We Like Short Shorts! - Vintage Trailers, Commercials, Soundies and More


Oddball Films presents We Like Short Shorts! Vintage Trailers, Commercials, Soundies and More.  It's a night of quick cuts and short snippets with a heap load of eccentric exploitation trailers, cigarette and beer commercials, Technicolor cartoons, and sensational soundies!

Mandatory Edits (Color+B+W, c.1950-1965)
This wacko reel of censored film clips will be presented as found.  Marked “Mandatory Edits” and compiled presumably by the editor at the big Los Angeles TV station where this reel originated, these feature film clips were apparently deemed too violent, sexual, suggestive or shocking to be shown on TV.  Jarring edits take you from the Civil War to WWII to the old West, to Ancient times and back, and from color to B &W.  See flaming arrows in the chest, suggestive undergarments, bloody stumps, heaving breasts, and so much more!  See Gary Cooper, Buddy Greco, Burt Lancaster, Charo, and a cast of thousands together in the boldest film that never was!

Animation, Sex + Propaganda  Reel (Color+ B+W,1930s+1940s)
A show-stopping finale this compilation reel features some of the campiest, wildest, erotic Soundies (musical jukebox shorts), Technicolor shorts and classic animated propaganda in our collection.
Films include the fetishy campy  “Georgie Porgie” with Patty Lacey and Ray Hirsch, the sleazoid Soundie “The Man That Comes Around”, Alice Faye in “Oh! You Nasty Man” from the feature film “George White’s Scandals”. Betty Boop fights Satan in Max Fleischer’s cartoon “Red Hot Mama” the cartoon propaganda short “Chiquita Banana”  (Color) with a female dancing banana ala Carmen Miranda singing about how to store bananas and more!

1970’s Theatrical Trailers Reel
Darktown Strutters (1975) - A Blaxploitation film about a biker chick singing group on the road. Great songs and classic attitude.

1) Raga (1971) -Ravi Shankar, George Harrison. Directed by Howard Worth. Indian sitar musicians.
2) Pink Flamingos (1973) -Divine. Directed by John Waters.   Crowd being interviewed outside theater.
3) Jabberwocky (1977) -Monty Python
4) State of Siege (1973) -Yves Montand
5) Jimi Plays Berkeley and Love is Hard to Get (1971) -Jimi Hendrix.
6) Wet Dreams (1974) -Nicholas Ray. Directed by Max Fischer. Erotic, sexual surreal vignettes.
7) Truck Stop Women (1974) -Woman riding in truck, shooting people.
8) The Seduction of Mimi (1972)
9) Cabaret (1972) Teaser trailer -Liza Minnelli. Directed by Bob Fosse.
10) Immoral Tales (1975) -Group of nude women bathing in blood.
11) Conversation Piece (1975) -Burt Lancaster, Stefano Patrizzi. Directed by Luchino Visconti.
12) Trash (1970) -Joe Dallesandro, Andy Warhol. Directed by Paul Morrisey.
13) Dirty Duck (1972) -Erotic animation. Directed by Charles Swenson. The music of Flo and Eddy. 

B-Movie Trailers:
compilation tape of B-movie trailers from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
trailers include:
Girls in Trouble, Gilroy, The Student Body, Superchick, Superstooges and the Wonder Woman, Girls Are for Loving, 1000 Convicts and A Woman, Black Mama/ White Mama, The Face of Terror, Dimension 5, Freud: The Secret Passion, Lilith, Dear Heart, Flight From Ashiya, The Terror of the Tongs, A Woman of Straw, Moment to Moment, The Farmer’s Daughter, Obsession, Prime Cut, J.D.’s Revenge, Mein Kampf, Underworld USA, Black Gold,
Dimension 5 (different version), Winterhawk, The Master Gunfighter, Swiss Family Robinson/101 Dalmatians, Moment to Moment(different version), The Warlord, Take Her, She’s Mine, Go-Go Mania, The Night Child....

Bentley Feature Film Trailers and Excerpts
Apparently a reel of segments edited out of films to be shown on television for censorship reasons.  All but one scenes contain violence, impolite language, nudity or sexually explicit language or behavior.  Three pieces are parts of trailers.  One is a lengthy segment of [The Al Jolson Story?] ca 1742-1918 in which the cataloger could not detect violence or impolite or sexually explicit language or behavior, but in which Jolson appears in blackface in a minstrel show.  It appears that the entire subplot concerning the minstrel show was cut out.  Includes feature film trailers for "Ride the High Wind", "Road to Bali", and "The Girl Who Knew Too Much."

The Seven Year Itch Trailer With Film and Television Clips
Twenty-three excerpts from film and television ranging from 2 to 241 feet.  The first is Bob Hope singing "Button and Bows," and accompanying himself on the accordion,  dancer to Kora Pandit playing "Stormy Weather" .  Pandit appears several times, and most of the shortest clips are of him.  A Chaplin film appears and reappears.  The beginning of "County Hospital" is from 145 to 164.  Rosalind Russell congratulates "Screen Snapshots on its 25th anniversary" from 165-180.  Laurel and Hardy appear in another film (184-250).  The piece of the Monroe trailer is ca 302-306.  From 318-388 Carol Burnett and Durward Kerby wreck a set (a kinescope?).  

English Soundies 2:
1. Java Jive
2. Larry Clinton. Whatcha Know.
3. I wanna Foof on A Fire. Sam Coslow.
4. Tired of Waiting for You. Jimmy Dorsey.
5. Jony Pastor. Johnny McAfee, Jeanie Baird. That did it Marie.
6. She Shall Have Music. Jack Hylton.
7. Rita Rio Feed The Kitty. Women Orchestra
8. Rita Rio. Sticks And Stones
9. Wave A Stick Blues. Sam Coslow, Joseph Berne.
10. Minoeo Maids of Melody. Aileen Shirley. women orchestra in bathing suits. beach swimwear.
11. Del Casino. Betty Jane Smith.
12. Del Casino. One Look At you

70’s Films - Trailer Comp (jenni)
1. Airport 1975 (1of2)
2. The Big Bus
3. Dog Day Afternoon (1of2)
4. Z.P.G. aka Zero Population
5. Little Fauss and Big Halsy
6, Grave of the Vampire
7. House of Exorcism
8. Return of Count Yorga
9. Play it Again, Sam
10. The Posession of Joel Delaney
11. Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde
12. Escape from the Planet of the Apes
13. Cabaret (1of3)
14. Dog Day Afternoon (2of2)
15. Cabaret (2of3)
16. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
17. Charlotte's Web (cartoon)
18. Cabaret (3pf3)
19. Airport 1975 (2of2)
20. Battle for the Planet of the Apes
21. Eat my Dust!
22. Cover Girl Models
23. Switchblade Sisters
24. War Goddess

Soundies: Jazz and Jive | Sepian Stars on Parade
Jazz and Jive:
Delta Rhythm Boys in “Take the ‘A’ Train”. Black men and women sing and dance about taking the subway train to happy Harlem and Sugar Hill. 1949.

Fats Waller in “Your Feet’s Too Big” Black man sings about how your feet are too big to dance. Demonstrates how that is a problem on the dance floor. 1949.

Count Basie Orchestra in “Take Me Back, Baby”. Man trying to win back a pretty lady. 1949.

Sepian Stars on Parade:
The Mills Brothers in “You Always Hurt the One You Love” Black quartet singing on a porch. 1944.

Bill Robinson in “Let’s Scuffle” Man sings and teaches the scuffle dance in a bar. 1942.

Bob Howard in “She’s Too Hot to Handle”. Man plays the piano as women dance on stage. 1944.

Soundies

The Texas Strip.
Boy from Texas moves to Tennessee, a cowboy country band plays some country rock song while a cowboy singer with slick hair serenades sexy cowgirls on a fake farm set.  guy flirts with cowgirls sitting on a a fence. Cowboy whips a book of matches out of cowgirls hand. (pre devo) proceeds to strip cowgirl using his whip.

Come to the Fair: The Starlighters
Four farmers and a woman sing “Come to the Fair” in front of a painted background of a fair. 

There is no sunshine with spade Cooley
another cowboy band with a violin player and a very heartfelt and boring cowboy singing a heartbroken cowboy love song.

Call of the canyon with Alvo ray and his orchestra
singing cowgirls sitting around a fake camp fire set. betty Paige hairdos and white cowgirl hats four girls singing in harmony.

Please Insert a Dime: All About Soundies!

Soundies can be considered the precursors to music videos. Produced during the years 1940 to 1946, Soundies were made to be seen on self-contained, coin-operated, 16mm rear projection machines called Panorams. They were located in nightclubs, bars, restaurants and other public places. Eight Soundies, featuring a variety of musical performances, were generally spliced together on a reel which ran in a continuous loop. The Panoram, a complicated and unique machine, later served as the basis for the RCA 16mm projector.                

Soundies were produced by various companies such as Minoco and RCM Productions, headed by FDR's son James Roosevelt, Sam Coslow a song writer and Herbert Mills, a pioneer in the development of arcade music machines.

In order to achieve the widest possible distribution, Soundies covered the gamut of musical styles from country and western to Russian balalaika music, tenors singing Irish folksongs, the big band swing music of Stan Kenton and Tommy Dorsey and jazz Greats, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole.

A Soundie reel sometimes included cheesecake segments--striptease, burlesque routines or shots of women in bathing suits--specifically intended to attract wartime military personnel on leave. Appeals for war bonds and other patriotic messages ("We're All Americans", "When Hitler Kicks the Bucket", "The White Cliffs of Dover") were included. Soundies often starred little known performers who later became famous, such as Alan Ladd, Cyd Charisse, Doris Day and Ricardo Montalban, as well as performers on their way down. Many African-American performers like Dorothy Dandridge, Louis Armstrong and Stepin Fetchit who were largely absent from mainstream films except in minor roles, were featured. -From the UCLA Film Library Web Site