The Extras
The Extras
TCM Host Ben Mankiewicz On Baseball, TCM’s Legacy, And The Future Of Classic Film
We sit down with Ben Mankiewicz to trace his path from sports-obsessed kid to TCM host, exploring what makes a film “classic,” why nostalgia hits harder with age, and how storytelling in podcasts and on-air curation keeps cinema alive. Along the way, we debunk Cleopatra myths, celebrate overlooked gems, and make the case for family movie night as a way to slow time. This is a perfect podcast for the holidays, as we ruminate on family, nostalgia, and the importance of movies.
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Hello and welcome to the Extras. I'm Tim Millard, your host, and today I'm joined by TCM host, Ben Mankiewicz. Hey Ben.
Ben Mankiewicz:Hey Tim, how are you?
Tim Millard:Good, good. Are you uh getting ready for the holidays here?
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're having a small Thanksgiving. People keep bailing on us.
Tim Millard:Maybe we should have been coming. I know it's a busy week.
Ben Mankiewicz:Maybe we should uh read something into this. Uh but anyway, it'll be nice and uh it's my favorite holiday by far. You know, it's uh you hang out with people you care about. You know, nobody has to give a gift. I know. There's uh there's football in the middle of the week and the weekend. Like it's good. I love uh I love Thanksgiving.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah, it's great. Well, uh I told you earlier when I met you that uh I worked at Warner Home Video for almost 14 years, but we never actually met while I was working there because we're very separate divisions or anything. We actually met at our daughter softball game back in September. I remember the the playoffs were going on. We were talking about that uh as we were watching the game. But do people know how big of a baseball fan you are?
Ben Mankiewicz:I mean, people if they've if they've uh listened to one of the interviews I've done, but basically, no, I don't get it, you know. I I thought that was going to be my career. I thought I was not playing, I wasn't that foolish, although I, you know, I played as long as I could, and then I played softball as long as I could also, but not as much as I should have. Like, I love it so much that I should have been playing like a couple times a week. It's just I love it. Um, but man, when I hit like 35, like I got a lot worse. Like, you know, I mean, I was always good, and then all of a sudden I'm like, I'm like the seventh best player on this team. Tops. Yeah. And I was a great outfielder, and all of a sudden I was like, I am letting balls go over my head. Like I lost the ability to um, yeah, I I thought I was gonna be a baseball broadcaster. I sort of thought that's what was in the cards for me and what I wanted to do. And I sort of knew that if I worked at it, I'd be I'd be pretty good at it. Yeah, and like I recognized now, this is gonna sound uh this is I'll probably regret this, but uh I would have been great at it. Like because when I was coming up, there was a traditional manner in which broadcasters had to speak, and and that was always tricky for me. But now that you can sort of let your personality be part of your presentation, that you don't have to act like you're a baseball broadcaster, right? That there are enough really good broadcasters, and I'm sure some people hate them. It's obviously a very subjective business, but but I I I would have had my own thing and my own sort of very casual style, and it would have worked enough for some people, and and I I would have been good at it. And I could I partly because I just would have, you know, I loved it. Yeah. I still do, still love listening to baseball on the radio.
Tim Millard:I agree. I I I think back, you know, when I was in college, when I went into my broadcast classes, one of the key things I thought was sports, you know, just in terms of a pure interest that I had as well. Uh here we are both we talk about film, but um, and look how much and and sports is I mean, it's changed.
Ben Mankiewicz:I mean, in this era where everything has changed, and and obviously sports has too, but in a sense, sports has become more important than it ever was. I mean, you know, uh every single reality show is trying to capture what sports does, which is this reality show where you don't know how it's gonna end. And that's not you legitimately don't know how it's gonna end. I mean, we can, you know, people can talk about the fix being in, but it's there's no fix in.
Tim Millard:It's it's a great drama, right? It's great drama, and and we we just came off this great World Series game seven, it comes right down to uh extra things. I mean, there's no drama greater than that.
Ben Mankiewicz:Uh yeah, and and and in football and basketball too. I mean, I I you know, I mean, I remember I was listening to uh I guess I didn't know I hadn't I didn't listen to Clippers on the radio. I live out here in LA and and uh and I caught a Clippers game on the radio, and I think Ian Eagle was the was their play-by-play guy for years, which I was unaware of. You know, I mean I knew Chick Hearn and I knew what the Lakers did, but I just didn't I'd watched the Clippers, but I didn't listen on the radio. And I heard him, and I was like, this is the greatest basketball broadcaster I've ever heard. My life, this guy's amazing, and I know how incredibly hard it is to basically keep you pass to pass into it without sounding like you're just overloading people with details and and getting this and uh, you know, what I think a lot of broadcasters miss on, and I can be a tough watch, but as you just heard, I'll praise people who are great at it all the time. But I uh uh like he he understood immediately what was more important than the other thing. Right, right? Like, and that's a thing, a thing that some broadcasters don't get. Look, it's a super hard job. So if you're competent at it, in a sense, you're great. It's hard to even get competent at it.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah. Well, since you are a sports fan, uh I I have to just slip in a quick question about favorite sports film, baseball film.
Ben Mankiewicz:I love Field of Dreams. I do. Um uh I I think I probably I might like Bull Durham more as a movie because it's so engaging and funny, and you know, and and and Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are so great in Robert Wool. And I'm I'm leaving Costner out because I think his his greatness is obvious actually. He's sensational, but uh I do hate his speech about the things he loves. Like that's pretty painful, the one that wins Susan Sarandon over. Uh that's a but I but I love the movie and and and Ron Shelton knows how to make a sports movie. But but when I saw uh I was very close to my father, and we were baseball fans together. I became a baseball fan in large part because I mean simply because my dad was, but in 1976, well, 75 first, I I was not baseball. I was eight years old. Baseball was boring. I loved football, I loved basketball. I grew up in DC and I loved the football team, I loved the Washington Bullets. We went a lot. First game I remember going to, of anything, was going to see the Bullets. Baseball, there was no team, and it was boring. And then the 1975 World Series happened, the Red Sox and the Reds. I hadn't followed at all. I don't know who these teams are. And my cousins, my dad's sister's kids were visiting, and they're both two, they're two and four years older, and I idolized them. And they were watching the World Series with my father, and they were glued to the TV and into it. That great seven-game series. You know, game six called Fisk home run, but game seven was a thrilling game, too, that the Reds won to win 4-3. And I just remember seeing them bond, and I thought, oh, this is never happening again. Like, I am not permitting this. I I am going to I am gonna bond with my father over this. And so I willed myself to be a baseball fan in 1976, and I picked the Oakland A's because Reggie Jackson had been there, and even though he was traded to the Orioles right before the start of the season, the Orioles, and so my first baseball game was seeing the Orioles and the uh Cleveland Indians uh in Baltimore. But but even though Reggie was there, I'd still sort of committed to the A's, and then in 1977, the A's got this great rookie, Mitchell Page, and he had an incredible rookie year, one of the best rookie years of the 70s, and I uh and I was just I picked him and I was sold. I was hooked at 10, and that was it. I've been an A's fan my entire life, and I willed myself to be a baseball fan, and then it really took hold in in 77. Yeah. So then in Field of Dreams, I I I saw Field of Dreams out in '88, in I think it was '88 with uh uh my girlfriend who lived in San Francisco and uh in Marin County, and I went and saw the thing with her, and I'm weeping because it's got the father and the son, the playing catch, and I'm super close to my dad or was and and I call him the next morning because I saw it at night. He's back in DC, so I can't call him when I finish the movie because it's like one o'clock in the morning in DC. So I call him in the morning and I go, hey Pop, uh listen, I saw Field of Dreams last night. And before I could say anything, he goes, Oh my God. Like, what a piece of crap, right? I mean, if they build it, build what? Who will come? Who are they really talking about this whole time? Oh my god, I'm so dull, right? Oh my god, why are people making such a fuss? And I'm like, uh, yeah, right, totally, totally. Same thing, right? I was like crushed because I was ready to have this moment with him. And then later, because he's such a great, he was such a great guy, he didn't, he was like, No, what are you talking about? I loved it. I thought about you and how close you were. But like he was uh, but man, that was Field. But I love, I I do love Field of Dreams. And um, I when I when a corny movie sticks the corness, it's pretty great.
Tim Millard:Yeah, and and you know, you get older. I just showed the the film to my daughter for the first time, you know, because we're you know she's playing softball and we we watched all the kids' films, and now I'm introducing her to some of the more adult uh uh sports films about baseball. And and I mean, I just uh you get so nostalgic, you know, you get older and you just think the people you've lost, like, you know, my father's not here. And these these films speak to you, you know.
Ben Mankiewicz:It's just yeah, I mean, sports films are like sports films and science fiction films to me uh share a descriptor at least. Like they're hard to do well, very hard to do well. But when they do them well, they're great. Yeah. Right. So I you know, I don't love science fiction films. But then I in fact I even hesitate to see them sometimes until you see a great one and you're like, oh wow. Yeah, that was incredibly cool. And then I talk about it and I feel and so when a sports film lands, there are many of them, most of them are bad. Uh they they really land. I just saw one I it turned out I really hadn't seen that I thought I'd seen. I saw it because I did an interview in with Noah Wiley from The Pit. Um, he came in and he's kind of programmed two movies for us, TCM, part of our two-for-one series. We bring in a director or an actor on a on a Saturday night, and they program a double feature. And one of the films he picked was Inside Moves with John Savage and David Morse. Uh, Richard Donner directs the basketball movie where the we see the like 1979, 80 Golden State Warriors there, like Clifford Ray, who beat the Bullets in 1975, swept the bullets with the Warriors. Uh, like he's got lines in it. Anyways, I loved that movie. It's really good. Everybody should check out if they haven't seen Inside Moves from 1980. It's uh it's definitely worth seeing a great basketball movie.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you're talking my era. I was in uh a huge Seattle Supersonic fan, late 70s. They lose games between the Bullets and the Sonics.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, sure. 78 and 79 NBA championship. I couldn't believe the Bullets lost in 79. Like they were so much better. Like that was, I mean, they were so much better than they'd been in 78 and they'd won in 78.
unknown:Yeah.
Ben Mankiewicz:But they were the best team in the league in 79, and they won game one uh over the Sonics, blew a big lead, but won by one or two points, and then the Sonics like steamrolled them the next four games.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah. Well, we have a lot of uh TCM fans, and uh they probably clicked off because we're talking sports here, but hey, we'll we'll bring it back to TCM. I think you you must be one of the longest tenured folks there at TCM because you started back in what 2003.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, so I've uh I'm hit I've hit 22 years. Um I think I started in July, I shot in July to air in over Labor Day weekend. I made my debut on the air Labor Day weekend in 2003. So next year, whether you want to call it July or September for my 23rd anniversary, uh I will have been on the air at TCM longer than Robert Osborne, uh, which is uh stunning to me. You know, he was there from 23 years basically until the channel signed on until he died, but his last appearance, you know, would not have quite made 23 years. So sometime in the next year I'll I'll have been there longer than Robert, which is uh I that's quite a I it's not so much quite quite an accomplishment, but it's a it's it's amazing to me that that's happened and and uh you know preserve his his legacy. Yeah. Uh you know, it feels like a it feels like a job that has some weight and responsibility to it, which doesn't happen a lot in television.
Tim Millard:Yeah.
Ben Mankiewicz:So I'm I'm glad. I'm trying not to overstate it. I I know it's just a job, I'm just a cable basic cable TV host, but uh, you know, uh Robert made this job something that that mattered to people and the channel matters to people in a way that you know I I don't there's not another cable channel that matters to people like that. There just isn't. It doesn't I've said this before too, but I like saying it. You know, if you asked, you you meet somebody and you're like, hey, so well, you know, what do you watch? What you got a show you like? And the person goes, Oh, I watch every anything on ABC. You'd be like, Yeah. That's an insane thing to say. Right. It's even insane to say I love HBO, right? Yeah. You don't love HBO, you love maybe many HBO shows, right? Right. You know, but nobody likes a channel, nobody likes Showtime, which doesn't exist anymore, I don't think. Uh you know, somebody might love a news channel, but that's lame, and that's not really television.
Tim Millard:Right. Yeah.
Ben Mankiewicz:TCM feels like part of the fabric of someone's being to our fans. So look, I get most people don't know what it is and don't watch it. So I'm not trying to overstate it, but the people who watch it, they care and they care deeply. So you'll see things on social media where somebody will be like, it's pretty regularly, you know. I'm a you know, I'm a mom, I'm a lawyer, wife, dog owner, TCM fan. Yeah. Like that's the things that they sort of identify with. And that's a that's uh that's un incredibly unusual for a for a TV channel. Why do you think that is? I think because I'm I know why. I'm certain now why. I mean it's a big answer, but uh because we connect people to others and mostly to our history. Right? I mean these these movies, they're movies, but they're first of all, they're little they're little mini documentaries and that even if it's shot on a studio lot, getting a sense of how people dressed, how people talked, cars they drove, what the world looked like in nineteen thirty-eight, forty-eight, fifty-eight, sixty-eight. Right. Um but mostly what it does is it connects us to nostalgia. And I you know it's funny, we're talking about sports, which is sort of also big on nostalgia. But nostalgia is not uh hi hanging an Oakland A's pennant or a Seattle Supersonics pennant. By the way, we're both fans of teams that left, which is terrible. Terrible, terrible thing. And the Sonics belong in Seattle and the A's belong in Oakland. Um, but nostalgia is not a pennant. Nostalgia is uh is an emotion, or at least it connects us to emotions. So that channel connects people to their parents, to brothers and sisters, to grandparents. You know, if your dad was a big Western fan, was always watching Westerns, you're gonna sit there and you're gonna watch a Western, and you even if you don't even know the movie, you're gonna think, but my dad loved this movie. You know, this kind of movie my dad would have loved. And that's a powerful thing. And it gives people a feeling of uh even before the world it's funny, we signed on the air in 1994, which is really when when I would say this we may be in a new era now, but when politics started to fall apart in America and uh and the manner in which we sort of talked to and about each other um change, started to change pretty dramatically. Sort of, you know, led by led by Newt Gingrich. And uh that's when TCM signed on the air. So it's always been this sort of respite. Doesn't mean we don't talk about politics, because politics and Hollywood are you know, they're woven together and always have been. But the channel is a escape from that sort of thing. Even if we're gonna put some movie in some political context, even if we're gonna talk about the blacklist at the beginning of a movie, right? Um, and whether it was blacklisted people involved or whether it's, you know, whether it's putting in the w on the waterfront in a in a blacklist contextual context, it's still not gonna stop you. That we're talking for two and a half minutes, you're still gonna enjoy the film. As I always say, like, you know, I, you know, Ilya Kazan made that movie as an as a means to show that sometimes you you have to turn sometimes you have to turn in people you care about. Sometimes you have to think on people, you know, and as I always want to say, and it's an interesting point of view to take. I just think if I had friends who were throwing people off the tops of buildings, yeah, I would turn them in. If they'd gone to a Communist Party meeting in 1935 when capitalism had failed, uh, I would not turn them in. Right. Like it's an enormous difference. Um like Kazan is conveniently finding a way out as a means of it, and I find that a very irritating argument that he made. But I love on the waterfront. I can still love it. It's okay, you know.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah. Well, you have a unique vantage point, you know, where you sit, and uh, you know, you're talking about why people are so passionate about TCM or classic films. Uh, do you do you think that interest is increasing or declining?
Ben Mankiewicz:Or I don't know. We don't, you know, we don't get ratings, which is one of the reasons why people love us so much, right? Because we don't get ratings because we don't have commercials. Right. Um They don't love us because we don't get ratings. They don't know we don't get ratings. They love us because we don't have commercials. But because we have commercials, we don't get traditional ratings. And so, you know, we've done uh we've spent a lot of money over the years, various uh, you know, every five I'm making it up now, but in every five years or so, big research project shows where our audience is, who our audience is, you know, the things you would you would learn from aver for advertisers, but in this case we're learning so we can figure out our way forward into this world of streaming. Obviously, that's gonna be part of our future, right? Yeah, yeah. Uh thankfully, cable is uh it may be dying, but it's not dead. And it's not gonna be dead in the immediate future. And that's where all our revenue is derived from from cable subscribers right now, or almost all our revenue. But we do these and there's just shows that there's no weakening of our audience. And obviously, from the moment we signed on the air in 1994, I got there in 2003, the moment before we signed on the air then, and with it in 1994 and 2003, and and now, you know, we have a older audience than most people, although no older really than than the news channels, younger in fact, than the news channels. Like our audience is definitely younger than Fox News, but it's still a slightly older audience. And it seems obvious that people age into us, which is weird, but because they wouldn't have grown up loving classic movies, but something happens when you turn 46, yeah, and all of a sudden, you know, a black and white movie doesn't feel like something you can't watch. And uh, you know, Casablanca means more to you. If you you know for a casual movie fan, Casablanca is going to mean more to them at 46 than it did to them at 26. It appears, you know, and I'm using Casablanca both as literal and a metaphor for for all sort of great, great classic films. So I don't know what it is, but you know, and and then you know, we see at the festival, you know, how many young people watch the channel. And I think as filmmaking has opened up to the you know, it's hard to get some obviously it's hard to get mid mid-priced movies made. I mean, you know, the saying is it's not quite true, but it gives you some idea of where we are in Hollywood that you can you can make a movie for three million or you can make a movie for 300 million and not much in between, right? Leaves out a lot of movies for adults now. I've massively oversimplified it, but because there's certainly some movies, mid-range movies that get made, but not as many, and so many of those stories are ending up on on television. But so it's hard to get those movies produced in the same sense in a theatrical release. But you know, these kids now, when they shoot digitally and cheaply, that you can make a movie for not a lot of money, and it might be great if you know what you're doing and you got a great story, right? You've got a first and foremost great script and a sense of uh purpose from the director and some good actors. You you'll you'll make something that could be interesting. But you're not in that thing, you're not gonna, it's not gonna be you're not gonna rely on incredibly expensive computer graphics packages. You're not gonna have a helicopter crash into a building and blow up, right? Right. You're gonna have people talking to each other. It's gonna be a people story. People falling in love, uh, people hating each other, people doing terrible things to each other, people seeking redemption. And those stories you're gonna find in, you know, over the you know, 40 years of classic Hollywood. So I I think that that that has clearly happened too.
Tim Millard:That brings up a unique uh point. You said you'd kind of age into it. And I feel like I've done that, you know. Um part of it is when you have kids too, and you the way you connect your parents uh over films and TV special and holiday films and all that. And then now you have your own kids and you're like, what are we gonna watch? Uh it's a holiday. Yeah, oh, let's go back to some of the old favorites, you know. I mean, there's new films coming out all the time as well, but uh, if you really love as a family to watch films or TV shows, you're gonna want to start to go back as well.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, we're we'll we watch Christmas in Connecticut every year. My daughter loves it. She's programming it next month in December on TCM, part of our kids' fans that uh that we're doing, I think, over the course of four weeks in uh in uh in December. Um yeah, it's gonna be nice, you know. And I mean it's you know, we'll watch Christmas in Connecticut, we'll watch It's a Wonderful Life, you know, we'll watch Elf. Um, you know. Um like so there's plenty of good new Christmas movies too. I'm Scrooged, I love Scrooged. I mean, it's not really new, but you know, in our world and where I think of as new because it's 1988. Well let me ask nearly 50 years ago.
Tim Millard:Yeah, let me ask about let me ask about that because that feels like a moving target, the the definition of classic film.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, so uh everybody asked that. I don't mean to I'm not disparaging the question, I would ask it. And and uh whatever your answer is, Tim, is uh is fine. Like you can define it however you want, and we like that there is no answer for it. So part of the answer is we can definitely say, you know, very simply, any movie made in Hollywood during the studio era, right? Which started end in the 1950s but really came up. So basically any movie made before 1967 is a classic movie. But that doesn't mean that it's a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, which is part of the problem with the word classic, which feels like a compliment and is meant as a compliment a lot of the times, but it's also also just means from an era that we think of as the classic, the era of you know, of classic Hollywood. So, you know, I think of that the studio era from the dawn of talkies until the 1959. So uh to me that sort of 30 years when the studios were that's dominant, the studios dominated, and that's those will always be part of the answer. But obviously, then it then you stuff start poking around. I mean, it's now every movie, you know, I think the greatest 10 years in American movies was 1967 and 1976. So those are all classic films that are released then, and most of them, many of those in that era. Obviously, that I'm not saying that there were no great movies released after that. There were, I just mean 1977, that's Star Wars. And that's a that's a different era. I'm starting that begins something different.
Tim Millard:Yeah, it's like the the era the blockbuster kicks off.
Ben Mankiewicz:That's right. And and and obviously, you know, you know, also, you know, it's also then you you got you know the Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now and Inside Moves. All these movies I love. It's not in the shining, because we're not we're not ending great film, you know, but those movies feel like those movies I just named, those movies feel more like movies that were made from 1967 to 76, even though they they populate after that. So, you know, I mean, all those movies to me are obviously classic films, and then obviously some movies can become a classic film right away. What I love most about the answer to that question, and obviously I don't really have an answer, that's why I keep talking, um, is that uh frequently you'll see people define a classic movie as a movie that aired on TCM. So then now sort of we get to decide what a classic. We know we aired the the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I think just one time. Maybe, no, probably more than once. We did it, you know, we and we we wouldn't do it regularly, mostly because we can't afford it, right? But we got it for uh 31 Days of Oscar the first time, the sort of month-long series of films that we do leading up to the Academy Awards and the month before the Academy Awards. We've done that for more than 20 years. Or we just put them in, you know, we we you know, we and we could do a lineup of films over a a day or a month of uh uh fictional fantasy locations, right? And that might warrant showing one of the Lord of the Rings movies. And those movies are great, obviously. They're they're you know, the the they won, I think, combined, nearly maybe more than 30 Oscars, uh, the three films in the trilogy. So those are obviously worthy of us showing. It's just that nor they're you're basically too expensive for us when we have a limited budget to acquire films to license films, and you can't just say, like, oh great, let's, you know, that's why we don't show, we've shown The Godfather so infrequently. It's because it's it's hard to get. Yeah. Right. You know, some of these movies that people complain that we don't show. I'm like, we can't. Sometimes it's a legal issue that's tied up, right? For some reason, some inexplicably films that you'd think would all everybody would want to be seen and and aren't that expensive, but they're still tied up in rights issues, so we can't get them. And other things are we have, you know, we have the bulk of our budget is spent on licensing films, but we have we ultimately have a budget. And you know, so we can't get some stuff.
Tim Millard:Yep. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that uh that TCM has kind of become uh a go-to for that that definition because you can always hear complaints. You can hear some people complain about the definition if it's too recent in their mind. And of course it depends on the age you are to some extent. But you know, we're already in 2025. I mean, we're already 25 years into this next century, and uh the the films I grew up with are now considered by many classics. That's right. And then some people would write films from the 80s, and you know, it's it's like, wow, okay, well, they're a classic to me. Sure. Like, I mean, I just in the definition of what I think of classic being Casablanca era. No, not really.
Ben Mankiewicz:Right, but I just like I mentioned Scrooge, like that's a good example. Like, I have to catch myself. Like, of course, there's no question that people think Scrooge is from another era, because it was. Like, you know, and we're doing this with the holidays, what I'm talking about. And I think, you know, and I'm I'm uh I love Bill Murray. And so yeah, I and Scrooge is a great film. And I oh it's two Richard Donner films that I'm mentioning here, Inside Moves and Scrooge. But yeah, it's 37 years old, right? But I still think that's not what I mean when I think of as a great classic film, but I I get why I get why people would.
Tim Millard:I'll leap to the TCM festival for for uh a minute here. But to be able to bring people like John Williams or Steven Spielberg or Yes Corsese or to the festival, these are people who they talk about their their view of classic film, the ones they grew up with, but there's now generations and they're at the age where you want to celebrate them and their films. Oh, no question. While they're alive, while they're still making them, you know what I mean? And uh and so you can look and say, well, Spielberg, I mean, his career is so vast, his early films fall into to that classic category, The Jaws, because that's a 50-year-old movie.
Ben Mankiewicz:Jaws is a 50-year-old movie, yeah.
Tim Millard:You know, it's not. But you you you still want to kind of expand that definition, I think, if you're TCM, right, so that you can celebrate these uh these photos.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, and Steven and and and Martin Scorsese, those guys you know, who've been such a huge help to us um over the last three years, and really like unbelievable help to us, two and a half years. Amazing what these guys have done to to keep us uh strong and and and where we ought to be. And 'cause you know, we we asked basically we've been asking our bosses to treat us differently than a regular channel. And it took a little bit of convincing, but g God bless our bosses too, they did it. They heard it, they heard it. And uh would they have heard it without Spielberg and Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson? I don't know, but they heard it. And it's pretty unusual for powerful people who've already made a decision to unmake it, and they did. They unf they unfired some executives and they they they they listened. It's great. I can't I couldn't respect the people I work for more for that.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah.
Ben Mankiewicz:Um it's such it's so rare.
Tim Millard:So uh well, I I don't know how much we can we can get into this, but we do know that it's been announced that the the Warner Brothers is splitting into two companies. Yeah. Do you know where TCM kind of falls into or or how much you can talk about there?
Ben Mankiewicz:Uh I do. I don't actually know whether it's out yet, but but I mean the uh so no, I guess. But but we're in a really we're in a good place. And uh um so uh and uh I'm I'm I'm pleased by that. Um and once again, these these guys have helped us and they they've stood up for us, and you know, we're a movie channel, and you know, Warner Brothers makes movies. So uh that's great.
Tim Millard:That's well, there's a lot of consternation among the listeners and the fans of you of TCM, you know, that that that they want to be sure that TCM continues and and uh is available. And I know that when you you know when you go on to HBL Max, there is a nice presence there of the classic films that has really grown from the early days. It has, it has, branded and everything, and I like I like seeing that.
Ben Mankiewicz:So that's good. Yeah, there's a hub there, and that we're grateful for the hub, really grateful. It's it's been great. Um, as people could probably tell, we don't really program it. Like so they the HBO Max people and they're you know they're really good at what they do, really good. I mean, every time I sort of bounce around streaming services, and obviously there's shows that I watch, you know. I mean, I watch Landman on Paramount and Tulsa King, and uh but Taylor Sheridan has a very clear idea of what makes a good television show. Guy's got it, that guy has a great sense. And I love Billy Bob Thornton. I like Sylvester Stallone too, but Billy Bob, really exceptional actor. So Sly's really great actor, too, it turns out.
Tim Millard:I mean, I say it turns out, but if you saw Rocky, he started starting off as a as a writer, too. You know, yeah, totally.
Ben Mankiewicz:He knows how to do it. That on himself. I love I love Sly. I love that guy. And uh Billy Bob Thornton just happens to be one of my favorite actors. So in and Landman's really good. But every time I end up on HBO, I'm like, this is the best one. It's just the best. It's got, you know, this is this is still feels like the one that is this is for movies. Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Tim Millard:This is still I'm biased too, but but I uh the one I won't give up, I mean, to pay for.
Ben Mankiewicz:That's right. I wouldn't that's the it would be if I had to keep one, there's no question. I wouldn't. I'd give up Netflix, I'd give up everything before. I'd give up uh before I give up HBO.
Tim Millard:And and you know, I pay for a lot of streamers, and there's a number of streamers that I'll go on and I'll put you know on hold for a while just because I I feel I'm good.
Ben Mankiewicz:Right, right, right. Yeah.
Tim Millard:But but because of uh of the kind of the depth of what's on HBO Max, I I I always keep that one active. So well I know that uh you also have podcasts uh that you do. So there's that's the part of the TCM network. Uh you've got the plot thickens and talking pictures. What what led you kind of down into the deciding to do the podcast?
Ben Mankiewicz:Well, I worked in radio for a long time. I wanted to do podcasts for a long time. So I mean, I'm a in a sense, I'm a spearhead of the fact that we have a podcast because I I did I I don't advocate for myself very effectively or very often, but I wanted that. But that's the extent of my responsibility for why those are good. Like what we have on or at least in terms of the plot thickens, was not my idea of what we would be doing with a podcast. And I'm so fortunate that there were other people whose voices were heard because you know, our first season of the Plot Thickens, it's a narrative podcast. We've done six seasons so far. We're working on the seventh season as we speak uh announcement for that'll come in the early part of next year, the first third of the year. So we started with Peter Bogdanovich, and Peter and I were friends, and I was so in the sense that we did Peter, that was my idea to do Peter, but I had a whole different idea. Um, and then as we were fleshing out that idea, our our sort of director of podcast, Angela Carone, said, I think the story isn't the people Peter has interviewed, and those filmmakers, which is what we were going to do, like Peter and Howard Hawks, and Peter and Alfred Itchcock, Peter and John Ford, Peter and Lewis Milestone, that kind of thing. So what it turned out to be was Peter and Peter's life. Like Peter was the story. And that was all that was not my idea. And it was great. And it just sort of then, and I have uh uh the our storytelling team is amazing, and and then we just went on from there, and we did a season on the Devil's Candy that was with Julie Solomon. I was slightly less involved in that one, but it was still a great season, and then we did Lucille Ball, season on Lucille Ball, season on Pam Greer, season on John Ford, and a season on Cleopatra, which we just finished, which was I think our I mean, they've all been good, but it was sort of our most, I don't know if it was our best, but I think it was our best. Uh, and that was a little interesting for me because it was a really the the star of it was Joe Mankowitz, sort of looking at at what that did to my uncle Joe. And it was quite something. I'm super grateful to a couple of my cousins, Nick Davis and Alex Mankowitz, for making stuff available. Alex is Joe's son, and Nick, like me, is you know, Joe's our great uncle, our grandfather's brother. Nick had written a book about Joe and Herman Mankowitz called uh Competing with Idiots, and he shared a bunch of his audio recordings and and and information that he'd found and couldn't include in the book, directed us to stuff. It was great. So and it was fun to work with family and so yeah, and and I think that uh, you know, the Cleopatra means something, and it's mostly negative, right? Most expensive movie ever made, biggest flop ever, nearly wrecked the studio, and and out of control, Elizabeth Taylor. And it turns out, other than it being the most expensive movie ever at the time, none of those things are true. Like, it went into the black within two and a half years of its release. Uh, Elizabeth Taylor, I mean, it would have been the most expensive ever made with or without Elizabeth Taylor, whether she made a million or seven million. I mean, yeah, she stayed in her one of her villas, you know, sometimes too long, and and but she got legitimately sick and nearly died twice. Once before Cleopatra and then once later, uh early on in Cleopatra. And so, like, and everybody got sick, and it wasn't just her. So, and she's great and she delivers, and the movie's not that bad. It's not so not certainly not the worst movie ever. Right. So, and it didn't wreck the studio, and it made money, and it wasn't Elizabeth Taylor's fault. And it's pretty good. Yeah. Um, so it was that was fun to do, and uh, I invite people to listen to that. And then I do another podcast called Talking Pictures, which is me talking with directors and actors, filmmakers, about the movies, about why they what movies they love, why they love them.
Tim Millard:That's the interview, that's the interview style podcast, and uh then the other one is the deep dive.
unknown:Yeah.
Tim Millard:I mean, I I I like them both because, you know, one, you're talking to living people, and you're getting you know, you're getting their their thoughts and ideas and and and history and all their life experience and everything. Going back to the Cleopatra, I mean, there's so many things in there that you don't know that you, as a listener, that you you find out. But um, I mean, I love the whole the whole kind of like Elizabeth Taylor just kind of throwing out a number, you know, that just seems impossible.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah. Right. She she didn't really want to do it, right? She's sitting in her bathtub.
Tim Millard:Yeah. The bathtub. Yeah.
Ben Mankiewicz:And she's talking on the phone to to Walter Wanger, who wants her to play Cleopatra. It's the only person he wants to play Cleopatra. He produced it. Yeah. And she says to her husband, then Eddie Fisher, who of course she would leave during Cleopatra for Richard Bird. She says to him, Um, yeah, I tell him, Yeah, fine, I'll do it. She's been harassing her, calling, calling. Fine, I'll do it. Tell her to do it for a million dollars. That's like 1959 or 1960. And uh and uh the million dollars. And the Wanger's like, I'll call you back. And then he checks with the studio and they're like, okay. Yep. And then the studio, by the way, did a great uh thing that that uh it probably is a is a from a marketing point of view and from a business point of view, is probably should be taught in every film school. She said yes. They were so excited to announce Elizabeth Taylor, the most beautiful woman in the world, you know, as she was routinely thought of then, and by the way, she might have been, um, would play Cleopatra, the most beautiful woman who ever lived, right? You know, that was the sort of hook. And so she'd said she'd do it, and they announced it. And they gave her a big fake check for a million dollars, you know, like a prize-winning sweepstakes, and they announced it. They did a whole press deal, except they hadn't signed a contract yet. So then they announced it. So then all of a sudden they gave her so much leverage, right, by making that announcement before they had her actually signed, that then she started putting in all the things that drove up her price and made it a fun story, you know, about bringing, you know, bringing the entourage that came with her and the two villas and all this crazy stuff. But whatever. Again, that is not why Cleopatra went went over budget. But it did set the template and you know, and she would have signed it before if they'd made her.
Tim Millard:People have to listen to the podcast to get the rest of this story here.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, it's a great, it's a great, it's a fun story. It's a fun story.
Tim Millard:I did want to, before we move on from the podcast, though, I I've really enjoyed the John Ford one.
Ben Mankiewicz:Oh, yeah, we I liked it too. That's why I has always hesitate to, you know, it's weird. I don't like lists. I mean, I make them sometimes, and I but like as soon as you don't put something on a list or you put something eighth instead of second, you know, it feels somehow like you've slighted it, right? So yeah, I I think that I think yeah, I think our podcast has gotten better every season, and I think they were really good to start. And I think there was something really powerful about our first season on Peter Bogdanovich, who has lived this uh who lived, you know, he still sort of can't believe Peter's gone, but who lived this incredible life of you know being this Wonderkin director, you know. I mean, when he made Last Picture Show in 1971, can't remember if it was Time or Newsweek, said that it was the greatest American film made since Citizen Kane. And by the way, Orson Wells was, you know, Peter's mentor, idol. Yeah. Peter idolized him. Yeah, so that went to Peter's head. It did. And then he, by the way, and then he follows it up with, you know, uh, what's up, Doc and Paper Moon? Like an incredible three years. The first, not his first three films. His first film, Target's Amazing, too, you know. But this was what these were his first films with budgets and stars. And uh he, amazing filmmaker. And then, you know, he got a little ahead of himself, and you know, and then he left his wife, Polly Platt, who was really instrumental in those films too, product, great production designer, and he left her for Sybil Shepherd. They legitimately fell in love. I don't want to underplay that. And, you know, he was so handsome himself, Peter, and Sybil's beautiful. And Cary Grant told Peter, we have it in our podcast, you know, stop looking so happy. Why are you always so happy all the time? Nobody likes, nobody likes other people being happy. Right? Um, but Peter sort of looked like he'd conquered the world and he made some movies that weren't that great. Although St. Jack, a movie he made in 1979 with Ben Gazar, is a great, great, great, great film that everybody should see. And then he had this unspeakable tragedy happen to him. And it it it ruined him personally for a while, the murder of his girlfriend by her strange husband, Dorothy Stratton. And then he tried to save the movie they made together, which is quite good. They all laughed, a really nice romantic comedy with John Ritter and Dorothy Stratton and Ben Gazar again, Audrey Happern. But the Dorothy had been murdered and so violently and so awfully that uh, you know, the studio was like, it's sort of nobody's gonna want to see this movie with this sort of bright young star. And Dorothy would have been a at a bare minimum, she would have been a sitcom star. And I think she would have been a successful comedy actress. She really had it. She was very young. And uh, and then Peter buys the movie, spends five million dollars to buy the movie and market himself. You can't do that. And he lost everything. Lost everything. And he lost everything again when he sued the studio eight years later for mask because they wanted to replace Bruce Springsteen's music with Bob Seegers because it was cheaper. Like, and he screwed up again and he liked, don't stop, you know. But then he sort of came back again and and he was so respected by all these young filmmakers who adore him. Wes Anderson adores him, Noah Baumbach adores him, you know. Um Peter's really was special and he loves classic movies and he was humbled by life. And I I don't know, I loved him.
Tim Millard:Yeah, that's a great, that's a great that's the first one I listened to. I mean, of the series. I've become a fan of like books on tape, partly because I love podcasts and uh these these these are stories you're telling, you know, over the course of what how many episodes you have, what?
Ben Mankiewicz:Anywhere from we did one season was 10, anywhere from six to ten.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah, and and it just becomes like this fantastic.
Ben Mankiewicz:And then the talking pictures one, right. Also, we could have 10, 12 other. That's just me talking to people who love movies about movies. Like, so you know, it's also been great.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, uh one one of the things about TCM that I appreciate, you know, you come we're coming to the end of the year. And kind of the sad part of the end of the year is the in memoriam. But um, but I think that TCM, you know, you guys do the best in terms of putting out something that really encompasses a broader, and I know you don't have the same limitations that maybe the Oscars have or something, you know.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, we can go longer.
Tim Millard:You can go longer a little bit more, and but just the ability to get the clips that you're able to get from the films and to to to showcase them and everything. But I also like the ones that you're populating now during the year as well. Like we just lost, you know, Dan Keaton, Robert Redford. I mean, there's so many amazing uh um actors we've lost this year.
Ben Mankiewicz:Um but tell me about the yeah. Yeah, and you for Gene Hackman also this year at the beginning of the year. Yeah.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah. Tell me a little bit about the the those and uh and how they've become so popular.
Ben Mankiewicz:And so there's a there's a secret magic to those videos or in memoriums, which we do every year. And again, the academy is restricted by time.
Tim Millard:Yeah.
Ben Mankiewicz:I think the academy now, I mean, they should release a longer one, you know, to kind of like online, you know, but but we're sort of the template for that now. And the secret sauce is uh a woman named Christian Hammond and a guy named David Byrne, like the talking heads, David Byrne, and they're producer editors and they work on those, and they're amazing. And they're just they're so talented. Everything they touch is that Christian and David make for us is great, and so many of the things people see on the air and like, and you're like, yeah, that's Christian and David. Um, they're amazing and great, great people too. When we did a on the TCM cruise, it was a karaoke night where we actually TCM staffers did karaoke for fans. So it's weird to do karaoke when there's literally an audience. Um the hosts, and but but Christian who's like reserved and shy and brilliant, and she comes out and she's got sunglasses on and she's dancing. It was just awesome to see her do that. And she enticed our head of programming to come out and play a fake saxophone. It was an incredible night. It was really stunning. So yeah, we've sort of, again, we everybody at the channel loves movies and loves movies in a certain way, loves movies in this really respectful way. There are some scholars at TCM, no question. There's some people who were film students who can still talk about film in that way. But this love of movies is this sort of uh passion and this eagerness to be blown away and moved emotionally by movies. And that's the thing that that movies can do still better than television, which has in many cases never been better.
Tim Millard:Yeah.
Ben Mankiewicz:And I know when people you can criticize it and there's too much stuff on, and a lot of it is junk, but there's also more great stuff than ever. It's really amazing what's being produced on television. That's one reason why there aren't those mid-range movies for adults. Those are getting made as you know, those shows I mentioned, you know, whether it's, you know, yellow those Taylor Sheridan shows, whether it's Yellowstone or 1883 or or or Tulsa King or Landman, those like there was a time when those would have been movies, right? And would have been sort of great movie stories. Yeah. But now they're serialized television shows. So uh, you know, we everybody who works there is uh ha wants to be moved by movies. Um this compact, you know, 90-minute to two and a half hour format of sort of that that that can, you know, reach inside you and stir something in you that that moves you to some action. And the action is not like maybe, you know, I'm not saying you you instantly go out and start, you know, volunteering somewhere or or helping the people who need to be helped, it stirs you to action. And the the action is crying, the action is connecting you to feelings that you might not otherwise have been able to find and identify. Yeah. Movies movies are incredibly special and they're they're they're singular in their ability to do that.
Tim Millard:Well you you get older and as as you're going through life, you're you're busy living. And you you're busy watching movies, you're busy watching TV, you're busy. Years go by, decades go by, quarter century goes by, half a century goes by, and you realize that the the way the movies weave in and out of your life, they they're part of the story. And then you you watch these in memoriums sometimes and and to me, you you're seeing you're seeing this and and you're reminded of uh years of your life, your times of your life, people of your life. It it's the the power of the movie and the actor and the power of TCM in people's life. I think why partly why it means so much to people and uh why Yeah, I I think you're right.
Ben Mankiewicz:I think you're right. That's uh you know, we uh movies really can you know and and it it occurs to me right now, and I'm dealing with this because I got a young kid like you do, you know, preteen daughter and you want her I want her so badly to slow down. Right? Her life is so fast and I don't mean I want to slow down her progress. I'm not one of those parents. I mean I'm I feel the same way, but I immediately recognize that this is her life and she's gotta she's gotta live it. But she goes fast and she doesn't recognize it yet. She will. Um she's Mark Kidd. But movies are a way of slowing down now. I mean, like, you know, that's they aren't watching a 25 minute show that you can watch nine straight episodes of or even an hour-long show where you can like this is a single story inside, you know, a reasonable movie of ninety minutes to two hours and ten, twenty minutes. That's an amazing thing now to be able to take that time and take in that full story with a beginning, middle, and end, with a resolution, with something that moves you if it's good in some way, right? Whether to joy, to laughter, to tears, uh to thinking, right? To considering what you've seen. Um it is a way to slow down. I'm gonna have to re-emphasize that. Why movie nights are so important, why movie nights are so different than family TV night. You know, you don't it's not the same to watch two episodes of Game of Thrones with the family, you know. Yeah not two episodes of The Sopranos, still the greatest show ever on television. Yeah. Um it's uh it's not the same as as a family night where you watch whether it's Christmas in Connecticut or you know, out of sight or um Jay Kelly, something came out last year, you know, it's the first thing that popped in my head. I guess I have George Clooney on on my mind. Yeah. So, you know, uh that that's a that's a that's a full experience that I think, you know, I think some parents will have some success being like, hey, we're gonna have a movie night, we're gonna watch a movie, we're just gonna have to sit through it. But asking my daughter to sit through a two-hour one thing is a challenge. I don't probably for you two.
Tim Millard:Like sometimes I get a, you know, do you want to watch a movie? No, not really. I want to play my game or I want to see my YouTube or whatever. It's a it's a challenge. And yeah, what's interesting is growing up, my dad was very restrictive about TV or movies. He didn't want me to watch too much.
Ben Mankiewicz:And here I am trying to trying to utter to more. But watching one thing, man. It's uh it it matters. And we're gonna I'm gonna make sure it happens at least once a week. I'd like it to happen twice a week, but I'll force it once a week.
Tim Millard:Yeah, yeah. Well, Ben, it was a pleasure having you on. Thanks for having me.
Ben Mankiewicz:Oh, yeah, Tim, I'm sorry I talked so much. Yeah, but thanks.
Tim Millard:No, you know what? It's a podcast. People who don't talk are really bad guests.
Ben Mankiewicz:Yeah, though that's true. It's I mean, it's better to talk too much than too little, but yeah, it's probably something in between. Appreciate it. And happy holidays. Thanks, you too, Tim. Thanks very much.
Tim Millard:Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with TCM host Ben Mankowitz as much as I did. I'll have links in the show notes to the podcast we discussed that Ben hosts. They are terrific. And if you are a classic film fan, I think you'll thoroughly enjoy them if you haven't been enjoying them yet. And if you aren't yet subscribed or following the show at your favorite podcast provider, you may want to do that because we have a lot of good shows leading into the end of the year, and of course we'll have them at the beginning of January as well. So lots of good stuff coming up that you want to be sure it's sent to you when you get up right away. And just as a reminder, you can text us here at the show and leave us comments about the episode. It's always nice to hear from people, so feel free to do that. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed.