Oddball Films Media
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May 1, 2014
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present What the F(ilm)?! 5: Cine-insanity from the Archive an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection. In this edition, we've got clown-faced mental hygiene primers, talking horses, grandpas gone AWOL, a claymation tooth rock opera and doll parts flying everywhere! We've got the small screen oddity Mae West Meets Mister Ed (1964) in which Mae West, playing herself, asks Wilbur to come on up and redesign her stables sometime. In If Mirrors Could Speak (1976), a straight-talking looking glass gets real with a variety of young scofflaws shamed with clown-makeup. It might be in Spanish but you won't miss the meaning behind the hilarious cartoon Sex, Booze, Blues and those Pills You Use (1982). Grandpa outfits his wheelchair with a lawnmower engine and takes off around the nursing home in The Wild Goose (1973). Jesus Christ Superstar meets the California Raisins in dental hygiene rock opera The Munchers (1973). A little girl's doll gets the crash-test dummy treatment in the ridiculous Safety Belt for Susie (1962). We go under the sea for a picnic and other strange underwater activities in Aqua Frolics (1950). With musical interludes from Les Hite and his Orchestra singing Pudgy Boy (1942) and from the Three Caballeros in Di$ney's dizzying blend of live-action and animation Blame it on the Samba (1948). It's a night of celluloid psychosis too bizarre to miss!
Date: Friday, May 2nd, 2014 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/2014/04/what-film-5-cine-insanity-from…
Featuring:
Mae West Meets Mr. Ed (B+W, 1964)
The 1960s were a hard time for many of the great stars of the 1930s and 40s. Joan Crawford made a turn towards schlocky horror, and Mae West headed for the horse stables of Television. In this bizarre episode of the classic TV program, Mae West sweeps into town and requests that Wilbur redesign her horse stable, with all the luxury fit for a Hollywood Queen. Ed overhears the conversation and begins to resent his own surroundings, shabby by comparison, but soon realizes pampering isn't what it's all cracked up to be.
Sex, Booze and Those Pills You Use (Color, 1982)
A particularly unusual, and gut-splitting, animation about alcohol and sexual disfunction reminds the audience that one or two drinks might turn you into casanova, but too much many might leave your lover something to be desired.
Blame it on the Samba (Color, 1948) A unforgettable and mesmerizing Technicolor film mix of live action and animation featuring Ethel Smith, the Dinning Sisters and a dizzying array of animated characters. Produced by Walt D*sney
Pudgy Boy - Les Hite and His Orchestra (B+W, 1942)
A supersized swingin' soundie. Big Band leader Les Hite tackles the Battle of the Bulge when all the girls go for his hunky competition.
The Wild Goose (B+W, 1973, Dir. Bruce Cronin)
An endless round of octogenarian birthday parties, insipid poetry readings, boring meals and confrontations with no-nonsense nurses make the "wild goose" determined to escape from his nursing home, wreaking havoc in his motorized wheelchair in this hilarious fantasy filled with sight-gags and in which no dialogue is necessary. Winner of a Baltimore Film Festival award, 1975, and still used as a nursing home training film!!
Safety Belt For Susie (Color, 1962)
A child’s innocent plaything turns into a creepy, almost supernatural entity. Little Nancy Norwood who takes her life-sized doll, Susie, everywhere with her. But when Mr. Norwood ploughs the family car into a tree, poor Susie gets smashed to pieces because she wasn’t wearing a safety belt. There’s lots of crash test footage, with baby dolls flying wildly through windshields and into dashboards, after which the camera lovingly dwells on the severed plastic arms and legs lying on the asphalt. An eerie and effective Driver’s Ed film, shown to unsuspecting kids in the early sixties (when seatbelts were optional equipment in cars).
The Munchers: A Fable (Color, 1973)
A must-see claymation from Art Pierson! This trippin’ dental hygiene epic takes its style from the anti-drug films we all know and love - the smokin' score and a depraved orgy complete with tiny clay chocolate bars. The cape wearing pusher man is the flamboyant and gleefully evil Jack Sweet - think Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar. Is the case for wholesome snacks helped or hindered by depicting fruits and vegetables in a dorky line dance?
Aqua Frolics (1950, B+W)
This wet and wild compilation is full of fun and strange water activities. A newsreel style staging of clowning around in a world where most people need gills, these vignettes are silly and somewhat surreal. All things once thought normal go berserk when you add a little agua. This film is a fun respite from regular news footage and sends a great message about imagination and the joy of performance art.
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.
About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
Our films 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.
