December 13th 2013. Pick of the Day.
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It's a big day on the rep film circuit, so let's dive right in. New and continuing series today include the Film Society's dual tribs to George Cukor's CV and the Ingmar Bergman/Liv Ullmann collaborations, Film Forum's exhaustive Barbara Stanwyck retrospective, Anthology Film Archives' revisit of their Delmer Daves appreciation, Museum of the Moving Image's See It Big!: Great Cinematographers, and the Rubin Museum's Cabaret Cinema. The entire madcap antics as follows;
IFC Center
THE CHASE (1966) Dir; Arthur Penn
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Dir; Frank Capra
MS. 45 (1981) Dir; Abel Ferrara
BARON BLOOD (1972) Dir; Mario Bava
Film Forum
NO MAN OF HER OWN (1950) Dir; Mitchell Leisen
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1957) Dir; Nicholas Ray
JEOPARDY (1953) Dir; John Sturges
Film Society of Lincoln Center
THE WOMEN (1939) Dir; George Cukor
THE CHAPMAN REPORT (1962) Dir; George Cukor
CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972) Dir; Ingmar Bergman
Anthology Film Archives
SUSAN SLADE (1961) Dir; Delmer Daves
SPENCER'S MOUNTAIN (1963) Dir; Delmer Daves
Museum of the Moving Image
THE BIG COMBO (1955) Dir; Joseph H. Lewis
Landmark Jersey Loews
THE GOLD RUSH (1925) Dir; Charles Chaplin
Rubin Museum
GRAND ILLUSION (1937) Dir; Jean Renoir
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) Dir; Sean Cunningham
Nithawk Cinema
THX-1138 (1971) Dir; George Lucas
Today's Pick? Well I just love it when two rep houses go toe-to-toe for a month with respective series that simply tear at the loyalty of every good, card-carrying Cinegeek. Bruce Goldstein and the folks at the Film Forum rolled out their Stanwyck retrospective last Friday, and it went largely unchallenged until today, when Richard Pena & co. over at the Film Society step into the ring with a month-long overview of the mighty film resume belonging to Mr. George Cukor, one of the most esteemed directors of the studio era. Now the month gets really interesting.
And, well, I just have to go with the Cukor today, if only to stir the catfight. Already known as the go-to craftsman for 30's women's pictures, and sought out by the era's best actresses for his nurturing attentiveness (news flash; he was a closeted homosexual in an time when that counted against ya in La-La Land), he was chosen in Hollywood's "magic year" of 1939 to helm the film version of Clare Booth Luce's hit Broadway play about females of various class either struggling to maintain it or desperate to grab a better piece of it. As with the stage version not a single male appears in the film's cast, an All-Star ensemble assembled by the studio, MGM, that had invented the genre with GRAND HOTEL and perfected it with DINNER AT EIGHT (also directed by Cukor). Said rogue's gallery is as follows; Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard, and in smaller roles Butterfly McQueen and pioneering gossip maven Hedda Hopper. It's to simply DIE, I tell you!
George Cukor's THE WOMEN screens twice today at the Francesca Beale Theater as part of the Cukor trib. Let the games begin.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic screenings this last month of 2013 click 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 dress warm. I mean really warm. I mean REALLY REALLY warm. And advise the other kids do likewise. Exclesior!
-Joe Walsh
