January 24th 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Pickin's be as slim as heat this day in temperatures oppresive, but some worthy gems are screening should you choose to brave the elements.

Douglas Sirk's THE TARNISHED ANGELS screens for the second of its three day run at MOMA as part of their Auteurist History of Film series. Robert Stack's ex WWI pilot finds his already fragile marriage to Dorothy Malone challenged when small town reporter Rock Hudson threatens to come betwen the two. But how does it end? Sirk's lavish Technicolor melodrama is always something to behold. Not my Pick.

Before she ensnared all of the Austen & Bronte devoted amongst you in DOWNTON ABBEY Dame Maggie Smith picked up the first of her two little gold men for her starring perf in THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE. By little gold men I mean the Oscar. Clean it up, people. Her breakout role as the deeply and perhaps creepily involved schoolteacher at an all girls academy in 1930's Scotland remains perhaps the only thing to recommend Ronald Neame's adap of Jay Presson Allen's play, and that's selling point enough thinks this guy. Screening at the Clearview Chelsea Cinema tonight. Also not my Pick.

Emil Anton Bundesmann. That name just didn't fly back in studio era Hollywood. Not if you wanted up on the artistic ladder. Or unless you had decided to direct opera instead. Yet within this name would soon come a new name, one associated with the end of the great studio era as surely as it would be with THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Which is also not my Pick today. It ain't even screening today. Keep up with me.

Mister Bundesmann would arrive in Hollywood and pretty much tank as an acting hopeful, but then came the move to behind the camera. Starting out as an AD he soon found himself promoted to the director's chair, helming several successful and worthy noirs of the postwar era, amongst which include RAILROADED! and T-MEN. Filling in for an ailing Alfred L. Welker he assumed directing duties uncredited for a truly neat cult noir from that era, one that involved the participation of several stalwart figures of that particular genre. B-Movie mainstay Whit Bissell and future DRAGNET star Jack Webb fill out the cast, Webb actually meeting his TV series' inspiration, Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn, while he advised the production. The great noir DP John Alton shot the shadowy proceedings, concerning aWW2 vet's complete mental breakdown and the violent crime spree that ensues. Told in a semi-doc style it presaged the expose noirs of the 50's like THE PHENIX CITY STORY and THE BIG HEAT. Definitely worth a look for these reasons alone, but also because it's an early effort from a director who would go on to helm some of the most important genre films of the next two decades. So here's my Pick Of The Day.

The great Anthony Mann's HE WALKED BY NIGHT screens tonight at 7:30pm at the 92YTribeca as part of their L.A. Law series. Believe me, if I'M telling ya to leave your warm crib for a retro screening my heart must be deeply invested in that advice.

The drill as usual; follow me on Twitter @NitrateStock! Like the page at Facebook.com/NitrateStock! Stay safe and sound and warm and make sure the next guy is too! OccupySandy.com still accepting all sorts of donations! Still fixing our calendar issues but back tomorow with more Picks! Excelsior Knucklehedz!

-Joe Walsh