Vintage Burlesque Bonanza! - Fri. July 22nd - 8PM

Oddball Films Media • Jul 21, 2016



Oddball Films presents Vintage Burlesque Bonanza!, a titillating night of burlesque beauties, oddities, and even animation from the 1930s-1950s all screened on 16mm film from the archive.  These erotic and exotic artifacts of yesterday are tame by today's standards, but offer us a view into the buttoned-up sexuality of the mid-century man. The night features an array of lovely ladies (and a few strapping men) including the burlesque queens Sally Rand, Faith Bacon, Lili St. Cyr, Betty Dolan and more with more bubble and fan dances than you can handle. Behold the battle of the bubbles with three interpretations of bodacious bubbles including Lili St. Cyr in a tantalizing Bubble Bath Dance (1952) and the ethereal and breathtaking Bubble Dance with Sally Rand (1942), which is parodied in the all-star Merrie Melodies cartoon Hollywood Steps Out (1934), which we will also be screening. Get into the fan dance, originated by Faith Bacon as a way around Broadway censors in Faith Bacon: A Lady with Fans (1950s), and see Sally Rand as she displays the erotic dance at the World's Fair in Streets of Paris (1933), then see another cartoon interpretation in the super rarity Krazy Kat Frogs and Kats (1930s) featuring an old perv with x-ray machine trying to see Miss Kitty nude. Burlesque gets a little bizarre with our next three favorites: a marionette out-strips a stripper in Doll Dance (1940s), The Fabulous Cat Girl (1950s) will scratch her way into your heart, and Betty Dolan fights off her Satanic side in Satan Tease (1950s). Meet the Sweethearts of Burlesque including "Sensational Sandra Storm in Action" (1941),   "Sweethearts of Burlesque" (1948) with Pat Dorsey, Lorraine Lee and Pat O'Connor,"Three Party Girls" (1930) with three gal pals going to a costume party who accidentally burn their outfits with an iron, "Betty Rowland in The Magic Bottle" (1950),  featuring Betty dancing in a bottle on a nightclub bar with lots of old time-y special effects and camera tricks,  "Caught Without Costume" (1930) with a lovely lady who goes skinny dipping, loses her clothes to a pervy dog and has to cover up with a barrel, and "Hunting Bare" (1930s) with three gals out on a hunting trip who mark their path with discarded clothing. And we couldn't let the girls have all the fun, so we're pulling out some fabulous Vintage Beefcake Shorts with handsome young men stripping down and shaking their stuff: Amateur Strip (1960s) and the homegrown homoerotica The Groping Hand (1960s) featuring a groovy soundtrack and shots of 1960s North Beach. So strap on your tassels, grab your fan and blow some bubbles, because it's a scintillating night of stripteases and sensuality at San Francisco's strangest film archive.

Date: Friday, July 22nd, 2016 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com


Featuring:

Battle of the Bubbles!

Sally Rand's Bubble Dance (1942)
Blonde beauty Sally Rand dances effortlessly with a giant bubble in little more than a well-placed scarf. The ethereal nature of this short elevates it above your average smut.

Lili St. Cyr in Bubble Bath Dance (B+W, 1952)
Lili St. Cyr was the most influential burlesque dancer in the second half of the 20th century. Her hip-swiveling ways swayed pop-culture sirens from Marilyn Monroe (who copied her style) to Madonna (who bought her famous push up bras) for decades to come.
St. Cyr shimmied across the country with inventive routines in posh nightclubs amassing legions of famous fans, including Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan. Her notoriety and fame brought financial and commercial successes, with roles in movies like Howard Hughes' Son of Sinbad and Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead.

Hollywood Steps Out (Color, 1934)
This bizarre Merrie Melodies cartoon features caricatures of a who's who of Hollywood big wigs all stopping to ogle an avatar of Blonde Burlesque megastar Sally Rand doing her famous Bubble Dance.

Sweethearts of Burlesque (B+W, 1930s-1950s)
"What Happens in a Paris Dive" (1930s) A scene in a Montmartre Paris Cafe taking place in 1905 starring the French Dancer Illana, "The Dance of Desire" (1930s), "Sensational Sandra Storm in Action" (1941),   "Sweethearts of Burlesque" (1948) with Pat Dorsey, Lorraine Lee and Pat O'Connor, "The One and Only Faith Bacon Originator of the 'Fan Dance'" (1949) with Bacon appearing nude as she dances with her signature giant ostrich feather fans, "Salome the Dance of One Veil" (1948) with a dancing brunette in a twirly dress wearing ballerina shoes and showing off a few gymnastic moves as she strips down, "Three Party Girls" (1930) with three gal pals going to a costume party who accidentally burn their outfits with an iron, "Betty Rowland in The Magic Bottle" (1950),  featuring Betty dancing in a bottle on a nightclub bar with lots of old time-y special effects and camera tricks, "Caught Without Costume" (1930) with a lovely lady who goes skinny dipping, loses her clothes to a pervy dog and has to cover up with a barrel, "Jug of Tea-se Dance" (1950) with more bottle dancing, and "Hunting Bare" (1930s) with three gals out on a hunting trip who mark their path with discarded clothing. 

Doll Dance (B+W, 1940s) 
A 1940s Burlesque tit for tat dance number with Arlene and Rene. Both ladies are lovely, only Arlene has someone pulling her strings. 
The Fabulous Cat Girl (B+W, c. 1950s)
Exotic burlesque teaser featuring a blonde-haired cat-woman with all the right moves for the alley. 




Satan-Tease  (B+W, 1955)
Burlesque queen Betty Dolan brings new meaning to the phrase dancing with the devil. Cleverly costumed, Miss Dolan's right hand is the hand of the devil and she can't stop it from trying to get to third base. Strange and erotic on many different levels, it must be seen to be believed!
Streets of Paris (Dir. Burton Holmes, B+W, 1933) 
A tour of the Paris pavilion at the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair exposition in Chicago features Sally Rand and her famous Fan Dance.

Krazy Kat, “Frogs and Kats” (B+W, 1930s, silent with added soundtrack)
Miss Kitty Kat is dying to get her time on stage, so when she falls on the leading lady for the night (and turns her into a frog?), she's got to beg Krazy to accompany her on the piano. Miss Kitty Kat finally gets her chance and dances with feathers and other cats burlesque style. One lecherous guy in the audience even has an x-ray machine to see Miss Kitty nude!


Vintage Homoerotica!
These rare beefcake shorts rarely feature any action, just tons of naked men letting their junk hang out while they dress up, strip down and bounce around!


Amateur Strip: 
Various men (all nude), dancing in front of a red curtain. Slow-motion shots as they swing their hips and gyrate. Behold the acrobatic stunts, jumping rope, men in a chorus line, taking turns dancing solo. One man even uses another as a wheelbarrow. 

The Groping Hand (Color, 1968)
This bizarre slice of homoerotica was shot in San Francisco’s North Beach in the heyday of free love. A hunky male gets all revved up gazing at the live sex show signs and clubs on Broadway when he’s beckoned in by a female hand. Once inside he cuts loose, “stripping” his time away to down and dirty soul music.



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

Oddball Films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like The Nice Guys and Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Transparent and Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

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.