May 31st 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Ted Kotcheff's seldom screened and even lesser seen THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ merits a whole week at the Cinegeek church on West Houston, Our Beloved Film Forum, in a, if I may say this about a Canadian co-production, SPARKLING new DCP restoration. I don't necessaraily associate the word "sparkle" with our neighbors to the North. That word does, however, fit the brightly lit marquees the film's star found his name slotted upon for the bulk of his career. Richard Dreyfuss would have to wait a year and grow a beard and accept his role as Robert Shaw's punching bag before he hit paydirt with a mass audience, but this first lead for the fledgling actor is no less endearing or impressive. Kotcheff will attend tonight's 7pm screening to intro and discuss. I'm gonna be boring and pass this up as today's Pick. But don't listen to me Mister Big Shot, you go and do your own thing. See if I care already.

Raoul Walsh employs the ace noir camerawork of the great Jimmy Wong Howe to capture their PURSUED as part of the Rubin Museum's Cabaret Cinema series. Robert Mitchum's traumatized cowboy struggles to remember any detail of his childhood beyond his family's slaughter, and is hunted by the men who committed the deed to finish the job. Neat flick, and the Rubin shakes a doozy of a cocktail, but not my Pick.

Midnight rep fare in our cinematic Mecca includes Alejandro Jodorowsky's belovedly bugfuck EL TOPO at IFC Center, and AIRPORT 1975 at the Nitehawk Cinema. Hard to say no to Al-Jo and Karen Black, respectively, but, to quote my fave Don, I have selfish reasons. Today one of the screen's brightest and damn near undimmable visions of action, adventure and romance grace one of our finer venues in what promises to be a spectacular 35mm print. As I am continually fond of remarking, when the term "movie magic" is employed in a film discussion, tonight's Pick is perhaps the purest example of that term.

James Cagney was once considered the ideal choice to battle Sir Guy of Gisbourne in Technicolor on the Warner Brothers' backlot. Something to do with his performance in Dieterle and Reinhardt's 1935 adap of Shakespeare's MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, or so I've read. I love Cagney like some poeple love Jesus, but WOW am I glad that never happened. Let's be thankful the Cagz DIDN'T get certain roles.

Thankfully someone with a brain and a set of working eyeballs noticed that among the studio's best box office performers during their gangster cycle and social message pic-focused 1930's output lie a selection of outstanding earners that all featured the same freshman lead; a little knucklehead named Errol Flynn. Amazingly the studio didn't concoct that monicker. Flynn had led a life of casual excess from the balmy shores of Australia and New Guinea, failing as proprietor first of a tobacco plantation, then of a copper mine. He next settled for the lowly position of movie star.

After being hired by who-knows at this point he knocked around the cheapie film circuit until he was cast in MURDER AT MONTE CARLO, a film cranked out by Warner's Teddington Studios sub. Someone on that production recognized box office gold in the natural star's brimming charisma, and recommended him for a choice assignment; the Michael Curtiz directed CAPTAIN BLOOD. Suddenly an overnight success story was born and the star never looked back, cranking out iconic perfs one after the other. Even the later ravages of his legendary excess never completely killed the actor's popularity, he was just that beloved. In the immediate wake of BLOOD, however, he repeated his successful combination of brio and gravitas, re-teaming with Curtiz for THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE and working for the first time with William Keighly in THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER. Both roles were immensely popular and required very little than the actor be himself. His next swashbuckler, crucially, would DEMAND he be himself, to a degree that would retire the jersey not simply on the role but perhaps the genre he was now comfortably, casually defining. He would portray a man of class, breeding and property, who eschewed all these in defense of the helpless and oppressed, acquiring a band of brothers for the battle and the love of a beautiful princess in the bargain, and this hero would risk all to overthrow an unjust regime out of loyalty to his true king, win the day and the girl, and live happily ever after. Sound easy? No of course it doesn't sound easy that was a stupid question, I was just gonna use that rhetorical query to showcase the failings of Patrick Bergin, Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe in their futile search for the same glory. Of course Errol Flynn rose to the occasion back in 1938 to be the MOST Errol Flynn he was capable of being, and has never, nor shall ever I argue, be knocked off his perch as permanet cinematic iteration of Today's Pick's title character.

As a personal side note, this was my Dad's alll-time fave. Whenever he watched this flick, he once told me, he instantly reverted to the wide eyed 8-year old whose mind was blown in the movie theater when he first saw it. So tonight I'm gonna catch this with my Dad again. It never gets old.

Errol Flynn essays the title role in Michael Curtiz's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD tonight at MOMA. And he speaks treason. Fluently.

Follow me on Twitter @NitrateStock!

Like the page at Facebook.com/NitrateStock!

Please donate/volunteer to the folks at Occupy Sandy and the Red Cross. Let's do some good, Stockahz!

Be safe and sound and make sure the next so-and-so is too! June Calendar goes live at midnight! First Pick of the new month comes tomorrow! IT'S NITRATE STOCK'S ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY, KIDZ! CAN I GET A HALLELOO?!?!?!?

-Joe Walsh