The theme for this year’s concluded TCM Classic Film Festival was “Most Wanted: Crime and Justice in the Movies,” but with the wide range of films on offer, the festival once again delivered a number of gems neither widely seen nor fitting the theme.

A most enjoyable discovery outside of the crime genre was “International House,” a chaotic musical comedy featuring a wonderful array of clowns, including W.C. Fields, George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Franklin Pangborn, and musical cameos with Cab Calloway and Rudy Vallee.

The action takes place at a Chinese hotel where an inventor seeks bids for his super-television, but the setting is nothing more than an excuse for strange musical numbers and inspired gags, particularly naughty bits from W.C. Fields as well as goofy turns by the delightfully giddy Gracie Allen.

Just as entertaining as this hilarious film was special guest Bruce Goldstein, the founder of classic film distributor Rialto Pictures, delivering insights into the weird censorship tactics of the Hays Office, which developed the Production Code for what was morally acceptable at the cinema.

“International House,” released in 1933 was a “pre-Code” film, but nevertheless the Hays Office labeled this highly amusing lark both “vulgar” and “offensive,” and by today’s standards you’d think nothing of it.

Top billing in the film went to Peggy Hopkins Joyce, an actress and socialite known for a flamboyant lifestyle, playing herself. Goldstein summed up her notoriety with the moniker “Jazz Age Kardashian.”

As for a crime film, it doesn’t get much better than James Cagney in 1949’s “White Heat,” where his character Cody Jarrett was a psychopath who trusted nobody except his criminal mother (Margaret Wycherly). His Oedipus complex left little room for loving his faithless wife (Virginia Mayo).

Eddie Muller, the host of “Noir Alley” on Turner Classic Movies, observed that Cagney thought the script for “White Heat” was horrible, and that he supposedly enlisted Humphrey Bogart, among others, for a rewrite of what he deemed “pedestrian” material.

Interestingly, Muller claimed “White Heat” was not a gangster film, but rather an “outlaw film,” and went so far to call it “one of the greatest crime films ever made.” It may seem only fitting that this is the movie in which Cagney yelled that he was on “top of the world.”

Mentioned in a previous update, the comic caper “Gambit” starring Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine proved to be as entertaining as could be hoped. The film fits neatly in a genre with other 60’s films like “Charade,” “Arabesque,” and “Topkapi.”

Film historian Sloan De Forest pegged “Gambit” as a “stylish romantic comedy crime film,” and noted that MacLaine used her clout to get Caine for the role of a con artist because she liked his style in “The Ipcress File,” which by the way is a terrific Cold War spy thriller.

A festival devoted to classic films would seem lacking if it didn’t include Alfred Hitchcock, arguably a good pick for best director of all time. And what could be better than “Rear Window” and “North by Northwest?” Well, you could easily choose “Psycho,” “Vertigo” or “To Catch a Thief,” among others.

Watching “North by Northwest” on the big screen in the iconic Chinese Theatre IMAX is the way to go. The scene at Mount Rushmore carries a stunning full impact when it actually looks larger than life.

Writer, director and producer Nancy Meyers introduced the film as the “Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures,” which was what screenwriter Ernest Lehman set out to accomplish with a compilation of tropes that defined the Master of Suspense.

The chemistry between Cary Grant, the innocent man on the run, and Eva Marie Saint’s cool blonde mystery woman, was something to behold. Meyers noted her favorite line was when Grant said “How does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?”

Less than three years shy of being a centenarian, Mel Brooks has not lost his touch for making people laugh.

This year’s festival marks his seventh appearance to introduce one of his films, this time “Spaceballs.” If memory serves, his last attendance was for “The Producers” in 2018.

While his parody of science-fiction and “Star Wars” in particular was highlighted in “Spaceballs,” Brooks regaled a packed house with backstories on several of his most popular comedies.

The screening of “Blazing Saddles” for executives at Warner Brothers resulted in studio head Ted Ashley telling Brooks to take note of the cuts that needed to be made.

“A ten-minute movie” is what Brooks said would be the outcome of censorious editing, and then later, when the Western spoof was a big hit, “Ashley took credit for it,” proving Brooks’ claim that “questionable taste is good.”

“The Producers” was based on a real story, as Brooks noted he worked for a guy who took old plays on the road, and Brooks said he felt like the character Leo Bloom, enthralled to be a part of show business. In turn, the audience was enthralled with the comedy legend.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.