The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, August 26-September 1
The Lost Squadron (1932)
Directed by George Archainbaud
The 4-panel poster designed by René Péron for The Lost Squadron’s original French theatrical release stands at the entrance to MoMA’s current exhibition of 34 works from the Scorsese Poster Collection. Its Deco-inspired design renders in strong blues, reds, whites, and blacks an image of human faces regarding a plane in fiery descent as a man stands behind a film camera nearby. This poster encapsulates the tale (penned by stunt pilot and war veteran Dick Grace) of three World War I fighter pilots and their mechanic who find their postwar circumstances to be thuddingly earthbound. One member of the group eventually convinces his fellows to come out to Hollywood and work as stuntmen on an aerial combat picture directed by maestro Erich von Furst (played by Erich von Stroheim). This malicious auteur, who sees their lives and deaths as the stuff of entertainment, tortures them with demands to be ever-more convincing, propelling staunch group ringleader Captain “Gibby” Gibson (Richard Dix) and his boys to fight back. Squadron lost money at the box office and remains potent today with its questioning of how films can render soldiers’ struggles. Aaron Cutler (August 30, 2pm; September 1, 7pm at MoMA’s “Scorsese Screens“)