TCM Film Fest Funny Girl Red Carpet 2013

Here is the entrance to the red carpet for tonight's gala premiere restoration of Funny Girl at The TCM Classic Film Festival. Below find pictures of all the great classic stars that walked it.


 Jane Withers and can anyone place the woman with her in the black dress? When Jane told the fans in the bleacher that it was recently her 87 birthday, they sang her happy birthday. The only thing sweeter than that was her reaction of tears and sincere gratitude.

Ann Blythe with Tom Brown 

Max Von Sydow, who even at a fun event looks a bit ominous.

 Tippi Hedren

 Mitzi Gaynor, who is a live wire. She gave Ben almost more than he could handle at the South Pacific interview. But that a whole other blog post.

 Eva Marie Saint greeting Ann Jeffries

 Robert Hayes, whose Airplane! will be showing at this years fest.

 Eva Marie was the last on the red carpet and gave us one of her high school cheers before heading into the film.

TCM Film Fest 2013

These Photos Courtesy Of Will McKinley of Cinematically Insane

TCM Classic Film Fest starts today. Yesterday I attended the press day with hosts Robert Osborne, and Ben Mankiewicz and programmers Charles Tabesh and Genevieve McGillicuddy.

The programming of this festival has to be challenging. While they have a theme of travel in films, there are so many types of viewers and they have to please them all. Everything from silents to noir to musicals to more current films, not to mention the whole debate about 35mm vs digital and just plain old quality issues. I asked Tabesh about how they make these decisions. He responded that there are 3 or 4 people in a core team that create the long list, but it is him that pairs that down and makes the final decisions based on availability, diversity, and quality.

 Robert Osborne said that now that the festival is established they are able to be a bit more eclectic in their film choices. People don't even need to know what the program is, they are buying tickets and just trusting that Tabesh and McGillicuddy will have their best interests in mind. Within the community TCM is definitely a known quantity. McGillicuddy told us that 20% of the festival budget goes to projection and technical support asan example of their dedication to presenting the films in their best quality possible.

Much of my favorite part of the festival is the interviews with the stars of the films. This year has a lot of great guests. Robert told us once the program is set he gets first pick at interviews. Ben Mankiewicz talked about how much he's enjoyed getting to know and become friends with the stars. Further Ben let us know his disappointment in not getting to interview Max Von Sydow before the screening of Three Days of The Condor, one of his fave films. Sorry Ben.

Some limited access tickets are still available and you can also try to get into screens with individual tickets. 

Stay tuned tomorrow for picture from the red carpet gala tonight of the World Premiere Restoration of Funny Girl. Also you can watch my twitter stream for some live tweeting tonight (@EliseCD)

Robert Osborne Returning to TCM Dec 1

Good news everybody, Robert Osborne is set to return to TCM December 1st. Just in time for the TCM Cruise. Also announce a day or so ago was the date of the third TCM Film Festival in Hollywood, which will be April 12-15.

And that my friends is the TCM news for the day.

More Elise's Ramblings posts about TCM and Robert Osborne

Ernest Borgnine at TCM Classic Film Festival

Here's some great video of Ernest Borgnine at The TCM Classic Film Festival. They had just screened Jubal and Leonard Maltin is interviewing him about how he got into acting. I have to say that this interview was probably the high point of the day. Borgnine, is really sharp and had great things to say about the industry, today and in the past. He's just completed two pictures one called Night Club, about seniors in an asst. living home, and another with Bruce Willis called RED (retired extremely dangerous).
Can't wait to see them!!!