Is TCM Canceling Classics?

The long and short answer: no. But all month long, TCM is relooking at classics from the past through our Reframed: Classics in the Rearview Mirror Spotlight. Our hosts will be providing context and much-needed conversation around these films and their history to ensure they continue to live on for years to come.

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[penneyburgess]

Making and keeping movies that never insult or goes against another’s moral code is a conscious choice of writers, directors, actors and producers and all the people involved that brought it to us.
Most objectionable material in movies reflect the time they were filmed. To censor them, edit out, or destroy them altogether is erasing history. The history of film.
Morally corrupt, bigoted, heinous people have been portrayed by master actors. These characters have made us uncomfortable and caused us to examine ourselves. They have brought the truth to light. That is what art is for.
That is what film is for.

[seamusmccracken]

I am always reminded of the quote: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
― L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

[Flyboysdaughter]

Old films are the only ones I watch. Thankyou TCM for continuing to show them.

[lizaroberts]

TCM is pretty much the only channel I watch...absolutely love the classics!!!!

[kathaleenkammer]

Hi! I like the historical aspect of old movies, how they dressed, the way they spoke, style of places and buildings. The way they thought politically is way different compared to today and then in some ways history is repeating itself. I have favorites, funny movies like Harvey, Arsenic and Old Lace, You Can’t take it withYou.

[bigbandsrock]

Just grateful TCM is not going away. As a lifetime old movie buff I’d be devastated! TCM is my favorite channel! I think your decision to frame some of the older films with conversation before & afterwards so as to refrain from “throwing the baby out with the bath water” is a good idea. As great as the artistry, sentiment and acting was in so many of these old films, unfortunately there was also occasionally great ignorance. We can appreciate what is good and timeless in them but still dislike or reject moments in some of them which might depict a time in history which simultaneously was far from perfect.

[ramblinman]

I do not really understand the necessity to reframe many of the old classics. Most of the movies from the noir era show much less gore, blood, or violence towards women than the movies of today do. So why are we reframing the classics when it is the movies of today that need to be “reframed”?

[steveschramko]

I get kind of nervous, uneasy, yes queasy, when people try to 'explain', 'have a conversation', 'explain the relevance' etc. of any old art forms....whether movies, plays, literature, music, whatever. In practice this turns out to mean 'dumbing down', sanitizing, homogenizing them, followed by bowdlerizing, editing, 'improving' them and so forth. All this culminates in stunting and blunting their emotional impact. Their 'art' is confounded, dissipated. It can become the intellectual counterpart to nitrate film decomposition. Some of these old films have already suffered too many

[hanshotfirst]

TCM remains the only reason I have cable.

[susankeefer]

I’ve noticed a disturbing change in the TCM lineup in the past year or two. TCM is playing some movies over and over again in a month and also into the following month. Also, they have not shown some of the best classics in years, like The Farmers Daughter, Notorious or It’s A Wonderful Life. At Christmas they’ve been showing traditional Easter films, like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments. I hope that their Program Director sees this.
Things have changed on TCM since Robert Osborn passed and not for the better. I miss him.

[intheory]

Just like time moves forward, so do thoughts and ideas. History should never be censored or erased because of how far we think we have come on these topics and issues, because we are not so far away from them even in the modern world. Classic films should be shown and enjoyed in their full glory, and they should be seen as living art history that should only spark conversation and curiosity. In some ways this may be the only truth of history that modern people can live and learn from if they can see beyond the facade of only being a work of art, but also as a moment frozen forever in time. I am trying to recall a movie quote stating that actors or artist spin lies to tell the truth, while world leaders and church heads tend to spin the truth into lies, or something to that effect. We don't want the world to become so fanatically obsessed with religious or personal beliefs, or become so overly sensitive, that we become Nazi Germany. The free flow of thoughts and ideas and the conversations they produce are what make the time we live in such a great one, and keeps us moving forward towards a better future for all. Even television is the same way. Take "Three's Company" for instance. It may not have portrayed the gay community in a perfect or practical light, but it certainly sparked conversations and the more conversation the more the "strange" or misunderstood becomes the normal and therefore more welcome and accepted. I hope these complaints are from only a few narrow minded and misinformed individuals rather that a whole lot of people. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
Edit : The movie quote I failed to identify is from "Being John Malkovich".

[carlsmith]

The fastest way to take the joy out of something is to over analyze it.

[dbear]

Just keep showing the classic movies. We don't need 21st century B.S. They stand on their own for the era they were filmed in.

[dantean]

I am having a difficult time NOT seeing in this a preliminary phase in what will eventually prove a movement toward cancelling "problematic" films altogether. Particularly given the politics of Ben M. which call to mind a world in which one's "masters" (albeit "progressive" ones) decide FOR US what is permissible to see and hear, read, or learn--for the people's own good, of course. I'd feel a lot more comfortable their relegating any "apologies" they feel it necessary to issue for the films they screen to articles on the website or in the monthly newsletter and not rededicate air time from movies onto mea culpas for America, for Hollywood storytelling practices, or for history itself--a nightmare from which we need all be awakened, from the "progressive" point of view. In any case, I'm as "woke" as I need to be, thank you very much. One way or another, this all feels like TCM responding to a perceived pressure from the NEW McCarthyism, this time emanating from the Left side of the political spectrum. I hate thinking I'm the only one to have seen the irony in that.

[nylaandrew]

Every creative work is inevitably a product of its time. Celebrate movies and stop apologizing. No one has to watch anything. Don't let anyone decide for you.

[mdeyoung]

"We don't need no thought control!"

[mojo]

Didn't AMC do a lot of tweaking before the "American Movie Classics films went away entirely? Tell the truth TCM. You know your fanbase. Who asked for this? The interviews with the stars of yesterday about the films they did was good enough. Along with the mini tributes from friends, family members & costars praising the stars in classic films. Sounds like someone of the younger generation got hired and it's now tweaking a channel that needs no reframing of it's films. Don't think I didn't notice that more & more films from the 70s -00s are now being shown.

[bonniepotter]

I have a problem with TCM, and that they keep showing the same movies much too frequently, while ignoring so many others that they used to show. For instance, the forest rangers starring Fred MacMurray Susan Hayward and Paulette Goddard. Where are the Mary Martin movies and the Deanna Durbin movies? There are so many more that I know I used to say back on regular TV once-in-a-blue-moon and I thought I saw on TCM. As much as I love Some Like It Hot, they'll play it again in a week or so and then they'll play it several more times during the year and there's so many that they're doing the same thing I want variety and I want to see some of the good ones but old ones that I haven't seen in a long time and may have never seen! Also please get your little commentaries accurate oh, I remember someone introducing our Vines have tender grapes Edward G Robinson, Margaret O'Brien and Agnes Moorehead, however the introduction said that Robinson was a widower raising his daughter when Agnes Moorehead what's the mother and absolutely alive. I have noticed similar things from time to time and at 72 I have been watching old films all my life so I notice. No offense to anyone but I do miss Robert Osborne!

[trueosmondfan]

I've been watching classic movies on TCM for several years now. I think about in the late 80's and since. A lot of the movies I used to see are no longer shown on TCM. which is really sad and disappointing. Movies such as: Waterloo Bridge, If I Had A Million, The Uninvited, Margie, Imitation of Life, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and even a few classic silent movies. I miss seeing these wonderful movies. TCM seems to now only be playing the same B&W movies over and over now. I like the ones being shown but know that there are still so many others no longer being shown on the channel. I hope someone from TCM will see my post and bring back a lot of the classic movies I listed and others too. Please don't just cater to the "young people". People my age, 60 and over still love watching your channel. Please don't count us out. Thank you.

[timfronimos]

When TCM was taken off my cable package, I cancelled my cable tv and have never looked back.
TCM was my favorite channel. I still love the movies as they shaped my life.