Most of the time, film festivals focus on the latest releases — movies that are trying to get solid word of mouth before launching in theaters around the country. The point, for many attendees, is to be the first on the ground for a hot new title — sometimes even months or years before general audiences. But despite the obvious excitement surrounding festivals like this, there’s something equally as special about an event like TCM Classic Film Festival (TCM Fest), held by Turner Classic Movies to celebrate the best that the yesteryear of Hollywood has to offer. Sitting in renowned Los Angeles movie houses like Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the Egyptian just down the street, audiences are treated to restored prints of classic films that aren’t often shown in all their glory to a packed house. Surrounded by fellow film lovers, attendees of TCM Fest are treated to a taste of Hollywood magic that is all too rare today in an age of streaming. I went to TCM Fest for the first time in April 2024, and was met with an electric energy and an array of cinematic delights.

My visit to TCM Fest involved a certain amount of strategy. The festival offers old classics, slightly newer releases (this year, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) and David Fincher’s Se7en (1995) were on the docket, for example) and underappreciated gems alike, and in only four days, some difficult choices have to be made. Personally, I tried to strike a balance between beloved films that I hadn’t had a chance to see on the big screen before and movies that were unknown to me. But there was one more variable to contend with: TCM Fest’s queue system. Viewers would line up before the screening — generally an hour or so early — and receive a card with a number on it and instructions to return 30 minutes before the scheduled start time. The higher the number, the better chance you would have to get in, but the queue card was not a guarantee of admittance, and there were a couple of times that I showed up only to learn that the theater was already at capacity. Alternate arrangements had to be made on the fly, as I furiously flipped through the program guide to find something else to see. But it was a testament to the helpful volunteer staff and the depth of TCM Fest’s lineup that there was usually an appealing alternative option.

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After picking up my press pass on Thursday afternoon, I settled in for my first day of movies. The marquee event was the 30th anniversary of Pulp Fiction, with several of the film’s stars in attendance, but I opted instead to have my first movie of the festival be the documentary Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024), directed by David Hinton. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were two of the biggest creative forces in British filmmaking throughout the 1940s, crafting grand visions such as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and The Red Shoes (1948). The documentary is narrated by Martin Scorsese and told through the lens of both his personal friendship with Powell (who was, until his death in 1990, married to Thelma Schoonmaker — Scorsese’s longtime editorial collaborator) and the influence these two filmmakers had on his own career. Although the allusions to Scorsese’s work as an homage to Powell and Pressburger are sometimes tenuous and out of place, Made in England serves as an invaluable primer for burgeoning film fans. It methodically delves into each of the pair’s movies, placing them in the context of their shared career and explaining what makes them so special — even their lesser works. It’s the type of film that would probably work better broken down into several episodes of a miniseries, to give the viewer time to digest all the information being thrown at them, but it’s interesting and entertaining nonetheless.

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After that, I traded Powell and Pressburger’s Technicolor fancies for brutal reality, opting for a late-night screening of In Cold Blood (1967). Based on the groundbreaking true crime book by Truman Capote, it revolves around the senseless murder of a Kansas family in the 1960s and the two men who perpetrated the crime for seemingly no reason at all. Released in 1967, In Cold Blood stars Robert Blake (who would later become infamous for, ironically enough, allegedly murdering his wife) and Scott Wilson as the two perpetrators — a pair of ex-convicts who become convinced that the Clutters, a family of farmers, have a vast fortune hidden in a safe on their property. In planning the robbery, they make the decision early on not to leave any witnesses, sealing the fate of the Clutters before they even set foot on the farm. The brutality of their actions combined with the intentionally pared-down aesthetics of the film create a chilling effect that belies the simplicity of the production. Perry (Blake) is perhaps the more sympathetic of the two, although Dick (Wilson) has an unsettling charm all his own.

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The following day, I shifted gears once again, opting for the comedic stylings of Thelma Ritter in The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951). This hidden gem stars the actress as a New York City matchmaker whose office in the Flatiron Building is a safe haven for misbegotten outcasts who desperately desire a suitor. Well, technically, The Model and the Marriage Broker stars Jeanne Crain, who plays the titular model and receives first billing. But make no mistake: this is Ritter’s baby through and through. Often known for her supporting roles, she is put in the spotlight in a role that seems tailor-made for her as a lonely, acerbic woman who needs the companionship of her clients almost as much as they need her. Ritter is riveting to watch, elevating the admittedly underwhelming romantic comedy into something with far more depth. It’s amazing that she was given this star vehicle in the first place, and she does the production justice.

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My intention after The Model and the Marriage Broker was to see The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936). Considering the fact that it was screening opposite Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), hosted by none other than Steven Spielberg himself, I thought I would be safe with a little-known 1936 drama about one of the alleged co-conspirators of John Wilkes Booth. But TCM Fest audiences are built different, and I was shocked to learn that despite getting to the theater nearly an hour ahead of time, the screening was at capacity. Determined to see something, I settled instead for Matthew Wells’ documentary Frank Capra: Mr. America (2023). It details the personal and professional exploits of the director Frank Capra who, despite being the child of Sicilian immigrants, directed films that championed and idealized the American way of life. Although it does its duty in giving audiences a thorough grounding in his storied filmmaking career, it’s at its most interesting when it grapples with the inherent contradictions of his political views. It’s difficult to reconcile the liberal and hopeful movies Capra made with a man who was extremely conservative, frequently racist and anti-semitic, and fervently believed in the bootstraps narrative that has done a disservice to generations of immigrants. In this, Frank Capra: Mr. America is remarkably even-handed — it condemns the aspects of his life that are worth condemning, celebrates those worth celebrating and has a bemused interest in everything that falls in between.

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The following day, I got shut out of another movie. This time, it was The Big Heat (1953), which shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Still, I had a lovely double feature that afternoon at the Egyptian Theater, which has been recently renovated but maintains a great deal of its period charm, especially the Art Deco ceiling. The first film was The Mad Miss Manton (1938), a screwball comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. As far as screwball comedies go, it doesn’t hold a candle to their other key collaboration, The Lady Eve (1941), but it’s enough of a mixed bag that it has some delightful moments. Stanwyck plays Miss Manton, a socialite given to playing pranks all over Manhattan — a tendency that doesn’t serve her well when she stumbles upon an actual dead body and the police don’t believe her. Together with her gaggle of enabling friends and a cynical journalist (Fonda) with whom she has a love-hate relationship, she must solve the mystery before landing herself in even more trouble. It’s a little too frenetic for my tastes, with all of the speed of a screwball comedy but little of the charm. The number of times that Fonda — Barbara Stanwyck’s love interest, may I remind you — casually threatens to slug her is also not great. The Mad Miss Manton hits a groove in its third act, but it’s too little too late, making the film a must for die-hard Stanwyck fans.

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This was followed by another female-dominated production, Westward the Women (1951). Each year, TCM Fest honors someone with the Robert Osborne Award to recognize their contribution to film, and the 2024 recipient was the film historian and academic Jeanine Basinger. I read her 1998 book Silent Stars during my freshman year of high school and it opened up a new landscape of film history to me, so it was a happy accident that I stumbled into the ceremony honoring her that preceded the film. Westward the Women was the movie Basinger had chosen to accompany her award presentation — an unexpectedly feminist Western about a group of women who, led by a no-nonsense trail guide, make the arduous journey out west to become essentially mail-order brides. It’s a strange film, one that feels simultaneously dated and ahead of its time. But for the most part, it treats the talents and determination of the women with such respect that it’s hard not to like.

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And then it was Sunday, the last day of the festival, when the programmers sought to appease their attendees by screening a number of films that had been sold out on earlier days. After a brief trip to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the UCLA campus (cruelest of cruel worlds, to hold both events on the same weekend), it was then that I caught the film that I had missed out on two days earlier, The Prisoner of Shark Island. It promised to tell the thrilling tale of Samuel Mudd, a Southern doctor who was sentenced to life in prison off the coast of Florida after treating John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg, which he injured in his infamous escape upon assassinating President Abraham Lincoln. He was — unjustly, the movie argues — tried as a conspirator when he claimed to be just a humble doctor treating an injured man who appeared on his doorstep in the middle of the night. (A brief Google search revealed that Mudd may have been a smidge more guilty that The Prisoner of Shark Island would have us believe, but that’s neither here nor there.) Best known today for the appearance of a young John Carradine as an antagonistic guard at the prison, The Prisoner of Shark Island isn’t quite able to elicit the thrills one might expect from a jailbreak movie, largely thanks to an unbalanced narrative and an uninspired lead performance from Warner Baxter. Some viewers may want to check it out as an unusual outing from director John Ford, but it’s a bit dull to suit any other purposes.

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TCM Fest has a lot to offer for classic film fans — with a wide array of screenings that go all the way back to the beginning of cinema as well as movies that are only a few decades old — and will, more often than not, have the added benefit of cast members present. Considering that the bulk of its lineup is fairly niche, the festival has a surprising electricity and positive energy, bolstered by die-hard fans who are as excited to see Henry Fonda in a film as modern audiences would be for Ryan Gosling. My TCM Fest weekend, packed full of classic movies, was not only a fun experience in April 2024, but it made me feel hopeful that film preservation is alive and well, and that these beloved — if occasionally dusty — pictures aren’t going anywhere.

Audrey Fox (@theaudreyfox) is a features editor and film/television critic at Looper, with bylines at RogerEbert.com, Nerdist, /Film and IGN, amongst other outlets. She has been blessed by the tomato overlords with their coveted seal of approval. Audrey received her BA in film from Clark University and her MA in International Relations from Harvard University. When she’s not watching movies, Audrey loves historical non-fiction, theater, traveling and playing the violin (poorly).

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