TCM and Warner Bros Studio Tour's new tour highlights My Fair Lady costumes, James Dean apartment, and more

Do you love Golden Age Hollywood? The Warner Bros Studio Tour might be your next tourist destination

Image credit: Popverse

Feature by Tiffany Babb Deputy Editor

Published on April 16, 2024

Popverse's top stories of the day

Hannibal wouldn't be a fan of Chicago's local food scene, according to Mads Mikkelsen (but, then again, he's a cannibal)
Watch: Artist's Alley Asks: Superman or Fantastic Four? Gene Ha, Cully Hamner, Jarrett Melendez, Rachael Stott, Soo Lee, and Tim Seeley weigh in on their cinematic preference
Brandon Sanderson tried (very hard) to change one character arc on the Wheel of Time show

If you've ever been on a movie studio tour in Hollywood and felt like there could be a bit more Golden Age Hollywood included alongside (or instead of) whatever hot sitcom is buzzing at the moment, TCM and Warner Bros Studio Tours' new Classic Films Tour should be your next stop.

Popverse had a chance to head over to the launch of the new tour, with a kick-off panel featuring TCM hosts Ben Mankiewitz and Dave Karger, alongside Blazing Saddles' Burton Gilliam and representatives from the studio and studio tour. We got our very first look at a branded TCM studio tour cart as it was driven out to the brassy tones of the Los Angeles Marching Band playing "76 Trombones" from The Music Man (if you look closely on the tour, you'll see some Music Man props) before we headed on an abbrieviated version of the Classic Films Tour.

Our version of the tour took us around the Warner Bros lot to peek at where James Dean's apartment once was, the exterior of the Warner Bros' animation building, and into the Property house, where we saw chandeliers used in My Fair Lady, a statuette used on the set of The Big Sleep, and the real Maltese Falcon. (Don't tell Bogie.)

One of the fun bits of all studio tours is the opportunity to take a close look at the placards outside of each sound stage to see the names of productions that had filmed there. During our tour, I spotted the titles Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, All the President's Men, A Streetcar Named Desire, and 1954's A Star is Born. A pretty impressive list.

Photograph of Stage 28A panel featuring film titles — Image credit: Popverse

Along the tour are some short clips from TCM hosts providing, as they do, some context to what you're seeing and the many movies that were filmed on the sets and lots right before your eyes. But if driving around in a cart and looking at the outside of buildings seems like too much of a drag for you (it sometimes can be for me, and I certainly wouldn't recommend doing more than one studio tour per trip, unless you really love looking at empty sound stages), there's a bit more interactive experience at the last two stops of the tour.

The pentultimate stop includes painstaking recreations of Friends sets including an actual Central Perk where you can buy food and coffee. But, for the classic movie fans, you'll enjoy a display of gowns from leading ladies like Lauren Bacall and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as a display of the Ascot costumes from My Fair Lady (those hats!) and costumes worn by Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in their classic turns as Eliza Doolittle and Professor Henry Higgins.

On your way out, you'll catch interactive photo ops and props for the DCU movies, Harry Potter, Batman, and more. There are tons of hidden gems here, including character design sheets from Superman and storyboards for Batman: The Animated Series. But, if you really are only there for the classics, keep your eyes open, as you'll be passing by Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart's costumes from Casablanca right before you exit into the sizable giftshop which features a surprising amount of Casablanca merch alongside superhero stuff, Harry Potter stuff, and even some brand new TCM merch for the tour.

Check out photos from our time at the launch event and tour below.