Oddball Films Media
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Oct 31, 2014
Oddball Films presents Oddball's Haunted Halloween Hullabaloo, a special Halloween program of haunting ephemeral films with dancing ghosts, satanic stripteases, creepy cartoons, ghostly educational films, murderous musical numbers, terrifying trailers and more spooktacular cinema. Ichabod Crane faces off against a faceless undead monster in the much beloved Di$ney classic The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949). Betty Boop heads down to Hell and melts the king of the underworld with her icy stares in the jazzy Fleischer Brothers' cartoon Red Hot Mamma (1934). Burlesque queen Betty Dolan dances with the Devil in the sizzling Satantease (1950s). Spencer Tracy imagines an afterlife of tormented but beautiful writhing hordes in an infernal excerpt of Dante's Inferno (1935). Gracie Barrie sings about justifiable homicide in the killer soundie Stone Cold Dead in the Market (1946). One young boy speaks to a restless teen spirit and learns valuable lessons in bus safety in the educational shock film Ghost Rider (1982). Joseph Cotton narrates a loving overview of how to kill some of the silver screen's most horrific creatures in an excerpt of Monsters We Have Known and Loved (1964). With a rockin' musical break, featuring some interpretive-dancing spectres in an Old-West ghost town from John Byner's Something Else (1970). Plus a cemetery-full of Horror Trailers, campy educational primer Halloween Safety (1985) for the early ghouls, sweet treats and more satanic surprises, haunt on down to Oddball and get your Halloween started right!
Date: Friday, October 31st, 2014 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Web:
Featuring:
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Color, 1949)
Gangly school teacher Ichabod Crane has a fearful night when he runs into a headless demon on horseback in this much beloved Di$ney classic. Adapted from Washington Irving's tale and narrated by Bing Crosby.
Betty Boop in Red Hot Mamma (B+W, 1934)
It is a cold and snowy night and Betty is freezing cold in her skimpy nighty, but when she blazes a fire in the fireplace, she dreams herself into a cartoon inferno, face to face with the Devil himself, but you know no man is a match for Betty Boop!
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!
John Byner's Something Else (Color, 1970, Excerpt)
In a rockin' spooktacular clip from this eclectic musical variety show, the Action Faction dancers don ghoulish garb and get down in a ghost town. These whirling ghosts will get your hairs on end and your feet a tappin'!
Dante’s Inferno (B+W, 1935, Excerpt)
This 1935 version of the afterlife stars Spencer Tracy, and claims “It Will Burn Itself In Your Memory Forever”. This haunting excerpt features the fires and torments of the netherworld. In the age of Busby Berkeley musicals, this Inferno is chock full of hundreds of writhing tormented souls. An awe-inspiring spectacle of beauties and brimstone.
The Devil's Mill (Color, 1949, excerpt)
A delightfully spooky stop-motion puppet short from Czech master Jiri Trnka. An old soldier sets out to defeat the evil forces that dwell inside an old mill. When he spends the night in the haunted place, the demons inside do their best to foist him out, but the veteran stands tall and stands up to the mischievous evil. This excerpt features a dancing demon and a delightful array of puppet poltergeisting.
Ghost Rider (Color, 1982)
This school bus safety film has developed a cult following for its unusual (for an educational film) supernatural/love interest plot: Kevin (Doug Edmunds) is the sad and lonely new kid in town. After enduring his first day of junior high school, Kevin is befriended on the bus ride home by a sweet girl (Wendy Taylor) who offers him a sympathetic ear. She drops her pencil and Kevin picks it up, only to find that the girl has vanished. Her name is inscribed on the pencil – Tracy Donnelly.
The next time Kevin sees Tracy on the bus, she gives him a bus safety manual and begs him to read it. The other kids wonder who he’s talking to. Then Kevin finds out that Tracy is a ghost. She died in a bus accident, and what’s more, she used to live in the same house as Kevin…
Monsters We Have Known and Loved (B+W, 1964, excerpt)
From the short lived TV series “Hollywood and the Stars”. Narrated by Joseph Cotten, this half program examines the famous and bizarre creatures that have graced the silver screen. This excerpt features a hilarious How-To montage of monster-extermination.
Stone Cold Dead in the Market (B+W, 1946)
Big Band leader and 1930’s Broadway starlet Gracie Barrie sings a lovely little ditty about a wife’s revenge on her cheating husband.
Halloween Safety (Color, 1985)
Using a poorly animated jack o’lantern and the simplest English possible, the perils of All Hallows Eve are trotted out to teach kids that there’s no way they’ll be safe without a grown-up. Designed to insult anyone over the age of 4, this gem will have you reaching for a razorblade apple in no time.
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 100 shows at Oddball on everything from puberty primers to experimental animation.
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.
