October 1st 2013. Pick Of the Day.
New York City's premiere resource for classic film screenings in the metropolitan area. Offering reviews, recommendations, venues and a host of links keeping classic film and the silver screens alive.
October '13 begins with a whimper, with merely four classic film screenings to choose from today. What's there is cherce, however. The only ongoing series today is the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Revivals, which kicks off the 51st annual New York Film Fest. Let's get to it;
IFC Center
THE WICKER MAN (1971) Dir; Robin Hardy
Film Forum
ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE (1947) Dir: Jacques Becker
BAM Cinematek
FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) Dir; Fred M. Wilcox
Film Society of Lincoln Center - Francesca Beale Theater
TRY AND GET ME (1950) Dir; Cy Endfield
Today's Pick? The insanely influential FORBIDDEN PLANET at BAM Cinematek. MGM took a big gamble in providing what was then a b-movie genre with an a-list budget, an even bigger gamble by ignoring most of the cheapie-but-crowd pleasing model effects and design work that had come before and recruiting fresh concepts, including the film world's first all-electronic music score. The biggest gamble might've been mixing such lofty source material as Shakespeare and Jung for the film's core plot, as Prospero's sorcery from THE TEMPEST became the Krell's superior tech, and the demons that beset men became those of our collective subconcious. Metrocolor, Cinemascope, all the bells and whistles were afforded this production. MGM even borrowed Joshua Meador from Disney, where he'd long served as an animator and director, for the impressive sequences involving the monster's attack on the visiting spaceship. Not since UFA handed Fritz Lang a zeppelin-load of reichsmarks was this much cash and prestige afforded what was deemed a kiddie genre, especially in the wake of METROPOLIS' box office thud.
The result, thankfully, was a box office success. So much so that the film's expensive props, including debuting star Robby the Robot and the spaceship C57-D, were endlessly recycled in film and TV to glean maximum bang for their very expensive buck. It served as special connective point between Lang's METROPOLIS and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, in terms both of budget and ambition, and without it perhaps the cinematic landscape that the Hollywood Brats reshaped in the 70's looks slightly different. Gene Rodenberry, who himself did some cultural landscape heavy lifting, cited it as a major influence on STAR TREK. I set it aside in the SciFi film timeline, along with Lang and Kubrick's masterpieces and Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER, as a landmark in the cinematic depiction of the relationship between man and his replacement machine. It's ultimate importance, though, is as a superior example of pop entertainment that is not simply enjoyable as artifact of its times but as a good story well told in any era. Tonight's the rare chance to catch it on the big screen.
For more info on these and all October's classic screenings click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. and be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Back tomorrow with more of what ya love, til then be safe and sound and make sure the next knucklehead is too.
-Joe Walsh
