What the F(ilm)?! 17: Oddball's Strangest Ladies - Fri. July 8th - 8PM

Oddball Films Media • Jul 7, 2016

Oddball Films presents What the F(ilm)?! 17: Oddball's Strangest Ladies, an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive stock footage collection. This time around, we're saluting the girls and women that make our archive so strange with a night full of lady wrestlers, derby dolls, psychedelic ice-skaters, little girl ventriloquists, singing and dancing celebrities, tiger burlesque numbers, talking horses and more feminine cine-insanity than you can handle. Get on the ice in a psychedelic skating segment from the bizarre TV-special Here's Peggy Fleming (1968). Take to the skies with a pre-pubescent pilot, Deborah Gubbins in the Popular Person Oddity: Pigtail Pilot (1944). Who you calling a dummy? Visit a teenage ventriloquist in Double-Talk Girl (1944). Debbie Reynolds dances on stage with some crazy big-headed celebrity marionettes in an excerpt of A Date with Debbie (1960). Two fierce fighting dames duke it out for the women's wrestling world championship in Lipstick and Dynamite (1948). Debbie Harry, Carrie Fisher, Gilda Radner and more celebrity babes in their prime explain why American Women Love Creeps (1979). Little Lulu hallucinates a bar full of celebrity babies in the bizarre cartoon The Babysitter (1947). Tragic figure Thelma Todd stars with bff Patsy Kelly in the hilarious Hal Roach crime comedy Hot Money (1935), one of her very last pictures. See historical women through the ages not talk about their menstrual pains in the opening segment of Cramps! (1983). Take a musical break with the cheeky all-girl big band soundie Feed the Kitty (1942). Burlesque cutie Sheree North is feeling feline in her Tiger Dance (1951) and two other novelty striptease numbers. Derby dolls face off in the rink in clips of vintage Roller Derby (1956), plus The Battle of the Burlesque Queens (1948), Femmesploitation Film Trailers (1970s) and more surprises. This compendium of 16mm madness is too strange to be believed and too baffling to be forgotten.

Date: Friday, July 8th, 2016 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilms.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

Lipstick and Dynamite (1949, B+W)

Furious femmes in an all-out she-brawl! Sensitive portrayal of a premier woman’s sporting event! Which is it? Come see and decide for yourself as Mildred Burke (from Los Angeles) and Mae Weston (of Columbus, Ohio) contend for the women's wrestling championship of the world.

Here’s Peggy Fleming (Color, 1968, excerpt)

This bizarre, quasi-psychedelic holiday TV special has famed Olympic skater Peggy Fleming skating through fantasy sets as a princess, a go-godancer, and Gene Kelly’s best bud. Also, we get to see her ham it up for Kodak home movie film! Olympic skater, Peggy Fleming, holds the distinction of being one ofthe few prominent athletes not to lose her shit after several decades in the public spotlight. But all the ingredients for a Grade-A nutter were in place: when she was 12, her personal coach (and the entire US figure skating team) was killed in a plane crash and by the time she turned 20, she became America’s sweetheart when she won the Olympic gold medal in figure skating.

Roller Derby (B+W, 1956 excerpt)

Episode of the trash tv program features the Chiefs vs the Jolters. Watch the hard-hitting action, audience reation shots and see “Tuffy” hit the penalty box for her excessive roughness. They called this a sport?

Double-Talk Girl (B+W, 1942)

A Universal Pictures “Popular Person Oddity” with Shirley Dinsdale and her right-hand gal, Judy Splinters. There’s nothing more unsettling than ventriloquism. Except for little girls in lace dresses doing ventriloquism. Really, it’s too much. In this wacko newsreel of the bizarre, it’s Lizzy Borden meets Chuckie as we meet a girl who may be the youngest serial killing, doll-loving supernatural psycho ever. Or she’s just good at throwing her voice and has bad taste in hobbies.

Pigtail Pilot (B+W, 1944)

Universal presents another wacky “Popular Person-Oddity.” A 12-year-old girl, Barbara Gubbins pilots a plane alone. Watch as this aspiring Earhart takes off in her tiny bi-plane and soars the skies, doing flips and tricks and even doing her own repairs on the ground. Gubbins was an avid aviatrix from the age of ten and was set to become Britain's first female RAF pilot until her tragic death in a crash along with her instructor at the age of 20 (8 years after this was filmed).

American Women Love Creeps from Mi$ter Mike'$ Mondo V*deo (Color, 1979, excerpt)

Jane Curtin, Margot Kidder, Gilda Radner, Wendie Malick, Teri Garr, Debbie Harry, Carrie Fisher and more all chime in on the things they love about creepy men, like dandruff, impotence, and nose-blowing in this hilarious bit from one of the strangest films ever made. Conceived by SNL writer Michael O'Donohue as a spoof on 1960's shock documentaries and intended to air on television, it was deemed too over-the-top and offensive by network executives. Eventually released as a short feature film where it became a midnight-movie staple, the origin of this print is a mystery and contains slugs for commercials. Could this be the original program intended for late night TV in 1979?

Sheree 3 Dances (B+W. 1951)

Burlesque vintage film featuring the fabulous Sheree North as she shakes her stuff amidst a slew of costume changes. Watch as she prowls the stage in sexy tiger garb, then shakes and shimmies in an itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikini and finally as she enjoys an Arabian night in an outfit fit for a harem.

Hot Money (B+W, 1935)

Thelma Todd stars as a Depression-era "blond wisenheimer" who finds herself -- on the day of her eviction -- in possession of fifty grand in stolen money. But to keep it, she must contend with the corpse of the hoodlum who left it with her, a rival mobster who wants the loot back, and a swarm of bumbling policemen who are trying to solve a murder and a theft, and not doing a good job with either. -Bret Wood, TCM

Co-Starring Patsy Kelly, directed by James Horne and produced by Hal Roach. Thelma Todd was a bright comedienne with an explosive career (starring in 120 films in 9 years) and the owner of a successful Hollywood restaurant. She was found dead in her own garage at the age of 29, and though no one has ever been charged with her murder, mobland whispers continue to this day.

Little Lulu in The Babysitter (Color, 1947)
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!

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.

A Date With Debbie (B+W, 1960, excerpt)

America’s sweetheart Debbie Reynolds got her very first television special in 1960, A Date With Debbie, written by comic legend Carl Reiner. The musical darling sings, dances and even attempts to make you laugh, interspersed with long form commercials from Revlon. In this segment Debbie sings to her pals, well, to giant caricature marionettes of her famous friends like Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. I guess Revlon couldn’t afford all the appearance fees.

Rita Rio - Feed the Kitty (B+W, 1942)

Rita Rio (later known as Dona Drake) and her all girl orchestra tear up the big band stage in this jazzy soundie for the ladies.



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. To search through over 20,000 clips of our unique footage, check out our website at http://www.oddballfilms.com/.

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.