Posts tagged ‘Ben Mankiewicz’
Kitty Packard Pictorial of the Month: The TCM Classic Film Festival
Welcome to Paradise
Last night, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was aglow with Beethoven and Bach and elegance, and tonight … it’s Thor. See what happens when you leave town, TCM?
Last year’s was fun… this year’s festival was special. Building on last year’s framework, what was noticeable this year was a close-knit sense of community. This shared, communal experience was instant and electric, making fast friends of complete strangers, simply because they happened to be waiting in a queue for the same film. Film is a universal language that unites people regardless of background or distance or age or even language– I’ve been to many a film festival and, without question, nowhere is the power of film more apparent than at TCM’s Classic Film Festival. If for no other reason than the simple fact people are not there simply to watch a movie– nor are they simply there to be seen. (cough, Sundance, cough) but rather to embrace the beauty of film and to engage in an exchange of expression with like-minded enthusiasts.
And that is why The Kitty Packard Pictorial is breaking with tradition and our next Pictorial of the Month is not dedicated to a classic film star… but rather classic film’s reigning patron saint: Turner Classic Movies.
Four days of films, fans and fast new friends, here is our farewell to the TCM Classic Film Festival with a send-off of highlights and a collection of newly released press-photos.
Enjoy, and see you at the Festival next year!
Mickey Rooney, Leslie Caron attend the Vanity Fair party
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Jane Powell and Eva Marie Saint at the Vanity Fair party
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Rose McGowan in Robert Osborne's arms... the luckiest girl in the world.
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Debbie Reynolds signed autographs in Club TCM
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Jane Powell signing an autograph
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Mickey Rooney and Ben Mankiewicz discussing Girl Crazy (1943)
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Peter O'Toole at the screening of Becket (1964)
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Julie Andrews remembers her late husband Blake Edwards @ Breakfast at Tiffanys
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"How Do I Look?" Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
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Hayley Mills and Leonard Maltin discussing The Parent Trap
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Alec Baldwin and Warren Beatty discussed the film Reds (1981)
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Drew Barrymore chatting with Robert Osborne
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Rose McGowan, Robert Osborne, and Anjelica Huston
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The TCM Billboard at Orange and Hollywood
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A long way from home... yet very much at home!
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Hollywood's very own Lady in Black, Kerrie Bible
The night’s silent festivities were introduced by the classic Burns and Allen Vitaphone sketch Lamb Chops. The perfect introduction– we were putty in their silly little hands:
Vince Giardano and the Nighthawks perform Buster Keaton's The Cameraman
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Leonard Maltin talking with Vince Giordano
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Hah-- that's me and good buddy Nicole clapping our hands numb for Vince Giordano's stupendous performance
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Robert Osborne -- our patron saint!
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Marge Champion -- the most youthful 91 year old on the planet!
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Robert Osborne visibly charmed with the charming Marge Champion. (My new favorite person in the world!!)
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TCM's Scott McGee and Anne Wilson-- THANK YOU for making this possible!!
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Passholders puttin' on the ritz outside The Henry Fonda Theatre's Music Box!
Club TCM's After Party-- Farwell, Fantasyland!
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TCM Film Festival Update: The Third Man
Just came from this morning’s presentation of The Third Man at the Egpytian Theatre in Hollywood. Introduced by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz (who made the most charming gaffe– don’t worry Ben, anyone could’ve mixed up the American and British versions… well, not really, but we positively adore you regardless!) the film was screened to a packed audience– given the 9AM start time and the deep nature of the material, I was absolutely thrilled to be surrounded by such ardent cinema enthusiasts.
Script Supervisor Angela Allen joined Mankiewicz for a post-screening Q&A. She worked on the 2nd unit in Vienna with director Carol Reed and principal cast. Reid apparently worked all three units on this film– highly unusual– and in effect ended up working, quite literally, 24/7. While shooting in the Viennese sewers, said Allen, a waiter would come downstairs with a tray and a silver cup so Reid could have his coffee. “Only the British,” quipped Mankiewicz, would refer to the sewers as ‘going downstairs.’”
Having worked on over 70 films over 6 decades, Allen’s colorful musings went from Reid chasing Orson Welles all over Europe on Third Man, working with Huston in Africa on the African Queen to Michael Powell on Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (for which she doubled for Ava Gardner on the beach so Gardner could dine with a visiting Frank Sinatra) to The Misfits with John Huston– a director with whom she worked with 14 times.
While on The African Queen, Allen swelled with pride when Huston took her side over an altercation with leading lady Katharine Hepburn whom insisted she had indeed worn a different costume for the take. “Kate,” said Huston, “that’s Angie’s job. Put on the other dress.”
“I sweated bullets for five weeks waiting to find out if I was right or not,” said Allen.
The audience waited.
“And?” Mankiewicz asked.
“I was right.”
TCM Film Festival: Jane Powell and Royal Wedding
Fred Astaire and the sweet and sassy Jane Powell
So it’s 12:15 in the morning and I’ve just fallen in the door from today’s first full day of the 2011 TCM Film Festival. I am overtired–operating on only 3 hours of sleep thanks to last night’s all night Royal Wedding watch. And you know what? That’s OK because so was Jane Powell.
In a feisty Q&A with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz following her 1953 musical Royal Wedding, the veteran Hollywood actress– every bit as fiery as her on-screen counterpart– confided that she stayed up until four in the morning to watch the Price William/Kate Middleton royal wedding. And, looking at the 1951 footage from her film, was happy to report that nothing had really changed at all over the years.
“You haven’t seen the movie in a while,” Mankiewicz quipped, “they added an action sequence. Bruce Willis is in it now.”
“Oh is he,” said Powell, her toungue planted firmly in cheek, eyes bright and sparkling as she fired back at Mankiewicz’s cracks with a resounding one-two-punch.
“Oh yea, it’s a way better movie, not a bunch of singing and dancing.”
The impossibly beautiful 82 year old was every bit Mank’s match for the delightful Q&A– one of the most enjoyable I’ve had the pleasure to attend in quite some time– and their camaraderie was immediate and affable, providing the audience with a highly irreverent and wonderfully relevant look back at a truly legendary Hollywood career.
She was third choice for the role, first offered to June Allyson and Judy Garland. The latter of which was fired from the project, and the first of which became pregnant.
Powell, who was a tight buddy of Allyson’s, sighed and said “Ah, well. You know June.”
Powell, observant and objective, was full of delicious insights on her Royal Wedding co-stars. Peter Lawford “was never quite there even if he was physically there. Peter would always have rather been surfing. [The scene where] I ask him to marry me, he was barefoot in that car because he was going to beach right after the take.”
Astaire was a lovely, professional man, according to Powell, who had a marvelous swagger and choregoraphers Bob Fosse and Marge Champion had been known to try to imitate it on the lot. “He was also a very private man. When people ask me what he was like, I say I have no idea. You got to know him by his feet.”
And as for Astaire’s love interest, Sarah Churchill, Mankiwicz noted that she didn’t make many movies after Royal Wedding.
“Well,” said Powell with a mischievous smile. “I wonder why.”
The audience gasped. Sarah Churchill was not exactly your conventionally beautiful MGM starlet type, and Powell and Mank tossed around the idea that this role of a British dancer went to Churchill because her father happened to be none other than the Churchill. Whatever the reason, Powell shrugged. “Didn’t matter to me,” she said. “I’m not the one who had to marry her.”
Powell rounded up the interview by sincerely thanking TCM for creating a family of ardent classic film enthusiasts and allowing the people who made the movies– like her– to be a part of that family. “It really is the only thing I watch on TV,” said Powell. And then a pause. “Except for the royal wedding of course.”
coming up next: The Constant Nymph, A Talk with Leslie Caron, Kevin Brownlow at the Merry Widow, and much more!