February 28th 2013. Pick Of the Day.

It seems like only yesterday that I supped on my friend's special recipe for her Super Bowl shredded blue cheese and buffalo chicken dip. Perhaps because my heart's still recovering. And each bite was fully worth all future heart ailments.

But quick as a shot the 2nd month is indeed already at a close. Which means Springtime, baseball, and scantily clad broads are just that much closer! However one final day must be closed out before we celebrate its doom, and some very worthy film classics unspool as February winds down.

The Film Forum's tribute to Hollywood's year of tumult and transition, 1933, continues today with a two-fer from that era's horror cycle, both inspired by macabre tales from the pen of H. G. Wells. James Whale's wickedly inventive THE INVISIBLE MAN features some of the cinema's greatest voice over work from the studio's newest import, the great Claude Rains, whose rich inflection does as much to sell the presence of the title character as the state-of-the-art work from the studio's SFX unit. As a show of gratitude the studio let the actor die onscreen, in what amounts to perhaps the greatest headshot in the industry's history. Whatevz. He da man. But he no my Pick.

Paramount's attempt to dip their beak in Universal's horror fountain remains one of the most haunting efforts from the early sound era, and perhaps star Charles Laughton's finest 70 minutes onscreen. ISLAND OF LOST SOULS is a fever dream about man's return to utter animal savagery ironically told through the prism of a mad scientist's efforts to genetically alter the wild beasts on his island enclave into para-humans. Synopsis disturbing enough, I know, but the nightmarish efforts from the makeup department and DP Karl Struss serve to rattle the bones still further. Laughton's Dr. Moreau is redolent of all white hunter/slaver figures popular in film and fiction of the era, and yet he is among the few who recieves his commensurate comeuppance. And his perf is exactly what you'd think would result from handing this heister of scenes a pith helmet and a whip. I mean ON camera. Not my Pick.

Liz Taylor, who would've celebrated her 81st birthday two days ago, celebrated her first Oscar win 52 years ago with her role as the emotionally damaged and promiscuous Gloria Wandrous in BUTTERFIELD 8. I'm not making her character's name up. The story of a chick who steals a mink instead of accepting money and defends her dignity against heel Laurence Harvey is fairly dated, but that has emerged over time as one of its assets. Screening tonight at the Clearview Chelsea Cinema. Still not my Pick.

Back at the Forum the infectiously charming Judy Holliday essays one of the finest roles of her too short career, starring opposite Aldo Ray in THE MARRYING KIND, which reunited her with the BORN YESTERDAY team of scribes Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and director George Cukor. A union of man and wife is examined in flashback as they stand before a divorce court judge. Hilarity ensues. Intro'd tonight by film critic and historian Jeanine Basinger. VERY tempting, but I reserve my Pick for a film about circumstances far more tragic. The true life tale of one Joseph Merrick, who lived out the bulk of his existence as circus freak and subject of degradation before the rare hand of humanity intervened to provide some precious dignity in his last days. It's all terribly and wonderfully true. And Mel Brooks wanted to make the movie.

Wisely, the director realized that any film titled "Mel Brooks' THE ELEPHANT MAN", no matter its merits, would suffer the wrath of filmgoers and critics expecting his usual fare. So he began to cast his net. His partner in Brooksfilms, one Stuart Cornfield, urged the Borscht Belt auteur to check out the wholly unclassifiable work of a new director from the 70's underground cinema, a little nobody named David Lynch. The film was ERASERHEAD. Brooks met with the newbie filmmaker and something clicked. In Lynch's fascination with all things deformed and decaying Brooks found the man who would translate his own attachment to the material, his identification as a Jew with the ostracization and cruelty Merrick experienced throughout his life. Brooks wanted to save this man Merrick, if only for two hours and for posterity, and with this avant garde spirit at the helm he forged forward with this vision. Freddie Francis photographed the proceedings, and the cast included acting heavyweights Freddie Jones, Wendy Hiller, Anne Bancroft, and in the roles of their lives Anthony Hopkins as Professor Treves and the heartbreaking John Hurt as Merrick. Seriously, I choke up a little just typing about this film. One of the great works empathic of the cinema of all time, and a reminder of the power this medium forever maintains at the ready.

THE ELEPHANT MAN screens at IFC Center tonight at 7pm. Andrew W. K. will be in attendance as part of IFC's Modern School of Film series. What could be more appropriate?

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Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy is too! Back tomorow with the new March calandar and a brand new Pick! Who loves ya?!?

-Joe Walsh