Oddball Films Media
•
Jul 27, 2012
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 54, a monthly screening of offbeat films, old gems and newly discovered oddities all culled from Oddball Films 50,000 film archive. Offbeat, genre-bending and wildly entertaining, this month Strange Sinema 54: Strange Sex features a truly oddball look at that confounding subject called sex. Films include the rarely-screened, award-winning documentary The Most (1963), featuring the crown prince of sex, Hugh Hefn*r in a candid (and unintentionally hilarious) profile of his erotic empire and the swingin' Playb*y Club in early 1960s Chicago, Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs(1943), one of the greatest banned cartoons of all time tells a twisted Snow White tale, Sinderella (1968), features amateur drag queens strutting their stuff in this bitch-slapping fairy tale (and Jack Smith influenced) reenactment shot in San Francisco, Woody Woodpecker goes drag and eats his landlord out of house and home in the rollicking Chew Chew Baby (1945), Uncle Si and the Sirens (1938) integrates magical technology and voyeuristic lust, while Beaver Boys Puppet Porn (1968) shows off a foxy gay puppet!, Buried Treasure (1928) the world's first erotic and kinky animated short will bring down the house, while Sandy Sunrise in The Babysitter (1970s),
Image
Date: Friday, July 27, 2012 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to info@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
The Most (B+W, 1963)
"It's not very flattering but it's a work of art."-Hugh Hefn*r
"a witty and ferociously loaded profile... The simple but devastating technique is to let Hefner spout his philosophy, then, sandwich each banality between fleshy layers of a Playboy party."
The Sunday Telegram July 26, 1964
This rarely screened, award-winning biopic by Richard Ballentine and Gordon Sheppard, chronicles the man known for selling sex to America and creating a socio-sexual cultural phenomenon, Hugh Hefn*r.
The documentary short, which won the 1963 San Francisco International Film Festival's Golden Gate Award, is an incredibly savage length of film. One wonders, in the face of all the evidence, if it really is a documentary, if its subject-Hugh Hefn*r, Playb*y magazine, Pl*yboy Clubs, Pl*yboy bunnies, the lot - exists at all. That man, strutting, preening, posing, and spouting nonsense, is a new kind of animated cartoon, a sort of mental Magoo who cannot possibly realize what he is saying when he admits, with feigned modesty, "It's probably not true that I have made love to more beautiful women than any man in history," or when he asserts, "Going by the strict definition of the word, yes, I suppose I am a genius."
The prince of playmates lives in an unspeakably vulgar playhouse, with a swimming pool and, apparently, a perennial party. The film shows Hefner's minions (one spits an ice cube back into his drink and says how much "Hef" has done to change his life) and mignonnes. Or, there he is again, in his office, late at night ("I often work in my pee-jays") saying, "I don't think I'd change places with anyone in the world," and that, at least, is a good thing, for no one who has seen Richard Ballentine and Gordon Sheppard's cinematic portrait of Hefner would he willing to switch with him.-Newsweek Magazine September 2, 1963
Image
Considered by many one of the greatest animated films of all time, Coal Black has been officially banned from circulation since 1968 and is one of the so called "Censored 11", the group of cartoons pulled by United Artists due to sexist and racist content. A parody of Snow White, (called "So White" in the film), the blackface imagery and stereotypes are shocking to witness today (including a nasty dig at the Japanese). Nonetheless, Coal Black is a cultural tour de force snapshot of 1940's America, ugly stereotypes and all.
Sinderella(B+W & Color, 1962) This amateur film produced in San Francisco by "Lorelei" is a faithful reenactment of the Brother's Grimm Cinderella.... with a super-campy twist including a handful of lovely drag queens playing all the parts. A rare document of the San Francisco drag scene in the early 60s, this gem is like a long-lost stepsister to Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures. With low-brow production values, awesome wigs and high-handed bitch slapping! Watch Sinderella's hair get a fabulous makeover when she's transformed!.
Image
The infamously notorious and annoying Woody Woodpecker manages to get himself evicted from a boarding house run by proprietor Wally Walrus. Later lonely Wally runs an ad in the local newspaper looking for a sweetheart. Woody shows up in drag at Wally's place and eats him out of house and home! A laugh riot!
Uncle Si and the Sirens (B+W, 1938)
Uncle Si sits at home with his wife reading a pamphlet about the most wonderful and marvelous invention of the age - the American Television Receiver. It can receive the human voice and show the human form. The illustration inspires him to build one. In the bedroom he works with radio parts and what looks like a mirrored vanity. Success! Miss Cynthia Squires, the world famous temperance lecturer, appears in the tv mirror. Si's wife approves. Si makes some adjustments, and a hula-hula dancer appears. This is more like it. Si dances along in delight until he swallows his tobacco. More adjustments bring nude women into view, smiling and posing discretely. Has Si found Utopia?
Beaver Boy Puppet Porn! (1968)
Decades before the rise of "furry" culture, Beaver Boy is the touching story of a young man, reading quietly by himself, who is propositioned by a fox puppet, a proposition too good to pass up.
Buried Treasure (B+W, 1924)
Image
The artists are unknown, but a widespread rumor states that a group of famous animators created the film for a private party in honor of Winsor McCay. Disn*y animator Ward Kimball gave the following account of the history of the short:
"The first porno-cartoon was made in New York. It was called "Eveready Harton" and was made in the late 20's, silent, of course-by three studios. Each one did a section of it without telling the other studios what they were doing. Studio A finished the first part and gave the last drawing to Studio B Involved were Max Fleisher, Paul Terry and
the Mutt and Jeff studio. They didn't see the finished product till the night of the big show. A couple of guys who were there tell me the laughter almost blew the top off the hotel where they were screening it."
Sandy Sunrise in the Babysitter (Color, 1971)
This bizarro Triple xxx short explores the misadventures of a female babysitter and vegetables with a mind of their own! Produced by Warped Imaginations (A Cum Stained Cartoon) featuring music from the classic Beach Boys Smiley Smile album(!) What hath the swingin', sexy 60s wrought?
Curator's Biography:
Stephen Parr's previous programs have explored the erotic underbelly of sex-in-cinema (The Subject is Sex), the offbeat and bizarre (Oddities Beyond Belief), the pervasive effects of propaganda (Historical/Hysterical?) and oddities from his archives (Strange Sinema). He is the director of Oddball Film+Video and the San Francisco Media Archive (www.sfm.org), a non-profit archive that preserves culturally significant films. He is a co-founder of Other Cinema DVD and a member of the Association of Moving Archivists (AMIA) where he is a frequent presenter.