The LGBTQ+ movie fan's guide to the 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival

2024 TCM Classic Film Festival

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.; Universal Pictures; Orion Pictures

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It’s time for the event that is the highlight of many a classic movie fan’s year — the TCM Classic Film Festival.

The festival, which opens Thursday and goes through Sunday, takes over several theaters in Los Angeles to show films ranging from the silent era to the 21^st century, primarily American and British. This year’s theme is “Most Wanted: Crime and Justice in Film,” so there are plenty of noirs and thrillers, but as in any year, not all the offerings conform to the theme; you’ll find comedies, musicals, romances, and science fiction as well. And there’s much of special interest to LGBTQ+ viewers — Jodie Foster, Rock Hudson, Truman Capote, and more.

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Each screening features a TCM host, actor, director, writer, or scholar to offer context. In addition to the films, there are panel discussions, trivia contests, awards presentations, and other events to entertain and inform film lovers. This is the 15^th edition of the festival; two of them, in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, were virtual, with special programming on the channel and online. This year is also the 30^th anniversary of the cable channel and the 100^th anniversary of Columbia Pictures and MGM, so several of those studios’ releases will be shown at the festival.

Read on for our recommendations for LGBTQ+ fans — and anyone who loves movies — with some insights from TCM programmer Charlie Tabesh. For even more films and events, check the full online listing.

Note that the screenings are open to festival passholders first, and if the theater isn’t full, single tickets will be sold to those in a standby line (the opening night gala and poolside screenings at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel don’t do standby). So if you’re in L.A. and don’t have a pass, you have a chance to see these great films — and if you’re not in L.A., make your plans for next year!

From left: Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon; Rock Hudson and Tony Randall in Send Me No Flowers; Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

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Based on a true story, Dog Day Afternoon stars Al Pacino as Sonny Wortzik, who’s trying to rob a Brooklyn bank to fund his lover’s gender-confirmation surgery. Much goes wrong, but Sonny emerges as a sympathetic character, even bonding with the people he’s holding hostage in the bank. The film was Oscar-nominated, as were Pacino, director Sidney Lumet, and Chris Sarandon as Sonny’s lover, Leon. Frank Pierson won the award for Best Original Screenplay. The fine actor Jeff Daniels will introduce the film, of which he’s a major fan.

“It’s such a great, tense, fascinating, and innovative film,” Tabesh says. “And the characters are outstanding. … It captures the ’70s in a really interesting way too.”

Saturday, 9:45 p.m., Egyptian Theatre

A Little Romance (1979)

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

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Diane Lane made her film debut at age 13 in this charming comedy. She’s an American girl living in Paris, finding her first love with a French teenager (Thelonious Bernard). An aging boulevardier, played by Laurence Olivier, encourages the young people’s romance. Able support comes from Sally Kellerman as Lane’s self-centered mother and Arthur Hill as her sympathetic stepfather, and classic film fans will enjoy the presence of Broderick Crawford, essentially playing himself as an actor in the film Kellerman is working on. Lane will speak at the screening.

“It’s literally one of my favorite films of all time. … It’s one of the movies that made me love movies,” says Tabesh, who saw the film as a teen.

Speaking of Truman Capote: Lane recently appeared as Slim Keith, one of the socialites surrounding Capote in the miniseries Feud: Capote vs. the Swans. There’s a movie connection — before marrying British aristocrat Kenneth Keith, Slim was the wife of the esteemed film director Howard Hawks. A dedicated follower of fashion, Slim spotted Lauren Bacall on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and suggested that Hawks bring her to Hollywood; the rest is movie history. Then, between Hawks and Keith, Slim was married to Leland Hayward, a superagent and producer of films and Broadway plays. Hayward’s previous wife was the great actress Margaret Sullavan. More about her next.

Saturday, noon, Chinese Multiplex House 1

Send Me No Flowers (1964)

Universal Pictures

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If you need some laughs and a little Rock Hudson and Doris Day, here you go. Send Me No Flowers was their third and last film together, and in this one they’re actually married, so she doesn’t have to resist his sexual advances. But the problem for New York suburbanites George and Judy Kimball is that George is a hypochondriac and is convinced he’s dying. He’s not, but he goes so far as to make funeral arrangements and try to find a second husband for Judy. Tony Randall, who also appeared in Hudson and Day’s previous pairings, is back here as a comic second lead, and gay actor Paul Lynde is hilarious as a funeral director.

Amid crime films, melodramas, and other genres featured the same night, “we needed a good comedy to mix in,” Tabesh says.

Thursday, 7 p.m., Chinese Multiplex House 1

Double Indemnity (1944) and More Classic Crime Films

Paramount Pictures

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A recommendation simply because this writer loves it, Double Indemnity is one of the best crime films ever, a quintessential film noir. The great Barbara Stanwyck is the femme fatale who seduces insurance agent Fred MacMurray into killing her husband; Edward G. Robinson is the insurance investigator whose suspicions are aroused. Directed by the estimable Billy Wilder, who wrote the script with Raymond Chandler, adapting James M. Cain’s novel. Other excellent crime films and thrillers at the fest: White Heat, with James Cagney as a mother-obsessed criminal; Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat, a noir starring Gloria Grahame, Glenn Ford, and Lee Marvin; John Huston’s ensemble heist film The Asphalt Jungle; and two of Alfred Hitchcock’s best: the Cold War-set North by Northwest, with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint generating plenty of steam, James Mason as the epitome of suave villainy, and Martin Landau as his obviously gay henchman; and Rear Window, with James Stewart spying on a neighbor he suspects of murder — and also generating some steam with Grace Kelly. Oh, and the opening night gala film, open to the highest-level passholders only, is Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Many of the cast members will be there.

Double Indemnity is “another key, essential crime film,” and you can’t go wrong with Wilder, Tabesh says. It’s always good to program a major classic for an early-morning slot, which is when it will screen, as that motivates festivalgoers to get out of bed and line up at the theater, he adds.

Double Indemnity: Sunday, 9 a.m., TCL Chinese Theatre

White Heat: Thursday, 7 p.m., Egyptian Theatre

The Big Heat: Saturday, 12:15 p.m., Chinese Multiplex House 6; Dana Delany will speak

The Asphalt Jungle: Sunday, 7:45 p.m., Chinese Multiplex House 6

North by Northwest: Saturday, 2:45 p.m., TCL Chinese Theatre; Nancy Meyers will speak

Rear Window: Friday, 6:15 p.m., Egyptian Theatre

Pulp Fiction: Thursday, 6:30 p.m., TCL Chinese Theatre; John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Harvey Keitel will speak