Turner Classic Movies (TCM) continues to add award-winning titles and iconic stars to the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival, taking place March 26-29, 2015 in Hollywood, including world premiere restorations of:
- Warner Bros’ classic musicals 42nd Street (1933) and Calamity Jane (1953)
- Sony Picture's historic musical 1776 (1972)
- William Wyler’s delightful romance Roman Holiday (1953) from Paramount
- MGM’s western drama The Proud Rebel (1958)
- Jules Dassin’s French caper film Rififi (1958) from Rialto Pictures
Festival goers will also get to enjoy other iconic films such as:
- David Lean’s award-winning Doctor Zhivago (1965) from Warner Bros.
- 70mm print of Franklin J. Schaffner’s Oscar®-winning Patton (1970) from 20th Century Fox
- Walt Disney’s Oscar® winning classic, Pinocchio (1940)
Additionally, legendary entertainer Ann-Margret will introduce a screening of Norman Jewison’s The Cincinnati Kid (1965); NASA astronaut Captain James Lovell, the real-life subject of Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995), will be on hand for the 20th Anniversary world premiere restoration; and award-winning actors William Daniels and Ken Howard and director Peter. H Hunt will attend a world premiere restoration of the historic musical 1776 (1972).
Festival attendees will have the chance to learn about the detailed and fascinating history of the formative years of Technicolor® with The Dawn of Technicolor, a presentation with historians and archivists David Pierce and James Layton. Pierce and Layton, the authors of “The Dawn of Technicolor”, the first authoritative history of the two-color Technicolor period from 1914 to 1934, will present a 90-minute, illustrated presentation that covers the development of Technicolor through the boom period of Hollywood’s early sound musicals. Their presentation will include rare photos and behind-the-scenes stills, original correspondence, and a significant amount of film material that has been discovered in the last few years that will be presented on 35mm and high-definition digital clips from original archive prints.
In addition to Apollo 13, previously announced world premiere restorations at the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival include William Dieterle's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Charles Reisner and Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928).
About Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret, a consummate entertainer, has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, has won five Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy, and has received five other Emmy nominations. She is a three-time winner of the “Female Star of the Year” award and has been twice honored as “Outstanding Box Office Star of the Year” by the National Association of Theatre Owners. Ann-Margret was also nominated for a Grammy for her CD, “God is Love: The Gospel Sessions.”
For her recent television work, Ann-Margret won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama for NBC’s highly rated drama, Law & Order: SVU, and received Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations as Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for her starring role as the legendary Pamela Harriman in the Lifetime film, Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story (1998). Additionally, she guest starred in a three-part episode of NBC’s award-winning series Third Watch and CSI. Her Showtime movie, Happy Face Murders (1999), was the highest rated original movie for fifteen months, and she just appeared in a two-part episode for Showtime’s highest rated series Ray Donovan.
Her recent film roles include co-starring in Old Dogs (2009), with John Travolta and Robin Williams, and Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008), with Bryce Dallas Howard. She also co-starred in the Oliver Stone movie Any Given Sunday (1999), with Al Pacino and Cameron Diaz.
As a young girl, Ann-Margret was discovered by the legendary George Burns, and since her film debut playing Bette Davis’ daughter in A Pocketful of Miracles (1961), she has made over fifty-two films, including such hits as Cincinnati Kid (1965), State Fair (1962), Tommy (1975), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Viva Las Vegas (1964), Stagecoach (1966), Grumpy Old Men (1993) and its sequel, Grumpier Old Men (1995).
During this period, she co-starred with such luminaries as John Wayne, Elvis Presley, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kirk Douglas, Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds and Walter Matthau, among others. She also earned two Academy Award nominations, for director Mike Nichols’ famous film Carnal Knowledge (1971) and in the classic Ken Russell rock film, Tommy (1975).
About William Daniels
The ferociously talented William Daniels has had a remarkably diverse career, starting with his 1969 Broadway fame in 1776 (John Adams) and its 1972 film adaptation to the voice of KITT the car on Knightrider to his two Emmys (1981-82) for St. Elsewhere as Dr. Mark Craig (his wife Bonnie Bartlett won as his wife twice too). He was the President of SAG from 1999-02. Daniels also starred for seven years on Boy Meets World as Mr. Feeney. He currently recurs on the new Girl Meets World. Recent work includes an arc on The Closer, Boston Legal, Grey’s Anatomy and the film Blades of Glory (2007) for Dreamworks.
About Ken Howard
Ken Howard was elected the National President of The Screen Actors Guild on September 24, 2009. He was re-elected National President of the newly formed Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in August of 2013. He has been a working member of SAG/AFTRA for over forty years.
The Tony and two-time Emmy Award winning actor garnered his second Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in 2009 for his role as Phelan Beale in HBO’s critically acclaimed Grey Gardens. The project was also honored with the Emmy and Golden Globe for Outstanding TV Movie. He had a recurring role on NBC’s Emmy winning 30 Rock. Recent films include The Wedding Ringer with Kevin Hart (2015) and The Judge opposite Robert Duvall and Robert Downey, Jr. (2014).
Howard made his professional debut on Broadway in 1968 in Neil Simmons’ Promises, Promises. He originated the role of Thomas Jefferson in the Tony-winning musical 1776 (1971), directed by Peter Hunt, receiving a Theatre World Award, and reprising the role for the 1972 film adaptation. Howard earned his Tony for his work as a young gym coach at a Catholic boy’s school in Child’s Play. He has performed in nearly forty stage productions, seven of which were on Broadway, and over twenty feature films.
On television he has starred in seven series, six mini-series, seventeen movies and made countless guest appearances. He helped create The White Shadow, a groundbreaking television series in which he starred from 1978 through 1982.
About Captain James Lovell
In October 1962, ten years after graduating from the Naval Academy and eight years of being a test pilot, Jim Lovell was selected as one of the second group of astronauts to the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA). During the next eleven years, he made four space flights and was back-up on three more. On Gemini 7 with Frank Borman they set the world space flight endurance record, participated in the first rendezvous with Gemini 6 and conducted 21 medical experiments. As Commander of Gemini 12, he and Buzz Aldrin perfected spacecraft docking techniques and developed Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) procedures necessary for the later flights of Apollo.
Captain Lovell was navigator on the historic Apollo 8 mission—man’s first flight to the moon. He was the first Naval Officer to reach the moon and successfully evaluated the navigation system while looking for suitable landing sites for future missions. Lovell’s last flight was Apollo 13—the third lunar landing mission. He was the first person to fly to the moon a second time. Two hundred thousand miles from earth an explosion on the spacecraft forced him to successfully bring home a crippled spacecraft. During this crisis period, he established the absolute altitude record of 148,655 miles.
During his career Lovell accumulated over 7,000 flight hours, including 4,500 in jet aircraft, 713 in space and 107 carrier landings. He received numerous medals and awards including the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Navy Distinguished Service Medal, 2 Navy Distinguished Flying Crosses, NASA Distinguished and Exceptional Service Medals, and the French Legion of Honor.
2015 TCM Classic Film Festival – Film Announcements
42nd Street (1933)
The ever-popular musical 42nd Street gets a facelift with the world premiere of a new restoration. The film brought back the musical just a few years after a glut of all-singing, all dancing movies had made the form box-office poison. For the first time, dance director Busby Berkeley demonstrated the potential of the film musical, creating numbers that, though ostensibly part of a big Broadway show, would never fit on any stage. At the center was a surprising new star, Ruby Keeler whose youthful exuberance, particularly when teamed with boy singer Dick Powell, were just what Depression-era audiences needed. She went into her first billed film role as a youngster, but when the picture opened, she came back a star.
Calamity Jane (1953)
Like Doris Day's character in this Western musical, Warner Bros. head Jack L. Warner was not a man to give up easily. When he lost the chance to film Annie Get Your Gun (1950) as a vehicle for Day, he set out to turn another Wild West legend, Calamity Jane, into the perfect role for her. The result was the delightful Calamity Jane, presented in a world premiere restoration, a film that gave Day the chance to draw on her tomboy side. It also gave her one of her signature songs, the Oscar®-winning "Secret Love," the highlight of Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster's score.
Roman Holiday (1953)
A fairy tale for adults, this romantic comedy was a reverse Cinderella story for its leading character, Princess Ann, and a real one for then-unknown Audrey Hepburn. Her role as a European royal who finds love with a handsome reporter (Gregory Peck) when she sneaks out to taste life among the common people made Hepburn a star and brought her the Best Actress Oscar®. Director William Wyler fought to film on location, making this the first U.S. film shot entirely in Italy. To keep costs down, however, he had to cast an unknown in the female lead, and Hepburn delivered the kind of luminous performance that made her not only a star, but also a fashion icon. The star, the clothes and the Eternal City are more impressive than ever in this World Premiere restoration.
The Proud Rebel (1958)
Directed by Michael Curtiz, the film, presented in a world premiere restoration, combines the scenic splendor of Utah with a sensitive story of a widowed Confederate veteran (Alan Ladd), his mute son (Ladd's son, David) and the farmwoman (Olivia de Havilland) who tries to help them. There's plenty of Western action, as Ladd tries to save her from a land grab, but the real focus is on relationships, with the three creating a new family unit.
Rififi (1955)
Director Jules Dassin had made his name with noir masterworks like The Naked City (1948) and Night and the City (1950), only to end up on the Hollywood blacklist. After moving to France and four years without work, he was asked to adapt Auguste Le Breton’s novel of four North Africans mixed up in Paris’ criminal underworld. But he decided to focus on a relatively minor part of the book: the intricately planned robbery of a chic Parisian jewelry store. The result was the international sensation Rififi (roughly translated as "rough and tumble"), which won Dassin the Best Director prize at Cannes and was hailed by future director François Truffaut as "the best film noir I've ever seen." With its legendary 28-minute heist scene, a model of sweat-breaking suspense played without a line of dialogue or a note of music, Rififi, presented for its 60th anniversary in a world premiere restoration, is still the gold standard of heist pictures.
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
After the desert grandeur of Lawrence of Arabia (1962), director David Lean wanted to make a more intimate story. The result was this massive re-creation of the Russian Revolution inspired by a novel banned in the Soviet Union. The tender love story of married doctor Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and the beautiful, enigmatic Lara (Julie Christie) was a natural for the screen with its backdrop of world-shaking turmoil. The film won five Oscars®, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Score, and remains one of the most popular of all historical romances.
Patton (1970)
The man who loved war more than life was a tough character to bring to the screen. Producer Frank McCarthy, a retired brigadier general, spent almost 20 years getting the picture made and had to do so without the cooperation of General George Patton's family. Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, Rod Steiger and Lee Marvin all turned the role down before George C. Scott accepted. The role became his most popular performance, eventually sweeping the year-end acting awards. The picture won seven Oscars®, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and a Best Actor award turned down by the ever iconoclastic Scott.
1776 (1972)
For his last production, former Warner Bros. chief Jack Warner did something truly original; he optioned the rights to a hit Broadway musical and filmed it with relatively few changes, even engaging the original writers, director and most of the cast. It helped that one of the writers was Peter Stone, who had written the screenplays for such hits as Charade and Father Goose (both 1964), and that the cast included such accomplished pros as Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin, John Cullum as Edward Rutledge, Blythe Danner as Martha Jefferson, William Daniels as John Adams and Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson. They gave Warner what fans consider an almost irresistible musical voyage through American history. For this new 4K restoration from the original negative, director Peter H. Hunt worked with Sony Pictures to create a definitive Director’s Cut of the film, which includes some footage not previously seen.
The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
Having already made a name for herself in such films as Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and the Elvis Presley musical Viva Las Vegas (1964), this taut tale of the passions surrounding a high-stakes poker game gave Ann-Margret the chance to showcase her dramatic talents in the role of the femme-fatale Melba. Set in a slick, fantasy image of New Orleans during the Depression, the film also stars Steve McQueen as a hotshot young player and Edward G. Robinson as the seasoned professional he takes on.
Pinocchio (1940)
While Disney was finishing his first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), animation director Norman Ferguson gave him a copy of Carlo Collodi’s children’s book and with it the inspiration for his second feature. The tale of the puppet brought to life who tries do the right thing so he can be turned into a real boy has appealed to generations of children and their parents, with a lifetime box office gross of more than $80 million. Pinocchio marked a series of firsts for Disney. It was his first film to use a name performer (vaudeville and radio star Cliff Edwards, who voiced Jiminy Cricket), the first animated feature to win a competitive Oscar® (Best Song for “When You Wish Upon a Star”) and the first film ever to win both Best Song and Best Score.
