Staffers seemed confused about who was supposed to line up where, and there was an unexpected early swarm of people who hoped to see Jewel Robbery, all of which led to passholders not being able to make it inside before the screening filled up.
Things felt askew right out of the gate on Thursday night, when attendees fumbled to discover the ins and outs of a new lineup location for Theater 4, the only auditorium in the festival’s TCL Chinese Multiplex hub that’s equipped to run 35mm, where many of the popular pre-Code titles, including 1932’s Jewel Robbery, starring William Powell and Kay Francis and directed by William Dieterle, were showcased. It wasn’t just the proliferation of TCMFF-supplied N95 masks, required for all attendees inside the theaters and lobbies, which made initial festival participation and navigation seem slightly squirmy and unavoidably post-2020. After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival returned to Hollywood for four days last week, and guided by the theme of gathering, specifically “All Together Now: Back to the Big Screen.” It was a strange, initially tentative, but ultimately exhilarating homecoming.
