ALL-NEW FEAR OF THE VELVET CURTAIN: TCM FEST 2015 GO "BOOM!"

 

We're under way in Hollywood. The TCM Classic Film Festival has set sail, and we already have Lisabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, Don De Fore, Errol Flynn, Alan Hale, Brenda Marshall, Flora Robson, Claude Rains and Henry Daniell registered in the captain's log. This week's "Fear of the Velvet Curtain" column details what else may (or may not) be in store for us as we continue our journey through these not exactly uncharted waters:

"There’s a big push-pull in my head between the opportunity (tonight) to see Peter Watkins’ The War Game (1965), a documentary-style depiction of a nuclear attack on Great Britain which was banned by the BBC for 20 years, and one of my favorite James Bond movies, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), introduced by the one-off Bond himself, George Lazenby. Given our mutual, not-so-mysterious attraction to Diana Rigg, who plays Bond’s ill-fated paramour, I suspect that 007 is going to have the upper hand here, but I reserve the right to do a last-minute left-turn into auditorium #4 to check out the Watkins film. The ultimate goal of the day will be to be able to prop our eyes open by midnight, for at that hour comes the chance to catch Joseph Losey’s ill-regarded adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, retitled the more marquee-friendly Boom! (1968), starring a post-Virginia Woolf Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor."

By midnight tonight, of course, it may be our heads that end up going "boom!" But endurance, and not cranial explosion, is our lofty goal! Stay tuned to see if we keep it together. Much more to come!

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