Cinecon: The Longest Running Classic Film Festival You've Never Heard Of! - EXTENDED EDITION

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to Perf Damage. Today we are going to do something a little bit different. We have a guest for the first time on our video podcast. This is Brian Cooper, he is the co-producer of Cinecon Film Festival. Thanks for coming.

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for having me.

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_07]: Alright. Yeah, we are going to talk about the film festival which is happening very soon so we are doing something that is modern contemporary. Yeah and timely. Yeah, timely. So we are going to tell you about the film festival, some of the films that are playing and yeah.

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_04]: So stay tuned.

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Now we drink.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Now we drink.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_07]: Hey movie lovers, I'm Adam. And I'm Charlotte. And welcome to Perf Damage. We are a movie obsessed husband and wife team who work in the film industry. I oversee film restoration at the oldest studio in Hollywood. And I bring the inside track from film development and production.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_04]: And we love to explore the hidden tales of movies past and present. So join us for a cinematic journey like no other. From classic gems to examining the art of the double feature. This is Perf Damage.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_07]: Popcorn pop, wine at the ready.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_07]: Let's press play.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Alright, thanks for joining us again. Here we go. Let's get into this. Let's do it. Brian let's talk about Cinecon. Alright, well it's Cinecon. What makes it.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Well what is Cinecon? Yeah, what makes it a unique festival?

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Well yeah I mean Cinecon is a classic film festival five days of classic film over Labor Day weekend and we're celebrating our 60th Cinecon this year which is kind of crazy. And I've only been with it for 59 years so.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: But it basically started with film collectors and projectors in a room in New York like hey let's get together and watch these old movies. And it just kind of exploded from there.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_02]: The roots of Cinecon are basically with guys who had 16 millimeter projectors, their own prints, and they wanted to see movies that weren't running on TV that weren't in theaters anymore.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_02]: How can we see this rare stuff? So we continue that tradition by showing films that aren't out there, that generally don't run on TV, they're not on home video. So you can see something rare and unusual that weekend that hopefully you haven't seen before.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's really cool. You guys show shorts and silence.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Everything. We have shorts, we have cartoons, we have features, and we have special programs. We have presentations, you name it. There's something for everybody.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Let's talk specifically about you. How did you get associated with Cinecon?

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, right. So I was involved with Hollywood Heritage Museum and a lot of the same people who are on that board were also involved with Cinecon.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_07]: Tell us what Hollywood Heritage.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Hollywood Heritage Museum is basically a early Hollywood history museum homage to Lasky and DeMille. Jesse Lasky, Cecil B. DeMille.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're on Highland, you live in LA, and you go to the Hollywood Bowl, and you park in Lot D, you're going to see this old building that kind of looks like a house or a barn.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's actually the original home office for Lasky and DeMille, their production office.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And it used to live at Selma and Vine, and then it was on the Paramount lot for many years. I don't know if it was there when you were there, but you'll see it in episodes of Bonanza and a lot of other TV shows.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: In the background they use it as a train station a lot of the time. It was a gymnasium when it was on the lot.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And then it went into a state of disrepair, Paramount ended up moving it to the parking lot next to Capitol Records.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And it sat there for a long time.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And then this preservation group called Hollywood Heritage came in and saved the building and moved it to where it is now in an area that was designated originally for a Hollywood history museum.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's where it currently lives. And it's early Hollywood into the Golden Age, lots of props, costumes, interesting memorabilia.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So nevertheless, I was involved with Hollywood Heritage and I was on the board and I got to know a lot of the people that were running CineCon.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just went as a fan. I just wanted to go and check it out.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I was actually working as a researcher on a show called A&E Biography.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And at the time we were doing a biography on Eddie Albert and Eddie Albert was being honored at CineCon that year.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I called up the president of CineCon and I said, Hey, I want to come see Eddie Albert being honored because we're working on his show.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And he gave me a pass. And that was the beginning for me.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That was, I think, like 2002. And I went to go see Eddie Albert being honored.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: His son was there and it was like all of a sudden I'm surrounded by all these film lovers and I'm like, what is this place?

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and I'm seeing movies that I never thought I would ever see.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was chatting with some of the guys who run it.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just happened to mention that my uncle, my great uncle was in movies and his name was Billy Gilbert.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And they all went crazy when I told them that he was my great uncle.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was my in. Who knew that name dropping my great uncle's name.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, I do. You actually pulled a couple clips of him.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he did. He did movies with Judy Canova and a lot.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: He's in a lot of Republic movies every time Charlotte finds a cameo because he crops up in a lot of movies that he's not credited in.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, so, of course, he was in Laurel and Hardy movies and he was in like our gang, stuff like that.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So these guys knew who he was. And all of a sudden I was one of the one of the gang.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_04]: And you were like a superstar. I was a superstar.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And so as the years went on, I just became more and more involved with and got on the film committee.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And then when the president, the current president, I mean, the past president of Senate con passed away, a gentleman named Bob Burchard, Stan Tafel asked me if I would take on a bigger role because they really needed some some help.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So when that happened in 2016, I want to say I became a producer of the festival and it is a lot of work, but we pull it off every year.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_04]: It's very cool. That's very cool.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_04]: So let's talk about some of the films that you're excited to see this year that you guys program.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got some movies that are really rare and unusual.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_02]: One that I believe made its premiere at the silent film festival is called The Pill Pounder.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a lost short that Clara Bowe just happens to be in.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_02]: The story is, and maybe you know the story better than I do, was that it was in an unmarked can and it was bought as part of a large collection at like a flea market.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_04]: I think it was a film storage facility.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Something like that. Yeah.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, he didn't know what he had until he opened up the can.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I believe at that point, David Stenn stepped in to help with the restoration.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it looks beautiful. It's like it was shot yesterday and I haven't seen it yet either.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm excited to see it on opening night.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_02]: We're showing a brand new restoration of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which is a well-known chestnut, a Shirley Temple movie.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But you've never seen it like this.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Disney, which now owns the Fox Library recently did this restoration.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is the U.S. premiere.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Winds of Chance is also an opening night, which is a newly restored film.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Chris Gray did that restoration.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course we have a Paramount short that night called Lucky Stars, which is behind the scenes of the star making process.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And we've got some Vitaphone shorts.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And usually when people think about Vitaphone shorts, I think they think about the 20s and early 30s shorts.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_02]: They may not realize that Vitaphone made shorts all the way into the 40s.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And so these are some shorts that aren't on TCM, aren't on home video that I handpicked along with George Feltenstein and the guys over at UCLA.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm really, really excited.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of them is a Red Skelton short that has never been seen to my knowledge since it first premiered in 1939.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: This is maybe second or third movie ever made.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we have some people from the Red Skelton Museum actually flying out to see that.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So very cool.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Just a few of the highlights.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's lots more.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I can keep going, but I don't know.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: That's just the opening night.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what you want me to talk about.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I can talk about it every day.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_02]: We're doing a tribute to Myrtle Gonzalez, and a lot of people may not know who she is.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Never heard of her.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So she was the very first Mexican-American film star.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And she died very young in 1918 during the flu.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the Spanish flu.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And so her career was cut short.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But members of her family reached out to us and said, Is there anything that survives?

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I think she's the great, great aunt.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we went to the Library of Congress.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And there actually is a feature, but it was not ready in time for a synagogue.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're showing a short called The Kiss and then a fragment, a second reel of a feature with her.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_02]: When we put the word out, we weren't expecting much feedback.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And probably the most calls that we've gotten from people in the press are saying, Who's Myrtle Gonzalez?

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know this person.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_02]: We want to talk about her.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: On Friday, we have Forced Landing, which is really cool because Jeremy Arnold, who you might know,

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_02]: who's written a lot of books, he's on TCM, asked about this film.

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_02]: When I told him that the running time was 64, 65 minutes, he said, Oh, I've only seen the 54 minute TV cut down

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_02]: because Republic Pictures had a habit of cutting down their movies to be under an hour

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Tossing out the rest.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So that they could run in a one-hour time slot with commercials.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So what you have is virtually unseen.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm told with Forced Landing, it's a different ending than what he saw.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Then on this whatever bootleg copy that he was looking at.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm excited.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Is he going to introduce the film?

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we've got some universal short subjects that we're really excited.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_02]: We're doing a whole program on their Mentone shorts, their cartoon shorts.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a short person.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm short and I'm short in many ways.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_04]: You're also working on a book about musical shorts, right?

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_04]: I think you should plug your book too.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_03]: This is the plug section.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Johnny, do you mind if I plug this before we go to commercial?

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Quiet Ed, don't say anything.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So I am working with a gentleman named Mark Cantor.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_02]: He's written a book on the soundies.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So soundies are the precursor to music videos.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_02]: These are 1940s music videos that actually played on a panoram machine.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_02]: In like a nightclub or a restaurant.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And it would actually run a film and it would project it on a mirror.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you would see the reverse image and it looked like a little television set.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And so from 1940 to 47, hundreds of these soundies were produced by independent companies that highlighted dancers, singers, big bands, comedians, you name it.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, so Mark Cantor, he worked on this Keno set that came out.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to see them in pristine condition, he and I had been talking for a long time about wanting to do a book on Mentone shorts.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And Mentone was the brand that Universal used before it became an outright Universal short.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_02]: They were produced in New York by a gentleman named Milt Schwarzwald, and they utilized a lot of local talent.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But what the exciting part is, is a lot of these people went on to be big stars.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_02]: We're discovering rare film that's never been seen before.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Some people, it's their only time they were ever documented on film.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: A dancer named Peg Leg Bates who you literally can't see anywhere else.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Peg Leg, I love that.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: He's amazing, this guy.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, you'll get to see some of those on Friday as well.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Very exciting.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Since we're talking about shorts, I'd love to touch on the Paramount Technicolor shorts that were made in the 1940s.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_02]: You want to talk about that amazing series?

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, the Paramount musical parade that came out.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_07]: There were a bunch of shorts they would play before a film.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_07]: A lot of them were shot in Technicolor, which at the time was expensive to shoot in.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_07]: We just did a whole episode on Technicolor.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_07]: And they would feature, they would be two-reelers generally.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_07]: And they would feature musical performances and maybe a little bit of a plot built around the musical performances.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_07]: But usually it was just to show off whatever kind of talent they had.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Well we should mention that Sammy Davis Jr. is in one of those shorts.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_02]: We actually ran that at CineCon called Sweet and Low.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And to see Sammy Davis Jr. with the Will Mastin Trio in color.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_07]: It's incredible.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's Sweet and Low though.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, Sweet and Low.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_07]: I know, I know we're talking about that.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm just clarifying, that's all.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_07]: This was shown at CineCon.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Where else was it shown?

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But why don't you talk about Boogie Woogie since you have a review on IMDB.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I loved Boogie Woogie.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_07]: As the sole reviewer on IMDB of Boogie Woogie.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm a big fan of Robert Benjley, first of all.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_04]: I think he's fantastic.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: It was one of his last films because he died not that long after.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Right, it was very surprising to see him pop up in a Paramount short like that.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Robert Benjley is alone, his wife is off visiting family.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_04]: And so he's the sole parent and he's let his kids just kind of run loose.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_04]: His kids go out and then his wife sends a telegram saying that she's coming home that night.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And he has to go and find them.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_04]: And they're out.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Jitterbugging.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Jitterbugging.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Which is these days.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Like you do.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_04]: So bad.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_04]: I know.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_04]: And so he goes to this club and they don't want to let him in because he's an old man.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_04]: There's a performance in the club that you're watching.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And eventually Robert Benjley sits down and they find out that their dad was a jazz pianist in the past.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Shocking.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_07]: They've uncovered his past.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_07]: So he plays piano, he Boogie Woogies and they Boogie Woogie on the floor.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I can't wait.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And then well, Charlotte and I both discussed, she thinks that he may actually be playing but the way it was shot I don't think he's playing.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_07]: He's just really good at faking it.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Either that or yeah, it's playback obviously and he's just kind of.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_07]: He's definitely got the faces down.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, he definitely has the faces down.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I want to mention that there's another short which you have to find that Peggy Lee did in late 40s to see her in color at that time.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of like stars that are just kind of burgeoning at that point.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Show up in these short subjects.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to keep bugging Charlotte until she restores.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_07]: That's that's one of the great things about Brian is he'll always say, do you have this?

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_07]: And it's something I've never realized that we have because there's thousands of titles.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_07]: Right.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_07]: And so he'll always send me on some kind of goose chase to track down something that's just not available or very rare.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: On Saturday, we're doing maybe you want to talk about this.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to show The Boys from Syracuse, which is a really fun universal musical.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're doing a program on Bell Lugosi and Boris Karloff, Twin Titans of Terror, which I saw at Monster Palooza.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And I fell in love with this gentleman named Julian Stone who wrote a book called It's Alive all about the making of Frankenstein.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_02]: He did this presentation at Monster Palooza.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh, yeah, we have to have that at CineCon.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of our homage to the horror genre.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't have a lot of horror movies or sci fi movies this year.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_02]: We should try to have one.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you if that's your bag, then you should, which it is.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So and then we do something called Kinecon at CineCon, which is our homage to the old days of television.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what a kinescope is?

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, a kinescope is when they filmed a screen.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_04]: It was basically playback of the television show onto film.

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It was the only way at that time before the advent of tape that they could record and rerun a TV show.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So these are called kinescopes and Stan Tafel and Stu Shostak, who are collectors, are going to be digging into their archives and showing some rarely seen kinescopes.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And we have as our special guest, Tina Cole, who was on My Three Sons.

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: She played Katie Douglas.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to show some clips of her this year.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Our main sponsor is the Jack Oakey and Victoria Horn Oakey Foundation.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And Jack Oakey is a famous character actor.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure he pops up in Paramount movies all the time.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're very grateful to them.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're going to be showing the battle for Wednesday night, which was a starring role for Jack Oakey on television, on live television that's rarely been seen.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're an Oakey fan, you want to come out for that.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And let's talk about the song of Arizona, shall we?

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_02]: We actually have one of the stars who's going to be there.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_02]: He's 94 years old.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, I love it when I love how you guys get all these stars to come out.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_02]: We we find them if they're alive.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_02]: We want them and they're in their 90s even better because that means you've got a lot to talk about.

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Tommy Cook is his name, and he was one of the co-stars with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans in Song of Arizona, which he recently restored.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you know it's King Blaine?

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Seen his picture.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure, he's a killer and they're going to hang him when they catch him.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_01]: One more crack like that and I'll give you a bust in the nose.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But Chip, everybody knows that.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01]: He's killed more men than.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_02]: He has a lot to say about this movie.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_02]: He's actually bringing one of his posters that we're going to display in the lobby.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_02]: His son and his nephew are going to be joining him, and he's going to be with us all weekend.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Tommy is an amazing guy for wouldn't believe he's 94.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Like wow, so much energy.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: He remembers everything like it was yesterday.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'll definitely make sure that you meet him as he's very excited to see this movie, especially in a in a pristine form.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_04]: And Charlotte is a big fan of Roy Rogers in case we've not mentioned that here.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Like a very big fan of Roy Rogers.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_04]: So this has actually become one of your things that you want to restore as many of them as possible.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I have a little bit of a personal connection because my grandfather and my dad were on a bowling league with Roy Rogers.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_07]: He lived in the town where my dad grew up and everybody kind of knew him there and they just somehow ended up on the bowling league with him.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_07]: So there's pictures of me and my brother with Roy Rogers.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_04]: I know you're definitely putting in here.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, and my office at work is all kind of Roy Rogers themed.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_07]: One of his granddaughters actually came and she was just on a regular tour of the studio and she saw my office and got really excited about it.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_07]: But yes, so anytime there's a Roy Rogers film, I always make sure it gets love.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_07]: And there are a lot of them.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_07]: I keep thinking, how are there still more?

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_07]: We've done so many and they're still so many.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Got a ways to go and you have to get to all of them.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I do. Eventually, eventually.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_02]: They are really fun because they're a nice mix of action and adventure and a love story and songs.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Songs are always great.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And sometimes they have murder horses in them.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_07]: Singing of Trigger Jr.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Trigger Jr. is like one of my favorites.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_07]: That's how I sold it to him because he's really into horror and when we had worked on Trigger Jr., I said you have to see this.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_07]: He's like, another western?

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_07]: I said, well, it's got a murder horse in it. Sold.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_04]: First of all, I was like, what is a murder horse?

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Trigger on crack?

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't Trigger.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_04]: It was a different horse.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_04]: But Trigger eventually helps to take him down, which is.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, thank goodness.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Murder horse.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Murder horse.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I love that.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got to know how to sell it.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, also on Saturday we have Stephanie Powers coming and a lot of people know her from television,

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_02]: but maybe didn't know that she made her film debut in 1960 and she made movies all through the 60s.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_02]: She was under contract to Columbia Pictures.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And even I didn't really know this when I started to explore her career.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So we talked to Stephanie and we said, would you please let us honor you?

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_02]: She's going to get the CineCon Legacy Award this year.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Now is this award that you give out every year?

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I should mention we give out this award every year to people who for their body of work in the industry,

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_02]: either in front of the camera or behind the scenes.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And so Tommy Cook is one of our honorees and Stephanie Powers, who I've always loved.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, heart to heart.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry. I grew up with that.

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I love heart to heart.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to be honoring Stephanie.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And when we asked her what movies she wanted to see, she sent me a short list.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of them was Die, Die My Darling with Tallulah Bankhead, which is a classic.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, oh, boy, we will probably get a lot of people to come out for that.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But then there was one movie that kind of jumped out at me called The New Interns.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's George Siegel's film debut.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Telly Savalas is in it.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_02]: All these people that went on to huge TV, television, TV icons.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. And it's not on home video.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a crappy copy on YouTube and it just never gets played.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So we reached out to Sony and they had a 35 millimeter print of it.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, swing.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_02]: That's it. That's the one.

[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So we told Stephanie and she's actually in Kenya right now with the William Holden Wildlife Foundation.

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_02]: She works half the year there and she's flying back in for CineCon on the 29th of August.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_02]: She will be there.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_04]: That's very cool. Yeah.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Very, very cool.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Neil Adams McQueen will be there.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Steve McQueen's widow.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_02]: She is good friends with Stephanie and George Shakira, who we honored two years ago, is also going to be there that night.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_07]: Shakira's from White Christmas.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Star Studded.

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's move on to Sunday, shall we?

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Sure. Why not?

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_02]: We're starting off with a silent called Dixie Flyer.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_02]: We have three accompanists who will accompany all of our silent films.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_02]: The exception of one, we're using a score for Ladies of Leisure that Sony commissioned.

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But other than that, we have a gentleman named John Marsalis, Adam Swanson and Scott Lasky,

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_02]: who will be playing live for all of our silent films.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So it really makes it special.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to end the night on Saturday with the Fire Brigade.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have a documentary about all of us film collectors called Film is Dead Long Live Film.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Peter Flynn's documentary about film preservation and how important it is.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got some Laurel and Hardy restoration courtesy of Lobster Films and Flickr Alley,

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_02]: two really great independent film releasing companies that put out DVDs and Blu-rays.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So you sent me two or three true color restorations, which I watched diligently.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And I picked this one. I had also seen Women of the North Country, which looked amazing.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was my second choice. And I watched Estelita Rodriguez.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm always pushing Estelita.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Charlotte's a big advocate for Estelita.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, is it The Belle of Old Mexico?

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. So I watched all three of those and I picked The Lady Wants Mink

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_02]: because I thought it was so quirky and unusual and had so many great stars in it.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. Right? That you love.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. Like Eve Arden and William Demarest.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, so great as the neighbors. As the Joneses.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_02]: The Joneses. The literal Joneses.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Keeping up with the Joneses.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So tell me about that.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_07]: One of the preservation managers at Paramount, Michelle Friedman, worked on this one.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_07]: And I tagged along to the whole thing.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_07]: And we both just fell in love with this film.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_07]: I tried to get another festival earlier this year to play it.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_07]: And we were this close to it, but they couldn't find a spot for it.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_07]: And the festival starts with a T and ends with an M.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_07]: They loved it. But they just didn't have a spot for it because it is a smaller film.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_07]: There's not a lot of huge stars in it.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_07]: But there's lots of people if you watch these films that you've heard of.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. William Demarest is a character actor. We love him, but he's...

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_07]: You may not know his name, but you...

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, My Three Sons. Right? It all ties together.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_02]: It does.

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And Eve Arden went on to being Armis Brooks.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_04]: It all goes back to television, right?

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_04]: It does.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Because all those stars ended up...ended their careers on TV.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Dennis O'Keefe and Ruth Hussey, who had huge film careers, are really great as the husband and wife.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They're so cute together.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_02]: They are.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And it feels kind of like a long episode of I Love Lucy.

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_06]: It does. That's exactly what I wrote down as a matter of fact.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Because it really does.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it difficult to restore true color films and talk about that very specific process?

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_07]: So true color was Republic Pictures' kind of technicolor knockoff.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_07]: And it started as a two-color process, and then it became a three-color process for some films.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_07]: And then it actually became a one-strip, just one strip of film process towards the end.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_07]: So it had three distinct versions all within about a decade.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_07]: So this one in particular was just one of the one-strips.

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_07]: As far as restoration in that sense, it wasn't too difficult because we didn't have to recombine any kind of records.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_02]: But does the original film fade? Do you have to do a lot of digital work on it to bring the color back?

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_07]: It does fade.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Does it turn red?

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_07]: No, it doesn't turn red. Not like a print. It's just the colors sort of lose fidelity.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_07]: A lot of times you lose blue first.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_07]: One interesting thing about this film, it's from 1953.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_07]: And one of the changes that was going on in Hollywood at the time were aspect ratios.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_07]: So we had the widescreen wars, which kicked off with 1952 with Cinerama.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_07]: And then in 1953, that's when Cinemascope started.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_07]: So with this film, a lot of companies in 1953 were releasing their slates saying these are the films that are coming out this year and you can show them in all these aspect ratios because they wanted them to be able to be played in theaters that had converted for Cinemascope or maybe that hadn't converted for Cinemascope.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_07]: So there's actually a memo from Republic Pictures that we found that said that this was one of the films that they recommended could be shown in 166.

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_07]: So when we went to start restoring the film, we think, OK, let's check out what this looks like in a 166 aspect ratio.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_07]: And what we found was that people's heads were kind of getting cut off or it just felt really tight because in 166 you're getting more on the sides, but you're getting less on the top and bottom.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_07]: So we looked at it in 166 and it just didn't make sense.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_07]: So we actually went with a 137 aspect ratio for this, which I think feels perfect.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_07]: It feels like that's what it was shot for.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_07]: Sure, you can show it in 166, but I don't think that's really what it was shot with the intention of being shown in.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm really disappointed because I love pan and scan.

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Who doesn't?

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_02]: VHS.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Those VHS days.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course Paramount had VistaVision.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh man, you're going to get...

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it difficult to work in that?

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_07]: You know, that's like one of my favorite words.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_04]: It's also a running joke in our podcast.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Every time someone says the word VistaVision, we have to play the VistaVision logo.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_07]: Goal at Paramount since I took this job has been to finish all the VistaVision films, which there's 60 of them and only two or three had been done whenever I started.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_07]: Now we're up to 30 something.

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Well done.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Can't wait to see more of those.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we'll show them at CineCon next year.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So also rounding out our day after Lady Wants to Make With Charlotte is going to be introducing.

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to come out and hear some more behind the scenes facts.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Lady Wants to Make With Charlotte.

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_02]: She's bringing her live mink with her.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Even though no pets are allowed in the theater, we're letting her do it just this one time.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But we're going to round out Sunday with Mama's Affair, which is a silent film role in comedy with Constance Talmadge, one of the Talmadge sisters.

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_02]: That's going to be our big finale on Sunday.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And on Monday, we're actually showing a movie that is out on DVD.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But here's something very interesting about Lancer Spy with Dolores Del Rio that I found out from Kevin Schaefer at Disney.

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Kevin told me that when they went to make the DCP for us, there was a there was a discrepancy in the running time.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And the print that they had pulled was shorter than the print that UCLA had, which was a nitrate print.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So they pulled the UCLA's nitrate print and found out that ours was almost seven to nine minutes shorter.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And there were missing there was missing footage.

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_02]: They then put back into the film and is part of our DCP.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So they wouldn't have known that if I hadn't tortured them.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we wanted to show this movie.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So this is why you're so important.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I know. This is why I drive everybody, including Charlotte.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, Charlotte, could you please restore the Harvester?

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And we've been talking about the Harvester for how many years now?

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_07]: I know. I know.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason being is that Cora Sue Collins, who is still with us at 97 years young, is a past CineCon honoree.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And every year we try to show one of her films while she's still with us.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the two films that she still hadn't seen is The Harvester from 1936.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And she's one of the co-stars of this film.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I will tell you, Cora Sue is so excited about this.

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_02]: She I talked to her on the phone. She is elated.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So how exciting to have one of the stars from a film from 1936 in attendance.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_04]: That's such a rare thing that you can get someone from that long ago.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_07]: Not for CineCon. They always do it.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_07]: Every year.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_02]: We find them. We go to the motion picture home and we're like, hey, what's up?

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You just sit in a van and pick everybody up.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_02]: We've done that for many, many years.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_02]: We've always tried to honor people that are forgotten and they're so important.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Such an important part of this industry.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And The Harvester is one that is a very rare film.

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_02]: It was thought to be lost.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_07]: If you go on IMDB, it says, Trivia, this film is thought to be lost.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Not anymore.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Because of CineCon.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And Charlotte and her team.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_07]: But this kind of stuff, you see it on IMDB. This is not uncommon.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_07]: I'll be looking up a film doing research on something and then I'll look and Trivia, it's lost or Paramount destroyed the negative.

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_07]: And I'll go in the archive. No, there it is right there.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_07]: So don't always believe everything that you read and film forums and things like that.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Right. There's a lot of misinformation out there.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_07]: There is. We need to hire an intern to go and just start every film.

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Every film that you guys have rights to.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, you know, Paramount holds the negative and it was restored in this year.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_04]: That kind of thing.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I've watched a few other films that you sent me and I wish I could program all of them, to be honest.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, there's always next year.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Always next year.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_07]: You program so many and it's so exciting for us when we work on a film.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_07]: That's the biggest tragedy.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_07]: We say nobody gets to see this.

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, that's why you want to come to CineCon and Monday what we're doing is something really unusual.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'll tell people if you go on our schedule, if you go to CineCon.org, we've divided everything up by film and digital.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a reason that we had to do that.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people are film snobs.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And they come to CineCon.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_02]: They only want to see something if it's on film.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's a lot of people who say, I just want to see it in whatever form I can see it.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't care. I just want to be able to see it.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_02]: That's me.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I fall.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm just excited to see something that I've been wanting to see for a long time.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_02]: But the way that the booth is configured at the Writers Guild of America Theatre, it's a very small booth.

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And in order to go between film and digital, they have to reconfigure the booth every single time.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we did is we grouped all the digital together and all the film together so that we could have a lunch or a dinner break so that our projectionists can reconfigure the booth.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So on Monday, for all you film snobs out there, it's an all-film afternoon.

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_02]: One right after the other.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_03]: All film all the time.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_02]: At least Monday.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_02]: On Monday.

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Monday, Monday, Monday.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Come out and see film.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Mark your calendars, people.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to start with A Silent Flower of Doom from UCLA, a beautiful print.

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we're going to go right into three movies that for the most part are not out there.

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_02]: The Bride War Crutches, who's seen that movie.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_02]: What do you mean by that title?

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm very intrigued by that title.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to know how that turns out, which is a 20th century Fox film.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And Nobody's Fool, which is coming from Universal, which is actually starring Edward Everett Horton, if you can believe that.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_02]: His voice is very well known.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_02]: He was a well-known character actor.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But he actually had starring roles in the 30s in movies at Universal.

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Who knew?

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to end with Hotel for Women, which is an early role for Linda Darnell.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_04]: OK, so you mentioned more people are interested in seeing older films on film.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_04]: The interest in these older films has really come back.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_04]: And seeing them on film is really important to those people.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, obviously during the pandemic, we weren't going to movie theaters.

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And so a lot of people were watching movies at home, which I don't poo poo that at all.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But the communal experience of being in a movie theater and watching something on film,

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_02]: you've probably been to the nitrate screenings that they do at the American Cinematheque.

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a it's a revelation to see these movies, something about nitrate and how silvery it is and just the texture is different.

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_06]: It looks like HDR.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it really does.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Kind of does because the highlights are really kind of bright.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, just sparkly.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_04]: They glitter. They really do.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_07]: You go in thinking, come on, impress me nitrate the first time you see a print.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_07]: And then it does.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Why are you so important?

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Not always.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_02]: We know you're flammable.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Other than that, what else can you show?

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_04]: I think it's the danger.

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_02]: The danger in it.

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_02]: You could die seeing that one.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_02]: It is.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I actually was watching a nitrate film at the Egyptian theater many, many years ago.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I was watching The Gang's All Here.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a famous Technicolor musical.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And while we were watching it, all of a sudden it caught fire.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we just watched the film go to bit and then they turned the projector off and we were like, oh my God,

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_02]: is there a fire in the booth?

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_02]: They were able to save it and restart the film.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But it just goes to show this is a very fragile medium that you're working in.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And you're working with it every day.

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_07]: Back to your question with the more people that are interested in older films since the pandemic.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_07]: I think part of that is because there weren't the films,

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_07]: the amount of films available to be shown once theaters reopened.

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_07]: So they had to look at catalog.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_07]: And that was one thing during the pandemic, working in catalog and old movies.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_07]: All of a sudden there was all this interest and not just from Paramount,

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_07]: but from other places that wanted to license stuff.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_07]: Everybody wanted to know what do you have?

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_07]: What do you have?

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_07]: What do you have?

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_07]: And there was a lot more interest.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_07]: So I think that the interest has always been there for people.

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_07]: But I don't think that there was really schedule in the theater's programming to show the stuff like there was when we first,

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_07]: when everything first opened up again and they needed content to put in there and they put in stuff and they saw,

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_07]: oh wait, this is somewhat profitable.

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Now it's becoming commonplace, right?

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah. So you're seeing it a lot more because again, I think people realized,

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_07]: oh, people are interested in this.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. On any given weekend, you can go to AMC and see some sort of repertory screening, which is fantastic.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_02]: We're very lucky here in Los Angeles because we have so many outlets for film.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the American Cinematheque and Vidiots Theater, the New Beverly and the Vista.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're very lucky.

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of other cities don't have the outlet.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_04]: But I think that's kind of important because AMC has kind of taken up that torch.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_04]: I know that they have a repertory screening that goes and that's not just here in LA.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_04]: It's all over the country.

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_04]: And you can see things like Ghostbusters.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_04]: They showed not that long ago.

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_04]: And they charge less. They're $5 or something like that to go see a lot of these screenings.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And we still have, thankfully, some film directors who feel that it's important to shoot on film and release their films on film.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. And what do you think that fascination with film is?

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Do you think it's a lot of these younger people haven't actually experienced film?

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_04]: And so it's kind of this atavistic look back.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I liken it to? I liken it to vinyl versus an mp3.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. Yeah.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Because vinyl, you hold it in your hand and you hear the crackle and you see the needle going on your record.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's producing this amazing sound. It's not clean.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not perfect, but it's as close to the source as you can get.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like film is as close to the original source as you can get.

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what's really exciting because you can see film in many different ways.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not perfect looking, but I love that about it.

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah. Yeah. And the color space is different too.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_07]: You go see a film in a theater and it just looks different than if you're watching it on a DCP versus at home where it's going to look a lot closer to the same thing.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Right. Or you're watching a compressed version shown over Netflix or something like that.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, I agree.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, this has been a lot of fun.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_04]: So where can people go to CineCon? Where can they get tickets to the screenings?

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_02]: You can go to our website, which is cinecon.org.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_02]: We have our full schedule there. We have all of our honorees up there.

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_02]: All our incredible sponsors are listed and you can get your tickets on Eventbrite.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_02]: There's day passes. There's full festival passes. Full passes. Such a deal.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_02]: $299 for five days of classic films.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And those will only be on sale until August 15th.

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_02]: After that, they go up to $350, but still not a bad deal.

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll have day passes available as well.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_02]: They're available as well. So if you haven't come to CineCon before and you want to dip your toe in the water, get a day pass.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Come check it out.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I guarantee you, you will get caught up in the fun and the excitement of what's happening this weekend.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_02]: You'll meet a lot of like-minded film lovers. You'll make new friends.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a very communal experience. We're all super easy going down to earth.

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_02]: You can come up to me and chat with me about what your favorite movies are, what you want to see at CineCon.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, we'll be at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's August 29th through September 2nd.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You have nowhere else you need to be on Labor Day weekend.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Charlotte's gonna be there. Adam's gonna be there. I'm gonna be there.

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of other people from the studios that do all this magical work throughout the year are gonna be there introducing their films

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and talking about the incredible preservation work that they do.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So we want to thank them. This is our way of thanking them by making their movies that they work so hard on available on the big screen.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's it.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it's like a reunion every year.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_07]: You get to see everybody from other studios.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_02]: All the studios. Everybody's there.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't discriminate. If you have a movie that you want us to show, dag nab it.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll get it up there.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, Brian, thank you so much for coming out.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You guys do the good work. You really do.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I love talking about this stuff with you guys. I love it.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_07]: It's so great. It's because we work on the films, trying to get them out there, and then you're getting them out there to people.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_07]: So thank you for that.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Appreciate it.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_04]: All right. Until next time, thanks for joining us here on PerfDamage.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_04]: All right. I guess until next time.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I mean, you should say thank you for coming out.

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah. Sorry.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_07]: Rude.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_04]: All right. Until next time. Thanks for joining us here at PerfDamage.

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_04]: At PerfDamage.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for joining us.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_04]: No.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Is it?

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_06]: Those are actually the words.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Whatever. Just do it.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_04]: It's like they've never done it before.

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_04]: He screws it up all the time.

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_04]: I do. I screw it up.

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a running joke.

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Like probably about 70% of the time.