The Girlie Show


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Amelia and the Angel (B+W, 1957, Ken Russell)
An utterly charming early short from one of Britain's most iconoclastic directors, the late great Ken Russell (Tommy, Women in Love, The Devils).  The almost too adorable Amelia (played by Argentinian moppet Mercedes Quadros) is getting ready for her stage debut as an angel with her dance class.  Against the teacher's advice, she steals her wings to take home to show her mother.  But, as her brother is a "horrible little beast", he absconds with the wings and destroys them summarily.  Amelia must run all over the city to find a new pair of wings before her performance.  She runs into obstacles and colorful characters aplenty (including an equally adorable circus dog) in her quest to redeem herself.  While markedly more tame than Russell's work from the 70s and 80s, it is clearly his own with echoes of the themes of the absurdities of faith and a theatricality that would persist through most of his work. Ethereal, entertaining and inspiring, it's a rare treat from a Master, just unearthed from the archive.



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The Fur Coat Club (Color, 1973)
Early short by Joan Micklin Silver (Crossing Delancy), depicts the adventures of two nine-year-old girls who have invented a secret game of touching fur coats without the wearer realizing it. Follows them as they inadvertently become trapped in the vault of a fur store, where to their surprise when the vault door opens, two thieves appear and the girls manage to trap them and become heroines. Great fetish primer.





The Sofia Girls: Rhythmic Gymnastics in Sweden (B+W, 1950s) 
This film showcases an extended performance by an all-female team of rhythmic gymnasts from Sweden, whose hypnotizing feats are impossibly synchronized. The precise movements of the girls create clean-cut lines of motion, generating spectacular images within the frame. However, such exercises had aims beyond the aesthetic, as schools incorporated gymnastics into their curriculums as an attempt to cultivate a united regime of physical and mental hygiene.


Double-Talk Girl (1942), A Universal Pictures “Popular Person Oddity” with Shirley Dinsdale and her right-hand gal, Judy Splinters. There’s nothing more unsettling than ventriloquism. Except for little girls in lace dresses doing ventriloquism. Really, it’s too much. In this wacko newsreel of the bizarre, it’s Lizzy Borden meets Chuckie as we meet a girl who may be the youngest serial killing, doll-loving supernatural psycho ever. Or she’s just good at throwing her voice and has bad taste in hobbies.




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Why Not Be Beautiful? (Color, 1969)
"Every young girl can be beautiful."  While this beauty primer begins with a broad and semi-enlightened view of beauty; pressing girls to read and be interested in the world around them, it quickly devolves into social conditioning for the non-feminist young woman, teaching her all the best ways to be attractive to the opposite sex.  Learn how to make-up your face, dress yourself and how to shut-up when men are talking, because beauty isn't just skin deep, it also means silencing yourself.



Noisy Nancy Norris (1967, Color)


Member the good ole days when you'd just sit and listen to someone read you a story? And what if that person was a young Shirley MacLaine? A highly entertaining read about a little girl who can't stop making noise, and the neighbors who tried to shut her up. 






The Story of Menstruation (Color, 1945)

A Walt D*sney Production, The Story of Menstruation is an animated short film produced for American schools detailing the menstrual cycle.  Rumored to be the first film with the word “vagina” in it’s screenplay, this vintage gem is both matter of fact and dreamily flowery. A large-headed girl takes you through the dos and don’ts of menses while helpful diagrams guide us all to better understanding.