In honor of Veteran's Day, Oddball Films presents Hey Sailor! Antique Naval VD, Training, and Ephemeral Films, a program of short films and cartoons from the 1930s-1950s centered on those brave fighting seamen who sailed the seas of yesteryear. We've got VD scare films, awkward enema lessons, Popeye cartoons, sailor chimps, musical numbers, and naked sailors galore, all on original 16mm film from our massive stock footage archive. We're declassifying two homoerotic rarities from the US Navy: dozens of naked sailors go full frontal for their medical exam and a hands on posture lesson in Bluejackets Personal Hygiene (1943) and get down and dirty in the infirmary with an uncomfortable excerpt of Giving an Enema (1944). Check your privates, private in the Navy training film The Pick-Up (1944), starring an unlucky schmuck who picks up a nasty case of the clap just in time for his furlough. More sailors make a sucker's bet on a game of poker and some loose women in One a Minute (1944). What sailor program would be complete without a Popeye cartoon, and on that note we bring you an original Fleischer brothers short: In the Army Now (1936) when Popeye and Bluto show off their greatest hits when Olive Oyl declares her love for a man in uniform. Shorty the Chimp dons his sailor cap and heads to the high seas in Chimp the Sailor (1950). Plus, a boatload of 1940s Sailor Soundies including Heaven Help a Sailor and the bizarrely hulatastic Little Grass Shack, excerpts from Swim and Live (1944) double projected with Vintage Beefcake footage and more naval surprises for the early birds!
The Pick-Up (B+W, 1944, excerpt)
Watch out for loose women at the dance hall, soldier, you might miss your furlough before you ship out! A WWII army training film on the horrors of venereal disease. Corporal John Green is anxiously awaiting his furlough when he meets a dame he thinks is a "nice girl" until he ends up with with a nasty dose of the clap. Looks like he'll be heading to the infirmary instead of on vacation!
Bluejackets Personal Hygiene (B+W, 1943)
Get unclassified with this naval training film featuring dozens of naked sailors! That's right, these brave boys in blue reveal much more than their courage, we get to see all their artillery. Learn about proper care of feet, posture, teeth, wardrobe and an all important lesson in group showering! All the homoerotic tension you could dream of and vintage beefcakes galore!
Chimp the Sailor (B+W, 1950)
Popeye and Bluto are at it again! When Olive Oyl declares her love for a man in uniform, the superfoes must battle it out for the last placement in the Navy. After getting into fisticuffs, they each share a scrapbook of some of their best moves with the recruiting officer. Who will win the recruitment and Olive's heart?
Curator’s Biography
Kat Shuchter is a graduate of UC Berkeley in Film Studies. She is a filmmaker, artist and esoteric film hoarder. She has helped program shows at the PFA, The Nuart and Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater and was crowned “Found Footage Queen” of Los Angeles, 2009. She has programmed over 250 shows at Oddball on everything from puberty primers to experimental animation.
About Oddball Films
Our screenings are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.