July 12th 2014. 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.
Ongoing series today include Original Gangsters at IFC Center, part one of the Luis Buñuel retrospective at BAM Cinématek, Lady in the Dark: Crime Films from Columbia Pictures, 1932-57 at MoMA, the Silent Clowns' Mary Pickford series at the Library for the Performing Arts, See It Big! Science Fiction (Part Two) at Museum of the Moving Image, and the Elmore Leonard trib at Anthology Film Archives. The shenanigans be thus;
IFC Center
THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1935) Dir; Archie Mayo
Nitehawk Cinema
TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986) Dir; Nelson Shin
DEATH RACE 2000 (1975) Dir; Paul Bartel
Film Forum
A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964) Dir; Richard Lester
Mid-Manhattan Library
AFTER HOURS (1986) Dir; Martin Scorsese
BAM Cinématek
LOS OLVIDADOS (1950) Dir; Luis Buñuel
THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ (1955) Dir; Luis Buñuel
MoMA
CHINATOWN AT MIDNIGHT (1949) Dir; Seymour Friedman
BLIND SPOT (1947) Dir; Robert Gordon
IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) Dir; Nicholas Ray
Library for the Performing Arts
A LITTLE PRINCESS (1917) Dir; Marshall Neilan
Museum of the Moving Image
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
Anthology Film Archives
MR. MAJESTYK (1974) Dir; Richard Fleischer
STICK (1985) Dir; Burt Reynolds
Prospect Park Bandshell
HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (1923) Dir; Victor Sjöström
Today's Pick? Before he became one of the 6 moguls who would overse the golden age of the studio system, Louis B. Mayer sold scrap metal. I'm bypassing all jokes and metaphors 'cause we got a lot to cover.
After observing several fledgling film enterprises and the crowds they attracted in his adopted town of Boston, he acquired the local burlesque parlor, the Gem Palace, and converted it fully to the exhibition of film. He staked his reputation on reputable, "family" cinema, due in part to his new cinema's dubious past, but also seeing a new image he could remold himself in, one that would eventually grow to caretaker of all things sacredly American. Before that happened though he built and sold a theater chain in Massachusetts, moved to Hollywood and started up several profitable buisnesses that eventually led Marcus Loew, he of the famous theater chain, to invite him to be overseer of a new company he'd acquired, one made up of several smaller companies, that would handle production of the films while Loew's east coast operations handled distribution and exhibition. The new company came to be called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. More on that in a second.
By the late teens and early twenties cinema, like theater, was reliant on the star system, faces whose magic had spellbound audiences and come to be synonymous with quality product, people like Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin. Lon Chaney was amongst those who stepped out of the pack, finding his niche in charcater parts that usually required much suffering on the part of the character and, no secret to the ticket buyers, to the actor himself. It became part of the attraction to see what new makeup inflicted torment the actor had designed for the audience's delight. In the early 20's he quickly rose to prominence as one of the biggest stars in the cinema, and he was just getting started. Again, we'll get back to this.
European cinematic output had been nearly on a par with its Hollywood counterpart in terms of volume and quality in the teens, until World War One curtailed the industry abroad, and several promising careers floundered and, in some cases, foundered. One such individual, master stylist Victor Sjöström, not only survived the downturn in his native industry's fortunes, he thrived. The enormous success of his 1921 masterpiece THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE led Louis B. Mayer to offer Sjöström work in Hollywood, not the first or last time a foreign talent would be poached by American studios. And we'll come back to this guy in a moment too.
Jump ahead to 1990, back in the very same state that saw Mayer's rise to initial prominence. Terry Donahue and Ken Winkour, percussionists, and keyboardist Caleb Sampson, banded togehter to form the Alloy Orchestra in Boston Mass, for the sole purpose of composing new and more modern scores for classics of silent cinema. After Sampson's untimely passing in 1998 Mission of Burma's Roger Miller took over keyboard duties, and has remained since. The trio utilize all manner of industrial material to accompany the films, from found and repurposed discard to material of their own design. The resulting effect is not normally, in my experience, a serene one, but it can, as in the case of Pabst's DIARY OF A LOST GIRL, provide an surprising sense of empathy for the characters, their travails and turmoil. On those occasions when they accompany a choice work of the silent era, one should cancel all other plans and attend. It's that unmissable.
All these elements, plus the first official appearance of Leo the Lion under the MGM banner, are cause for you to enter the NYC subway system in July (unless you live in a bookshop/used typewriter museum like the other denizens of Prospect Heights), and head over to Prospect Park tonight for a once-a-summer event, combining silent cinema and live music. Alright I've reached my Brooklyn joke quota for the day, so if ya want just fill one in below in the comments section. I'm just goin' straight to the exacts.
Victor Sjöström's HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (1923) screens tonight with live accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra, sunset at the Prosepct Park Bandshell. It's Brooklyn, so get there early because beards. I LIED! BRONX RULES BOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE!!!
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in July '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. For the monthly overview and other audio tomfoolery check out the podcast, and follow me on SoundCloud! For reviews of contemporary cinema and my streaming habits (keep it clean!) check out my Letterboxd 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 tomorrow with a brand new Pick, til then safe, sound, make sure the net knucklehead is too. Excelsior!
-Joe Walsh
P. S. Even though we've fully entered the summer months and therefore not often as mindful of the displaced, some of our fellow NY'ers are yet to be made whole since Hurricane Sandy hit nearly two years ago. Check in with the good folks at Occupy Sandy to see if you can't still volunteer/donate to our neighbors in need. Be a mensch.
