TCM Movie Night Menus

Movie Night Menus
Dinner and Drink Recipes Inspired by Films We Love
Tenaya and Andre Darlington
TCM - Running Press
9780762460939 - 224 pages
December 2016

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"For a title to make it into these pages, it needed to have rousing food and drink scenes."

It’s not enough for me to just enjoy classic movies. I incorporate them into my every day life. For me, being a lover of classic film is not a hobby. It’s a lifestyle.

This is why I’m glad the brother-sister team Tenaya and Andre Darlington have released their newest collaboration: Movie Night Menus: Dinner and Drink Recipes Inspired by Films We Love. As someone who loves to cook and enjoys a great cocktail, the idea of pairing both of these things with classic films was just a recipe for success. Once I heard about Movie Night Menus I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. It’s published by Running Press who partners with Turner Classic Movies on a dedicated imprint of books for classic film enthusiasts and newcomers alike.

The Darlingtons are experienced food writers with sophisticated tastes for food, cocktails and entertaining.  Inspired by the movies and their love for fine dining, they built menus around 30 different classic films ranging from 1930 to 1987. Each film is spotlighted with an introduction that gives some background on the film, helpful for those who haven't watched it yet, as well as movie quotes and promotional stills. Every movie gets one cocktail and one or two food recipes. Some of the menus are full meals and others are meant for grazing throughout the movie. The recipes are inspired by food and drink featured in the film but also by other factors including style, era and setting. In addition to the recipes there are trivia bits and advice on how to decorate or set the table for entertaining.

The writing in this book is as delicious as the food. I even enjoyed reading the recipes and picked up a few tricks. Some of the recipes serve double duty and can be made for more than one film. The authors are very particular not only about ingredients, especially with the cocktails, but method as well. I cook a lot and can appreciate how good technique enhances the quality of the final product.

I've already made a few drinks from the book and last night I made the meal assigned to Casablanca (1942). See below. It consisted of Roasted Eggplant Tagine, a Moroccan dish, and a French 75, a gin and champagne cocktail. I added some grilled yogurt marinated chicken for some protein, plated it up, built the cocktails and we sat down to watch Casablanca. The meal was divine and I discovered a favorite new cocktail. My only quibble was that the recipe never called for roasted the eggplant. Carlos hates eggplant but ate the meal with much gusto. We clinked our highball glasses when Paul Henreid heads to the bar to order a champagne cocktail.

French 75 cocktail

Eggplant Tagine

It was so much fun to build a meal around a film. In my previous attempts I made meals exactly how they were depicted on screen. I made complete dinners for They Died With Their Boots On (1941) and Fortune Cookie (1966). Sometimes older recipes or food choices lend themselves to contemporary palates. The Darlingtons adapted several drinks and dishes for more modern tastes and use substitutes when certain liquors are no longer on the market.

There are so many recipes I want to try and only a few I'll skip. I'm not sure why but in the 1930s they really loved adding raw eggs to cocktails. Besides the occasional Pisco Sour, these are a pass for me. I really adored the pastry and fun ice cream champagne cocktail assigned to Breakfast at Tiffany's (1960). And I love how the authors had fun with films like Rope (1948) which includes recipes for Parmigiano Rope Twists, Camembert in a Coffin and the Art of a Choke, a cocktail made with an artichoke digestif. Other movies include: The Divorcee (1930), Grand Hotel (1932), Female (1933), The Thin Man (1934), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Adam's Rib (1950), Giant (1956), The Apartment (1960), Dr. No (1962), The Graduate (1967), The Sting (1973), and so on ending with Moonstruck (1987).


I wish every recipe came with a photo but alas it wasn't the case. Fair warning to those of you who don't drink, this book is heavy on the booze. I much prefer cocktails to wine or beer so this was perfect for me. The entertaining tips were fun to read but I'm not sure if I'll actually put them into practice. Knowledgeable classic film buffs will pretty much know everything that's included in the intro and trivia bits which are more for newcomers.

This is such a fun book to read. Don't give in to the urge to just flip through to look at the pictures. Savor each and every page.

Tonight TCM will be airing some of the movies featured in the book and the authors will be taking over TCM's twitter during the marathon. If you're a classic movie fan with fine taste in food and an appreciation for a good cocktail, Movie Night Menus is a must-read.

Thank you to Running Press for sending me a copy of this book to review!

La La Land (2016)

City of stars 

Are you shining just for me? 

City of stars 

There's so much that I can't see

If ever there was a contemporary movie that could charm its way into the hearts of classic film fans it's La La Land (2016).

Based on an original screenplay by filmmaker Damien Chazelle, La La Land tells the love story of two struggling artists trying to make it in Hollywood. The lovebirds, actress Mia (Emma Stone) and jazz musician Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), get off to a rocky start but as they discover their common ground sparks fly. Their passion for their individual crafts and their support for each other's dreams brings them together but also drives them apart. It's a love story where love for the art and love for each other are in conflict. There are song and dance numbers throughout the film, lots of amazing costumes, on-location shooting and finery that make this film a visual spectacle to savor. The most striking part of this film is the alternate ending within the ending which caps off this marvelous film.

Musicals require us to suspend our disbelief that everyday people can break out into song and dance. Classic film fans (and theatre goers) embrace this genre but even those who don't will find much to enjoy in this film. The song and dance numbers are expertly choreographed and the theme song City of Stars is a catchy tune. I can't speak to Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling's singing skills but as a former dancer I didn't think they necessarily had the chops to pull off the dance moves. There weren't many of those for them and the signature song and dance number that graces the advertising for the film was decent. In the early days of Hollywood, triple threats, actors and actresses who could act, sing and dance, were a lot more common than they are today.

La La Land is influenced by many classic movies. In one scene, Gosling mimics Gene Kelly's signature Singin' in the Rain move where he climbs a lamp post. Stone's Mia wanted to become an actress when she was exposed to films such as Notorious (1946) and Bringing Up Baby (1938) as a child. Ingrid Bergman is practically an extra in the film. Mia's bedroom is adorned with a gigantic poster of her, she graces a Hollywood Hills billboard and Mia shows Sebastian a spot on the Warner Bros. lot where Casablanca (1942) was filmed. Mia and Sebastian have their first real date at the Rialto Theatre to see Rebel Without a Cause (1955). They visit the Griffiths Observatory shortly afterwards for one of the more ethereal musical numbers. The on-location shooting gives the movie a real sense of place. Mia works on the Warner Bros. lot and lives in the Hollywood, both places that Carlos and I have come to know after traveling to the area for the four previous TCM Classic Film Festivals.

La La Land was filmed in Cinemascope on 35mm. I watched a digital presentation of it and it was a bit fuzzy especially during the group dance numbers. If you have an opportunity to watch this one in 35mm do it!

When I left the theater after the film was over I was in a state of mild euphoria. La La Land had it all: good music, a great story with excellent character development, classic film references galore, stunning visuals all wrapped up in a beautiful package. There was very little I didn't like about the film. It's not perfect but there is much to enjoy.

La La Land is a fine film worthy of even the pickiest classic film fan.

Dolce Vita Confidential by Shawn Levy

Dolce Vita Confidential
Fellini, Loren, Pucci, Paparazzi, and the Swinging High Life of 1950s Rome by Shawn Levy
W.W. Norton & Company
9780393247589 - 480 pages
September 2016

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"Rome had always had a way of making even the most egregious aspects of its past look romantic and alluring." - Shawn Levy

1950s Rome was the epicenter of culture: fashion, film, luxury cars, Vespas, race car driving, celebrity and paparazzi. How did a city in ruins after the destruction of WWII transform itself into the epitome of glamour and fame? The answer to this is found in Shawn Levy's book Dolce Vita Confidential. In the book Levy paints the picture of postwar Italy and how luck, good timing and lots of talent transformed how the world saw Italy and how Italy saw itself.

“Italian taste – and, as well, a taste for Italy and things Italian – was spreading rapidly in the biggest market in the world [the USA].” – Shawn Levy

The focus of this book is not solely on films but there is much for the film buff to savor here. The film industry influenced many of the other aspects of the culture. For example, there was a huge increase in sales of Vespas after the release of Roman Holiday (1953). Burgeoning Italian dressmakers and designers like the Fontana Sisters, Pucci and Valentino made everything from wedding dresses, sportswear, and costumes for American film stars. The world of scandal, notoriety and gossip always intersected with the world of film.

Rome's film industry was put on pause during the war. Cinecitta, a local movie studio made 279 films before it was shut down by WWII and after the war it struggled to get back into the business. American filmmakers were coming in droves to Italy to capture the essence of what made the city such a hub of lifestyle, culture, fashion and history. But most of these were parachute projects where they filmed on location in Rome, used their own crews instead of local ones and opted out of utilizing Cinecitta as a home base for shooting interiors. They often flew back home to Hollywood to film the rest. It wasn't until American filmmakers saw the benefits, and tax breaks, of filming solely in Italy that Rome became "Hollywood on the Tiber", a term invented by TIME magazine.

Levy touches upon many of the American films shot on Hollywood on the Tiber including Prince of Foxes (1949), Quo Vadis (1951) The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), Ben-Hur (1959) and brief mentions of some '60s films including Come September (1961), Rome Adventure (1962) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963). And then there were the many Scandaloni films: “low-budget, Italian-made, sword-and-sandal movies, bowdlerized rehashings of tales from Greek, Roman, and Judeo-Christian history and mythology.”

Then there were the Italian filmmakers of the 1950s. According to Levy, hese directors and producers "created brave new works that explored the human struggles of the moment.” These include Robert Rossellini, Dino De Laurentiis, Frederico Fellini, Carlo Ponti and more. Films discussed include The Bicycle Thief (1948), La Strada (1954) and many more. Levy lingers on the career of Fellini most of all especially his two epic works La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8-1/2 (1963).

To understand La Dolce Vita one must understand the celebrity culture of Rome. It starts with Via Veneto, a street in Rome that became the mecca for the Hollywood elite. It boasted an American embassy, American style restaurants, luxury hotels, shops and boutiques and pretty much everything an American movie star visiting the city would want to have nearby. Via Veneto also became a haunt for photojournalists who worked for the increasingly popular gossip rags and wanted to photograph the Hollywood icons at play. It was the birthplace of the celebrity and paparazzi culture complete with harassment, scandal, grit and glamour. Without Via Veneto there would be no TMZ. Fellini's La Dolce Vita captured this new culture on screen and it's most iconic scene, Anita Ekberg wading through the waters of the Trevi fountain, was based on a real incident with Ekberg who was herself a major celebrity in Rome. La Dolce Vita's effect on Rome was immediate. Via Veneto was no longer a safe place for Hollywood elite and soon became where wanna-be celebrities came seeking any morsels of fame their outrageous antics might garner them. La Dolce Vita as a catchphrase came to represent what moviegoers around the world, especially in the United States, thought life was like in Rome. And while the word paparazzi is never used in the film it was created during the making of and has stuck ever since.

Swedish actress Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita (1960)

“The idea for the film is inseparable from the idea of Anita Ekberg.” – Frederico Fellini on La Dolce Vita

Foreign celebrities like Ekberg, Ava Gardner, Ingrid Bergman, Linda Christian and Audrey Hepburn infiltrated Rome but a new class of Italian film stars were elbowing their way in for a chance at the spotlight. I was particularly fascinated by competition between two maggioratas ("curvy girls") Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. I'm team Lollo all the way but can appreciate what both brought to the table. Levy says "Gina had become famous and her natural beauty, her rags-to-riches story, and her aura of sexuality paired with moral decency all combined to make her an ideal of young Italian girls who all wanted to follow in her footsteps.” Sophia Loren was her polar opposite. Scandal arose from her complicated relationship to the already married Carlo Ponti and it didn't help that Loren was born out of wedlock. Both scenarios were not looked upon well by a strict Catholic culture. Loren even had to leave Italy for several years when her marriage to Ponti was not recognized by the Italian government. Lollobrigida had her own struggles; she couldn't make films with American producers due to a strange contract the ever controlling Howard Hughes made her sign. (Beat the Devil was a convenient workaround. Although it's an American film it was financed in Europe). Both became giant movie stars but in the end Lollo's heart wasn't in acting and other creative pursuits called her name. Loren went on to have a fantastic career throughout the '60s and '70s where as Lollo gave up acting in movies in the 1970s.

Sophia Loren, Yvonne De Carlo and Gina Lollobrigida. Lollo refused to be in a picture only with Loren but agreed when De Carlo stepped in to make it a trio.

I particularly enjoyed this observation Levy shares about actor Rossano Brazzi that applies to many Italian film stars of the time: “the figure held an attraction/repulsion for American audiences who were fascinated by what they saw as Continental charm and sexual libertinism but preferred to think of it, apparently, at a remove of a few thousand miles rather than on the streets they walked.” Even reluctant sex symbols like Marcello Mastroianni held the thrall of Americans at a safe distance.

Dolce Vita Confidential paints the picture of 1950s Rome in all it's glory and scandal. It's a fun and entertaining read with much information to take in. The book is very readable but it will take you a while to get through it as it's packed with much detail.

Notes: My husband is a big fan of Shawn Levy's Rat Pack Confidential and comes highly recommended by him. If you have a subscription to FilmStruck many of the Italian films mentioned in the book are available on that service.

Thank you to W.W. Norton and Company for sending me this book for review!