The Extras - What's Happening at the 59th CINECON Classic Film Festival?
Episode Date: August 13, 2023Esteemed guests, Stan Taffel, president of the Cinecon Classic Film Festival, and Bryan Cooper, the Festival's Co-Vice President, tell us just what to expect at this year's CINECON festival....  Some of the highlights they detail are the restoration of the 100-year-old Warner Bros "Gold Diggers" film, the excitement surrounding the John Wayne picture Adventure's End, and "Kinecon at Cinecon." We discuss the multiple Special Presentations on "Soundies," highlights from Boris Karloff's Home movies, Abbott and Costello Rarities, and more. And we celebrate special honorees Carol Lawrence, Peggy Webber, and Nancy Olson Livingston with some details about their careers. Whether you are familiar with CINECON or not, you'll enjoy the stories of classic Hollywood and classic films that are spotlighted at this year's festival. From ticket details to unique finds, this episode is a must-listen for anyone who plans to attend or just appreciates cinema and its history.For tickets and more information, visit the Cinecon website:CINECON CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke.
I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening
to The Extras.
Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite
TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K,
or your favorite streaming site.
I'm Tim Millard,
your host. And joining me today are Stan Tafel, president of the Cinecom Classic Film Festival,
and Festival Co-Vice President Brian Cooper. Hi, guys. It's good to have you on the podcast.
Hi there, Tim. It's good to see you.
Pleasure to be here.
Well, Stan, we might not too long ago through some mutual friends, Alan K. Rohde and Stephen Smith, and both those guys have been on the podcast.
And I think that's at that dinner where I found out that you were a big Charlie Chaplin fan.
Oh, yes.
I am a tremendous fan of that wonderful, brilliant artist.
And is that how you kind of got into this interest of silent films and into all of the
CineCon? Yes, as a matter of fact, it was. I was at an age way too young to doubt when Charlie
Chaplin was on television and I'd watch it with my mom. And I did not understand that he was old.
I didn't know the films were ancient and I could understand him because he wasn't talking.
And I just followed the action. And then I remember seeing a photograph of him in the late
60s. And I had to ask my mom who that was. And she told me that's Charlie Chaplin. And all of a
sudden, I realized, wow, I mean, I'm laughing at something that
was done in 1916. And that was how my love for silent film began.
Well, how about for you, Brian?
Well, mine sort of started because my dad used to have old movies running around the house.
He was into Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart, stuff like that. And then I grew up in LA. So
every Sunday was Abbott and Costello
and KTLA and Family Film Festival.
So I sort of got started that way.
My great uncle was an actor, a character actor,
so we would always hope to see him in something.
He was in Laurel and Hardy shorts and Little Rascals and things like that.
It's always exciting to see.
His name was Billy Gilbert, and he is probably best known as the voice of Sneezy in the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And he was in a ton of classic films, including The Great Dictator with Charlie Chaplin. So it was sort of that introduction, like, oh, that's your relative, and also sort of discovering what my dad grew up with, because he went to the movies in the 30s and 40s and 50s.
grew up with because he went to the movies in the 30s and 40s and 50s.
I have a very interesting story about Billy Gilbert and the Great Dictator.
Charlie Chaplin gave Billy on the set a 16 millimeter print of a Keystone film he made called Dough and Dynamite.
And that print was treasured by Billy.
And back in the 60s, he traded it to Kent Easton, who was the founder of Blackhawk Films.
And when Blackhawk Films was going to fold, they put the print up for auction.
And it has traveled around some.
It's in gorgeous shape.
And I'm proud to say that I own that print of Billy Gilbert's print that Chaplin gave
him of Dough and Dynamite.
And it's actually my print, and he's going to have to give it back to me.
OK. It would have come to me because I got his film collection if he held on to it it's in good hands the jealousy the envy is just oozing here across the radio waves
you know you just mentioned uh something about acting and i stand i've been following you on
your facebook page and you had a very cool kind of acting part. I didn't even know you were an actor, actually.
Tell us a little bit about that, because it sounded like it kind of ties into what we're
talking about today. Absolutely. I was an actor and a comedian from a very early age. I was on a
series of television specials on PBS called The News in Review. And it was a musical parody of current news events. So I was
playing every president, I was playing world leaders, and it was all to music. And I was very
fortunate. I won three consecutive Emmy Awards for that. And I was really excited. And then I moved
out here, because an agent encouraged me to get out of the East Coast. I came out here, I started
doing a little bit of work. I was on Make Me Laugh on Comedy Central, and I was doing some stand-up. And then I fell in love and realized it's much better to be
in love with someone and have a regular job that pays than have to constantly audition and wonder
where the next paycheck's coming from. So I did put it on hold, but I do a lot of celebrity
interviews out here with my film knowledge. But then several years ago, a very close friend wrote a script, wanted to put the movie together.
And I said to him, I'll come in for a day if you want.
And that's all it was going to be.
But then lockdown happened and actors were not available.
And then he retooled the script.
And then when he sent it to me saying, we're going to do this film, I looked at the script and said, this is not a one day part. What have you done here?
Well, it's actually one of the larger roles in the film. And I got to work with Mary Lou
Henner and Joe Rigolbudo and Barry Pearl. And I've become close friends with all of them.
And we just saw the cast and crew screening of it. And it was weird to see my face that large on a big screen again.
It's been a long time.
But now that I'm fully gained again in the SAG-AFTRA,
all of a sudden we're on strike.
And now I have this new card and I can't use it.
Yeah.
Well, let's just hope they're back at the table tomorrow talking
from when we're recording this and that we can get through this.
It's painful for everybody when strikes happen.
So speaking of interviews or other things,
I also noticed you did something with Mel Brooks recently.
Well, yes.
My friends at the LA Jewish Film Festival,
they call me almost every year and they ask me to do a celebrity interview of sorts.
And Mel Brooks was going to be there to honor Gene Wilder with a brand new documentary that was being made.
And although Mel Brooks firmly said because he's still scared of COVID, he just wanted to come out, talk to the audience and then take off.
So in the green room, I happened to be there.
And we started talking a little bit about Sid Caesar. And
Mel loved hearing that. So I told him that I'm a film archivist, and I've actually rescued
kinescopes of some of his work from the early days of television. And he was really intrigued.
And then before I had to go get ready, he said, well, let's get a couple of photos.
And so that's why I have those there. And
yes, I can actually say to all of your listeners, I spoke to God.
I think you wrote that it was on your bucket list. So there you go. You checked one off, right?
Right.
Yeah, I had to mention a couple of these things to get a little background on you guys,
because I think it's more interesting to hear what you guys are bringing to the table and
where your interest and love of the films we're going to talk about today come from.
So, well, why don't we dive in and talk about CineCon? Because I am not that familiar,
and I'm sure some of our listeners, because some are not here in LA, aren't as familiar.
Maybe one of you can jump in and kind of give us a little background history about CineCon.
So this is our 59th year.
Obviously, Stan and I have not been working on it that long, but it did start in 1965.
And it's kind of ballooned since then.
It was originally just a bunch of film collectors came together with their 16 millimeter prints in a hotel room and set up some chairs and watch movies, which is great. So now, you know,
we're in a different kind of a situation now. We have access to prints from different studios and
archives and other collectors, and we're in larger venues. But essentially, the heart of
CineCon is just getting together and having some fun and watching some movies
that you haven't seen before. Hopefully, movies that are not out there. We try to find films that
are not on home video, that aren't streaming, that aren't on TCM or cable. So we dig around
and ask for new restorations, what's rare, what's interesting, and that's how we put the schedule together.
We have a saying at CineCon, if it's rare, we'll show it. It doesn't necessarily mean we've seen
it or we know it's any good. It just means it's rare. Sometimes, you know, it's a real winner,
and sometimes it tanks, but we try, you know? The idea, Tim, is that if you want to see Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz and
Casablanca, you should.
And there are some wonderful places that will show those films, other festivals.
But if you want to see the other films that these actors and writers and directors and
people made that weren't the big films, you come to CineCon so you can actually, you know,
fully flesh out your movie
knowledge. And I noticed in the title, it says CineCon Classic Film Festival. It doesn't say
Silent Film Festival or Rare. I mean, so it leaves you kind of open, I guess, to pick up rare films
that could be a little bit newer. They're not all silent films or from the early 1900s necessarily.
Is that right? That's right. As a matter of fact, we don't just show silent films and sound films. We also show rare television kinescopes,
because that is a big passion with us. The films that were recorded by simply recording a television
screen before the advent of videotape. And so we have something called Kinecon at Cinecon,
which is just about the most popular thing that we do now.
As a matter of fact, we're doing a tribute of sorts to CBS and Television City this year because this is the year that Television City is no longer CBS Television City. So we're running the rarest possible material.
We're going to be showing the opening of Television City back in 1952.
opening of Television City back in 1952. We're going to be showing Edward R. Murrow a year earlier showing the introduction of the coaxial cable that allowed broadcasting from east to west
coast instantly. And we're also showing something that only arrived a few months ago, which is
the rarest thing possible. It's a 1958 kinescope that was discovered in the collection of a man named Joe Casares, who was an innovator
in videotape development and also color videotape. And this is a 1958 kinescope that no one has seen.
It was broadcast live and never seen again. And it was in his personal collection. And I made sure
that we nabbed this. And once we announced that we're going to run this Sunny Fox Let's Take a Trip
episode, of which very few episodes survived, we got a call from employees at CBS who have asked
to come because they want to see it. Wow. I was going to ask, how do you connect with collectors?
How do you, do people reach out to you? You reach out to other people? Because maybe some of the
people who listen to this podcast would have an interest to check out your website, obviously,
and connect with you guys as well.
I mean, a lot of collectors come to the festival, of course, happen coming to the festival, are friends of ours.
There's a lot of different Facebook groups where there's collectors on there.
And people reach out to us all the time through our website, let us know what they have, what they're interested in seeing, send requests.
So, you know, we're always open to that.
But basically, the people who come to the festival are all fans, you know, we're always open to that. But basically, the people who come
to the festival are all fans, you know, just like us. So it's a really fun weekend. It feels like
you're among friends. And we all just geek out, you know, for five days before we get back to
real life again. We also have celebrities that we honor, but we also have returning celebrities
that we've honored in the past that just want to come to the festival, like Cora Sue Collins. This is going to be her fourth or fifth time at our festival because she just loves CineCon. And she autographs things, and she charges $5 for the autographs, but she gives CineCon the money so we can use it for film preservation.
Yeah, Cora Sue, who you might not know, was a child star in the 30s. She retired in 1945. And when she was a teenager, she played significant roles in films, including like a young Greta Garbo and Queen Christina. And we're showing a new restoration of The Scarlet Letter, the 1934 version, and she plays Pearl in that. So it's pretty remarkable that she's still with us. She's in her late 90s and she's in great shape and she remembers making that movie. So of course we had
to have her back. But we've also got three other wonderful honorees this year. We've got actress
Carol Lawrence, best known as, of course, originating the role of Maria in West Side Story.
But she went on to a very long career in television. She made her film
debut in 1962 in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. We've got a print coming from UCLA of that
film, which is, again, not out there. And then we've got the wonderful legendary actress Nancy
Olsen Livingston, who is best known as Betty Schaefer in Sunset Boulevard, played opposite. She's the
young love interest of William Holden in Sunset Boulevard. Among her many films, we're showing
a rarity called Submarine Command. And we have another star from that film named Peggy Weber,
who also has a humongous resume, including years on radio. She started in radio in the mid-1940s and continues to work in
radio. So three wonderful ladies. We're thrilled to have them for the weekend. So I hope people
will come out and show them some love. And just to kind of give a little background on those
honorees, when I was looking at your schedule on your website, it looks like you have,
I mean, this is a multiple day. We didn't explain that. But this is what, a four-day festival? Five-day. Five-day over the Labor Day weekend.
So it's what, August 31 through the 4th?
Yeah.
And then it looks like you have maybe one honoree on each day.
We try to do one each day, but just scheduling-wise, it didn't kind of play out that way.
Saturday, we have Carol Lawrence.
And then Sunday, we have Peggy Weber and Nancy Olsen. And then
Cora Sue will be there on Friday. So we have somebody almost every day. Opening night is
packed with some rarities, which Dan can tell you about.
Well, I'm really excited about the fact that this year, we have moved the festival to the
Old Town Music Hall, which is in El Segundo. Our festival has been based in
Hollywood for the last 30 plus years. But due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to make
a decision to make a move. And because we're personal friends with the caretakers of Old Town,
they offered the theater to us to keep CineCon going. And in the theater, which was built in 1921,
going. And in the theater, which was built in 1921, so it really is a silent movie palace to say anything more. We are going to be utilizing the mighty Wurlitzer organ for some of our silent
programs. And if viewers or listeners have never heard of Wurlitzer Organ playing in a theater, it is one of the great
experiences that you're likely to have. So the two Bills who put the theater together back in the
60s, who are no longer living, they found a theater that was being torn down, and they were
able to acquire the Wurlitzer Organ. So we are taking full advantage of that,
especially on opening night. After our opening night gala, where we're having drinks and
cocktails and food, we're going into the theater. We're going to get a quick demonstration of what
this Wurlitzer Organ does. And then a magnificent musician named Scott Lasky is going to play his
brand new original score for a film that is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
And that film was lost to us for many decades.
And the film is from 1923.
It is a Warner Brothers film, and it's called The Gold Diggers.
So it's the first Gold Diggers picture that started the whole trend that Warner Brothers would do,
especially in the sound era.
The film is found by a man named
Josh Cattermole, who had contacted me when he discovered it because he didn't know what he had.
And several of us were chiming in and telling him, you have a piece of gold there. You have a film
that was made the first year that Warner Brothers was really going to town. And he contacted me and
said, do you think Warner Brothers would be
interested in doing the restoration on this? Because literally he found a box filled with
nitrate film. It was as simple as that. And so he contacted me and I contacted my friend
at Warner's who was very excited about it. And sadly, five days later, he called me and said,
I have such terrible news. I'm so
sorry to even bring this up to you, but they're not interested because it's public domain.
And I was shattered. But undaunted, Josh found the funding and put it together.
And then I contacted him and said, Josh, I would love to run this since Warner Brothers is celebrating their 100th anniversary.
I really would love to run this.
And now I've heard that some people at Warner Brothers understand that we are running it with the restoration.
And, you know, no harm, no foul.
We're not doing it to spite anybody.
We are about preservation.
And Warner Brothers or whatever studio it is, we're going to have it opening night with the mighty Wurlitzer Organ
and I can hardly wait.
It's a really good picture, by the way.
And after the Gold Diggers,
we're going to be running another film
that was thought to be lost.
And ironically, it's a film
that has been in the catalogs forever,
but no one knew there was a print.
And it's a John Wayne film,
of all things,
that was lost. And the Library of Congress located the print. And back in 2019, when I was down there
in Culpeper for one of their festivals, they ran this film called Adventures End. And as soon as
we announced that we were going to run this at CineCon, I was getting phone calls from, and I
know Brian was getting
interested people. They said, I can't believe you're running this movie. I cannot believe it.
But thanks to my buddy, Brian, he had to do due diligence and we had to make sure that we had the
proper clearance because while it's a universal film, universal doesn't own the rights to it.
So we had to try to track down who owns the rights. How are we going to do this? We had to fill separate paperwork just to run this little 60-minute movie. But that is some of the links
that we will go to in order to exhibit these films for our fans. I mean, if they want to go
see True Grit or The Searchers, go right ahead. There are other great festivals. But if you want
to see John Wayne in a film that no one has seen, you come to CineCon. And after that, we're going to run
Why Worry, which is the Harold Lloyd film, also celebrating its 100th anniversary. And
Sue Lloyd, Harold's granddaughter, is going to come and introduce the movie.
Stay with us. We'll be right back.
Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast. And I wanted to let you know that
we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes.
So, I mean, there's great stories behind probably most of the stuff that you're showing.
Do you have a little Q&A that you do to let people know what it is they're seeing?
Well, we do.
We generally have certain introductions for certain films.
For instance, the gold diggers will be introduced to give people a context of how it was restored. And in our program notes, we have a beautiful full-color program
that also puts in detail how the thing was discovered.
And I asked Josh to do the notes for the gold diggers.
So people, at least when they have our program,
they get the context, they get the behind the scenes,
and any little tidbit that we can do.
Because we don't have time to introduce every single film.
It's a very tight schedule.
We try to pack it full of rarities so um some of the movies are just gonna you read about it in the program and if
it sounds interesting to you you like the stars the director whatever uh you'll give it a try
but we'll have a special guest coming in to introduce other films we have a friend of ours
named jeremy arnold who has been doing commentary TCM. He's written several books for them. He's going to come in and introduce a Rare Republic film called The Man Trap. A good friend of ours who is a dancer, a specialty dancer named Rusty Frank is going to introduce our B musical, which is What's Cooking with the Andrews sisters. So everybody gets to come in and talk about what they're excited about and they're passionate about.
Like Stan always says, we're family.
So people contact us and say, what can I do?
Oh, I'm excited about this movie and I have some really interesting factoids.
Can I share them with your audience?
And, of course, we want that information to be shared.
There's also a really cool quick story about the fact that someone that we're very closely associated with, Eric Grayson, he's a film archivist. He has been restoring Boris
Karloff's home movies, which no one has seen. So he contacted me and said, I would love to
run those movies. He sent me the home movies to watch and it was a long afternoon. And I said,
we can't run all that stuff.
I don't need to see potty training and things that were none of my business.
But there were 15 minutes of gold in there with character actors, friends, and to see Frank McHugh and all these wonderful character stars.
Then I asked him, after you do that, can you get Sarah Karloff to narrate them?
And she's already laid down the track.
So that's how we roll at CineCon.
We have friends and they have friends.
And the next thing you know, we have these great premieres like Sarah Karloff showing
her dad's home movies.
That's so great.
And that was kind of under what I think was a, like,
called a special program. And you have kind of some special programs where you're doing that?
Well, we have several special programs, including what Stan was just talking about.
We have a guest programmer named Julian Stone, who did an event at Hollywood Heritage Museum,
which is our, one of our partners. And it was called The Man Behind the Monsters.
And it was about Junior Lemley, who was the son of Carl Lemley Sr.
And he basically was this boy genius who was at Universal in the early 30s.
And one of his brainchild was to take Dracula, the original book,
and make it into a film, which, of course, is the classic 1931 film with Bela Lugosi.
But that started a whole franchise at Universal, which, you know, they're just legendary in
that field.
So he's going to be talking about this sort of little known champion, Junior Lemley.
And he wrote a book as well, which he'll be signing after the presentation.
And then we have a good friend of ours named Mark Cantor, who has a jazz on film archive.
He's incredibly knowledgeable about anything relating to jazz and swing
and, you know, whatever on film.
And he has a new book out on the soundies.
And hopefully, maybe you know what soundies are.
But if you don't, I can certainly share that with you.
Yeah, please do.
So soundies are sort of like the music video of the 1940s.
They're three-minute shorts that were produced.
Actually, they were originally shot on 35mm, but they were released on 16 and 8mm, and they played on what was called a panoram. And so if you went to a movie
theater or a nightclub or bar or something like that, there would be a machine that looked like
a jukebox and you put your money in and it would actually play this film short for you. So you got
to actually see the band or singer or dancer performing and hear the music. And so it was
sort of the precursor to MTV. Anyway, hundreds of these shorts
were made throughout the 1940s, up through 1947. So he has meticulously put together a massive
two-volume guide to soundies in conjunction with a wonderful new Blu-ray set, which Kino put out
on soundies, which has about 200 of those shorts that are restored,
many of them from the Library of Congress. So Mark has been with us almost every year,
and he's going to come back with some rarities from his collection. So those are just two of the special programs. There's a couple of other special things you want to talk about,
Adam Costello and Robert Culp and all that other fun stuff.
We have a few friends who wrote books in the past year. One is Rick Green. He wrote a book about advertising anarchy, selling Abbott and Costello to war-torn America. And the book is almost 700 pages, and it's filled with color photos and lobby cards and press books and so much ephemera.
and lobby cards and press books and so much ephemera. If you were never a collector of this kind of stuff, you buy his book and you have everything. So I wanted to run some rare Abbott
and Costello material. And we're going to run that, he'll introduce it, and then he'll sell
his book afterwards. We're doing the same thing with Josh Mills, who is Edie Adams' son. And he
is also the curator and caretaker of the Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams' estates. And he is also the curator and caretaker of the Ernie Kovacs and E.D. Adams Estates.
And he is going to be selling his brand new book called Ernie in Kovacs Land.
And we're going to run some Ernie Kovacs to whet the appetites of our attendees.
And in addition to that, we are also going to be showing three of the Laurel and Hardy shorts from 1927.
Three of the Laurel and Hardy shorts from 1927.
Now, the Laurel and Hardy shorts are available in the world, but these have been restored from 35 millimeter nitrate material.
And no one has ever seen this kind of quality before. And because Serge Bromberg and I have been film collectors and friends for decades, I helped.
I provided four films, which he used some elements of, and several other
people and archives provided film footage. So we're going to run Laurel and Hardy Silence like
no one has ever seen in clarity that has just, it's going to defy description, as well as an
hour gang short, also celebrating its 100th anniversary, called Derby Day, which is coming
from 35 millimeter nitrate material. And that's from our friends at Classic Flips. So there's just, it's like the weather in
Florida. If you don't like something, you know, just wait till the next one.
Right. Well, it's an amazing lineup. It's an amazing lineup. And you just gone through,
you know, some of the highlights that I want to be sure we did talk about. Maybe let's get a little
into nuts and bolts of like, how do people attend
and where do they go to find out more? Sure. So tickets are available on Eventbrite
and they can just search Cinecon on Eventbrite. We are selling full festival passes right now
up and through the 15th. So you can get them at the early bird price of $249. It's quite a deal.
So for $249, you get five days of classic film,
plus that gets you into the opening night reception.
So we also want to mention that at CineCon,
you don't have to pick and choose,
meaning other festivals, you know,
they'll have different films running at the same time.
At other venues.
And you end up paying $1,300 for that.
Ours is $249. And you,
if you have the stamina, you can see everything we show. Right. Yeah. Cause we start at 10 o'clock in the morning. We go to 11 o'clock at night. So it's a long day, but it's worth it. And then
we'll be selling day passes starting the 15th. And those start at $75 for the full day. Monday, Labor Day is $65. It's a little bit
shorter day. But basically, you get your money's worth with these passes, let me tell you. And we
highly recommend that people buy the full festival pass because you don't want to miss anything. And
it's really the best deal. It will go up to $2.99 after the 15th. So hopefully your listeners will hear this before Tuesday.
And they can also visit our website, cinecon.org. We have our full schedule up there. We have all
the honorees, all of our sponsors, any updates about the hotel, our shuttles. We will be
shuttling from our host hotel to the theater. All those details about restaurants nearby.
Everything you need to know about CineCon is on our website.
Well, that's terrific.
And, you know, it's usually blazing hot here in L.A. that weekend.
It's my daughter's birthday weekend.
And so we're usually in the pool.
So if you want to escape the heat, this is a great opportunity to do so as well.
It's beautiful in El Cibendo.
Let me tell you, it's like 10 degrees cooler, maybe 20 degrees cooler than the Valley.
So, you know, we're usually in Hollywood, but now we're going to be on the west side
of LA.
So it is perfect weather out there, let me tell you.
Well, guys, it's been a lot of fun.
I appreciate you coming on.
And we pulled this together kind of fast, but I did want to get this out there.
You know, there's a lot of overlap on people who listen to this podcast because they buy a lot of Warner Archive titles and that includes a lot of classics.
I want to mention that Warner Archive has always been a big supporter of the festival.
George Feltenstein is a great friend and they're going to be sending some Blu-rays our way so if you get something special in your welcoming packet
it might be from warner archive and uh they'll they'll be a an ad in our program um with some
of their upcoming releases so uh we absolutely love warner archive because they keep it going
and they're still doing physical media and a lot of our attendees are collectors like we said and
they like to have those blu-rays on their shelf
because you never know when something, a streaming title is going to disappear.
So if you have it on a Blu-ray or a DVD, you know, you can watch it anytime you want.
Yeah, exactly. Because these films, I mean, you go to all the work of restoring them and
finding them and everything. And it's great that you guys get to show them. But when the
Warner Archive can do theirs on Blu-ray, then the fans can buy them.
And that's a terrific thing to have your own kind of home catalog
or library of these films.
Because I don't think that the studios are going to be supporting
physical media the way they used to.
And we're already seeing signs of that as we go forward here
from some of the studios.
Tim, if you saw my archive, I have over 4,016 millimeter prints. And I am never giving them up. When it's time for me to go, they will be going to either UCLA or the Library of Congress, because I'm just a temporary custodian. And I love the Blu-ray idea, and I love streaming, but I'm very tangible. And I want to be able to physically, you know,
hold something. And film has always been it for me.
That's as close as you get to the original source, really.
Absolutely.
Unless you have the original negative.
And this year, by the way, is the 100th anniversary of the introduction of 16 millimeter film.
So in honor of that, we will be running some 16 millimeter archival prints
of things that you can't see in any other format. So if there's a 100th anniversary to be celebrated, we will celebrate
it, Dag Nabbitt. It seems to be the year, right? Warner Brothers and Disney and the 16 millimeters.
I know that people in LA can more easily get to this, but do you have people coming from
other parts outside of LA?
As a matter of fact, we booked the hotel.
There are no more hotel rooms to be got because people are traveling from New York and Connecticut.
Yeah, and we got a great deal on the hotel, and we were providing a shuttle, so they don't even have to drive.
And since we're in El Segundo, we're right next to LAX. So it's really easy this year for people to fly in. And if they can't stay at the Cambria LAX hotel, there are many other hotels nearby. If some of your listeners are remote, and they want to come in, we don't want to discourage them, because there's lots of hotels in the area that are near the theater. So we would love to have them join us. It's a really special weekend.
So please let them know. I did have a friend who actually booked an Airbnb.
Oh, great. Yeah. So there are plenty of places to go. There you go.
Yeah. I mean, it's LA. There's hotels everywhere. You just might have to
go a little further than the one that you had. There's no shortage of hotels.
Exactly. Well, this has been a lot of fun and hopefully I'll see you guys down there and we can meet in person, Brian.
Thank you, Tim. Tim, it will be great to see you there.
For those of you interested in learning more about the Cinecon Classic Film Festival, there's a link to their website in the podcast show notes.
It's a great lineup. So if you're in the L area, you may want to check it out. And of course, if you want to fly
in, you can find all the information there on the website on housing, transportation, etc., as well
as their schedule. So be sure and check that out. If you're on social media, be sure and follow the
show to stay up to date on our upcoming guests and be part of our community. And if you're a fan
of Warner Brothers or the Warner Archive, you're invited to a Facebook group called the Warner
Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog Group. So look for that link and our other social media links
in the show notes as well. And for our long-term listeners, don't forget to follow and leave us a
review at iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, you've been
listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed.
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