The Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame and Turner Classic Movies invite fans to celebrate 150 years of the game with TCM Spotlight, “Gridiron Glory”
August, 25 2019
The Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame and Turner Classic Movies invite fans to celebrate 150 years of the game with TCM Spotlight, “Gridiron Glory”
Turner Classic Movies will air 15 classic college football movies, plus Ben Mankiewicz interviews with college football legends Lou Holtz and Ed Marinaro
In celebration of the 150th anniversary of college football this season, Turner Classic Movies and the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame have teamed up to showcase classic college football movies throughout the month of September. The series, titled “Gridiron Glory: College Football In The Movies”, will air a total of 15 movies over four Fridays in September, beginning with The Freshman at 8:00 p.m. ET on Friday, Sept. 6.
“We are excited to work with Turner Classic Movies to bring the 150th anniversary celebration to fans’ living rooms through their favorite football films,” said Dennis Adamovich, CEO of the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame. This will be an engaging way to show viewers that college football is more than a game, with the ability to bring people together around shared traditions and experiences.”
Throughout the TCM Spotlight series, viewers will see exclusive footage of Ben Mankiewicz interviewing College Football Hall of Fame inductees, Lou Holtz (c/o 2008) and Ed Marinaro (c/o 1991) at the Hall in Atlanta.
“I thoroughly enjoyed trading in the studio for the College Football Hall of Fame, especially with a couple of college legends, Lou Holtz and Ed Marinaro, sitting beside me,” said Ben Mankiewicz, TCM Primetime Host. “Coach Holtz has been one of the signature faces and voices of college football all my life, while Ed played a critical role on ‘Hill Street Blues,’ the show that kicked off the television renaissance we’re still experiencing today. This is the first time TCM has celebrated college football in film and it comes at the perfect moment – the start of the 150th season of college football.
Programming includes:
- Sept. 6: Football Comedies, co-hosted by Dennis Adamovich, CEO of the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame: these include such classics as The Freshman(1925), the Harold Lloyd silent in which he plays a university freshman who tries to become popular by joining the school's football team; and Horse Feathers (1932), a Marx Brothers vehicle in which Groucho is a college president who hires professional players to beef up a terrible football team
- Sept. 13: Place Your Bets!, hosted by Ben Mankiewicz: a series of college football films from the 1930s - each of which tells of a student whose participation in football threatens his integrity and his relationship with a girlfriend
- Sept. 20: Most Valuable Players, co-hosted by Ed Marinaro: a trio of films including two biopics, Knute Rockne All American (1940), starring Pat O'Brien as Rockne and Ronald Reagan as George Gipp; and Jim Thorpe -- All American (1951), starring Burt Lancaster
- Sept. 27: Love & Football, co-hosted by Lou Holtz: featuring three films combining the subjects. Two are early-talkie comedies: So This Is College (1929), starring Robert Montgomery and Elliott Nugent; and Eleven Men and a Girl (1930), starring Joan Bennett and Joe E. Brown