August 7th 2014. Pick of the Day.

Sure, modern Hollywood's adept when it comes to talking Raccoons. Granted, they can make you love a tree more than any hippie thought imaginable. And yes, spaceships have never looked quite as Chris Fossian as this week's latest blockbuster displays them. You gonna let that wimwam come between you and a classic screening today? Especially when you've already seen this new blockbuster three times? In one day?

Okay for you, then! I'm gonna stay true to my rep film roots and eschew a 4th screening of Marvel Studios' latest magnum opus in favor of the classic gems on display. Wait, I meant a 1st screening! I mean any screening oh hell have I blown my cover! Drat! Let's just dive in! ROCKET RACCOOOOOOOOONNN!!!!

Ongoing series today include An Auteurist History of Film , The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy, and A Fuller Life at MoMA, If You Meet Klaus Kinski, Pray For Your Death at Anthology Film Archives, and The Deuce at the Nitehawk Cinema. Those about to unspool, we salute you;

Film Forum

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) Dir; Billy Wilder

MoMA

DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978) Dir; Terrence Malick

THE SECRET AGENT (1936) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock

SHIFTING SANDS (1918) Dir; Albert Parker

I SHOT JESSE JAMES (1949) Dir; Sam Fuller

Anthology Film Archives

CRAWLSPACE (1986) Dir; David Schmoeller

VENUS IN FURS (1969) Dir; Jess Franco

Intrepid Air & Space Museum

SPACEBALLS (1987) Dir; Mel Brooks

Brooklyn Bridge Park

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958) Dir; Richard Brooks

Nitehawk Cinema

SUPER DUDE (1974) Dir; Henry Hathaway

Today's Pick? A tough choice, indeed. DAYS OF HEAVEN: Malick's depression-era ode to the dying of the light, expertly captured by Oscar-winning DP Néstor Almendros' lens. THE SECRET AGENT: an early Hitchcock espionage suspenser, featuring Peter Lorre as a dubious character known as "The Hairless Mexican". I SHOT JESSE JAMES: Sam Fuller's directorial debut, featuring the oft and unfairly forgot John Ireland as the eponymous first-person. SPACEBALLS: What I deemed at the time Mel Brooks' one-too-many trip to the parody well, which regardless has spawned an enormous cult due to its long shelf life on cable TV. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF: 26 year-old Liz Taylor in a slip. Meow. And surely the most bizarre listing of the day, which is saying something when not one but two-count-'em-two Klaus Kinski features are part of the rep circuit firmament; Henry Hathaway's (yes, that Henry Hathaway) blaxploitation flick (yes, THAT blaxploitation) SUPER DUDE, aka HANGUP. I'm wisely refraining from commenting on the latter entry as I've never seen it, and would most likely still refrain if I had. Man's got to know his limitations.

Today, however, belongs to noir, to one of the boilerplate efforts of the genre, which screens today in its weeklong booking as coda to last month's smoky cool Femmes Noirs series at Film Forum. I personally consider Jacques Tourneur's OUT OF THE PAST to be the epitome of 40's noir, a not unpopular opinion, yet an equal amount of the genre's enthusiasts, perhaps a majority, would select today's Pick for propping upon that mantle, and I'd be armed with very little other than personal predilection to argue my point with. This masterpiece of shadow and sin combined the typewritten talents of source novelist James M. Cain with screenwriter Raymond Chandler, the DP work of John F. Seitz (SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, INVADERS FROM MARS) with the music of Miklós Rózsa (THAT HAMILTON WOMAN, BEN-HUR), and the otherwise screwball romcom pairing of dapper Fred MacMurray with one of the all-time great film acting legends (and longtime personal crush, full disclosure); one Ruby Stevens, otherwise monickered Barbara Stanwyck. Broad extraordinaire. Today's your last chance to catch this classic on a big screen, at least for the foreseeable future. Avail yourself of a visit to the Dietrichson house. It didn't do Walter Huff any harm. Just ask the insurance company.

Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY screens its last at Film Forum all day today. I wonder when it'll swing by next? I wonder if you wonder?

For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in August '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 is the man of the house about at the moment? No? Well, have you thought about a little extra insurance?

-Joe Walsh

JoeW@NitrateStock.net

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.