Author: admin

View Turner Classic Movies Schedule
View HBO Max Lineup

Monday, May 10th
4:15 am ET

NEWS FROM HOME

News From Home. Photo: TCM Classic Film Festival

Directed by and Starring: Chantal Akerman
Year: 1977
Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes

A female film director explores New York City while enduring demanding letters from her mother.

6:13 am ET

LA CHAMBRE

LA CHAMBRE. Photo: 2021 TCM Classic Film Festival

Director and Starring: Chantal Akerman
Year: 1972
Runtime: 11 minutes
TV-G

TCM Premiere
Short film where a panoramic scan of a room reveals the filmmaker partaking in various tasks in one room.

CHANTAL AKERMAN

One of the most significant independent filmmakers of her era, Chantal Akerman possessed a pronounced visual and narrative style, influenced by structuralism and minimalism, which offers astute insights into women's role in modern culture. Akerman's interest in film was sparked at the age of 15 by a viewing of Jean-Luc Godard's "Pierrot le Fou" (1965), prompting her to enroll in the Belgian film school, INSAS. After about two years' study she quit school, eager to begin making films rather than sitting in a classroom. Akerman saved money from clerical and waitressing jobs to make several short films which received minimal recognition. It was not until she moved to New York in 1971 that Akerman began to develop her distinctive visual style and to deal with those themes which dominated her work.

In America she became acquainted with the films of the avant-garde, specifically those of Michael Snow and Stan Brakhage. Her first two features, "Hotel Monterey" (1972) and "Je Tu Il Elle" (1974), with their studiously static camerawork and minimal dialogue, were early indications of the visual style which came to full flowering in "Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" (1975). The reception of this 200-minute, minimally plotted film was mixed. It was criticized by many as a boring and meaningless minimalist exercise; Akerman's defenders, however, were awed by her visual aesthetic and use of real time to emphasize the routine of her protagonist's world.

Thanks to the film's exposure, Akerman was able to secure financial backing from the Gaumont company and from German TV for the striking "Les Rendezvous d'Anna" (1978). Her first semi-commercial effort, it featured popular French actors Aurore Clement and Jean-Pierre Cassel in a story of a female director trekking across Europe to promote her latest film. Again, static camerawork and minimal dialogue created a sense of alienation which mirrored the emptiness and insincerity of the protagonist's encounters. After failing to raise $25 million for an adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's 1969 novel "The Manor," Akerman returned to independent production with "All Night Long" (1982), an insightful drama contrasting romantic illusions with harsh realities. Akerman's "Golden Eighties" (1986) was a satire of musicals set completely within the confines of a Brussels shopping mall. Here too her concern was with idealized notions of romance; unlike her earlier works, however, the central story is complemented by several subplots and the film's pacing is a little more sprightly, although Akerman's signature static camera provides a unique perspective on the structured world of the shopping mall.

In 1988 Akerman returned to New York to film "American Stories/Food, Family and Philosophy," an exploration of her Jewish heritage through a series of stories told by immigrants. In the '90s, Akerman moved into more commercial filmmaking as the independent film boom allowed more idiosyncratic cinematic approaches into the mainstream. The drama "Night and Day" (1991) attracted widespread critical attention, and was followed by "A Couch in New York" (1996), Akerman's most accessible film to date, starring William Hurt, Juliette Binoche, and Richard Jenkins.

For the rest of her career, Akerman split her attention between experimental films, documentaries, and narrative features like "The Captive" (2000) and "Tomorrow We Move" (2004), both of which were co-written by Dutch novelist and theorist Eric de Kuyper. An adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel "Almayer's Folly" (2010) received widespread critical acclaim. Akerman's final film, "No Home Movie" (2015), was a documentary about her mother, Natalia (who died in 2014), and her inability to speak about her experiences at Auschwitz. Chantal Akerman committed suicide on or about October 5, 2015, in Paris. She was 65 years old.

2021 TCM Classic Film Festival

Thursday, May 6th through Sunday, May 9th at two virtual venues: the TCM network and the Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max.

For more information, please visit http://filmfestival.tcm.com

2021 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVALTRAILER:

About Turner Classic Movies (TCM)

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is a two-time Peabody Award-winning network that presents great films, uncut and commercial-free, from the largest film libraries in the world highlighting the entire spectrum of film history. TCM features the insights from Primetime host Ben Mankiewicz along with hosts Alicia Malone, Dave Karger, Jacqueline Stewart and Eddie Muller, plus interviews with a wide range of special guests and serves as the ultimate movie lover destination. With more than two decades as a leading authority in classic film, TCM offers critically acclaimed series like The Essentials, along with annual programming events like 31 Days of Oscar® and Summer Under the Stars. TCM also directly connects with movie fans through events such as the annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, the TCM Big Screen Classics series in partnership with Fathom Events, as well as through the TCM Classic Film Tour in New York City and Los Angeles. In addition, TCM produces a wide range of media about classic film, including books and DVDs, and hosts a wealth of material online at tcm.com and through the Watch TCM mobile app. Fans can also enjoy a TCM curated classics experience on HBO Max.

NICHOLS AND MAY: TAKE TWO at The 2021 TCM Classic Film Festival

TCM Channel

View Turner Classic Movies Schedule
View HBO Max Lineup

Saturday, May 8th
11:45am ET

NICHOLS and MAY: TAKE TWO (1996): TCM premiere of this documentary about the influential comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Four of their radio sketches have been re-created with new animation created especially for the program.

Includes conversation with author Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life.

1:00PM ET

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
1966-2hours 11minutes MTV-MA

Film version of Edward Albee’s Broadway hit about a sullen academic and his domineering, often scathing wife at twenty years into a marriage torn between great love and bitter hatred.

Includes conversation with author Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life.

Nichols And May-TCM Classic FF 2021

MARK HARRIS is the author of Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, which was a New York Times notable book of the year and Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War. His third book, Mike Nichols: A Life, was published in February, 2021. He is currently a writer for New York, where he often covers the intersection of culture and politics. He lives in New York City with his husband, Tony Kushner.

2021 TCM Classic Film Festival

Thursday, May 6th through Sunday, May 9th at two virtual venues: the TCM network and the Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max.

For more information, please visit http://filmfestival.tcm.com

About Turner Classic Movies (TCM)

In addition, TCM produces a wide range of media about classic film, including books and DVDs, and hosts a wealth of material online at tcm.com and through the Watch TCM mobile app. Fans can also enjoy a TCM curated classics experience on HBO Max.

DOCTOR X AT 2021 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL

THE HORROR FILMS OF MICHAEL CURTIZ

TCM CHANNEL

THURSDAY, MAY 6th at 1:30AM ET
DOCTOR X

DIRECTED BY: MICHAEL CURTIZ
STARRING: FAY WRAY, LIONEL ATWILL, LEE TRACY
BASED ON THE 1931 PLAY "THE TERROR."

TO BE FOLLOWED BY A NEW SHORT DOCUMENTARY WITH ALAN. K. RODE ON THE HORROR FILMS OF MICHAEL CURTIZ.

1932-1hour 16 minutes TV-PG
TCM premiere of recently restored version. The new two-color Technicolor master was restored by UCLA Film and Television Archive and The Film Foundation in association with Warner Bros. Entertainment.

New York City reporter Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy) is doing a piece on a series of grisly, cannibalistic murders that have all been committed under a full moon. Police soon begin to suspect that the murderer works at the lab of Dr. Jerry Xavier (Lionel Atwill), a mysterious Long Island researcher who is doing an investigation of his own. Antsy for an inside story, Taylor breaks into the lab, where he meets and falls in love with Dr. Xavier's daughter Joan (Fay Wray).

Academy Award—winning director Michael Curtiz (1886—1962) — whose best-known films include Casablanca (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945) and White Christmas (1954) — was in many ways the anti-auteur. During his unprecedented twenty-seven year tenure at Warner Bros., he directed swashbuckling adventures, westerns, musicals, war epics, romances, historical dramas, horror films, tearjerkers, melodramas, comedies, and film noir masterpieces. The director's staggering output of 180 films surpasses that of the legendary John Ford and exceeds the combined total of films directed by George Cukor, Victor Fleming, and Howard Hawks.

Alan K. Rode’s affinity for classic cinema is part of his DNA. His mother grew up in Hollywood and was an extra in Our Gang comedy shorts and studied acting at Ben Bard Drama. His grandfather was a silent film violinist who went from bit actor to Universal Studios house composer and eventually founded Corelli-Jacobs Recording Inc. A great-uncle doubled Gary Cooper in The Virginian (1929) and fought Jack Dempsey. Yet another grandfather promoted rodeos with cowboy star Hoot Gibson at Gilmore Stadium.

Before the advent of classic films on cable, video or streaming, Alan incessantly watched and catalogued movies on television. He is the author of a pair of notable cinema biographies. Charles McGraw: Film Noir Tough Guy is a critically acclaimed saga of the rough-hewn actor’s life and times. Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film is the first comprehensive biography of the director of Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Adventures of Robin Hood among other classic films.

Alan has been the producer and host of the annual Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival in Palm Springs, California since 2008. He has hosted and programmed classic cinema events for a variety of organizations including: The American Cinematheque, the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Alex Film Society and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Alan is also charter director and treasurer of the Film Noir Foundation. With FNF president Eddie Muller, Alan has spearheaded the preservation and restoration of “lost” films and co-programs and co-hosts several of the annual NOIR CITY film festivals.

Alan founded TVP Enterprises in 2017. With his talented filmmaking partners, he exec-produced featurette packages for the Blu-ray releases of: T-Men, He Walked by Night, The Man Who Cheated Himself and Trapped.

2021 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL

Thursday, May 6th through Sunday, May 9th at two virtual venues: the TCM network and the Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max.

View Turner Classic Movies Schedule
View HBO Max Lineup
View Linear Schedule

For more information, please visit http://filmfestival.tcm.com

About Turner Classic Movies (TCM)

View 2021 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL Trailer!

2021 TCM Classic Film Festival Broadcast Premiere and Interviews

Pelham One Two Three: NYC Underground (9 mins, 2021)
A film by: Bruce Goldstein

The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three-TCM Classic FF 2021

Pelham One Two Three: NYC Underground will receive its broadcast premiere as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival on HBO Max from May 6 as a part of the The Streets of New York Collection.

Goldstein’s latest film, Pelham One Two Three: NYC Underground is a humorous short essay about one of his favorite New York movies. The film spotlights Joseph Sargent’s quintessential 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, in which four armed man hijack a New York City subway train, holding seventeen passengers hostage.

The setting for hundreds of Hollywood classics, this collection highlights the Big Apple in key films from different eras and includes a special short subject for each film produced by film historian and New Yorker Bruce Goldstein. Includes The Naked City (1948), Speedy (1928) and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974).

BRUCE GOLDSTEIN

Bruce Goldstein is Repertory Programming Director of New York’s Film Forum and founder of Rialto Pictures. Under Goldstein’s direction, Film Forum’s repertory division has premiered virtually every major film restoration of the past 33 years. As founder and co-president of Rialto, he has reissued over 75 classic films in cinemas across the U.S.

In recent years, Goldstein has developed a new career as an acclaimed documentarian with his short films In the Footsteps of Speedy, The Art of Subtitles, and Uncovering The Naked City, which critic J. Hoberman called “the most purely enjoyable movie of the year [2020].”

Goldstein’s latest film, Pelham One Two Three: NYC Underground – a humorous short essay about one of his favorite New York movies -- will debut as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival on HBO Max. The film spotlights Joseph Sargent’s quintessential 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, in which four armed man hijack a New York City subway train, holding seventeen passengers hostage.

“Thousands of movies have been set in this city,” says confirmed New Yorker Goldstein, “but few get it as right as Pelham One Two Three, the ultimate subway movie. And there is no greater ‘audience picture.’ At a screening at the 2018 TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, which I had the honor to introduce, the fans went absolutely wild, from the very beginning to the very end.”

Goldstein’s jam packs a lot in the short (9 minute) running time, including VHS footage he shot of former NYC Mayor Ed Koch introducing Pelham One Two Three at Film Forum in 1994.

All three films in Goldstein’s “New York trilogy” – In the Footsteps of Speedy (about Harold Lloyd’s 1928 silent comedy shot on the streets of NYC), Uncovering The Naked City (about Jules Dassin’s 1948 New York cop picture), and Pelham One Two Three: NYC Underground – will be shown in May on HBO Max as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival. The collection is entitled “The Streets of New York.”

In 1997, Time Out named Goldstein one of the 101 essential people or places of New York, citing him “for keeping showmanship alive,” and, in 2005, “New York’s Finest Film Programmer.” In its 2012 “Best of New York issue,” the Village Voice called him “the Michael Jordan of Film Programmers.” Kent Jones’ profile of Goldstein in Film Comment was entitled “The King of New York.”

In 1987, Goldstein created Film Forum’s now-iconic repertory format. Time Out New York named Film Forum “New York’s Best Theater for Classic Films” and has called Film Forum the city’s #1 movie house.

In 1997, Goldstein founded Rialto, a distributor specializing in classic reissues. Described as “the gold standard of reissue distributors” by the L.A. Times.

In 2000, the National Society of Film Critics awarded Rialto a special “Heritage Award” for its re-releases of The Third Man (1949) and Grand Illusion (1937). The following year, the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Rialto a special award for its re-release of Rififi (1955), which was presented to him by Jeanne Moreau. In 2006, Rialto also received recognition from the NY Film Critics Circle for its release of Army of Shadows, which they named Best Foreign Film of the Year. Goldstein was also honored by the New York Critics Circle in 2000 for “Consistent and Imaginative Quality Programming.”

In 2007, Goldstein was honored by Anthology Film Archives for his work in film preservation and, in 2009, he was the recipient of the San Francisco Film Festival’s prestigious Mel Novikoff Award. In 2002, the French government bestowed on him the Order of “Chevalier” of Arts & Letters. In 2012, he was the recipient of the first Lifetime Achievement Award in Film ever given by George Eastman House. He is on the National Film Registry Board and the boards of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and Film Noir Foundation.

“There are programmers, there are programmers’ programmers, and there is Bruce Goldstein, programmers’ programmer and cine-showman extraordinaire… He is a celluloid warrior, a dedicated cinephile-activist, a fighter for old movies and new prints, for weeklong revivals and knowledgeable reviews. For going on a quarter of a century, he's been New York film culture's indispensable man.”

– J. Hoberman, San Francisco Film Festival

“The invaluable programmer and distributor Bruce Goldstein makes Film Forum one of New York’s most important destinations.” -- Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“ONE OF 101 ESSENTIAL NEW YORKERS… There was a time when movie exhibitors tried to outdo each other with flashy stunts, promotions and pure showmanship. The last man to be keeping that tradition alive is Bruce Goldstein, repertory program director of Film Forum, the only full-time revival house left in the city. A showbiz kid, Goldstein seems to have an inexhaustible fount of retro hip programming ideas.” – Eric Myers, Time Out New York

“The Michael Jordan of Film Programmers!” – Village Voice

“The King of New York!” – Film Comment

“The Essential Man” by J. Hoberman

2021 TCM Classic Film Festival
Thursday, May 6 through Sunday, May 9 at two virtual venues: the TCM network and the Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max.

For more information, please visit http://filmfestival.tcm.com

2021 TCM Classic Film Festival Broadcast Premiere and Interviews

let me come in (11 min, 2021)

A film by: Bill Morrison
Words and music by: David Lang

Following its LA Opera online premiere, "let me come in" will receive its broadcast premiere as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival on May 7th.

Produced and directed by filmmaker Bill Morrison, "let me come in" features a new song by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang performed by soprano Angel Blue, one of opera's brightest stars. The short film incorporates rediscovered (and heavily damaged) footage from the lost 1928 silent film Pawns of Passion to astonishing effect.

Filmmaker Bill Morrison, director of the highly acclaimed films Decasia and Dawson City: Frozen Time, has long been fascinated with ancient, decayed nitrate film stock from long-forgotten films—what he describes as "goopy, sticky films deemed not worth saving." For "let me come in," he has resurrected footage from what may be the last surviving reels of the 1928 German silent romance Pawns of Passion, discovered in a Pennsylvania barn in 2012. After decades of expanding in hot summers and contracting in freezing winters, the deteriorated nitrate film stock now reveals, in Morrison's words, "imagery that seems to be pulled from a state of semi-consciousness, asleep but dreaming."

Morrison describes Lang's song as "a rumination on love and the borderline separating two souls, seemingly from the precipice of consciousness. When I heard Angel Blue’s incredible interpretation, my mind immediately recalled the ambiguous tension in this scene from Pawns of Passion. Left to rot in a barn, and then scanned and archived again for another eight years on my own personal hard drive, it has found a new life through David’s words and music, and Angel Blue’s voice. It was very exciting to see how quickly it came together and how perfectly the image, words and sound meshed."

Bill Morrison makes films that reframe long-forgotten moving images. His films have premiered at the New York, Rotterdam, Sundance, and Venice film festivals. In 2014 Morrison had a mid-career retrospective at MoMA. His found footage opus Decasia (2002)was the first film of the 21st century to be selected to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. The Great Flood (2013),was recognized with the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award of 2014 for historical scholarship. Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) was included on over 100 critics’ lists of the best films of the year, and on numerous lists ranking the best films of the decade, including those of the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Vanity Fair. His work has previously been seen at LA Opera in productions of David Lang's "anatomy theater" (2016) and David T. Little's Soldier Songs (2019).

Co-presented by Los Angeles Opera with composer David Lang and soprano Angel Blue. Special thanks to the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center

2021 TCM Classic Film Festival

Thursday, May 6th through Sunday, May 9th at two virtual venues: the TCM network and the Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max.

For more information, please visit http://filmfestival.tcm.com

View 2021 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL TRAILER

About Turner Classic Movies (TCM)

SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS AT 2021 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL

TEX AVERY: THE KING OF CARTOONS
(1988) Documentary

$Tex Avery-TCM Classic Film Festival 2021$

Tex Avery-TCM Classic Film Festival 2021

Saturday, May 8th- 6:00am ET

TEX AVERY: THE KING OF CARTOONS (1988) Documentary about the life and career of animator and director Frederick Bean “Tex” Avery.

Saturday, May 8th- 7:00am ET

TEX AVERY AT MGM (1943-1955) -54M- TV-G - Compilation of cartoons directed by Tex Avery during his years at MGM.

Featured cartoons: Red Hot Riding Hood (1943), Bad Luck Blackie (1949), Deputy Droopy (1955), Screwball Squirrel (1944), King-Size Canary (1947), T.V. of Tomorrow (1953) and Symphony in Slang (1955).

TEX AVERY BIOGRAPHY

One of the most influential theatrical animators of the 20th century, Tex Avery shepherded Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes series from a second-tier interest for the studio to one of the most iconic franchises in animation history thanks to such enduring characters as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. Avery's work was defined by a strong sense of visual and verbal anarchy, with characters gleefully breaking the fourth wall or the laws of nature in pursuit of a madcap ideal that married the lunacies of the Marx Brothers with the free-form structure and refusal to adhere to the sweetness and gentility that defined the work of their greatest competitor, Walt Disney Studios. Avery's shorts for Warner Bros. and later MGM, where he created the phlegmatic canine Droopy and the hot-blooded "Red Hot Riding Hood" (1943), had a profound influence on countless subsequent animated shorts and television, from Hanna-Barbera to John Kricfalusi's "Ren & Stimpy" (Nickelodeon 1991-95) to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Tex Avery continued to provide blueprints for animation writers and artists into the 21st century.

Born Frederick Bean Avery on February 26, 1908 in Taylor, Texas, Tex Avery attended North Dallas High School, where he did some of his earliest published illustrations for the school's yearbook. After graduation in 1926, he took courses at the Art Institute of Chicago before heading west to try his hand in Hollywood, California. In 1929, he landed a job with Walter Lantz's animation studio at Universal, where he assisted on many of the unit's "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" shorts. During this period, Avery was blinded in one eye by a thumbtack fired during office horseplay with other animators. Reportedly, the incident had a significant impact upon not only his personality, transforming him from an outgoing, social individual to a solitary perfectionist, but also his perspective on animation itself: his unique, semi-surreal art and direction were credited in part by many biographers and collaborators to his lack of visual depth perception due to his injury.

Money disputes spurred Avery to leave Lantz for Warner Bros. in 1935. There, he convinced the studio's animation chief, Leon Schlesinger, to let him head his own production unit. He was granted a five-room bungalow on the Warner Sunset Blvd. lot - dubbed "Termite Terrace" due to its infestation problem - which he shared with several other up-and-coming animators, including Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett, and associate director Frank Tashlin. Charged with creating animated shorts that would compete with Walt Disney's output, Avery's unit abandoned the idea of producing material that would challenge their artistic ability in favor of shorts that were simply funnier and more anarchic than the Disney efforts. Termite Terrace's first shorts established Avery's signature style: frenetic action that often defied the laws of physics, wild visual puns laced with sarcasm and a satirical approach to the fairy tales and travelogues that were part and parcel of Disney's cartoons. Avery also played fast and loose with the inherently artificial nature of animation by having his characters speak directly to audiences or burst out the frame to decry the pomp and circumstance of title and credit sequences.

Avery's cartoons for Warners introduced or developed some of the most iconic figures in animation history. The first Termite Terrace short, "Gold Diggers of '49" (1935) boosted Porky Pig from bit player to a featured star in the Looney Tunes series, while Daffy Duck burst onto the scene two years later as Porky's berserk foil in "Porky's Duck Hunt" (1937) before bedeviling Egghead, an early incarnation of Elmer Fudd, in "Daffy Duck & Egghead" (1938). Avery also took a pesky rabbit character that had appeared in several Looney Tunes shorts and transformed him into a quick-thinking trickster with a talent for deceiving simple-minded pursuers. He also lent the rabbit -- who adopted the nickname of one of his animators, Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, for his own moniker, Bugs Bunny -- Avery's own signature phrase, "What's up, doc?" from the verbiage of his Texas youth.

In these and countless other Warner Bros. cartoons, Avery was deeply involved in nearly all aspects of production, from writing and editing to voices and catchphrases that became part of the American pop culture lexicon ("Which way did he go?" "Screwy, isn't it?"). Under Avery's supervision, Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes characters became exceptionally popular among audiences and bona fide rivals to Disney for their affections. But his perfectionism also ran afoul of his boss, Leon Schlesinger, who balked at his insistence on repeating the same gag three times in the 1941 Bugs Bunny carton "The Heckling Hare." Avery responded by quitting Warner for Paramount, where he created the offbeat "Speaking of Animals" series, which incorporated animated lip movements into live action footage of real animals. By the following year, Avery had moved to MGM, where he created some of his most inspired work. His MGM cartoons cast off any semblance to reality with their flights of fancy, which ranged from the antics of his slow-talking hound, Droopy, to the risqué rave-ups featuring sexually charged takes on classic fairy tale characters like Little Red Riding Hood ("Red Hot Riding Hood," 1943) and a lothario wolf whose reactions to the women's presence reached volcanic heights of arousal.

Avery's tenure at MGM was marked by considerable success, with his first project for the studio, the wartime satire "The Blitz Wolf" (1941), netting an Oscar nomination for Best Short Subject (Cartoons). But by 1950, he was burned out due to his relentless pace, and left MGM for a year before returning briefly to complete two Droopy shorts in 1953.

That same year, he returned to his old boss, Walter Lantz, to direct five shorts, including the Oscar-nominated "Legend of Rockabye Point" (1955). His tenure there was quickly torpedoed over the same financial issues that prompted him to quit the Lantz operation in 1935, and he moved into television commercials, producing memorable shorts for Raid and Frito-Lay under his own banner, Cascade Productions. Though his career remained active and his work regarded with the utmost respect by many of his peers, Avery became depressed and withdrew from the industry in the mid-1970s.

However, he returned to television in 1980 for "The Kwicky Koala Show" (CBS 1981), a Saturday morning series for Hanna-Barbera's Australian production office that featured a titular character who shared several personality traits with Droopy. But Avery would not live to see Kwicky Koala appear on American screens; he succumbed to liver cancer at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, California on August 26, 1980.

2021 TCM Classic Film Festival

Thursday, May 6 through Sunday, May 9 at two virtual venues: the TCM network and the Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max.

For more information, please visit http://filmfestival.tcm.com

About Turner Classic Movies (TCM)

TCM also directly connects with movie fans through events such as the annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, the TCM Big Screen Classics series in partnership with Fathom Events, as well as through the TCM Classic Film Tour in New York City and Los Angeles. In addition, TCM produces a wide range of media about classic film, including books and DVDs, and hosts a wealth of material online at tcm.com and through the Watch TCM mobile app. Fans can also enjoy a TCM curated classics experience on HBO Max.

VIEW 2021 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL TRAILER!

DOCUMENTARIES on the Turner Classic Movie CHANNEL 2021

DOCUMENTARIES
2021 Turner Classic Movie CHANNEL

$Tex Avery-TCM Classic Film Festival. Photo:$

Tex Avery-TCM Classic Film Festival. Photo:

May 8th- 6:00am ET

TEX AVERY: THE KING OF CARTOONS (1988) Documentary about the life and career of animator and director Frederick Bean “Tex” Avery.

May 8th- 11:45am ET

NICHOLS AND MAY: TAKE TWO (1996): TCM premiere of this documentary about the influential comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Four of their radio sketches have been re-created with new animation created especially for the program. Includes conversation with author Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life

May 9th- 3:00am ET

FROM BROADWAY TO HOLLYWOOD (2015): Pianist Richard Glazier offers a unique view of Broadway and Hollywood music using fascinating interviews, piano performances and commentary in this broadcast special.

May 10th- 4:15am ET

NEWS FROM HOME (1977): A female film director explores New York City while enduring demanding letters from her mother.

The Decline of Western Civilization (1981) Directed by Penelope Spheeris Shown: Exene and John Doe (of punk band "X")

HBO MAX
Available from May 6th

THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION(1981): Documentary cameras capture the thriving Los Angeles punk scene of the early 1980s. Featured in the Discoveries collection, Festival extras include a discussion with director Penelope Spheeris.

THE MÉLIÈS MYSTERY(2020): A North American premiere, this documentary by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange details the process of restoring 270 of the 520 lost films of pioneering director Georges Méliès, all orchestrated by a Franco-American collaboration between Lobster Films, the National Film Center and the Library of Congress. Included in the Festival collection are five recently restored short films (A Trip to the Moon, The Impossible Voyage, Four Troublesome Heads, The Infernal Cauldron, The Old Hag)

2021 TCM Classic Film Festival

Thursday, May 6th through Sunday, May 9th at two virtual venues: the TCM network and the
Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max.

About Turner Classic Movies (TCM)

With more than two decades as a leading authority in classic film, TCM offers critically acclaimed series like The Essentials, along with annual programming events like 31 Days of Oscar® and Summer Under the Stars. TCM also directly connects with movie fans through events such as the annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, the TCM Big Screen Classics series in partnership with Fathom Events, as well as through the TCM Classic Film Tour in New York City and Los Angeles.

About HBO Max

HBO Max® is WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer platform, offering best in class quality entertainment. HBO Max features the greatest array of storytelling for all audiences from the iconic brands of HBO, Warner Bros., DC, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies and much more. The streaming platform initially launched in the United States in May 2020. This year, it will expand into Latin America and the HBO-branded streaming services in Europe (the Nordics, Spain, Central Europe, the Baltics and Portugal) will be upgraded to HBO Max.

View the 2021 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL Trailer Below!

TCM Classic Film Festival 2021 Schedule

The 2021 TCM Classic Film Festival Will be Virtual this Year and Features More Than 100 Films and Over 30 Special Guests Across Turner Classic Movies Channel and HBO Max

Calling all film fans – Turner Classic Movies (TCM) today released the extensive lineup of talent, films, and exclusive content for the 2021 TCM Classic Film Festival, airing from Thursday, May 6 through Sunday, May 9 at two virtual venues: the TCM network and the Classics Curated by TCM Hub on HBO Max.