TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. A year ago, the new corporate owners of Turner Classic Movies cut back on the production of hosted conversations bracketing many of their movies. Filmmakers and fans protested and TCM reversed course. Our TV critic David Bianculli says that in the past year, TCM has presented and curated movies more impressively than ever.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: One of the new additions to Turner Classic Movies this spring was a feature called "Two For One." It invited a different guest programmer each week to select, present and discuss two favorite films. The films, like the guests, varied wildly. Spike Lee chose two films about media influence, 19501's "Ace In The Hole" and 1957's "A Face In The Crowd." David Byrne selected two films about guardian angels, 1946's "A Matter Of Life And Death" and 1987's "Wings Of Desire." Olivia Wilde chose two films about outrageous women, 1958's "Auntie Mame" and the 1976 documentary "Grey Gardens."
The movies were wonderful, and so were the enthusiastic comments by the guest programmers. David Byrne, for example, helped me see things in "Wings Of Desire" I'd never considered before. Some filmmakers, like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, took the double feature assignment literally and recreated actual double bills from their respective impressionable childhoods. Scorsese recreated from his youthful memories the seemingly mismatched 1948 twin bill of "Blood On The Moon" and "One Touch Of Venus." TCM host Ben Mankiewicz asked Scorsese about seeing those double features as a kid, which led to a great discussion about watching movies in the 1950s and how an Alfred Hitchcock movie changed all that in 1960.
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BEN MANKIEWICZ: So was there ever a time when you went to a double feature, when young Marty Scorsese went to a double feature, that you ever left after the first movie?
MARTIN SCORSESE: No. No, first of all, you walked in the middle, and you saw whatever was coming on. You saw the end or whatever, the middle or the end of one...
MANKIEWICZ: Oh, you mean you come in...
SCORSESE: The only time you were not supposed to come in the middle of a film was "Psycho."
MANKIEWICZ: So you'd routinely - I mean, you might...
SCORSESE: Absolutely.
MANKIEWICZ: "Blood On The Moon" might've started at 1, you might show up at 1:37?
SCORSESE: Oh, we'll show up 1:37. Yeah. And you watch that, and then you watch it over.
MANKIEWICZ: Right.
SCORSESE: And you say - everybody says, this is where we came in. And then people are stumbling over. The people are making noise, getting in and out of the roads.
MANKIEWICZ: Right 'cause it's over for them.
SCORSESE: It's over for them. Yeah. They're ruining it for everybody else. We're laughing. But that was the thing until Hitchcock did that number at the Mayfair Theater in New York, and I saw it the third night at midnight, "Psycho."
MANKIEWICZ: With the command that you...
SCORSESE: With the command and a wild audience.
MANKIEWICZ: Right.
SCORSESE: I can tell you.
MANKIEWICZ: Wow.
BIANCULLI: It's the sheer love of movies and the joy of talking about them that comes through here and in almost every interview conducted on TCM. The most recent guest programmer was actor Ryan Reynolds, whose appearance in late July was a chance for him to promote his then upcoming movie "Deadpool And Wolverine." But for Reynolds, appearing on TCM with Mankiewicz obviously was more than just another promotional stop.
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MANKIEWICZ: Ryan, this is a long time coming. I know you're a big TCM fan. Thank you for...
RYAN REYNOLDS: Huge TCM Fan.
MANKIEWICZ: ...Turning up for a second.
REYNOLDS: My God. I'm not normally nervous about doing interviews, but to show up on TCM, which is - I make no - this is not an exaggeration. It is on in my home 24 hours a day, seven days a week because it's sort of my digital comfort blanket in a weird way.
BIANCULLI: The true value of TCM is to make viewers care about movies, which it does by curating the films so intelligently and presenting them so respectfully. There's no equivalent for television, which makes me sad. But the way TCM introduces old movies to new generations makes me very, very happy and Ryan Reynolds, too.
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REYNOLDS: TCM really did give me a sort of a scope and some encyclopedic library in my mind of not just narratives and performances but also shots. And if I'm somebody who's 19 to 25, 26 right now, my advice would be turn TCM on and leave it on and let it wash over you. Don't worry about...
BIANCULLI: The two films Reynolds selected were 1997's "Grosse Point Blank" in 1987 "Planes, Trains And Automobiles," a film Reynolds loves so much, he alludes to it in his "Deadpool" movies and even allowed its odd couple structure to inform "Deadpool And Wolverine."
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REYNOLDS: I try to put something from "Planes, Trains" in almost everything I do. I mean, if you see "Deadpool 1," "Deadpool 2," certainly "Deadpool And Wolverine," which is now coming out, there's a nod to John Candy and/or "Planes, Trains" in every single one of those movies. Every time, I license the book that Candy's holding that's called "Canadian Mounted" he's reading it in the airport. Every time, I have to call Paramount and give them $5,000. And I get to take the book, and I get to put it on camera and bury it somewhere in "Deadpool." But there's also - a lot of the writing is inspired by that odd couple pairing, which I think is really beautiful.
BIANCULLI: Turner Classic Movies was launched in 1994, one of the many brilliant ideas from Ted Turner, who also founded CNN. Guest programmers have been a recurring staple since 2005, and the mix of both movies and guests always has been interesting. Bill Cosby was the very first to appear. Also appearing as a guest in 2005 was Steven Sondheim. And in 2006, one guest programmer sat down with TCM's original host, Robert Osborne, to discuss one of his favorite movies, "Citizen Kane." The classic Orson Welles film was a drama about wealth and power and politics and the media, and the guest was Donald Trump. Osborne got Trump to talk about the film's changing reputation, how filmmaker Welles was attacked by certain media and if Trump related to that as well.
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DONALD TRUMP: So because it was such a great movie, because it was such an amazing piece of work, it became successful with time...
ROBERT OSBORNE: Right.
TRUMP: ...And actually became more and more successful with time.
OSBORNE: But you can throw off that kind of criticism from - when people are doing that.
TRUMP: Well, you know, it's not that it's pleasant, but you throw it off.
OSBORNE: Yeah.
TRUMP: What I like to do is attack back. I mean, my basic modus operandi is to attack back. Somebody attacks me, and if it's unfair - you know what, if it's fair, I can take it. I can take it very nicely, and, you know, it's justified. But oftentimes you're attacked unfairly. And when that happens, I attack back, and Orson Welles would attack back.
OSBORNE: Yeah.
TRUMP: That was his personality.
OSBORNE: Yeah.
BIANCULLI: TCM turns 30 this year, and one thing has been true throughout its history. The movies it televises and the conversations it features about those films are valuable treasures.
GROSS: David Bianculli is the professor of television studies at Rowan University. In the summer of 1982, eight science fiction films were released within eight weeks of each other - movies like "ET," "Blade Runner" and "The Thing." On the next FRESH AIR, we talk with Chris Nashiwai about his new book, which chronicles how those movies, for better or worse, shaped the sci-fi genre and the movie industry as we know it. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @NPRFreshAir.
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GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Joe Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
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