Ben Mankiewicz Digs Deep to Share Why TCM Matters Before 2023 TCM Classic Film Festival (Exclusive)

TCM means so much to fans who watch the network every day, taking cinematic journeys from the Golden Age of Hollywood to modern classics. Ben Mankiewicz is usually there to guide them through. A member of Hollywood royalty himself, Mankiewicz is also introducing movies at the 2023 TCM Classic Film Festival, which kicks off in Hollywood on Thursday. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Mankiewicz explained why some big titles are on the schedule and shared why he thinks TCM still matters so much. He also compared All About Eve with Die Hard, because... why not?

The festival starts off with a red carpet gala and screening of Howard Hawks' 1959 Western Rio Bravo. Mankiewicz will host the special screening, which will feature a conversation with star Angie Dickinson. Directors Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson, who have both professed their love for the film, will also be there. Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill closes the festival on Sunday, with Kasdan, writer Barbara Benedick, and stars Tom Berenger and JoBeth Williams in attendance. We discussed both of these films with Mankiewicz. All About Eve also came up, as the classic was directed by Mankiewicz's great-uncle, Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

We're really excited about the festival. It's now just a couple of days away.

Ben Mankiewicz: Is it really? ... Yeah. I am too. Always. It's such a great time. Always. A lot of prep, and it seems incredibly hectic here in the moments before, but it always is just such a lovely four days.

It's TCM's Super Bowl, basically.

Ben Mankiewicz: It is TCM's Super Bowl. That's right.

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(Photo: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for TCM)

This year it's kicking off with Rio Bravo. Why do you think Rio Bravo is the best movie to open this year?

Ben Mankiewicz: Well, we're at the 100th Anniversary of Warner Bros., so we were definitely going to open with a Warner Bros. picture. And we have a list of movies that we want to open with and then obviously it depends on what talent we can get. And we get these incredible responses from talent, and really almost invariably, the only thing that keeps people away is scheduling... and people are still working. 

But it's also one of the 10 movies that we have worked with Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation to restore, so it completely makes sense that as part of the 100th anniversary, we worked with the Film Foundation to oversee the restoration of 10 movies of which Rio Bravo's one. So it made perfect sense to us. Angie Dickinson has long been a huge supporter of the channel and we have a great relationship with her. I have a great relationship with her. It's really impossible not to fall in love with her. I mean, from the moment you meet her, she's just so kind, thoughtful, and interesting, and she listens. And she's a little dangerous and so authentic. So it's great fun to have Angie there.

Steven Spielberg... really spearheaded from the Film Foundation's point of view, the restoration of Rio Bravo because it's a movie that he particularly loves. So Spielberg's going to be there, and Angie Dickinson, and Paul Thomas Anderson on opening night. And Paul is also on the board of the Film Foundation and is also a gigantic Rio Bravo fan. So it's just terrific to have all those talents there. And so that was a big part of why we picked Rio Bravo.

It'll be interesting to hear Paul Thomas Anderson's thoughts on the movie because his films are kind of great hangout movies sometimes, and Rio Bravo is kind of like a hangout Western.

Ben Mankiewicz: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean that's right. It's a definite hangout Western. I mean, I've talked to Paul about Rio Bravo and he likes it. He thinks it would be better if it had been set in Tarzana, but he likes it.

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(Photo: Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

This year you get one Mankiewicz family movie. You've got All About Eve, which I just think that's Joe Mankiewicz's best movie. I love that one. It just never ages. What do you think it is about All About Eve that makes audiences still love it 73 years since it came out?

Ben Mankiewicz: I mean, I don't have any good answers to that question except it's the same reason they still love Casablanca. Right? And it's the same reason they still love Die Hard. The same reason you still love Bond movies is there's a truth that comes through in them, whether... I love that I'm comparing Die Hard too, because Die Hard and All About Eve have so much in common.

I mean, really if you think of one, you automatically think of the other. No, but they're interesting stories. And then there's just this human truth that comes through. 

So I don't blame movies when they don't hold up later because they weren't really meant to hold up. They're meant to work at the moment that they came out. Certainly even more true of television shows. But All About Eve, like Casablanca, is timeless. So the reason that people are still interested is because it's great, right?

Because there was a rich combination of unbelievably talented people working at the height of their powers to create this great piece of art. We'll have David Newman there, whose father [Alfred Newman] did the music, and I'm anxious to hear what my uncle was like if David has stories like that to relay. So it's pretty perfect. I mean, I do, I think of it the same way that I think of Casablanca. And again, every sort of movie that, and The Godfather.

I mean just movies that, and I just saw Unforgiven again, movies that just continue. I saw... We were just on spring break with my daughter and we watched the most recent Bond movie, which I had not seen and loved very much, No Time To Die, and then we were in London. So we watched that, and then she was into that and so we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone. And I'm like, God, these movies are good. They just don't stop being good.

It's the best of their genres.

Ben Mankiewicz: Yeah, that's right. So I mean, that's certainly true about All About Eve, which is still the definitive backstage story.

The festival this year also ends with The Big Chill, which is kind of a cool decision to end the festival with that movie. And it's also one that probably, I don't know if TCM's ever shown that. Is it really fun at the festival to introduce these movies that you don't always get? I mean, you've probably taped more intros to Casablanca than you could imagine, but The Big Chill is a movie you probably don't get to introduce a lot.

Ben Mankiewicz: I would say that we have introduced, I have introduced The Big Chill. I feel like I have, but somebody could look through the archives and point out that I'm just totally wrong. I just saw it again in advance of this. Again, this is very identifiable as an early '80s picture, but it totally holds up. I mean, the humanity in it is no difference whatsoever. I mean, it's got a lot of 1980s hair, but it is an entirely modern movie, I think. And I didn't remember how funny it was. I laughed a lot. And it's very deliberately paced. And I mean that as a full-on compliment. It is in no hurry to tell this story. It's not long, but it takes its time to tell the story. And you realize that it's not really, nothing horribly dramatic happens. 

I mean, there's a death at the beginning. It's the death of somebody we don't know. We never see Kevin Costner, right? By the way, he's coming to the festival but we're not letting him come on stage, so...

Gotcha. You don't want him to take the Yellowstone drama to TCM.

Ben Mankiewicz: That's right. That's right. No, but it'd be funny if we brought him and then we're like, yeah, actually he'd be best if you just stayed out.

No, we can see his hands from the opening. You can see hands.

Ben Mankiewicz: That's right. That's right. Somebody's got to pull your pants on. That's all we're going to do. Pull your socks up.

So it's nice to introduce movies, obviously, that you don't get a chance to. We have Ocean's 11, I'm going to be on stage with Steven Soderbergh, which I'm looking forward to. He's one of my favorite filmmakers working today. But we've introduced the original Ocean's 11 plenty, but not that one. So getting the chance to talk about movies like The Big Chill and Ocean's 11, definitely is a thrill, no question. You're correct that it gets us out of our, I won't say comfort zone, because we're certainly comfortable with this stuff, but it gets us out of what we do traditionally.

What we do, as you said, we've introduced, I think Casablanca has been on the air 400 times and I'm probably closing in on Robert [Osborne] for the number of times we've introduced it. Robert probably still leads, but I'm catching up. 

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(Photo: FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty Images)

It's playing at the festival too.

Ben Mankiewicz: That's playing at the festival. That's right. Yeah.

[Warner Bros. Discovery CEO] David Zaslav sounds really committed to what you guys are doing, but all the fans are always kind of nervous about change. Do you understand why sometimes fans get nervous about change?

Ben Mankiewicz: Of course, I understand why they're nervous. We're nervous, right? ... We're not nervous because it's David Zaslav, we're nervous because this industry changes and has changed dramatically. And we've had a... I don't know what the right adjective is here. We have had an eventful five years of multiple leadership changes, and purchases, and some big corporate takeovers. We're just, we've got have less than 50 people working for this channel. This is not a big network.

So of course, I understand. I remember when I started, and I mean, I came in there in 2003 and we didn't hear... Thank God there was no Twitter. My God, I would've lost any self-confidence. And as it was, I'd read message boards and they were like, 'Who is this new punk? He's terrible. I don't want to see him. Why are they ruining my channel?' There was this sense that... And then eventually, as it sort of happens with me, and it was over the years this has been my tactic with women, give me three or four years and I will wear you down and you'll go out with me. That's what happened at TCM. Two or three years later they're like, 'All right, I guess it's not ruined.'

You have to evolve too. I mean, you can't just stay the same forever, but you guys are still showing Pre-Code movies in prime time occasionally.

Ben Mankiewicz: I'm looking at The Wiser Sex right now, which is going to be at the festival. And that's just the one I see up here on the board. I think we got a bunch of pre-code, we always have a bunch of pre-code movies. They're always incredibly popular at the festival. So you're correct and that's exactly right. And haven't really changed. I mean, the overwhelming percentage of the movies we show are from the '30s, '40s, and '50s, and into the '60s maybe. But that's what we've always done from the moment we started. That has not really changed. The percentages are not significantly different. Maybe they've dropped two or 3% as we've added some more titles from the '70s and '80s, but the overwhelming majority of what we show is from the '30s, '40s, and '50s. That's not going to change.

However, it's no longer 1994 when we started. We're doing this in a changing landscape. Of course, we have to change with it. We can't seem stale. We can't seem old. The movies that we show are classics. The movies we show are from another era, but we're competing in 2023. And I think our viewers, most of our viewers, have come to recognize that. There is still a knee-jerk because humans don't like change in things they love. That's just how it is, right? So when they read about all this and they see all these changes, they panic. They've panicked for years. I panic, I get it.

But this is a guy, David Zaslav, who took Jack Warner's desk out of storage and put it in his office. Put Jack Warner's phone on his desk. He's got a phone from 1951 on his desk. This is a guy who, when I was at a dinner with Steven Spielberg after they'd had an AFI screening of The Fabelmans, texted Spielberg, his friend, and said like, "Oh my God... Gentleman's Agreement is on TCM. This is such a great time to show it." Here's David Zaslav at home watching Gentleman's Agreement on TCM and texting Steven Spielberg about it. So I would tell the people this. That we have a guy in charge who gets why TCM matters and why it's important. And I've got to say, we can't ask for anything more.

Before we go, before the festival started, was the festival really like the first time you got a good sense of just how important TCM has been to so many people? I mean, my grandfather loved it. And now you get to see people every day or during the festivals.

Ben Mankiewicz: Yeah, that's right. I think it is. It affords people... Is your grandfather no longer alive? I guess?

He passed away a long time ago. But he had tapes on the wall. He had the books that you needed before Wikipedia to look up what movies were about. He had those.

Ben Mankiewicz: So what it afforded, what it does is it gives people like your grandfather an opportunity to meet people with that same interest, to sort of know, and if they're younger, at least your grandfather's probably pretty secure in his love of old movies, but certainly for younger people who think, I'm the weird person. And I mean weird in a good way. I'm the unique person at the office who likes black-and-white movies. Nobody else does. And then you find out, 'Oh my God, there's so many people like me.' So the best part of the festival is seeing those relationships blossom between fans, and then we get to be part of it. And so yes, in answer to your question, I knew how important TCM was, but until you start meeting people, you realize the extent of the relevance that this channel has to their lives, and that is not the case with any other channel on TV.

Nobody on the planet, in the world, says, 'What do you watch on TV? Whatever's on Starz.' You would be like, 'What?' Nobody says, I love CBS. An insane thing to say. But TCM is part of people's identity, and that carries with it... I get it. We're just a bunch of people on TV, but that carries with it some responsibility when you realize how much this channel means. And I think, to get back to the previous question, we realize it, and I think it's pretty great that the leadership team at Warner Bros. Discovery realizes that too, that we're not just any other channel. This channel really matters to its very dedicated, very passionate fan base.

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