December 2, 9, 16 and 30 at 8pm | 28 Movies
With the year winding down, it’s time for good food, good cheer and, to quote the poet Eddie Murphy, “Party all the time.” But what can classic film teach us about throwing the perfect party? Thankfully, this month’s TCM Spotlight, How to Throw a Party, has all the lessons you need to have a good time with family, friends or perhaps an eccentric millionaire who wants you to spend a night in a haunted house.
There are 28 movies in the Spotlight this month over the course of four Monday nights, and if you want to binge these movies like there’s no tomorrow, then you are a true party animal. But if you’re looking to perhaps winnow down a few choices, then we have some highlights from each evening that should be more than enough to get the party started.
The party starts Monday, December 2 with Party Animals, seven movies that will get you in the mood to go wild. We suggest focusing on three pre-Code movies in the line-up: Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Madame Satan (1930) and The Road to Ruin (1934). Pre-
Code Hollywood offers some delectable pictures, as we can see a classic cinema mold playing a little fast and loose with rigid morality. In Our Dancing Daughters, you have a young Joan Crawford opposite John Mack Brown partying on a yacht. Not only do you have the joy of Crawford in the lead, but the film gets right into the spirit of party drama when love and lies are revealed during the festivities.
If you want to get a little weirder, check out Cecil B. DeMille’s Madame Satan, perhaps the only major movie in Hollywood history where there’s a masquerade ball on a Zeppelin. The plot concerns mixed-up lovers with Kay Johnson donning the sexy and mysterious “Madame Satan” persona to lure back her wayward husband. The movie marks a surprising turn in DeMille’s career as he made a return to “boudoir comedy,” but it also features sexual liberalism that became scarce in Hollywood cinema following the implementation of the Production Code in 1934.
You can also get a little risqué with a moralist bend watching Dorothy Davenport’s The Road to Ruin, which arrived on the pre-Code side of the Production Code’s 1934 debut. In the film, Helen Foster plays Ann Dixon, a young woman who starts down a path of smoking, drinking and premarital sex. If you can get past the consequences endured by Ann when she is punished for partying, you’ll have a good time. (The creeping morality of Hollywood’s self-censorship is here in the film compared to the more salacious 1928 silent original.) No one wants to think about the hangover in the middle of the bash.
The following Monday is all about Special Occasions, and it’s tough to go wrong with Marcel Camus’ brilliant and beautifully realized Black Orpheus (1959). The special occasion is Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, but the plot is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. Pulsating with life, Camus takes viewers through a favela and the excitement of Carnaval while following Orfeu (Breno Mello) who tries to find his Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn). The juxtaposition of the tragic romance with the effervescent energy of the festivities makes Black Orpheus a consistently enchanting experience.
If you want a special occasion that’s about a personal event rather than a holiday, then be sure to check out Father of the Bride (1950). Vincente Minnelli’s lighthearted comedy follows a middle-aged lawyer (Spencer Tracy) fretting about his daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor) and her upcoming nuptials. While the film has been remade twice (once with Steve Martin and again with Andy Garcia), the original is well worth your time to see Tracy in full comic mode. While he never sacrifices the gravitas he typically brought to his performances, Minnelli knows how to use it to hilarious effect under the stress of wedding planning.
If you want a celebration with more of a dramatic twist, then it’s worth checking out The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Orson Welles’ follow-up to Citizen Kane (1941). Ambersons is a tricky film since Welles lost control of the picture in the editing room, but that hasn’t stopped the movie from being appreciated on its own merits as it chronicles the downfall of a wealthy family at the turn of the century. Like Black Orpheus and The Road to Ruin, this is for those who would like a little pathos with their partying.
Perhaps a big bash isn’t your scene, and you’re looking for something a bit more intimate. In that case, you’ll want to tune in the following week for Cocktail & Dinner Parties. If you’ve never seen a Whit Stillman movie, a great entry point is his feature debut, Metropolitan (1990). The wry, romantic comedy follows a group of socialites during debutante season in Manhattan. Nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Stillman does an exquisite job of bringing viewers into the lives of these cloistered, privileged young adults of the 1980s. If you like that party, you’ll certainly want to make time for Stillman’s later works, especially The Last Days of Disco (1998).
Care to go a little darker? Then you should make time for the twisted dinner party of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). Based on the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder of 1924, the film stars John Dall and Farley Granger as Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, respectively. The two men believe they’ve committed a murder so perfect that they can invite people over to dinner with the body hidden in the room and no one will be the wiser. Unfortunately for them, one of the guests is their old headmaster, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), who is sharper than his former pupils realize. Made to look like it was shot in a single take, Rope knows how to keep the tension through its runtime as the Master of Suspense can make even a casual gathering a nerve-wracking affair.
While it’s difficult to imagine a dinner party worse than “Our hosts have secretly killed a man,” there’s some serious competition from Mike Nichols’ debut feature, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Based on the Edward Albee play of the same name, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton star as George and Martha, a miserable couple who have invited young couple Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis) over for a drink. From there, the belligerent older couple starts playing psychosexual mind games as the evening becomes more emotionally fraught with each passing moment. Say what you will about the guys from Rope; they weren’t trying to make their guests uncomfortable.
On the last night of this month’s showcase, we have some Weekend Gatherings that get more than a little twisted. If you enjoy a good murder mystery, then you’ll want to check out Herbert Ross’s whodunnit The Last of Sheila (1973). Written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, this brilliant tale takes place on the yacht of a movie producer (James Coburn) who knows some damning secrets about his guests. The script keeps the audience guessing through some bizarre parlor games, and the film’s impact can still be felt today in movies like Glass Onion (2022).
Want to get a little darker? Well then step right into William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill (1959), because you know star Vincent Price likes to get spooky. In this set-up, Price plays Frederick Loren, and he has a proposal for his guests: spend a single night in a haunted house and win $10,000. But it turns out Frederick and his fourth wife Annabelle are playing dangerous games with the guests who are desperate to figure out what’s really happening in this creepy mansion. A horror classic, the energy Price brings to House on Haunted Hill is a party in itself.
If millionaires terrorizing their less wealthy friends isn’t your speed, how about a group of aristocrats being equally tormented? That’s what you get in Luis Buñuel’s sharp satire The Exterminating Angel (1962). The film takes place at a dinner party where the guests are inexplicably unable to leave due to mysterious circumstances. As the wealthy partiers grow increasingly desperate, their sense of reality starts to unravel and they find themselves trapped in a hell of their own making. This film speaks to any introvert who has felt obligated to go to a party and immediately wanted to leave.
Whichever revelries you choose, hopefully, these movies provide some good inspiration or perhaps even background viewing at your parties (pop on The Exterminating Angel and see if anyone gets the joke). At the very least, all of these movies provide strong contrasts of how any party can still provide conflict, tension and drama amidst the hoopla and joy. And when you party, please party responsibly, especially if your host is urbane, wealthy and wants to make an intriguing offer.
