The Missus’s and my favorite between-the-films bumper/promo on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable/satellite TV network:
For those not familiar with it, the network specializes in films — mostly Hollywood-made — from years ago. They’ve been showing this occasionally for years. It so dreamily evokes bygone days, without overt sentiment. It doesn’t include any clips from old movies. (Indeed, the only reference to film at all is the shot of a guy selling tickets from a theater booth.) It keeps the locale(s) non-specific, although it’s hard not to assume they’re all in New York City. It uses jazz effectively, and even references Edward Hopper. But somehow — even without the TCM logo at the very end, probably — it unambiguously tells you what you can expect to find featured here.
It is, we think, a masterpiece of the form.
[Found it, while looking for something else, at the YouTube channel for the AJ Ross advertising agency — the firm which produced it.]
toni Shrewsbury says
Still think it’s one of the most evocative commercials ever. Makes me think of my parents as a young couple every time I see it.
Froog says
Very nice.
I wonder how many of those shots are direct homages to moments in film noir?
I am a terrible slushbucket for nostalgia (even – or perhaps especially – for an era before I was born). The montage of excised clinches from 40s/50s movies in the closing scene of Cinema Paradiso makes me cry every time. Hopperesque 2am diners will if I don’t keep a guard on myself.