May 11th 2013. Pick Of the Day.

The Film Forum welcomes Terrence Malick's debut feature BADLANDS for a week and extends Roberto Rossellini's VOYAGE TO ITALY for a second week. Both journeys existential, with vastly different outcomes. Essential viewing. Just not today.

Stanley Kubrick's ghost-go-boo chiller THE SHINING just keeps playing forever. And ever. And ever. At IFC Center. You'll never be told you're money's no good in there.

Richard Lester's seminal ode to anarchy both musical and cinematic A HARD DAY'S NIGHT remains not just the perfect record of Beatlemania's pandemic outbreak but the quintessential rock n' roll film, the template filmmakers and bands have been trying to match and failing since it first hit screens in 1964. Fresh as ever due to the undying charm of its four leads and the timeless soundtrack they concocted. Chose it already earlier this year, so I must pass. Dem's da rules.

Kubrick is also repped by a late night screening of unequivocal masterpiece 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY at IFC Center. Some theaters just can't let go, y'know? And thank god for that. Or the monolith. Or whatever unknowable entity grants our continued evolution according to The Kube.

Midnight fare about our film-loving burg includes Ridley Scott's ALIEN at the Landmark Sunshine, Terry Jones' MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN at IFC, and yesterday's Pick, Mario Bava's DANGER: DIABOLIK at the Nitehawk Cinema, which I adore so much it tempts me to break my no-double-dip rule. Were it not for a very special day dedicated to an underappreciated director at another beloved rep house I might've done just that. So ciao Mario, and howdy Delmer!

Delmer Daves was a law and engineering student when he picked up prop work on James Cruze's 1923 western THE COVERED WAGON. It was during his tenure on this production that he first fell for two of the enduring loves of his life; the movie industry, which he would immediately commit himself to as his career, and the Native American extras and laborers working on WAGON whose culture he found so fascinating. He would live among them for a time, developing friendships and a deep abiding respect for their customs, language and history. Daves went on to script several classics, including Archie Mayos' THE PETRIFIED FOREST, Leo McCarey's LOVE AFFAIR, and William A. Seiter's YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER. He made his directing debut with 1943 classic WWII propper DESTINATION TOKYO, helming the script he'd co-written with Steve Fisher and Albert Maltz. In 1950 he directed his first western, a James Stewart vehicle detailing the legend of Cochise through the eyes of the prospector who saves his life. What set this flick apart was not just the sure hand of a now fully confident filmmaker or even the gorgeous Technicoclor cinematography courtesy of Ernest Palmer, but the depiction of the Native American characters, still suffering through other films as "Injuns", as a noble and dignified culture. In other words they were treated as sympathetc and the white settlers, or at least some of them, as the bloodthirsty savages for a change.

This wasn't the first time a director had taken the Native American view in the conflict, as Kent Jones recently pointed out to Quentin Tarantino after the director said some incredibly stupid things about John Ford. Ford himself would make the greedy white profiteers the cause for all the carnage in FORT APACHE, and made sure the audience knew how badly the Natives had suffered because of the U.S. government's broken promises and indifference. Daves, however, made his take on their crisis personal, as only someone who had spent a great deal of time in the company of the real thing might. Had the times been different and he had his way he may well have directed a film more akin to BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, but for movie screens in 50's America he showed some chutzpah as well as empathy. I must say his westerns remain Westerns with a capital W and not merely examples of what Scorsese described as the Smuggler's film, where a potentially subversive message is snuck into a seemingly routine genre piece. These films are cracking good yarns of the settling of the West, and today three of Daves' best from this period screen. So for only the second time in this site's history I'm taking a triple feature as my Pick today! I make the law around here, pilgrim!

Delmer Daves' BROKEN ARROW, with James Stewart and Jeff Chandler, COWBOY, with Jack Lemmon and Glenn Ford, and THE LAST WAGON, with Richard Widmark and Felicia Farr, screen back-to-back-to-back at the Anthology Film Archives as part of their Overdue series. Saddle up, pardner! Yeah I can't believe I'm ending with that line either it's early leavemealone.

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Be safe and sound and make sure the next guy/gal is too! Back next Wednesday with a new column. Until then follow the Twitter feed or Facebook page for my daily Picks and other general ravings. Until next time, knuckleheads, GAME THREE'S TONIGHT! GO KNICKS!!!

-Joe Walsh