The First Annual TCM Film Festival took place over the weekend and it was a complete success. If you’re an old movie buff who thinks that Robert Osborne is a rockstar you were probably in attendance along with hundreds of other fans who stood in line to see some of Hollywood’s most revered classics on the big screen. Not only did the event give people the opportunity to see these old movies in a theatrical setting but it gave them the chance to watch a restored print. The Festival also included special guest stars like Anjelica Huston, Martin Landau, Eva Marie Saint, Tony Curtis and more.

Here’s our recap of the sights and sounds of the event…

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The number one draw at the First Annual TCM Classic Film Festival was the North American premiere of the brand new almost-complete restoration of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and it was a truly spectacular experience. The film is renowned for many things: at the time it was the most expensive feature ever made and it was the first science-fiction blockbuster, unprecedented in the scope of its design both physically and in terms of cinematic technique. The film’s influence is felt everywhere, most prominently in the cityscapes of Blade Runner and second-hand thereafter, and the futuristic steam-powered machinery is an explicit forerunner of cyberpunk.

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After a spotty original release (to say the least) in the early 80s, The Stunt Man (1978) has dipped in and out of view ever since and has gradually become a cherished cult item. The TCM Festival was proud to present a brand new restoration (completed only last week) and as an epitomizing summation of the 70s oddball movie on the fringes of Hollywood, it’s fully deserving.

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One of the movies I looked forward the most at the TCM Festival was the 1946 classic (and I don’t use that word lightly) Leave Her To Heaven. Starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde and Jeanne Crain, based on the best-selling novel by John Stahl (generally underrated – his Imitation of Life is significantly better than Sirk’s, though he had the advantage of Claudette Colbert and no John Gavin), it screened in a meticulously restored digital print, undertaken by the Academy Archive, Fox and the Film Foundation.

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Having missed its theatrical release, I was quite curious to see why The Proposition (2005) had been selected – as the most recent film by some distance – to play at the TCM Classic Movie Festival. Turns out I should have studied the program a little more; it was playing as part of a tribute to the Huston family as a Hollywood dynasty, from Grandpa Walter, to writer-director John, scions Anjelica and Danny and now their actor nephew Jack.

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Spaghetti Westerns dominated the 1960s thanks to the magnificent direction of Sergio Leone and the tough as nails exterior of Clint Eastwood. The third film in their “The Man With No Name” or “Dollars Trilogy” entitled, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) was the (unofficial) follow up to A Fist Full of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965) with Eastwood once again playing a lone gunslinger who gets caught between bandits, corruption, and a whole lot of money.

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The schedule for the TCM Festival is full of familiar films, but its special appeal is the chance to see pristine, restored titles under the conditions in which they were meant to be watched. Case in point: of the several times I’ve seen Orson Welles‘ second, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), none have been in a theatre. The spanking new print came courtesy of Warner Bros, who now own the RKO movie archive.

It’s still the 88-minute version butchered by the studio from a 132-minute preview print, re-cut while Welles was in South America.The excised footage was reputedly dumped in the ocean in the ’50s, but there are rumors of a full-length work-print received by Welles in Brazil. The differing attitudes of the era toward the lasting value of film are hard to forgive in what was indisputably the greatest crime ever committed against cinema.

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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) is where the Huston Family Dynasty began. It was directed by John Huston and co-starred his father Walter Huston who went on to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting actor for his performance. John also walked away a big winner that year taking home the Oscar for Best Director and Best Screenplay. This was the beginning of something great that would trickle down to the younger generations including Anjelica and Danny Huston. The acclaim started in the mountains with three shattered men who try to find gold but end up losing themselves in the process.

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So far my favorite experience at the TCM Film Festival has been my big-screen viewing of Nick Ray’s In A Lonely Place (1950) in a pristine restored print. It’s a funny thing – by no means an epic film in episode or imagery but the close-up dissection of damaged, hopeless lives is completely transformed in the theater; a clinching argument far more powerful for pictorial expansiveness and the power of cinema over TV.

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