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Why I pay for cable

By Kevin Steel ⋅ November 13, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

I’ve wanted to rhapsodize about Turner Classic Movies for a while now. It’s the only reason I continue to pay for cable (okay, maybe NFL football as well). As I type, TCM is playing The Lineup with Eli Wallach, 1958, a selection by this evening’s celebrity guest programmer, James Ellroy, which I’ve never seen before. Not only do I get to see great old films, but interesting people explain to me why they are great. You get to hear Ellroy explain to TCM host Robert Osborne (who was born to do his job) why he picked this—early San Francisco crime drama predating Bullitt by 10 years, etc. (And then Osborne asks Ellroy if he ever gets writer’s block. The answer, “No, never. I’ve got bills to pay.”) Just prior to showing this film TCM ran a weird film noir, Murder By Contract, Ellroy’s first pick which I had never even heard of, let alone seen, before. Osborne asks Ellroy why he thinks film noir died out. Ellroy says, well, it was developed by German immigrants trained in German expressionism, and they all stopped working, and anyway noir’s time was just over. It’s a frickin’ university course in film. How cool is all this? Really cool. “Uncut and commercial free” as TCM constantly reminds us. And if they ever start cutting and running commercials, then it’s good-bye cable.

Some day I’ll write about “How Hollywood Accidentally Saved Western Civilization Despite Itself” based on the restoration of old films.