The Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Couldn't Put a Damper on the TCM Classic Film Festival
This year's festival felt like a return to form, even as we all tried to avoid what brewed on the horizon
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I just spent the last four days ignoring my phone, reality, and everything else to race around Hollywood Boulevard watching movies. The TCM (Turner Classic Movies) Film Festival, for the uninitiated, has taken place around April-early May for the last seventeen years, bringing the world of classic film (and its stars) to an eager and devoted audience. It's a wonderful time filled with great movies, and equally greater people. Be on the lookout for my Ticklish Business episodes devoted to the festival in the coming weeks.
But even as I ignored our current political times, I knew this TCM fest would have to be different, as the big behemoth known as the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger loomed. Turner Classic Movies has been a part of Warner Bros. since 1996, when creator Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System merged with, at the time, Time Warner. Since that time TCM has grown to include five on-camera hosts, six if you count original host Robert Osborne, has crafted a large TCM-sponsored library of films and restorations (this year's festival unveiled Joan Crawford's 1932 film Letty Lynton, a movie not legally seen in the U.S. in 90 years), as well as a bevy of goodwill from creatives from Martin Scorsese to Colman Domingo.
More importantly, they've cultivated a reputation for being stewards of Old Hollywood, and a love of movies, two things that seem in short supply in our current entertainment landscape. Host Ben Mankiewicz has said before, find another network wherein people don't just feel bonded to the movies, but to the hosts and creative team itself. You can attend D23 but you're never believing you'll be hanging out with Bob Iger or any Disney higher ups, let alone they'll know your name or particularly care what you think about the company. Not so with TCM. And I say that as someone who gives TCM a lot of credit for my own career. They were the first company to give me press credentials to anything and the first company that offered me the chance to write a book.
So when people come to the TCM Classic Film Festival, they aren't just going to watch movies, but to revisit old friends. This might be one of the few times the adage "the corporation isn't your friend" isn't wholly true. WB might not be our buddies, but the folks at TCM certainly are. That being said, people have certainly seen how the effects of previous mergers has affected the channel they love.
