Incredible day on Thursday, culminating in a screening of The Third Man (which I had never seen on the big screen, the way it is supposed to be seen). Best of all: Angela Allen attended as a guest: she was the script supervisor on The Third Man when she was 19 years old. She has got to be 90 now, 91? And she was spry, sharp as a tack, funny. And seriously: IMDB her to see her list of credits. She told stories about working on The African Queen: She “doubled for Katie” in a couple of scenes (Katie!!) and she also said at one point, “Katie and Bogie” and Mitchell and I just looked at each other.
She is our living history. She has worked in cinema for, what, 65 years? It was an honor to listen to her talk. We need to celebrate these people while they are still with us.
Mitchell took a picture of her at the opening night reception.
You can read Brian’s full report of Day 2.
The lady knows how to dress.
It all just sounds so amazing Sheila! Well done and congrats! Would have loved to hear Angela Allen speak – what a crazy amazing career!
What a career–it sounds like an amazing weekend, Sheila! I’d love to hear more about this talk, and also what Guillermo del Toro might have said about writing and about working with actors. (His visuals get most of the attention, for obvious reasons, but he always pays attention to the actors as well, and seems to cast very carefully.)
Side note–“The Third Man” has got to be in my top ten movie list, too! I saw it first in college, I think in the only film appreciation class I got to take, and then somewhere I picked up a used VHS which I proceeded to wear out with rewatches and attempts to get everyone I knew to watch it. The camera angles, the setting, the close-ups, the wind whistling over the sewer grate–that beautiful and devastating (for Holly, anyway) long walk at the end–it’s not going too far to say that it has informed my view of stories and movies ever since. To see it on a big screen, and to hear this lady talk, must have been an incredible experience.
Sheila, you are so right-we have to honor these wonderful people while we can. I had the great luck to meet Jacqueline White, one of the stars of The Narrow Margin (she was speaking at the showing of the movie) at my first TCM festival. We met when we were waiting in line to check in to the Roosevelt, and she was so lovely, as was her daughter Karen. Anyway, I kept running into her during the festival, it got to be almost a joke, we ended up sitting together for the opening night gala movie. She was so wonderful and full of great stories, I could have listened to her for days.
Like you said, these people are our living history. I felt the same way when I heard Norman Lloyd speak at the last TCM I attended. When he walked down the stairs, RIGHT NEXT TO ME-the thrill was unbelievable!