February 1st 2014. Pick of the Day.

Welcome to month two of the new year, me fellow Cinegeek! Glad to see you made it to the other side of the Polar Vortex with me! One more day and we can kiss Punxsutawney Phil, the NFL and the last of the frozen marrow in our bones adios! Today's lone series is MoMA's Roadshow: The Fall of Film Musicals in the 60's. The tomfoolery as follows;

Film Forum

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947) Dir; Orson Welles

MoMA

GIGI (1957) Dir; Vincente Minnelli

FINIAN'S RAINBOW (1968) Dir; Francis Ford Coppola

FUNNY GIRL (1968) Dir; William Wyler

Mid-Manhattan Library

DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939) Dir; George Marshall

Nitehawk Cinema

THE OPENING OF MISTY BEETHOVEN (1976) Dir; Radley Metzger

Today's Pick? PORN! What better way to start the month than with the act of creation itself, asks moi? Since the medium's very inception there have been creative types seeking to capture the more salacious aspects of human behavior on celluloid in the interest of making a buck. From early French pioneers Eugene Pirou and Albert Kirchner, whose eorst began with the mere disrobing of the female form before a moving picture lens, to the rougher German examples that featured masturbation and anal sex (you're shocked it was the Germans?). Erotic cinema went largely hand in hand through the decades with other forms of exploitation cinema, until the 50's saw the emergence of a new creative sensibility, founded by such independent entrepeneurs like Russ Meyer and Doris Wishman, filmmakers perhaps not quite ready for the majors but with artistic visions far bolder than previously seen in the fringe film world. Hugh Hefner's Hedonist philosophy, as well as its manifesto, a little something called Playboy magazine, did much of the heavy lifting (no pun) in the postwar years for the open expression of sexuality, for nude cheesecake photo sitting equally side by side with more, say, intellectual pursuits. Some still say the man and his work was a cash grab sham, much as would be said of Meyer and the work of fellow sexploitation titans like Doris Wishman and Dave Friedman, but the legacy is indelible. Not too long away would come the influence of 60's European art cinema, and then censor-testing stuff like Vilgot Sjöman's I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW). The world seemed ready for the respectability of the porn flick. So did a batch of potential X-rated auteurs.

Suddenly, the 70's! The Mitchell brothers took former Ivory Snow girl Marilyn Chambers BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR, Gerard Damiano became Jerry Gerard to explore Linda Lovelace's DEEP THROAT, then changed back to Gerard Damiano to go to Hell for THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES. Production values increased, the filmmakers focused as much on narrative as "money shots", and for a second the permissive Me decade appeared to be proof positive that the impossibly puritanical American cultural landscape would welcome, if uneasily, Porno Chic space at the multiplex alongside the latest Spielberg flick.

Of course, the 80's came. As did Reagan, and the new moral compass began to look like the pre-war moral compass. To be fair, the degree of excess, dubious money dealings and outright criminality that formed the foundation of this genre did nothing to help its cause or the careers of its O-teurs, but in hindsight it seems inevitable that this period would end, at first assessment as aberration, but now, of course, every bit as influenial as the 70's works of Scorsese or Allen or Friedkin. Should you doubt the auteur status of any of this era's best you have a rare opportunity to decide for yourself, tonight at midnight, in particularly dark and seedy (not really) section of BillyBurg. Once you were lucky to get a Coke and a box of Jujubes to this sort of fick. Today you can grab gourmet root beer and tater tots. Who says things change for the worse?

Radley Metzger's THE OPENING OF MISTY BEETHOVEN screens tonight at the Nitehawk Cinema. Raincoat optional.

For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in February '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back with a brand new Pick tomorrow, til then

-Joe Walsh

joew@nitratestock.net

P. S. Should you be feeling charitable during this harsh weather period please remember to check in with the good folks over at Occupy Sandy. Some of our NY neighbors are still feeling the effects of last year's hurricane. Be a mensch.