No Looking at You, Kid

American Movie Classics observed its 10th anniversary by issuing a colorful poster to celebrate “Ten Years of Dedication to the Classics.” Decorating the poster were pictures of Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper and the outlet’s genial host, Bob Dorian, as well as a banner headline proclaiming: “Entering Its 10th Year, Cable’s American Movie Classics Remains a Movie Fan’s Best Friend.”

For nearly 14 years, AMC was one of my best friends. It was the place to go to see uncut, uninterrupted classics, from Katharine Hepburn’s first film, 1932’s “Bill of Divorcement,” to Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier in 1957’s “The Prince and the Showgirl.” Not only was the schedule chockablock full of golden oldies, but Dorian, an actor, was folksy and funny--the heart and soul of AMC.

The cable channel, now nearly 20 years old, also produced award-winning specials that profiled such stars of yesteryear as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, and explored intriguing topics, including early women directors and the Hollywood blacklist. Its first original dramatic series, “Remember WENN,” was a sweet, nostalgic look at the heyday of radio that had a small but devoted following. And for the past nine years, AMC has held film preservation festivals to educate movie fans on the necessity of restoring and preserving vintage films and to raise funds for the nation’s film archives.

Over the past few years, however, the joy has gone out of the network. Truth be told, I have only watched one movie on AMC this year--the 1955 Jimmy Stewart drama, “Strategic Air Command,” on Independence Day.

AMC has changed radically, and it’s going to change even more. A few years ago, it began showing commercials between films, adding “intermissions” during its movies last October. Granted, the network interrupts a film only once, but it’s disheartening to see ads for Paxil in between watching Stewart romance June Allyson.

Dorian is now retired and lives in South Carolina, and the much younger, competent, but far less charismatic John Burke has replaced him. Although AMC continues to run films from the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, more and more contemporary films from the ‘80s and ‘90s like “The Deer Hunter,” “Brubaker,” “Next Stop, Greenwich Village,” “The Verdict” and “Grand Canyon” have been creeping into the schedule, and are in heavy rotation on the network.

Because AMC is basic cable, it has to show the “director approved” TV-edited versions of these films in prime time. Not only are nudity and language edited out of the R-rated fare, even PG films such as the 1972 “Sleuth” have been edited for content and time. Yet recent specials have such sensationalized titles as “Sins of Hollywood” and “Shirtless: Hollywood’s Sexiest Men.” The 10th annual film preservation festival set for September will also be contemporized--concentrating on rock movies of the ‘70s.

AMC is owned and managed by the Long Island, N.Y.-based Rainbow Media Holdings Inc. The company did the same turnabout with Bravo. That network began as a premium cable outlet for foreign and art films and arts programming, then started editing films for content when it went basic and slowly introduced commercials with the unveiling of more and more original programming. Rainbow’s WE: Women’s Entertainment network also now shows commercials; only Rainbow’s Independent Film Channel has remained commercial-free. So far.

Beginning in October, AMC will add more contemporary titles to its playlist and offer more original programming designed to appeal to a “younger, broader audience.” Theses changes will also coincide with an increase in commercials, although admittedly far fewer than most basic cable networks. To satisfy older viewers, the network is spinning off a digital, commercial-free outlet, AMC’s Hollywood Classics, that will air the movies that used to be the network’s mainstay.

Kate McEnroe, president of AMC Networks, didn’t seem very upset when I told her I was no longer watching the network. “You’ll have to watch Hollywood Classics,” she said matter-of-factly. Addressing the changes at AMC, she explained: “What happened is time has moved forward. This has been an evolution, not a revolution. What I like to say is no brand is immortal. Even the Wall Street Journal had to get their act together and reformat.”

Maybe so, but I’m not the only one upset by AMC’s changes. Several friends and co-workers also have abandoned the network. Producer Peter Jones, grandson of old-time movie star Conrad Nagel, shares my opinion of the revamped AMC. “It’s awful,” he said.

Jones worked for AMC for roughly seven years, producing snappy, fun features about old Hollywood. They parted company in 1994, and he currently produces episodes of A&E;’s “Biography” series and documentaries for Turner Classic Movies, the 8-year-old nostalgia channel that has remained commercial-free.

In trying to reach a younger crowd, Jones said, “they have sadly dumbed-down their product. Everything they said they would never do they have done. Do you remember several years ago when they said ‘unedited and commercial free’? ... I think when you try to alter your identity so much, you really run the risk of annihilating yourself because you are not standing on the principles that defined you.”

At least among film buffs, the changes at AMC have doubtless been a boon to its principal rival, Turner Classic Movies. Whereas AMC has to purchase films from various studios, TCM has the pick of the great Turner library of MGM titles plus pre-1948 Warner Bros. releases. For years, friends taped movies for me that aired on TCM. Last August, I finally got the outlet when I switched from analog to digital cable. Whenever I turn on the television, I immediately go to TCM to check what’s on.

Last month, for example, TCM featured some of the best-known Italian films from the post-World War II neo-realism period as well as a festival of Greta Garbo films. The channel pays tribute to Joan Crawford in August with a new documentary and a 41-film retrospective.

In short, Turner Classic Movies, which is available in more than 60 million U.S. homes (compared with the 84 million that receive AMC), has taken up the standard AMC relinquished. “They have put us in a position which is wonderful,” said Tom Karsch, executive vice president and general manager of TCM. “We really feel very strongly

TCM does occasionally run R-rated movies but airs them outside of prime time. “The no-editing rule is really my rule more than the company rule,” Karsch said. “I just feel that if you are in the business and commercial-free, you should be showing the movies the way the directors and the writers meant for you to see them..”

Just the evening before, Karsch said, he tuned into AMC to see how it would handle Sergio Leone’s R-rated epic “Once Upon a Time in America.” “It was unwatchable,” he said. “We get a lot of press and e-mail and regular mail, and the viewers are complaining about what AMC is doing.”

Karsch says TCM’s motto is “we are about the history of film. The bread and butter of this network have been and always will be the films of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. We do show a good amount from the ‘60s, and I think every now and then we will show a title from the ‘80s or the ‘90s if there is a compelling reason.”

AMC, he added, says its programming changes follow the desires of its focus groups. Karsch doesn’t buy that. “We are constantly doing focus groups with the younger potential viewers because we feel as AMC did--how are we going to get that next generation of film fans? There are two ways of going about it. When you talk to 25- to 35-year-olds, they say run newer movies. But that is not what we are about. We are about having a great library and trying to figure out ways to bring that audience to appreciate that library and not turning over the network completely.”

McEnroe insists her service’s viewers haven’t objected to the addition of commercials.

“To some degree, people expect commercials with a basic cable network,” she said. She doesn’t expect much outcry when commercial spots increase in the fall to pay for the new programming and digital channel. “It is about 40% less than the TNTs and the USAs of the world,” she said.

She also maintains that AMC’s viewers will embrace the more contemporary movie titles and new original programming, like the network’s first animated series, “Monsters Wanted”--a comedy about real monsters living in Hollywood and auditioning for the movies. She also has high hopes for “DVD TV”--also set for the fall--which re-creates the DVD experience by airing a documentary about a film, followed by the movie and then a repeat of the movie with commentary by the director.

“We have finished some focus groups, and people thought it was a phenomenal idea,” McEnroe said.

Time will tell how viewers react to the changes, but it’s hard not to agree with Karsch, who contends AMC has turned its back on older viewers who helped establish the network. “I think it’s a terrible thing to do the consumer,” he said. “I like to look at us as a movie service run by movie fans, for movie fans.”

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Susan King is a Times staff writer.