Save TCM: Film History Should Never be Forgotten
Preserving the history of motion pictures is vital for the beating heart of the great American, 20th-century art form.
Jeanette MacDonald in The Merry Widow (1934): She does not deserve to be forgotten
Last week, Warner Bros.-Discovery slashed the management of Turner Classic Movies and claimed no changes would be brought about to the definitive channel and collection for film history even though the victims of the layoffs were the people that make TCM the rich archive that it is. On the night of this distressing news, I gathered myself and turned on Ernst Lubitsch's 1934 musical The Merry Widow on Watch TCM.
Only a Lubitsch film, especially one of his raucous, sexy musicals, could take my mind off such dire news. The Merry Widow was shot before the Production Code was enforced in July 1934 yet was released afterwards in November that same year. It was Lubitsch’s first film subjected to required approval by the Production Code Administration. Head of the PCA Joseph Breen and the Catholic Legion of Decency worked to tone down Maurice Chevalier’s philanderer, Count Danilo, and the “nightclub” (brothel), cuts which were fortunately saved and have been added back to the restored version of the film that we love and enjoy today. Therefore, knowing this context, it can be a bit of a whiplash seeing the film’s characteristically Lubitch, pre-Code nods to Danilo’s sexcapades and one heavily suggestive shot featuring a large sausage.
The behind-the-scenes story of The Merry Widow is almost a fitting allegory for the current crisis with TCM. There’s a time before shitty people meddled with the movies, when everything was perfectly fine as it was, and then an after, which at the time was uncertain and then frustrating for Lubitch and filmmakers in Hollywood when the PCA proved they were serious this time in “cleaning up” motion pictures. Thus, The Merry Widow of the time was not the The Merry Widow that Lubitsch wanted. How similar will this scenario be for the beloved TCM, after David Zaslav’s cuts to the brand’s indispensable management?
TCM is okay for now (after some recent announcements I’d rather not dig into here), but its long-term future still hangs in the balance. Watching The Merry Widow that night, Lubitsch’s second film and first sound film with MGM, I thought about how the great talents both onscreen and off do not deserve to be forgotten. Especially Lubitsch, who even the most passionate of cinephiles seem to miss when he should be on the same level of Orson Welles in terms of influence and greatness. Because at the time, Lubitsch was Hollywood. It is vital that we do not lose touch with American film history. While classical Hollywood was not perfect (has Hollywood ever?) and the Hays Code forced pictures to depict American conservative fantasies, there is so much to learn through all of these films, good or bad, about cinema and American history. And the context provided by TCM hosts before and after the pictures is invaluable. And it’s really enjoyable to spot the circumventing of the Code onscreen and learning too how filmmaker’s worked resolutely off screen in dodging Code censorship. Subtext, innuendo, double entendres, metaphors, and clever visual hints are always a glee for the classic film fan. Not to mention the utility of TCM for the curious, nascent film fans. I believe I was destined to love film and history, but it may not have been as accelerated as it was if not for TCM.
One Way Passage (1932): Kay Francis and William Powell do not deserve to be forgotten
I grew up seeing old westerns on TV but it was, like most people, Casablanca that introduced me to the magic of the Golden Age of Hollywood. From there I fell in love with the hapless youth of Nicholas Ray’s stories (my favorite classic Hollywood director), plus his In a Lonely Place (1950). And then my first pre-Code film, Baby Face (1933), starring Barbara Stanwyck, opened a whole new world and gave me a new perspective on classic films that I didn’t know existed. I’ve been a changed person ever since, obsessed with all things classical Hollywood and twentieth-century history. For other people, however, it may always be Casablanca or Citizen Kane that piques their interest. But coming across a wacky, lurid pre-Code could be the hidden treasure for an aspiring film fan, filmmaker, or historian/scholar. We need all the stories, good and bad, that TCM programs and curates not only for its avid, passionate viewers to explore, but for potential avid viewers to discover.
Pre-Code or not, it can be a rewarding experience to see older films and see that the people in them are just like us. Like reading a classic book, except that we can visually see how we have never been alone in our everyday struggles. Not to mention the pure beauty of these films, from Josef von Sternberg’s chiaroscuro lighting to noir dutch angles to debonair men and captivating starlets to James Wong Howe’s always memorable cinematography to Cary Grant’s acrobatics to Hitchock’s suspense to being mesmerized by lesser known stars like Kay Francis and etc. So many riches of cinema that should always be available. Not to mention the international films and more modern films that are occasionally shown as well. To end TCM and the easy accessibility of the great American, 20th-century art form is akin to a criminal act.
Seeing Count Danilo in The Merry Widow returning a garter to a brothel girl with stitching inscribed “many happy returns” and laughing at the fact that it’s funnier and more sexy than anything that Hollywood puts out today is quite fun. Since the present Hollywood is so disappointing, prime projections of past Hollywood are the best comfort. Where else can you get a line like “Your right eye says yes, and your left eye says no. Fifi, you’re cockeyed!” and be delighted that it got past the small minds of the conservative PCA (they did catch things like this quite often throughout the Code’s enforcement, but there’s perhaps just as many if not more instances where they didn’t and it’s just so gratifying).
Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur do not deserve to be forgotten
We need art-first people that work in institutions like TCM to keep film history alive for future generations. TCM can help to give us the next great talent of filmmakers, actors, and writers. It can be a salve for those who do not wish to partake in our increasingly vapid capital/technology-centered culture. It can give us more active, meaningful experiences than the passive, empty enjoyment of social media. It can educate, help open minds, and combat low attention spans. It can help us understand who we are and how we’ve arrived at where we are. We need art and especially that of which I consider to be the greatest art in the world. And right now, cinema and all the people of its past need us to remember them. Even the toxic and unscrupulous contributors need to be remembered in order for us to learn and teach (especially during a time of book banning and politicians trying to set us back to the culture that surrounded classical Hollywood). And while we do that, we can also delight in the good and glamor of all things classic film. Those immortalized both in front of and behind a film camera do not deserve to be forgotten. TCM must stay alive to run an endless reel through the projector of their memories.