm as if they were seeing Leonardo DiCaprio perform a live version of his filmography. One of the rare films directed by a woman from the 1930s, Finishing School was an instant hit among the TCM audience (earning a coveted Sunday TBA screening), depicting the naughty misgivings of a stuffy girls’ boarding school in that era. Young movie star Francis Dee (whose grandson was in attendance and participated in the discussion) plays the naive girl new to school opposite Ginger Rogers, the rebellious rule-breaker. Breaking into all kinds of good taboos, the girls drink, smoke, swear, and ultimately, are sexually active, all of which would never pass in most movies for the next 30 years. And yet these experiences give more truth and experience to teenagers and college kids than the more orderly counterparts, and it helps give the film an ageless feeling. The film doesn’t skirt away from these uncomfortable subjects, and walks away with a progressive notion of not conforming to arbitrary societal standards, and carving your own path. Yay for pre-code values!
