Welcome to the sixth edition of our annual four-day, and this year, nine-film movie smorgasbord at Athens' beautiful Classic Center. We do hope you'll enjoy yourself this year as much as many folks tell us they've enjoyed the first five go-arounds, and we also hope it's something that will continue to be a part of life in Athens for many years "and many sprocket holes" to come.

The purpose of this festival can best be described by a question: ‚"But have you seen it on the big screen?" So many of the films we love have been introduced to us through television screenings, and thank heavens they are available there, otherwise a huge percentage of the movies of the past wouldn't be available to us at all. But the fact is: there is nothing quite like seeing a film as it was meant to be seen...on a mammoth screen, in a communal experience. That's something very rare for any older movie these days, but it's what you'll see at our festival, nine films, in all their big-screen glory.

Each of the movies in our festival has been carefully chosen, representing different film genres from several different decades. I'll be joined on stage after each screening by some of the talented people who either worked on the film or is a specialist in some element of the movie business.

If you ever felt like wallowing in great movie pleasures, this is the time and the place to do it. Each of the films is, in my opinion, a gem and well worth coming out to see. You'll find dozens of pleasures in the 2010 edition of this festival and we hope you'll be able to join us often. If you like to keep track of pertinent data, Robert Osborne's Classic Film Festival held its first screening on March 19, 2004, with a showing of Singin' In The Rain; then 10 months later came the first full-tilt, eight-film version of the fest on January 27, 2005, and it's been a yearly event ever since.

At the conclusion of this year's session, we'll have shown a total 50 movies since these yearly gatherings began, with many of those films being Academy Award winning Best Picture champs: Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, On The Waterfront, The Sound Of Music, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Lawrence Of Arabia, The Godfather, and this year's The Godfather: Part II. The film was the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and swept the awards that year with a total of six wins. In our past years we've also spotlighted two documentaries (Marlene, Mad Hot Ballroom), one foreign language film (Cinema Paradiso) and one animated feature (The Triplets Of Belleville).

Two actors have been the most conspicuous in our film lineups: Cary Grant has been present on screen every year but one (2005) and is back this year in the Hitchcock thriller To Catch A Thief. Grant's early training in gymnastics came in handy for his role in this movie as a nimble and sure-footed but retired jewel thief or ‚"cat burglar" who has to go back to his old habits to catch a thief committing robberies which police on the Riviera think Grant has committed. The film costars Grace Kelly and is, I think, a grand one with which to start off this year's festival.

The marvelous character actor Claude Rains has also appeared in three of our movie picks. The two-time festival contributors to date are Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Olivia de Havilland, Johnny Depp, Deborah Kerr, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Eva Marie Saint and several members of the zany Christopher Guest stock company including Guest himself, also Parker Posey, Michael Hitchcock, Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Bob Balaban and Larry Miller. Ms. Posey, Mr. Hitchcock and Mr. Willard are among those who made the trek to Athens to join in post-screening conversations.

Others who also have joined the on-stage discussions include the Academy Award winning actors Patricia Neal, Maximilian Schell and Louise Fletcher; also special Oscar winners Mickey Rooney and Roger Mayer; plus Jane Powell, Pia Lindstrom, Ann Rutherford, Jean Firstenberg, Marni Nixon, Colleen Camp, Brian David Cange, Errol Flynn's daughter Rory Flynn, Robert Mitchum's daughter Petrine Mitchum, Mickey Cottrell, film continuity specialist Angela Allen, casting director Mike Fenton, Academy Award winning editor Ann Coates, actress Talia Shire, James Bond director Guy Hamilton, film preservationist James Katz, Michael Hitchcock, film historian and author Alan Rode, Norm Aladjem, Richard Oppenheim, Peabody Awards director Horace Newcomb, UGA film scholar Dr. Richard Neupert, and Turner Classic Movies' executive Tom Brown amongst others.

This year we are thrilled to have three Academy Award winners and several film industry veterans joining us as our very special guests. We welcome to Athens and salute our special 2010 guests Oscar winner Cloris Leachman; actors Marshall Bell, Corey Feldman, and Caren Marsh-Doll; Academy Award winning producers Fred Roos and Gray Frederickson; longtime Stanley Kubrick associate, actor and producer Leon Vitali; authors John Bengtson, Eddie Muller and author & professor Richard Neupert; and Turner Classic Movies' vice president Tom Brown.

Great memories...and I suspect many more will be made this time around.