A Personal Look at the TCM Classic Film Festival 2012

Rick Baker is a giant of cinema and in real life

Thursday’s cinema shenanigans started out with a one-on-one interview with Rick Baker, where the legendary makeup artist talked briefly with me about the Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s and how they inspired him, as well as how he began work on his career-launching film An American Werewolf in London, for which he won the inaugural Best Makeup Academy Award. That interview will be posted later this week as well.

The afternoon rolled on and so did the red carpet for the gala world premiere of the 40th anniversary restoration print of Cabaret. YAM Magazine was no longer last on the red carpet this year — a good fifteen people were further down the line. Sadly, I was unable to speak with stars Liza Minnelli, Michael York or Joel Grey. But I did get some great interviews with Michael Murphy, William Wellman, Jr., Barbara Rush, Leonard Maltin, Tony Roberts and  Bob Mackie. Look for those coming soon.

This photo of me on the red carpet is curtesy of Will McKinley

One has to be invited to the screening of Cabaret and this intrepid journalist was not. But that’s okay because it allowed me to meet up with Kristen of SalesOnFilm and Trevor of AModernMusketeer for a screening of the 1928 silent film Our Dancing Daughters, which is a film that tackles so many feminist issues in a mere 85 minutes I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all.

I split ways with Kristen and Trevor to head out to a screening of Billy Wilder’s Sabrina with an introduction by Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant. This is a movie that has been dear to my heart practically my whole life and seeing it on the big screen was astounding.