Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Girls! Girls! Girls!, a program of vintage short films all about (you guessed it) girls! From young girls to young ladies, from mean girls to tough girls, with newsreel oddities, mini-docs, mental hygiene primers, cartoons, trailers and musical numbers, we're highlighting the strangest, funniest and campiest girls of the collection. Marvel at the dedication and synchronicity of The Sofia Girls: Rhythmic Gymnastics in Sweden (1950s). Fashion meets the farm when a young lady leaves her home to be in a mobile modeling show in Rolling in Style (1954). Two little girls love to touch ladies' furs and end up in a grand adventure in the fetish primer The Fur Coat Club (1973). Little Lulu hallucinates a bar full of celebrity babies in the bizarre cartoon The Babysitter (1947). The Goldilocks fairy tale gets a sexy twist in one segment from the nudie cutie series Bikini Girls (1949). In the mental hygiene classic The Snob (1958), girls can be so mean, but who's meaner, the snob or the girls who call her a snob? Di$ney brings us the inner thoughts inside little girls' heads, in the Les Clark animated socialization primer What Should I Do? The New Girl (1970). And in an exciting twist, the audience will get to choose between three menstruation films: Girl Stuff (1980), Naturally, A Girl (1973), or It's Wonderful Being a Girl (1966). Plus Vintage Trailers, Commercials, little B@by Jane singing "I've Written a Letter to Daddy", three Junior High School girls sing our favorite song of the pubescent blues "The Itty Bitty Titty Committee" and even more girlie surprises! Come early for a good seat and the beautifully dreamy National Film Board of Canada coming-of-age tale The End of Summer (1963).
Featuring:
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.
Why are some girls snobs? This campy mental hygiene primer seeks to answer the question and to illustrate the effects such snobbery has on the perpetrator and those around them.
An extremely bizarre and surreal Little Lulu cartoon- Lulu is taking care of a very naughty baby who won’t stay in his crib. When Lulu hits her head while chasing him, she dreams a visit to the fabled Stork Club night spot- where all the famous Hollywood guests and musicians are babies… a weird one for the ages!
Bikini Girls (B+W, 1949)
Titillating tales featuring bikini-clad women and an over-the-top narrator. Shot over 60 years ago these risque shorts always feature women doing things that expose themselves like applying suntan lotion, trying on clothes and “getting comfortable” in the hot sun. A sexy and sexist look at the lighter side of eroticism in the 1940s. In this segment, goldilocks has stumbled upon the three bears swingin' pad and can't help but take a dip in the pool!
And You Choose!
We will watch the first minute of each of the following films and the audience can choose which decade we want our puberty advice from!
Girl Stuff (Color, 1980)
This film plays out like many men’s nightmares: a bunch of girls sitting around talking about their periods. Periods and douches and perspiration and vaginal infections and boyfriends and growing up, you know…Girl Stuff! With plenty of fantastic vintage product placement.
Naturally- A Girl (Color, 1971)
This girly puberty-fest uses vignettes, animation and comments by girls and boys to explore the medical facts and some personal feelings about menstruation.
It’s Wonderful Being a Girl (Color, 1966)
Mom explains the facts of life to her pre-teen daughter. Presented by Personal Products Company the makers of Modess- it’s not a “curse”, it’s Wonderful Being A Girl!
Michel Brault's sublime tale of French-Canadian teenage girls. Filmed the last week of summer in 1963 with a group of friends, this dreamy coming-of-age portrait features stunning black and white photography. While deserving of a place in the main show, this recently-unearthed gem is primarily in French with only brief bouts of English narration.
