August 9th 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.
Oh, it's Saturday. What more do you need to know going in to this article? Just read, willya?
Ongoing series on this most august of August days include The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy and A Fuller Life at MoMA, the latter 1/2 of BAM's exhaustive trib to humanist auteur Luis Buñuel, and If You Meet Klaus Kinski, Pray For Your Death at Anthology Film Archives. This way to the front;
Nitehawk Cinema
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1954) Dir; Don Seigel
ENTER THE DRAGON (1973) Dir; Robert Clouse
Film Forum
BOY MEETS GIRL (1984) Dir; Leos Carax
MoMA
FRIENDLY ENEMIES (1942) Dir; Allan Dwan
CHANCES (1931) Dir; Allan Dwan
RUN OF THE ARROW (1957) Dir; Sam Fuller
THE SECRET AGENT (1936) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock
THE BARON OF ARIZONA (1950) Dir; Sam Fuller
Mid-Manhattan Library
RUMBLEFISH (1983) Dir; Francis Ford Coppola
BAM Cinématek
THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972) Dir; Luis Buñuel
Anthology Film Archives
A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL (1966) Dir; Damiano Damiani
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925) Dir; Sergei Eisenstein
STRIKE (1925) Dir; Sergei Eisenstein
Today's Pick? I'm going with a double feature from one of the most gruff, ruffled, cigar-chompin', irascible, no-bull@*#t sons-of-bitches to ever subvert the very Hollywood system he ostensibly procured employment within. John Ford used to call this unrepentant rawhide every year on his birthday, yell "FUCK THE BIG RED ONE!" into the reciever, and then abruptly, if not anonymously, hang up. That's simply how a survivor of Midway paid his respects to a survivor of Normandy. Especially when the bulk of their lives required them to at least give the marginal appearance of playing the game. Ford snuck his share of subversion through the studio system. Sam Fuller walked proudly with it past security.
Sam Fuller was seemingly born with an itch to write, to witness, to report. His 1st job was copyboy for his local paper. At 17 he was assigned the crime beat at the New York Evening Graphic. He branched out to pulp novels and then screenwriting, finding the latter much less rewarding than the former. Enlisting after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Fuller was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, and his wartime experience, which included the liberation of a concentration camp, further hardened an already rough hewn worldview, one which he'd apply to his postwar film career.
After the war he returned to the typewriter, ghostwriting several screen projects, mostly serving to harangue those who chose to film his work. When independent producer Robert Lipper approached the irritated scenarist about script work, Fuller agreed on the condition he be allowed to direct as well, serving in both capacities for the same fee. What indie producer ever said no to that proposition?
Thus was a singularly and brutally honest voice given full boom at last. Fuller would go on to see his share of success as the man yelling "action", including seminal works of potboiler crime like PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET and HOUSE OF BAMBOO, and more disturbing works of melodrama like THE NAKED KISS and SHOCK CORRIDOR, as well as heartbreak with various failures, none less devastating than the box office nosedive undertaken by his studio-truncated epic, the now restored THE BIG RED ONE. He began, however, with a brilliant character study posing as a western, 1949's I SHOT JESSE JAMES, featuring the sorely underused John Ireland as the eponymous killer. A sturdy effort to be sure, but followed by one of the damndest American gothics ever filmed, a biopic that mixes equal parts Poe and Moss Hart, and boasts none other than Vincent Price in the title role to seal the deal. Most filmmakers would've been satisfied following up their freshman success with another modest yet effective genre effort. Leave it to Fuller to base his sophomore flick on a man who attempted to steal one of the United States.
Sam Fuller's THE BARON OF ARIZONA screens today at MoMA as part of the series A Fuller Life, along with his 1957 western actioner RUN OF THE ARROW. Chutzpah, meet Sam.
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, hey, how do we give Arizona back? Too soon?
-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.
