March 29th 2013. Pick Of The Day.

Spring's mighty broom sweeps clean, it's said. As such Film Forum bids adieu to its two week booking of Fritz Lang's M and one week of Michael Cimino's HEAVEN'S GATE, which sorta equals out to the same amount of time somehow. Emerging with the thaw in their place is Alfred Hitchcock's DIAL "M" FOR MURDER, the Mahstah's lone 3-D effort from the gimick's initial 50's craze, presented in that format for the next seven days. Cute, but not my Pick.

Also taking a final bow is Jean Cocteau's TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS, the director's final film and conclusion to his Orphic trilogy, as part of MOMA's ongoing Auteurist History of Film series. Don't like snubbig the mighty JC, but an even grander dame is on display today. Read on.

Anthology Film Archives' continuing tribute to the late great film critic Andrew Sarris proceeds today with screenings of John M.Stahl's HOLY MATRIMONY and Roland West's ALIBI. Having finally seen ALIBI I can fully attest to my being 30% wrong in my synopsis of the film last Monday, but 100% in love with the ACTUAL flick. Alas, chose it already and don't love MATRIMONY's Monty Woolley enough to sway my resolve, so I take neither as my Pick today.

Further downtown the 92YTribeca begins a three day tribute to the films of Curtis Harrington, who began in avant garde cinema working with the likes of Kenneth Anger and went on to create a neat cult package of horror flicks in the late 60's/early 70's. Tonight the 92YT offfers the fauxteur's THE KILLING KIND, starring John Savage, and GAMES featuring pre-stardom James Caan and Katherine Ross. The man knew how to cast a flick. RARELY screened, and I take that into account when deciding, but I gotta pass these puppies up.

And midnight around our Cinegeek metropolis offers the delirious Jean Rolin's REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE at the Nitehawk Cinema, while both Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP and Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN unspool at IFC Center. Lordy they tempt, but an even bigger star commands our attention this night, one from the past but always lurking in our present, demanding a close-up from the flickering shadows, a reminder of Hollywood's ghosts and ghouls and haunted houses and those are the GOOD memories! Leave it to the great Billy Wilder to mock the industry that gave him shelter from the Nazis and gild it in the same 110 minutes.

Wilder cut his teeth in the German film industry as expressionism came to dominate Weimar cinema, and even with later Hollywood success he would never stray too far from these roots. For every THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR and THE EMPEROR WALTZ he would dig into the shadows of DOUBLE INDEMNITY and THE LOST WEEKEND. In 1948 though he got his boldest, damndest idea, one that might've ruined the career of a lesser talent or mortal. An avid follower of all things Filmland since his youth in Vienna, he was struck by the town's already forgotten glory days by the mid-40's, and wondered what might be going on in all these massive estates with their window shades drawn and their legends hiding behind them. He conjured up a fictional silent movie star based on a few factual ones, and even approached some of these actresses to essay the leading lady, but he and writing partner Charles Brackett were turned down by the likes of Pola Negri, Norma Shearer and the biggest of them all Mary Pickford. They all wanted to remain as they had once been, or at least be remembered that way. George Cukor suggested they call on yet another forgotten star from the silent era, and once contacted said star was intrigued. When asked to come in for a screen test she is said to have replied, "I made twenty pictures for Paramount and they want me to screen test?" Wilder and Brackett had their girl, and thus they had the soul of one of the more perfect, more hard to define masterpieces the medium ever produced, perhaps Wilder's defining work. Deftly juggling black comedy, melodrama, horror and noir, he produced a final autopsy on Hollywod's Golden Age, a dual castigation and exaltation of the moving pictures, and returned to the silver screen in all her glory one of the cinema's great faces, reminding the world of the talent it had virtually shuttered away in some quiet space to die. Gloria Swanson would never be forgotten again.

SUNSET BOULEVARD unspools tonight at the Rubin Museum as part of their Cabaret Cinema series. A drink purchase gains you admittance to the museum's screening lounge. G'wan, Norma'd want ya to...

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Be safe and sound and look out for the next so & so too! Back tomorrow with the last Pick of March! Baseball's back, Bebeh! Yanks/Sawks Monday April 1st! HUZZAH!!!

-Joe Walsh