Oddball Films welcomes filmmaker Karan Bali for a screening of his recent documentary An American in Madras. This compelling documentary primarily traces the American-born filmmaker Ellis R. Dungan’s years in India. Born in 1909 and hailing from Barton, Ohio, Dungan studied cinematography at USC before departing for the shores of India on February 25th, 1935 intending to stay for 6 months but ending up staying for 15 years. Without speaking a word of the language, Dungan brought many technical innovations to the developing Tamil Film Industry of the 1930s and ‘40s, and infused a sense of professionalism into its filmmaking. Dungan directed the great Tamil superstar MGR's first film, Sathi Leelavathi, as well as famed Carnatic vocalist MS Subbulakshmi's most famous films, Sakuntalai and Meera. The documentary traces Dungan's Indian connection right up to 1994, when on a trip to India, the Tamil Film Industry felicitated him in Chennai for his contribution to its development, a good 43 years after he had left India. The winner of 3 Indian Documentary Producers' Association (IDPA) Awards, this film will be presented by the filmmaker Karan Bali in person, all the way from India! Early arrivals can delve into the exciting world of Bombay Movies (1977), an inside look at the wild and extravagant world of Bollywood films in the 1970s.

Date: Friday, October 23rd, 2015 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

About Ellis R. Dungan:

An American cinematographer, born in Ohio on May 11, 1909, an alumnus of University of Southern California’s first batch of film students comes to India on the invite of a fellow USC mate, ML Tandon, in 1935 to see what he can do in the Indian film Industry. Intending to stay in India for about six months to a year, he stays behind for a decade and a half, makes several Tamil films, introduces the great MGR as an actor and directs MS Subbulakshmi’s most celebrated film, Meera (1945) as well as the seminal MGR hit Manthiri Kumari (1950) among others, before returning to USA! The man was Ellis R Dungan.

After arriving in India and informally assisting Tandon on the Tamil film Bhakta Nandanar (1935), Dungan’s first film in India was Sathi Leelavathi (1936), based on SS Vasan’s novel. Though reasonably successful in its time, it is chiefly remembered today as the film that introduced MGR to Tamil audiences. It was however with Iru Sagodarargal (1936) that Dungan became a top director in the newly developing Tamil film industry. The film is one of the earliest Tamil films based on a contemporary, social theme as against mythologicals and is a story about the conflicts and values of the joint family system. The film was shot in Bombay at Saroj Movietone and was a key film in Dungan’s attempts to create a more sophisticated cinematic language for Tamil films which otherwise were largely just photographed drama and nothing more. Dungan edited the film, drastically reduced the number of songs, made sure the comedy track was incorporated coherently into the film’s main storyline and also shot sequences outdoors wherever he could. The film was hailed as a major technical achievement in the Tamil cinema making even the Bombay film industry sit up and take notice.

Since obviously Dungan did not know Tamil, he hired interpreters who were known as ‘rush directors’ and were well-versed with both English and Tamil. He got the script translated for himself in English by dividing the action on one half of the page and the dialogues on the other. Even as Dungan concentrated on focussing on the actors’ performances, he understanding the importance of the spoken word in Tamil filmdom. He introduced the famed scenarist Elangovan with Ambikapathy (1937), Ponmudi (1949) remains one of poet Bharathidasan’s best known scripts while Manthiri Kumari was DMK leader M Kaurunanidhi’s first major literary contribution to cinema.

Meera (1945), is one of Dungan’s most well-known films and his favourite as well. The film starred famed Carnatic musician MS Subbulakshmi, who played Meerabai. Originally a huge Tamil hit, the equally successful Hindi version made a couple of years laterin 1947 had the great Sarojini Naidu introduce Subbulakshmi to a North Indian audience. The Hindi version premiere was attended by Lord and Lady Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru among others. Her rendering of Meera Bhajans in Hindi remained for years the definitive version of Meerabai’s immortal lyrics.The Tamil version is known for some of novelist Kalki’s best work as a lyrics writer, in particular the song Katrinile Varum Geetham. It is said that Dungan and his cinemtographer used a mould of Subbulakshmi’s face and shot it at various angles with different lighting techniques. After viewing the results, they chose the best ones to create Meera’s ethereal, angelic beauty. The scene where a young Meera changes into adulthood through the songs, Nanda Bala En Manala (young Meera) and Murali Mohana (adult Meera) with an interlude piece in between to show the passage of time remains much admired even today as does the sequence showing the spread of the popularity of Meera’s songs across the country.

Dungan returned to the States due to personal problems with his wife, Alice. He, however, came back to India for the Indo-US co-production, The Jungle (1952), starring Rod Cameron, Marie Windsor and Caeser Romero, on which he was associate producer,. The film was even dubbed into Tamil as Kaadu (1952)! After this, Dungan continued to revisit India occasionally as 2nd unit photographer for Harry Black (1958) and Tarzan Comes to India (1962) or directing documentaries with an Indian backdrop. He was given a hero’s welcome and felicitated by the Tamil film industry on his last visit to India in 1994.

In America, Dungan formed Ellis Dungan Productions and made documentary shorts, industrial films and the like for nearly two decades from 1963 onwards. His last film, Josiah Fox: Architect of the First US Navy (1987), was a tribute to his great, great grandfather, a naval architect, who designed the very first ships of war for the American Navy. Dungan passed away in Wheeling, West Virginia in the United States on December 1, 2001. He had lived there since 1958 once he returned to America.

Main Crew:

Director: Karan Bali
Producer: Alex Anthony
Camera: RV Ramani
Editing: Irene Dhar Malik
Sound Design: Mohandas VP

Location Sound: R Elangovan

People Interviewed: S Theodore Baskaran, Kamal Haasan, K Hariharan, Sasirekamma, Uma Vangal, Rochelle Shah, Mohan V Raman, Dr Radha Viswanathan, CM Muthu, S Krishnaswamy, DV Balakrishna, Film News Anandan, R Venkataswamy, S Kalaivani, Kullamma, Eric Thomas and Ellis R Dungan himself.

Director's Bio:

Karan Bali (Lawrence School, Lovedale, 1986, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, 1989) graduated from the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, with specialization in Direction in 1993. With Mumbai as his base, he has been making mainly documentaries besides being first assistant director on two feature films, Everybody Says I’m Fine and Matrubhoomi - A Nation Without Women. He teaches filmmaking and is also the co-founder and content-in-charge of Upperstall.com, an analytical portal on cinema of the sub-continent. An American in Madras is his first feature length documentary.

Film Festivals:

- The Chennai International Film Festival, Chennai, December, 2013

- Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films (MIFF), Mumbai, February 2014

- New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF), New York, May 2014 (Best Documentary Nominee)

- South Asian International Documentary Festival (SAID), Seattle, June 2014

- London Indian Film Festival, London, July 2014

- International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, Trivandrum, July 2014

- Prague Indian Film Festival, Prague, October 2014

- Seattle South Asian Film Festival (SSAFF) Seattle, November 2014

- International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, November 2014

Awards:

3 Indian Documentary Producers' Association (IDPA) Awards.

- Gold for Best Editing

- Silver for Best Sound Design

- Special Jury Mention for Direction

For the Early Birds:

Bombay Movies (Color, 1977, 16mm)

The entire output of the American film industry is the merest trickle in comparison with India, where the original Moguls release many times more films each year than the Americans can ever dream of. Studios in Bombay’s Hollywood, Bollywood, churn out a smorgasbord of musicals and exploitation films on a daily basis, serving the needs of India’s vast moviegoing public. Follow mega-star Vinod Khanna as he introduces American audiences to cinema, Indian-style.

The San Francisco Media Archive and Oddball Films would like to welcome you to Home Movie Day in conjunction with the 13th Annual Worldwide Home Movie Day with a free home movie workshop and inspection and a free screening of offbeat and bizarre home movies. So, bring us your films: 8mm, Super 8, 16mm, and even VHS home movies to SFMA where they will be inspected and viewed by HMD projectionists. Following the clinic, we'll be having a free screening of Bizarro Home Movies from the 1950s-1970s that everyone is welcome to attend. The home-made hijinks may include (lineup subject to change) WelcomeSan Francisco Movie Makers; From Here to Profanity a local amateur film with children acting out adult rolls; way-out contests including Wrist Wresting, Angels Camp Frog Jumping Contest, the ludicrous hi-jinks of ”Front Yard Bob” juggling flaming torches in front of his house, homegrown hippies in Banana Skin Freaks, elderly Tiki girls getting the burlesque urge, Crossing the Equator drag and hazing rituals, whale rendering and other very bizarre and xxx rated “blue” home movies too nerdy and naughty to mention! So bring your own family treasures or just marvel at some one else's for a celebration of amateur filmmaking and home movie preservation.

"There's no such thing as a bad home movie. These mini-underground opuses are revealing, scary, joyous, always flawed, filled with accidental art and shout out from attics and closets all over the world to be seen again. Home Movie Day is an orgy of self-discovery, a chance for family memories to suddenly become show business. If you've got one, whip it out and show it now."

-- John Waters

Date: Saturday, October 17th, 2015 Screening at 8:00PM, Home Movie Clinic 6-8 or by appointment.

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110

For More Info: 415-558-8117 or info@oddballfilm.com
Web: http://www.centerforhomemovies.org/hmd/

Highlights Include (Line-up subject to change):

Welcome San Francisco Movie Makers (1960)
Shortly after the introduction of 16mm to the consumer market in 1923, amateur filmmaking clubs sprung up throughout the country. These venues would provide a place for average folks to “geek-out” on everything filmmaking from equipment to shooting techniques to projecting.

This short was shot by San Francisco filmmaker, Dr. Frank S. Zach, serves to not only welcome new members to the local club, but also to teach them basic the basics of how to use a camera and projector.

Wrist Wrestling (1970s, Color)

Watch beefy “wrist wrestlers” battle it out!

Home Movie Hi-jinks with Front Yard Bob (1950s, Color, B+W)
More bizarre home moves unearthed from a local flea market. Watch the ludicrous hi-jinks of ”Front Yard Bob” as he juggles flaming torches in front of his house, later some elderly “Tiki” girls get the burlesque urge!

Sylvia and Mary’s Double Wedding (Color, 1968)
Sylvia and Mary get married in a double ceremony somewhere in Michigan. Fun for everyone, kissing, alcohol and women with beehive do’s!

Strike! and Naked (Color, 1969 by Sternkopf)
Straight from a dumpster this film was shot by a student cinematographer and records the brutal 1969 SF State University protest and strike. At the end of the film an arty naked blonde cavorts with a mannequin in a more “flower power” state of mind.

Banana Skin Freaks (Color, 1960s)

Hippies in Golden Gate Park freak-out with banana skins-you know the fruit skins that supposedly made you high...what else?

From Here to Profanity (Color, 1959)
Children act out the roles from the film “From Here to Eternity” in this kooky short made by an amateur filmmaker.

Crossing the Equator (Neptunus Rex) (1950s, Color)
Kinky tourists dress in drag and suck oysters out of navels as part of the age-old seafarer’s “Crossing the Equator” hazing ritual.

More about Home Movie Day

Home Movie Day was started in 2002 by a group of film archivists concerned about what would happen to all the home movies shot on film during the 20th century. They knew many people have boxes full of family memories that they've never seen for lack of a projector, or out of fear that the films were too fragile to be viewed. They also knew that many people were having their amateur films transferred to videotape or DVD, with the mistaken idea that their new digital copies would last forever and the "obsolete" films could be discarded. Original films (and the equipment required to view them) can long outlast any version on VHS tape, DVDs, or other digital media. Not only that, but contrary to the stereotype of the faded, scratched, and shaky home movie image, the original films are often carefully shot in beautiful, vibrant color—which may not be captured in a lower-resolution video transfer.

Home Movie Day has grown into a worldwide celebration of these amateur films, during which people in cities and towns all over meet their local film archivists, find out about the archival advantages of film over video and digital media, and—most importantly—get to watch those old family films! Because they are local events, Home Movie Day screenings can focus on family and community histories in a meaningful way. They also present education and outreach opportunities for local archivists, who can share information about the proper storage and care of personal films, and how to plan for their future.

The Center for Home Movies is a registered not-for profit organization supported through grants and donations. CHM’s primary mission is to promote, preserve and educate the public about amateur films.

To learn more about CHM, visit http://www.centerforhomemovies.org/

For all press and organizational inquiries specific to CHM or HMD, please contact Dwight Swanson at film@homemovieday.com or 443-630-7089.

More about the San Francisco Media Archive

The San Francisco Media Archive is a non-profit institution dedicated to acquiring, preserving and making available film and related media materials to historians, researchers, imagemakers and the general public. The archive is composed of thousands of film, videotapes, filmstrips and other media materials including important historical and contemporary documentaries, educational films designed to inform, feature films produced for entertainment, independent and avant-garde films by cinematic visionaries, industrial, sponsored films showcasing manufacturing and business, television, and new films including newsreels, television news films, amateur films including home movies, cine clubs and community based films, promotional advertisements and b-roll, outtakes and trims from collections across the world.

We also have concentrated Resource Library of reference books including preservation resources, copyright entry books and educational film listing directories.

To learn more about SFMA, visit

www.sfm.org

Oddball Films presents Learn your Lesson on the School Bus: An Accidental Shockucation, the 31st in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational scare films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month, in honor of Halloween, we're bringing you the gruesome, horrifying and deadly history of the school bus safety film with everything from hand puppets, felt punching bags with faces, ghost romances and little goody-goodies to round out the utter carnage! From Gene Starbecker - the "father of the school bus safety film" - come two of the bloodiest scare films of all time: And Then It Happened (1972) and Death Zones (1975). These over-the-top nightmares feature the rowdiest kids you've ever seen - wielding knives, smoking, popping pills - the most patient of bus drivers and bodies galore! Busses end up in lakes and upside-down, they run over countless children, and leave a body count higher than most horror films! On the lighter side of bus safety, audience favorite Bobbie the plucky Bus Nut (1980) is back spreading her good bus vibes in her favorite yellow "bus nut" T-shirt! Watch out for the schmoadles, punching bag shaped blobs that terrorize the bus driver with their terrible hallucinatory behavior in School Bus Safety: A Schmoadle Nightmare (1975). Get ghostly with bus safety when a new boy befriends a girl on the bus only to realize his new crush is a Ghost Rider (1982). With bonus bus safety cartoons, hand puppets and more surprises in store, it's a great night to buckle up and learn your lesson!

Date: Friday, October 16th, 2015 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

Highlights Include:

Two Gruesome Picks from Gene Starbecker!

And Then It Happened (Color, 1972)
Produced and directed by Gene Starbecker, the “father of the school bus safety film” this classic cult film features lots of noisy, wisecracking kids and a catastrophe that has permanently scarred (!) anyone who has seen it in school over 30 years ago. Starbecker produced over 970 documentaries and 300 television programs (including the gritty Broderick Crawford cop show “Highway Patrol”). The story concerns two horrific bus accidents and the rowdy behavior of the kids aboard that led to the deadly outcomes. There are knife-fights and dogs, smoking, pill-popping and even mice on the loose! The bus drivers are played by veteran actors Josh Mostel (son of Zero Mostel) and Peggy Pope (9 to 5), still early in their careers.

Death Zones (Color, 1975)

Whatever you do, stay OUT of the death zones! A horrifying scare film that centers on three separate stories of unfortunate children that walked into a bus driver's blind spot and never walked out! Our first tale is for the little ones, a story of a little kindergartener so excited to give her mother a valentine that she was willing to trade her life for it. Then, we move onto the problem kids: the junior high schoolers who summarily sacrifice one of their own, under the wheel of the bus. And finally the senior high schoolers, who ought to be savvier than their younger counterparts, but on a snowy day, all bets are off!

Bus Nut (Color, 1980)

Bobbie’s not like the other kids on her morning school bus. For them it’s just a ride, for her it’s the first step on the path of a life devoted to transportation safety. It’s okay with her parents and pleases professional bus driver Mrs. Harrison, too. This study of youthful obsession is not just a clever guise for a school safety primer, it’s a reminder that some fixations start very early. Co-starring the color yellow.

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…

Trivia: Actor Doug Edmunds went on to co-found the 90s powerpop band the Gladhands.

School Bus Safety: A Schmoadle Nightmare (Color, 1975)
Reason number 27 not to take acid when you drive a school bus: you’ll be beset by huge, inflated, paramecium-shaped truants who want to make your life a living hell! See a school bus driver fend off a gaggle of Schmoadles, badly behaved little bastards who don’t know how sit still and can’t ride a bus without getting the cops involved. No one else can see them, but the bus driver knows they’re still there… Another bonkers production from Crocus Films and Art Pierson!

Curator’s Biography

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

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.

Oddball Films presents Southern Gothic - The Haunting Tales of Ambrose Bierce, a chilling night of deadly delights from the master of the twist ending. Ambrose Bierce, whose Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Kurt Vonnegut called the greatest of American short stories, was a master of psychological terror. His short, unpretentious stories - largely set during the civil war - often featured abrupt twist endings and their simplicity leant themselves perfectly to filmic interpretation. From Robert Enrico comes the brilliant (as well as Cannes and Oscar-winning) adaptation of Ambrose Bierce's haunting tale about the final romantic thoughts of a condemned man, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962). Also from Robert Enrico's Civil War Trilogy: the mind-bending Chickamauga (1962), a dark and surreal story of a deaf-mute boy's eerily playful interpretation of one of the bloodiest battles in the American Civil War. Step into a haunted house in the well-crafted and devastating ghost story The Return (1973) an unsung short Horror classic begging to be rediscovered. Early birds will be treated to The Boarded Window (1973), a tragic tale of isolation and mistaken identity. Everything screened on 16mm prints from the archive.

Date: Thursday, October 15th, 2015 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

Featuring:

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (B+W, 1962, Robert Enrico)

Robert Enrico's Cannes and Oscar-winning adaptation of Ambrose Bierce's haunting tail of a Confederate soldier about to be hanged for the crime of defacing the very bridge he's to be executed off of. As he nears the fatal moment, he thinks back to his lovely wife and his homestead; a breathtaking romantic fever dream of a condemned man. As his noose snaps and he plunges into the water, he immediately attempts an escape towards the loving arms of his wife... or does he? The second in a trilogy of Ambrose Bierce civil war stories, this film has the added distinction of being the only foreign film ever aired as an episode of The Twilight Zone (in 1964). Breathtaking cinematography and an intricately-layered soundtrack make for an unforgettable experience.

Chickamauga (B+W, 1962, Robert Enrico)

The first part of Robert Enrico's Civil War Trilogy, based on the short stories of Ambrose Bierce. The most famous of the trilogy, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, won several international awards, and yet this masterpiece of dark surrealism has largely been overlooked for years, yet remains even more poetic, more devastating and more haunting than Occurrence. A young boy, who is both deaf and mute wanders away from his home on the day of battle at Chickamauga creek (a battle which claimed 35,000 lives within two days and earned Chickamauga its nickname "The Bloody Pond"). Unable to hear the carnage and without the life experience to grasp the horrors around him, he wanders through an increasingly bleak and bloody landscape perceiving it as some kind of ridiculous fantasy. The counterpoint of the boy's glee and enthusiasm to the grim realities around him make for one unforgettable cinema experience.

The Return (Color, 1973)

A slow burning ghost story with a devastating ending (as with most of Bierce's work). An old man is interested in buying a house with a bloody history, or perhaps he's just interested to know if the ghost stories are true. The housekeeper relays to him the story of the previous tenants - an unhinged man who allegedly murdered his wife without any memory of the event - as well as the ghostly presence she feels in the vacant master bedroom. Starring Rosalie Crutchley and Peter Vaughan and directed by Sture Rydman.

For the Early Birds:

The Boarded Window (Color, 1973)

This short film version of his story The Boarded Window packs a serious punch. The film begins with serene look at the daily routine of a simple woodsman trapping in the Appalachian mountains, rife with chirping birds and swaying pines, but as his dutiful wife becomes stricken with fever in their isolated cabin, the story swiftly escalates to a screaming pitch that will leave our woodsman sweeping up the splinters of his psyche.

About Ambrose Bierce:

Ambrose Bierce (one of 13 children from an impoverished Meigs County, Ohio family) was a fascinating figure who not only was a prolific short story writer, but also a newspaper editor, critic, satirist, poet, journalist and soldier who served in the army during the Civil War. He dabbled in both business and politics, was nicknamed 'Bitter Bierce' because of his caustic, sardonic wit, traveled and worked abroad and famously disappeared never to be seen again sometime during the Mexican revolution (the 71-year-old was last seen in the presence of rebel troops). Bierce is perhaps most famous for his 1891 short story 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' which has gone on to influence countless writers and filmmakers over the years. - The Bloody Pit of Horror

Curator’s Biography

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

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.

Oddball Films presents Vintage Halloween Hullabaloo, a program of vintage 16mm films to get us in the mood for All Hallows' Eve with cartoons, ridiculous educational films, giant genitalia costumes, Satanic smut, witches, ghouls and made-for-tv terrors. Di$ney teaches us the history, mystery and danger of this ghoulish night with the narrator from the Haunted Mansion and his classic cartoon pals in Di$ney's Haunted Halloween (1984). Halloween Safety (1985) gives us valuable lessons about awesome robot costumes, horrible face makeup and of course, tainted candy. One man heads out to the Halloween parade in Greenwich Village dressed like a real dick in Halloweenie (1986, print courtesy of the Jenni Olson Queer Archive). The Occult: X-Factor or Fraud? (1973) examines the groovy Woodstock-era resurgence of the dark arts. Witchcraft’s time-tested power is pitted against Woody Woodpecker's madcap cartoon mojo in Witch Crafty (1955). With a rockin' musical break, featuring some interpretive-dancing spectres in an Old-West ghost town from John Byner's Something Else (1970) and the dancing witches of Ida Lupino's La Strega and one of our very favorite cartoons: Betty Boop teams up with Cab Calloway for one spooky night in Minnie the Moocher (1932). Plus, a coffin full of Horror Movie Trailers, Sweet Treats, Scary Surprises and a Ouija board for pre-show haunts!

Date: Friday, October 30th, 2015 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

Highlights Include:

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.

Halloweenie (1986, Color, print courtesy of the Jenni Olson Archive)

A ridiculous mini-doc about Bill Daughton and his creation of a six-foot penis costume at the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, New York. See Daughton dressed up in the giant penis costume, walking around campus, catching the subway, and chatting with people about the costume on his way to the Halloween Parade. People come up and lick the costume, or even kiss it. At the end of the parade, Daughton ceremoniously throws the costume in the Hudson and watches it float away.

Minnie The Moocher (B+W, 1932)

All time classic Fleischer Brothers cartoon featuring Cab Calloway and his Orchestra (seen live briefly at the beginning), Betty Boop and Bimbo. Betty runs away from home and runs across a swinging cavalcade of skeletons, ghosts and witches. The happening song contains thinly veiled sex and drug references: Minnie she meets up with a pimp, the king of Sweden, who gives her “somethin she was needin'”…then gets caught up with a pot headed coke-sniffing junkie who teaches her how to "kick the gong" (mainline heroin). One of the best cartoons of the Oddball collection.

The Occult: X-Factor or Fraud (Color, 1973)

X-Factor or Fraud presents us with self-styled mystical types ranging from earnest believers to hucksters, served up with a generous sprinkling of cheese. It's hippie chic meets old-style hag-tastic, with the motley bunch weighing in all things otherworldly. This camp fest is graced by the grandeur of talk-show-hopping superstar sorceress, Sybil Leek.

Witch Crafty (Color, 1955)

Woody Woodpecker's animated anarchy versus witchcraft, what a battle! When a passing witch-in-distress stiffs Woody for the price of a broomstick, our feathered friend employs a bag of cartoon world tricks a witch could never dream of in order to get the crone to cough up his dime. Any guesses who wins?

D*sney’s Haunted Halloween (Color, 1984)

Goofy learns the history and traditions of All Hallows' Eve and some of the modern-day dangers he might face on this creepy night, all illustrated by classic animation from the ol’ mousey studio. Also contains some live action and scenes (as well as the spooky narrator) from the Haunted Mansion.

Health: The Dirt Witch Cleans Up (Color, 1972)
What’s wrong with the people who made this stupefying film? Here good health habits and cleanliness are promoted in a fantasy about a witch who casts spells to make others as dirty and miserable as she is. According to the Chief AV Geek Skip Elsheimer “this is one of those mind bendingly bizarre films that troubled and confused generations of kids”.

The Devil (B+W, circa 1920’s, silent, excerpt)

Silent smut from France! It's just another picnic dans le foret for a sextet of tender nymphs, scampering and splashing au naturel in a gentle stream. That's until les juenes filles are interrupted in their frolics by the theatrically turned out Horned One, who might just have escaped from a Méliès short. The usual stag film action ensues, but the vintage beauty of this sex film makes it a devilish winner.

For the Early Birds:

Trick or Treat (1969, Color)

A cheese-filled educational primer about the effects of vandalism set on Halloween. Pete's cowboy outfit is too small now. He has really outgrown trick-or-treating. But his pal Sandy has talked him into one last fling. Pete's dad extracts a promise that the boys will commit no mischief, and things just get worse from there. And how!

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
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.

Oddball Films presents Suck on This! - Vamps and Vampires, a night of 16mm bloodsucking beasts and bewitching babes from the Oddball crypt. Sink your fangs into delicious excerpts from the famous Dracula (1931), starring Bela Lugosi, a confection that introduced the legendary Count Dracula and his spider eating minion Renfield to the silver screen. In Mrs. Amworth, a strange illness is plaguing a small English town; the locals think it's the gnats, but a doctor is out to prove that the sweet lady down the road is one of the oldest vampires in England. French clown Pierre Etaix wrote, directed and stars in the delightful vampire tale Insomnie (1963). On the lighter side, see hilariously spooky bits from Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), directed by Charles Barton, where the wacky duo encounter Dracula! Forget the garlic, one woman's chain smoking is enough to keep Dracula away in Ashes of Doom (1970). For the vamps, we've got the original Vamp: Theda Bara in an excerpt of the cinematic documentary The Love Goddesses (1965). 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). Plus more Burlesque Cuties, trailers for Love at First Bite, Grave of the Vampire and more bloodsucking surprises!

Date: Thursday, October 29th, 2015 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

Featuring:

Dracula (B+W, 1931, Excerpts)

In this epic film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi, a solicitor visits a sinister castle despite warnings from the locals! Renfield (the solicitor) becomes Dracula’s minion who brings him to London, where he wreaks havoc attacking lovely ladies, and turning them into vampires. Will Dracula continue his swath of destruction? Or will a couple of protective gentlemen stop him?!

Insomnie (Color & B+W, 1963, Pierre Etaix)

A delightfully comedic send-off to the vampire-melodrama written by, starring and directed by French clown, comedian, and acclaimed filmmaker Pierre Etaix. A man (played by Etaix) is having trouble sleeping. He takes pills, settles in and yet, nothing. He begins to read a vampire novel, fading in and out of the narrative (and even playing the head vampire as well) as he gets more and more insomniomatic. As daylight enters the story and "real" life as well, the man finally falls asleep, only to realize the blood-sucking has only just begun!

Mrs. Amworth (Color, 1975)
A small British town is plagued by a strange sickness the locals believe is transmitted via gnats. One scientist is determined to get to the root of the problem, and finds himself running up against one of the oldest vampires in England, and what's more, she's the charming and effervescent Glynis Johns.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (B+W, 1944)

In this film (excerpted), directed by Charles Barton, see two hapless freight handlers who find themselves encountering Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man! The film opens with Dracula and a lovely fur-coated woman discussing what they should do with Frankenstein’s body! Abbott and Costello and the lovely dame convene at a party with Dracula. Is she under his thrall? A stranger recognized Dracula and starts yelling about how Dracula is the “real” Count Dracula. But everyone dismisses him and the woman takes Lou Costello into the forest for a lover’s walk! What will happen next?!

Ashes of Doom (Color, 1970s)

In this campy and dramatic short, a woman, wracked with nerves, calms herself by chain smoking. Finally, the moment she has been dreading arrives! It’s Dracula and he’s ready to embrace her and suck her blood! He goes in for the bite and comes back up with a surprised look on his face! What is the problem Dracula?!

The Love Goddesses (B+W, 1965, excerpt)

This multi-part series explores the evolution of the sex symbol in Hollywood and world factors that influenced these transformations of desire. This film examines how, from the silent film era to the 1930s, societal attitudes about onscreen portrayals of love and sex evolved on screen. The film provides a collage of the progression of female starlets from engenues, to vamps, ushered in by the original Vamp, Theda Bara.

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!

Satan-Tease (B+W, 1955)

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!

Hyde and Sneak (Color, 1962)

Inspector Willoughby finds himself up against jewel-thieving temptress Vampira Hyde, whose shape-shifting pills defeat all of his clever traps.

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 200 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 Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

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.

Oddball Films continues its creepy month of October with Cursed Kids - The Horror of Childhood, with a triple feature of short horror films for and about children mixed with a smattering of educational scare films, animation and musical shorts, all on 16mm from the archive. Peter Medak directs The Rocking Horse Winner (1977), a demonic adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s chilling story about a boy who rocks himself into clairvoyant trances in order to predict horse racing winners and help his mother get out of debt. Di$ney gets into the horror game with Bette Davis and an alternate dimension of terror in the unforgettable Watcher in the Woods (1980, condensed version). The ABC Weekend Special gets spooky in The Red Room Riddle (1983), a tale of a haunted house full of ghost servants and dogs that traumatized a generation of kids. Sid Davis, master of the scare film, brings us the scenarios of four "real-life" nightmares from the seemingly ever-present threat of child-molesters and murderers in Boys Aware (1973). Are you scared of the dark? Never fear, Spooky Boos and Room Noodles (1970s) - an animated anti-scare film for the tiny tots - will have you too baffled to be frightened. And come sing along with the "feelings" gang and sing your fears away with the ridiculous educational primer I'm Feeling Scared (1974). Early birds can relive the Mercer Mayer classic There's a Nightmare in My Closet (1987), plus trailers for The Exorcist and The Omen and even more surprises!

Date: Thursday, October 22nd 2015 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

Highlights Include:

The Rocking Horse Winner (Color, 1977)

Adapted from the chilling D.H. Lawrence story, The Rocking Horse Winner features a youngster in a strained familial situation, who eavesdrops on his parents’ raucous quarrels over money. Desperate to cheer up his depressive mother, who can no longer afford to pay the bills of their grand family estate and who grieves that her “luck has run out,” and spurred on by whispers he hears from the house that “there must be more money,” young Paul begins secretly placing bets on horses through his sympathetic uncle (played by Kenneth More) to raise money for his mom. Little does his uncle know, however, that Paul’s miraculous winning streak has been ill-achieved, through semi-satanic means. This film features black magic, a trippy soundtrack, and a blood curdling climax. Directed by Peter Medak (The Changeling) for the Canadian literary horror show Classics Dark and Dangerous.

The Red Room Riddle (Color, 1983)
This haunted episode of the ABC Weekend Special that traumatized many a youngster with its low-budget effects finally comes to the big screen! Billy Jacoby (Just One of the Guys, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, and younger brother of 1970s child actor extraordinaire Scott Jacoby) is initiating a new boy into his club by bringing him to a notoriously haunted house. As they attempt to break in, the lock on the gate mysteriously falls off and ushers the two boys into a world of Victorian ghosts, inexplicable red rooms and glowing orbs. Will they make it out alive to tell the club about all the spooky ghost butlers and ghost gardeners they've seen?

Watcher in the Woods (Condensed Version, Color, 1980)

Di$ney does Horror in this taut and creepy tale starring Bette Davis and Real Housewife Kyle Richards! A family moves into a lavish but rundown country estate with a mysterious past and a rift to another dimension. The teenage daughter seems to be the only one that can solve a 30 year mystery and draw a missing girl out of her alternate-dimensional prison. Genuinely spooky for grownups and eternally haunting to those who saw it in their youth, this abridged version (with closed captioning for deaf students) skips over the slow moments and misses none of the creeps.

Boys Aware (Color, 1973) Sid Davis, the father of the pedophilia scare film presents four case histories portraying homosexual advances toward young boys. We start off when Ralph shows Billie some pornographic pictures. “What Billie didn’t know was that Ralph was sick”, our narrator says, “a sickness that was not visible like smallpox but no less dangerous and contagious, a sickness of the mind. You see Ralph was a homosexual, a person who demands an intimate relationship with members their own sex.” This over-the-top film, produced in conjunction with the Inglewood, CA Unified School District and Police Department pulls out every homosexual stereotype and scare tactic in the book including the jolting line “That evening Mike traded his life for a newspaper headline”.

Spooky Boos and Room Noodles (Color, 1970s)
Have you got monsters in your room at night? Don't worry, the room noodles will tickle them into submission! This cut-out cartoon short aimed at assuaging children's fear of the dark doesn't bother explaining any facts, it just relies on lies and "room noodles" to get the job done. I guess imaginary monsters require imaginary foes.

I’m Feeling Scared (Color, 1974)
Come on out and learn the ‘feelings song’ tonight! That’s right, there’s a song for kids and the kid in all of us about how to deal with the feelings and emotions that come up when faced with events like jumping off a diving board, being called to the principal’s office, meeting new people, and having a dog bark at you. Don’t be frightened, it’s ok!

Curator’s Biography

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
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.

Oddball Films welcomes famed distributor Canyon Cinema Foundation to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Canyon Cinema Foundation will showcase a selection of rare films from its vast catalog of experimental and avant-garde works celebrating San Francisco - it’s makers, landscape, culture and weirdos. From an expanded cinema bike ride, to a humanities class confessional, to an irreverent documentary asking “what is hard-core?”, this program highlights works made in the Bay Area over a period of 30 years and offers glimpses of beloved artists (such as George Kuchar) and transformed cityscapes. Presented on 16mm, this Soiree will include, Nathaniel Dorsky’s 17 Reasons Why (1987), Greta Snider’s Hard Core Home Movie (1989), Tomonari Nishikawa’s dual projection work Into the Mass (2007) Alice Anne Parker Severson’s Introduction to Humanities (1972), Degrees of Limitation (1982) by Scott Stark, By the Sea (1982) by Toney Merritt, and more!

Date: Thursday, November 5th, 2015 at 8:00pm

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco

Admission: $12.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117

Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com

HARD-CORE is a frank and irreverent documentary that asks the question, "what is hard-core?" Seedy, grainy, and fast-paced, this is a nostalgic look at an ephemeral moment in the history of a subculture: punk rock in San Francisco in the late eighties. Everyone from fucked-up teenagers to elderly Mexican tourists attempts to explain the allure and mystique of the scene. Filmed at SF's historical petting-zoo/theater/punk rock emporium The Farm.

Degrees of Limitation | Scott Stark | 1982 | 3 minutes | COLOR | SILENT
A single 100' roll shot with a hand-wound 16mm Bolex. For each shot the camera was wound one additional time, allowing me to make it a little bit farther up the hill. Will I reach the top before the film runs out? A study in self-imposed limitations.

Into the Mass | Tomonari Nishikawa | 2007 | 6 minutes | COLOR | SILENT - dual projection!

Attaching two super 8 cameras on my bicycle, one on each pedal, I captured the side views of streets, while riding the bike from the Headlands Center for the Arts to San Francisco. The ride joined in the the Critical Mass, an event by San Francisco bicyclists on the last Friday of each month. The dual projection image shows the new landscape of the city.

By the Sea | Toney W. Merritt | 1982 | 2.5 minutes | COLOR | SILENT
A film made from Merritt’s old studio apartment on Telegraph Hill. A portrait of sorts.

17 Reasons Why | Nathaniel Dorsky | 1987 | 19 minutes | COLOR | SILENT
17 REASONS WHY was photographed with a variety of semi-ancient regular 8 cameras and is

projected unslit as 16mm. These pocket-sized relics enabled me to walk around virtually "unseen," exploring and improvising with the immediacy of a more spontaneous medium. The four image format has built-in contrapuntal resonances, ironies, and beauty, and in each case gives us an unpretentious look at the film frame itself ... the simple and primordial delight of luminous Kodachrome and rich black and white chugging thru these timeworn gates.

About Canyon Cinema:

Since 1967, Canyon Cinema has been the west-coast hub for accessing groundbreaking experimental films. Our collection includes 3,500 titles representing the work of over 250 artists including legends such as Bruce Baillie, Chick Strand, Stan Brakhage, Robert Nelson, Gunvor Nelson, Lawrence Jordan and many more. A leading resource for scholars, curators and enthusiasts worldwide, Canyon Cinema fosters scholarship and supports the community that surrounds artist-made moving image works. First emerging in 1961 from Bruce Baillie’s backyard as a screening series where local Canyon, California audiences watched artist-made films by Bay Area filmmakers, Canyon Cinema has been firmly rooted in the region for over 50 years and is an organization integral to San Francisco’s art and cultural heritage.

Visit the Canyon Cinema Foundation website to find out more - www.canyoncinema.com

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 94, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ vast collection of 16mm film prints. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 94th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 94: Sex in Cinema is an eye-popping exploration of sex in cinema and all its genres from industrial films, commercials, animated features, amateur films, documentaries and musical shorts. Sex sells, they say and this program showcases the vast variety of outlets for it. We lay the foundation for our program with The Most (1963), a rarely screened, award-winning biopic by Richard Ballentine and Gordon Sheppard, that chronicles Pl*yboy’s Hugh H*fner, the man known for selling sex to America and creating a socio-sexual cultural phenomenon. Insightful and ferocious, this doc uncovers the banal layers of H*fner’s lifestyle and narcissistic “genius”. Winner of the San Francisco International Film Festival’s Golden Gate Award. We continue our program with a jaw-dropping sexist commercial for Chemical Bank (1970s)“When her needs are financial her reaction is chemical” and a 1960s inspired occult spot for Bigelow Carpets followed by Wear Safety Shoes (1970s), a fetishistic advertisement for safety shoes. Other gems include a peek inside Fredericks of Hollywood (1970s) and its sexist camp and over–the-top fanny pad saleswomen, Erik Is Here! (1960s) featuring a man, his Viking ship and his sexy cigar, Sadie the Sunbather (1948), a rare, titillating soft-core “nudie cutie” by Seaside films featuring a buxom female and a snarky sexist narrator andClorets(1950s), a pseudo-scientific study of bad breath (!) and social stigmas. Other highlights include Texas Strip (1948), the musical Soundie that inspired the Devo video “Whip It”, where a singing cowboy flirts with cowgirls sitting on a fence, then strips one of them with his whip (oh my!), the trailer for American Dreamer (1971) the most pretentious, hilariously awful, mind-boggling bio-sex film to ever come from the coked out head of Dennis Hopper. Other eye-popping shorts include highlights from the infamous New York Erotic Film Festival (1971), a fashion trip to polyester land as statuesque models show off Christian Dior Action Wear Hosiery and Yves St. Laurent belts and scarves amidst the picturesque ruins of Athens in The Greeks Have a Word For It (1969), Woody Woodpecker in romantic drag romances Wally the Walrus in The Gate Crasher (1969) and don’t miss The Magician (1970s) as he strips he-men naked through the wonders of stop-motion animation. We climax with a Salvo soap ad starring Wally Cox (TVs Mr Peepers) as he plays two roles (one in drag) to sell laundry detergent and Dirty Duck (1974)Charles Swenson’s infamous animated cult film trailer produced by sleaze meister Roger Corman!

Date: Friday, November 6th, 2015 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

Featuring:

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 Hefn*r 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

Chemical Bank (Color, 1970s)

The New York Woman! “When her needs are financial her reaction is chemical”.

is the sexist tagline for this hilarious and jazzed–up commercial for Chemical Bank.

Bigelow (Color 1970s)

In a nod to sixties occultism, this commercial features the sexy Erin Gray crawling around on shag carpet samples, purring about the carpet line, specially designed for the signs of the zodiac. Beyond campy!

Safety Shoes (Color, 1970s)

Weirdo sado masochistic industrial short for safety shoes. Watch sexy legs in sparkly tights do a little dance, before turning into a pair of bare feet dancing around broken glass, cowboy boots, rusty nails, falling cinderblocks and metal pipes, kitchen sinks, lawn movers, boat anchors before we get the revealing punch line!

Frederick's Of Hollywood (Color, 1970s)

Here’s an inside look at Fredrick’s of Hollywood In all their sexist glory.

Lines like “Since women aren't born equal it’s Frederick's of Hollywood's job to make them more equal” and “Does Frederick's of Hollywood treat women like sex objects, of course that's the point” showcase the company’s mission statement an unabashedly and camped up vision of sexual stereotyping.

Erik Is Here! (B+W 1960s)

A Nordic man in a black turtleneck sails into New York harbor in a Viking ship, smoking cigarettes in this hilarious advertisement. “Erik is here! the most interesting idea from Scandinavia since blondes”

Sadie the Sunbather (B+W, 1948) A titillating soft-core “nudie cutie” by Seaside films features the typical buxom female and a snarky sexist narrator who starts out by stating “amateur sunbathing is the art of greasing yourself up like a shock absorber”. It only gets better (and skimpier) from there!

Clorets(B+W, 1950s)

Bizarre commercial uses pseudo-scientific and social science to study bad breathe. Recommendation: Use Clorets- breath lozenges-don’t be left out!

Texas Strip (B+W, 1948)

This jukebox Soundie, inspired the Devo video “Whip It”. Watch as a singing cowboy flirts with cowgirls sitting on a fence, then strips one of them with his whip (oh my!).

American Dreamer (Color, 1971)

The American Dreamer is a multi-faceted document of the life and mind of Dennis Hopper, one of the 20th century's great cinematic voices at the peak of his artistic and commercial success. Shifting between being an insightful document of a complex artist in the midst of his creative process and a self-reflective exploration and explosion of vérité filmmaking tropes, The American Dreamer is a mesmerizing journey into the private world of one of Hollywood's most hypnotic directors/stars. Fortuitously timed, fantastically made, and virtually unseen, The American Dreamer is the great 70s film documentary you always wished existed.

The above is how the film is now being promoted. In actuality this trailer is the most pretentious, mind-boggling film to ever come from the cocked out head of Dennis Hopper. Watch him spout lines in this (thankfully short trailer) like “I don't believe in reading. By using your eyes and ears you'll find everything there is." Or how about "I'd rather give head to a woman than fuck them...Basically, I think like a lesbian."We also get to watch him strip down in the middle of a suburban street and stroll about, butt naked. Hilariously awful.

The First Erotic New York Film Festival (Color, 1971)

Film is a four letter word! Sexy and surreal highlights from the infamous New York Erotic Film Festival.

The Greeks Have a Word for it. (Color, 1969)

In a play on Greek culture, and amidst the picturesque ruins of Athens, Greece this Roger Dee Fashion Vision film waxes poetic in it’s over-the-top metaphors of Aphrodite. Statuesque models show off Christian Dior Action Wear Hosiery and

Yves St. Laurent belts and scarves, later modeling Monsanto-based polyester swim and outerwear-the fabric of the future from the garden of the gods! Don’t miss the laughable narrator’s depiction of these “mythic” models.

The Magician (B+W, silent 1970s)

This amateur soft-core short showcases a magician and his he-men. Marvel as he magically strips them, (through the magic of stop motion animation) of all their clothing before our very eyes!

The Gate Crasher (B/W 1969)

Woody Woodpecker dresses in drag in order to sneak into a barn dance and eat a ton of food. Unsuspecting Mr Walrus takes him home and finds out what this “Lady” is really made of. A laugh riot!.

Salvo Detergent with Wally Cox (B+W,1960s)

Wally Cox, famed goofball, and star of TVs Mr Peepers (and rumored lover of Marlon Brando) plays both the son and his mother (while in drag) in this bizarre detergent ad from the 1960s.

Dirty Duck (Color,1974)

Bizarro trailer for the X-rated animated film directed by Charles Swenson and funded by producer Roger Corman, Voiced by Zappaesque rock legends Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (Flo+Eddie). Epic weirdness in a film called “A sprawling undisciplined piece of sniggering vulgarity” and “one of the most overlooked animated features of the 1970s, a glorious experimental mess of a film, which, from today’s vantage point, looks incredibly creative and daring, and something current Hollywood studios would never attempt.” A cult classic.

Stephen Parr

San Francisco archivist, imagemaker and curator Stephen Parr, founder of Oddball Film+Video has a long history of presenting and archiving the unusual. Since the 1970s Parr has produced and documented live performances of John Cage, Christian Marclay and The Ramones, screened his signature pop culture montages from the Danceteria in New York to the Moscow Cinematheque. He’s created found footage based films such as Historical/Hysterical?, The Subject is Sex and Euphoria! which have screened worldwide in venues such as The Anthology Film Archive, Jaaga in Bangalore, South India and the Leeds International Film Festival. He curates an eclectic weekly film series-Oddball Films at his archive and is a frequent presenter at film and media seminars and symposiums. He is an active member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. He has currently completed Laservision, a program of films exploring the history of lasers and holography inaugurating the Science, Art and Cinema series at  Miami’s Frost Museum.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
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.

Oddball Films presents What the F(ilm)?! 14: Cine-Insanity from the Archive, an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection. This compendium of 16mm madness is too strange to be believed and too baffling to be forgotten. This time around we've got boxing chimps, boxing robots, burlesque cartoons, mimes, musical promotional films, a John Cleese office training film and even more celluloid psychosis! British comedy legend John Cleese produced, wrote and stars in Meetings, Bloody Meetings! (1976) a hilariously infotaining training film on running more effective meetings. Famed French mime Marcel Marceau takes us through the comedic and the ridiculously melodramatic facets of the age-old creepy traditions of mime in Pantomime: Language of the Heart (1975). The hilarious Doubletalk (1975) lets you in on what everyone is really thinking when a boy has to meet his date's parents. Take a musical-political break with Schoolhouse Rock and Sufferin' till Suffrage (1974). Little Billy heads out into the woods and makes friends with a man wearing a shag carpet in the f#*ed up communication primer Billy and the Beast (1972). Bell telephone presents a mini-musical of telephone switching boards and automatic shoe machines in the West Side Story of promotional films Conversation Crossroads (1958). Get a taste of antiquated entertainment with the spoof newsreel Goofy Movies Number 4 (1934) featuring boxing chimps, ladies on train tracks, and rockets on row boats. Plus, two antique cartoons: M*ckey Mouse builds a robot boxer and pits him against an ape in Kongo Killer (1933, AKA M*ckey's Mechanical Man) and Krazy Kat's girlfriend takes the stage to do a risqué burlesque fan dance in Frogs and Kats (1930s).

Date: Friday, November 13th, 2015 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

Featuring:

Meetings, Bloody Meetings! (Color, 1976)
Who says office training films can't be hilarious? Comedy legend John Cleese wrote and stars in this bizarro office training film about the ins and outs of planning and running effective meetings in your office. The film is apparently so infotaining that it has been re-released every decade or so since and re-made in 2002! Cleese stars as a bumbling middle-manager who struggles to run effective meetings. In a ridiculous nightmare Cleese is summoned before the court to answer for his many offenses. Fun fact: in the remake Cleese returns as the judge to pass sentence on a new generation of hapless management.

Billy and the Beast (1972, Color)

A whacked out film about communication, this film is certainly a strange one from the children’s educational genre. After being shunned by his ‘friends’, Billy takes a wander in the woods to be by his lonesome and ponder his predicament. Along the way, he meets a creature that ‘no one has ever seen’ and strikes up a friendship through non-verbal communication. Moral of the story, communication doesn’t have to be through speech and hairy guys in the woods wearing ragged shag carpets can be friends, too.

Pantomime: Language of the Heart (Color, 1975)
Famed mime Marcel Marceau demonstrates both comedic and melodramatic mimery with tons of overly dramatic dissolves and classical music. In this film, learn how mimes use facial expressions and only their own bodies to get across stories and emotions that usually take spoken words and props to communicate. You'll never have a greater appreciation for the spoken word and props!

Goofy Movies 4 (B+W, 1934)

Pete Smith (the king of wacky newsreel narration) provides explanatory notes for a mock melodrama. With a "Wotaphony Newsreel" of boxing apes (Hears/Sees/Knows Nothing) and clips of a woman and child being lowered out of the window of a burning home, only to go toppling over half way down, a man putting rockets on his row boat and a chimpanzee boxing match. Then, “Passions of Horse Pistol Pete” featuring a man and woman sitting under a tree on a bench, while another man interrupts and a goofy plot involving robbers, a lawman, and a train - and the quintessential damsel in distress collapses on the tracks and the train must slow down so a man can scoop her up.

M*ckey Mouse in Kongo Killer (B+W, 1933)
Also known as "M*ckey's Mechanical Man". Everybody's favorite rodent is getting into the boxing game; only he's not getting in the ring with a giant gorilla known as Kongo Killer, he's built a boxing robot that's going to fight his battles for him!

Krazy Kat, “Frogs and Kats” (B+W, 1930s, silent with added soundtrack)
Miss Kitty Kat is dying to get her time on stage, so when she falls on the leading lady for the night (and turns her into a frog?), she's got to beg Krazy to accompany her on the piano. Miss Kitty Kat finally gets her chance and dances with feathers and other cats burlesque style. One lecherous guy in the audience even has an x-ray machine to see Miss Kitty nude!

Schoolhouse Rock: Sufferin' Till Sufferage (Color, 1974)
After the elections and in concurrence with Suffragette, we bring you this super groovy musical break for the ladies from the iconic cartoonucational show Schoolhouse Rock.

Doubletalk (Color, 1975)

Hilarious short! A boy picks up his date at her home and meets the parents- and we hear what everyone is really thinking over the niceties and conversation. Originally broadcast on Saturday Night Live, this forgotten gem plays like a distilled Meet The Parents and is also notable as the film debut of Robert Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager).

Conversation Crossroads (Color, 1958)

This truly bizarre film explains telephone switching in a non-technical way- as a musical! It worked for West Side Story, why not telephone switching!? Produced by Bell telephone in stunning Technicolor.

Curator’s Biography

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
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.

Oddball Films presents Art and the Machine: The Birth of Electronic Arts, a program of 16mm films from the 1960s-1980s on the advent of machine-made art and the impact on not only the art community, but the world at large. From early computer animation to the strobe light art of Yaacov Agam and the machine-made sculpture of Jean Tinguely to the musical world of Moogs and Theremins, it's a night of invention, innovation and artistry. Bell Laboratories brings us Incredible Machine (1968) which previews the latest developments in computer-assisted imagery, electronic music, and voice processing. Walter Cronkite explores the synthesis of art and technology in Art for Tomorrow (1969), featuring predictions for art in the future as well as a compendium of cutting edge artists of the day like Jean Tinguely, Yaacov Agam, Victor Vasarely, Wen-Ying Tsai, John Mott-Smith, all who use machines in their artwork. Get in a moogy kind of mood with Discovering Electronic Music (1983) and groove along with the educational cartoon fairy tale The Pretty Lady and the Electronic Musicians (1972). Plus, a double-dose of early computer animation: John Whitney's Arabesque (1975), a legendary masterpiece of shimmering, oscillating waves set to the music of Persian composer Maroocheher Sadeghi and Peter Foldes'Hunger (1974), a metamorphic nightmare of greed, gluttony and lust.

Date: Thursday, November 12th, 2015 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

Featuring:

Incredible Machine (Color, 1968)

The crew from Bell Laboratories demonstrates novel uses of the computer in audio-visual communication research: computer generated graphics; computer-assisted design of an electronic circuit drawn with a light-pen on a cathode-ray tube; simulation of human speech and singing; and composition of music and of abstract or figurative color pictures and animation films.

Art for Tomorrow (Color, 1969)

“The artist is beginning to react to the impact of science and technology and beginning to come to terms with it. The artist better be rather careful or he will be losing his job and the engineer will become the artist of the future.”

In this film, from the Twentieth Century television program narrated by Walter Cronkite the art of the future is foreseen in new techniques demonstrated by artists and engineers using distinctive methods and new technology including computers, cybernetics, heart beat triggers, invisible art by magnetism, prisms, lights, moving objects, converging lines, and number patterns. This fascinating look at the “future past” features a kaleidoscopic portrait of avant-garde art works by Yaacov Agam (who uses strobe lights), Wen-Ying Tsai (vibrating steel rods), John Mott-Smith (computer-generated ideas), *Jean Tinguely (machine-made sculpture), Victor Vasarely’s early experiments with IBM computers, Jean Dupuy and many more.

*Here’s a link to a clip from Tinguely’s mind-blowing Homage to New York (1960) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MqsWqBX4wQ

Discovering Electronic Music (Color, 1983)

An introduction to the synthesizers and computers used to create electronic music, including the legendary Fairlight CMI, one of the first sampling synthesizers used for pop music production. Directed by Bernard Wilets, a veteran educational producer and particularly known for his “Discovering Music” series. You'll get a crash course on a vintage modular synthesizer. Envelopes, sine waves, oscillators, filters, galore!

The Pretty Lady and the Electronic Musicians (Color, 1972)

A modern musical fairy tale that has a contrapuntal grain of truth. In this light-hearted animated film two musicians compete for the same pretty lady by inventing and playing increasingly complex electronic instruments. From time to time the voice of the Grain of Truth interrupts to explain the electronic musical devices and techniques that produce much of the popular music of the 1960s and 70s. Leo Theremin’s revolutionary instrument is shown and explained, avant garde "musique concrete" is demonstrated with tape recorders and the use of amplifiers to affect sound. Other sound concepts like reverb, overdrive, feedback, fuzztones are demonstrated. This audio-orientation features and excerpt from the Hitchcock’s motion picture Spellbound utilizing the Theremin’s eerie sounds.The vintage demonstrations are a real treat for music gearheads.

Arabesque (Color, 1975)

John Whitney‘s Arabesque, is considered by many to be the seminal computer film. Set to the music of Manoochelher Sadeghi, and created during a residency at IBM Whitney balanced science with aesthetics as he experimented with the eccentricities of Islamic architecture creating whirling, exotic flows of computer generated images. Arabesque was one of the first computer generated films that married technology and art is a focused, cinematic manner. Working with his early home-made computerized motion-control set-up, Whitney could produce a variety of innovative designs and metamorphoses of text and still images, which proved very successful in advertising and titling of commercial projects. He also did various commercial assignments including the title design for Hitchcock's feature Vertigo (in association with Saul Bass), and the preparation (in association with Charles Eames) of a seven-screen presentation for the Buckminster Fuller Dome in Moscow.

Hunger (Color, 1973, Peter Foldes)
At an extremely rapid pace, images dissolve, move, morph and/or reappear into things or objects that become more and more exaggerated and absurd in this witty and disturbing cartoon by Hungarian director Peter Foldes. One of the first computer-generated films, this Jury Prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival and Academy Award Nominee is a satire focusing on the self-indulgence that plagues our ‘hungry’ world, and depicts a man as he continues to eat, and eat, and eat!

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.

Oddball Films presents Learn your Lesson from the '60s - A Groovy Shockucation, the 32nd in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational scare films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month, we're heading back half a century to learn all about sex, drugs and talking cars from the decade of experimentation: the 1960s. "Blast off to Kicksville" in the howlingly-funny drug scare film Narcotics: Pit of Despair (1967). A rabbi, a priest and a psychologist talk about sexual development, masturbation, nocturnal emissions and more squeamish topics in Parent to Child About Sex (1965). Behold the wild go-go frenzy of the psychedelically animated anti-smoking film The Drag (1965). Mike Miller is a good Mormon Boy, but will he be lured by fast cars and wild women in the hilarious Measure of a Man (1962) from Mormon-mental hygiene pioneer Wetzel Whitaker. Little Jimmy nearly gets his by a car and then dreams of talking cars with creepy eyeballs that blast him on his safety knowledge in the mind-boggling The Talking Car (1969). Three groovy young girls and their dad get a lesson in over-shopping in Consumer Education: Budgeting (1968). Plus, nightmare musical cartoon Sniffy Escapes Poisoning (1965) and an excerpt of The Hippie Temptation (1969). Get here early to see when Sonny Bono gets high (pre-taping) and dons a gold lamé pajama set to tell you all about Marijuana (1968).

Date: Friday, November 20th, 2015 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

Narcotics: Pit of Despair (Color, 1967)

The all-time classic of the genre, a real howler! Super-square kid is lured into the world of illicit drugs and other pleasures by the scheming drug dealer and his wanton woman. Sample voiceover: “Take a trip from Squaresville, get with the countdown, shake this square world and blast off to Kicksville!” Sounds good to me!!

The Drag (Color, 1965)
Produced for the Canadian Department of Health and Welfare this jaw-dropping film montage depicts the difficulty of breaking the tobacco habit in a child-adulthood go-go frenzy of wild animation by Italian animator Carlos Marchiori. The story depicts the case history of a chain smoker-satirically told on a psychiatrist's couch, with the patient's recollections--illustrating the psychology of the smoking habit and the part that cigarette advertising plays in the addiction. With hopping music and brilliant kaleidoscopic montages.

Parent to Child about Sex (Color, 1965, excerpt)
A rabbi, a priest, and a psychologist want you to talk to your child about sex! No, it's not a raunchy joke, it's the basis of this Mad Men-styled sex- education short. Frank discussions amongst the panel on topics like wet dreams and menstruation give way to melodramatizations of the kind of sex-education every pubescent child needs.

Measure of a Man (Color, 1962)
Nobody does a drinking and driving scare film quite like the Mormons! Mike Miller is a good boy with a thoughtful and anxious mother who is none too pleased that he's going out driving with bad boys Hal and Blaine. They love "wild" girls, fast cars and drinking beer; and everywhere they go, crazy New Orleans jazz underscores their every move. Will Mike be able to hold his own with their wild ways, even turn them around to his square way of thinking or will he be pressured into drinking and necking the night away? The interior monologues will leave you speechless with gems like "I wonder how come mothers know so much" and "I don't know much about wild girls... might be educational, though." Directed by Mormon-educational film pioneer Wetzel Whitaker, who worked as an animator for Di$ney for 20 years before becoming the director of the BYU Motion Picture Studio.

Consumer Education: Budgeting (Color, 1968)

Swinging sisters Ruth and Samantha recently graduated college and are settling into life on their own, with an apartment and shopping sprees. That also means they are going into debt. Fortunately, their worldly father stops by to offer advice before things get out of hand. Special guest star: their new roommate and proto-hipster, an Asian woman named ‘George’.

The Talking Car (Color, 1969)

Jimmy is supposed to go on a camping trip tomorrow, but while packing the station wagon he runs out into the street and almost gets hit by a car. Now his dad doesn’t think he’s responsible enough to go camping. Can the talking cars that visit Jimmy in his dreams teach him the ‘see and be seen traffic safety rules’ in time so he can go? Warning: do not do drugs before watching this film. These talking cars mean business.

Sniffy Escapes Poisoning (Color, 1965)
Absolutely twisted animation featuring a troll-like little boy with a massive head who drags his sick dog Sniffy to the medicine cabinet. Once opened, the pills and syrups begin to sing and dance as they cheerfully tell the little boy to KEEP HIS GRUBBY LITTLE PAWS OFF or risk a painful overdose and death.

The Hippie Temptation (Color, 1967, excerpt)

“These people are hippies. They occupy a piece of land in Golden Gate Park which has come to be called Hippie Hill.” So begins Harry Reasoner’s angry narration for this 1967 CBS TV documentary. Reasoner can barely contain his contempt while discussing their lifestyle and the use ofLSD, as he visits doctors and rehab centers to show the audience how destructive hippies are to society.

For the Early Birds

Marijuana (Color, 1968)
Sonny Bono graces the silver screen in gold lamé to set the facts straight about grass; that he appears utterly stoned himself should not denigrate his message one bit. He systematically counters all the usual arguments in favor of the evil weed (hilariously rattled off one by one by a group of teenagers being arrested).

Words of wisdom in stoner monotone: “Unlike alcohol, when you take too much at one time, you don’t pass out. You more than likely run the risk of an unpredictable – and unpleasant – bummer”.

Curator’s Biography

Oddball Films presents Tunes and Toons: Animated Adventures in Musicland, a night of charming, ridiculous, stunning, and vibrant animation from the 30s through the 80s - all about making beautiful music. From the classic to the crazy with cartoon orchestras, beatniks, hippies, dancing rutabagas, Gumby, Bugs Bunny and more, it's going to be an eye-popping and knee-tapping night. Di$ney's Symposium on Popular Songs (1962) takes you through the first half of the 20th century of popular music through a mixture of cell-animation, stop-motion and paper cutouts, in gorgeous color (try not to lose your head when rutabagas start dancing!). A banjo-strumming Bugs Bunny gets back at an obtrusive opera singer in the Chuck Jones classic Long-Haired Hare (1949). Oscar-winner Ernie Pintoff brings us the hairy tale of Harry, a man willing to suffer (and stink) for his music in The Violinist (1959) with the voice talent of Carl Reiner. One orchestra is full of dogs, pigs, donkeys, and one grumpy conductor in Friz Freleng's The Mad Maestro (1939). Halas and Bachelor studios brings us Hoffnung's Music Academy (1965) featuring the strangest music school you've ever seen with yo yo violins, bicycle-wheel harps and pool playing pianos. Gumby gets into a surreal battle of wits with a shape-shifting piano in the zippy Gumby Concerto (1957). The brilliant Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto gives us a sexual, political and absurd revue of Opera (1973). From Sofia Films in Bulgaria comes Caw! (1982), a quirky tale of birds, music and (dis)harmony. Plus, a beatnik teases a Calypso Singer (1966), Will "California Raisins" Vinton directs the psychedelic claymation rock concert, Mountain Music (1975), the dazzling Blame it on the Samba (1948) and a surprise pre-show! Whether you're a musician, an animation enthusiast, or just in need of a bit of fun, Oddball's got the tune for you.

Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2015 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

Featuring:

Symposium on Popular Songs (Color, 1962)

Special cartoon featurette made by D*sney features songs written by the Sherman Brothers with music arrangements by Tutti Camarata. Ludwig Von Drake invites the audience into his mansion where he tells all about popular music through the years, introducing several songs illustrated with great stop-motion animation. Nominated for an Academy Award as Best Cartoon Short Subject.

Hoffnung Music Academy (Color, 1965)

From Halas and Bachelor studios and the hilarious mind of Gerald Hoffnung. The students of this academy are getting more than training in music with classes on fishing with violin bows, billiards on top of a baby grand, playing the harp on a penny-farthing bicycle and more ludicrous subjects.

The Violinist (Color, 1959)

A cheeky tale of suffering for art from Academy Award-winning animator Ernest Pintoff featuring the voices of comedy legend Carl Reiner. Harry is a man who loves to play the violin, chase birds and hang out with dogs. His music isn't very good, so he decides he must suffer for his musical art. After giving up dogs, birds, food and bathing, Harry's music has never sounded better, but "boy is he ugly".

Opera (Color, 1973)
The brilliant Bruno Bozzetto (Allegro Non Troppo) takes Opera to the most insane, surreal, political, and hilarious place you could ever imagine. Morbid and sexual with rips on fascism, sexism, racism and pollution, this over-the-top survey of opera features some of the most eye-popping imagery in animation history including the Statue of Liberty wearing a gas mask and Hitler with a new-wave hair cut! Safety glasses are recommended to keep your eyeballs in your skull!

The Mad Maestro (Color, 1939)

This dog-conductor is having a bad day. His all-animal orchestra is full of lazy dogs, fat pigs, jack-asses and a bunch of other scruffy neerdowells. Will he ever get to make beautiful music, or will the whole performance end with a bang? Full of great site-gags and ridiculous set-ups, this MGM classic was directed by Friz Freleng and Hugh Harman.

The Long-Haired Hare (Color, 1949)

A Chuck Jones/Bugs Bunny masterpiece of musical fun. Bugs is having a fine old time strumming his banjo and singing on a hill when he hears an opera singer rehearsing for a show. Not to be outdone, Bugs is determined to make his the only music to be heard and even dresses as a teenaged fan and an orchestra conductor to mess with the baritone.

The Calypso Singer (Color, 1966)

Paul Glickman’s animated version of legendary hipster Stan Freberg's parody of Harry Belafonte's top ten hit “Day-O” (The Banana Boat Song). Here a beatnik bongo player berates a Calypso singer for his high decibel delivery. Freeberg was famous for his early rock and roll parodies and went on to win over 20 Clio awards in the field of advertising for his wacky takes on pop culture. Hilariously weird Oddball audience favorite.

Mountain Music (Color, 1975)

Truly bizarre claymation hippie music concert out in the sticks from Will "California Raisins" Vinton, the legendary creator of claymation. A pastoral nature scene slowly gives way to heavy rock freakout, with volcanic results!

Gumby Concerto (B+W, 1956)

A surreal stop-motion masterpiece! Art Clokey's little green buddy must deal with doppelgangers, multiplying pianos and other bizarre shenanigans to entertain a pair of anthropomorphic musical notes that look like they were made out of hard-boiled eggs.

Blame it on the Samba (Color, 1948)

An 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.

Caw! (Color, 1982, Stoyan Dukov)
A hilarious and simple tale of a persistent interloper – a crow -- who insists on joining a choral group.

Curator’s Biography

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
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.

Oddball Films will be closed this week for the Thanksgiving Holiday. We hope you have a delicious time with your friends and family and will come see us in December for more eclectic and entertaining programming.

Oddball Films welcomes Joe Rubin to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Rubin is the co-founder of Vinegar Syndrome, a home video distribution company focused on preserving and releasing rare, underground, and forgotten sexploitation and exploitation cinema. He will discuss his passion for discovering and restoring lost classics of the Golden Age of Sexploitation and share with us some of the most audacious, bizarre, and mind-blowing clips of films that Vinegar Syndrome has recovered and restored including sexed up space operas, sexperimental bible stories, psychedelic-phallic animation and more. Clips will incude sci-fi smut Sex World, Baby Rosemary, Wakefield Poole's scripturally sexy Bible!, underground hardcore Little Sisters, Jungle Blue, A Saint A Woman and a Devil, white coater The Oral Generation and more!

Date: Thursday, December 10th, 2015 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

Clips Include:

Sam Weston's (Anthony Spinelli) Sex World, a big budget hardcore science fiction character drama that Vinegar Syndrome restored in 4K.

John Hayes'Baby Rosemary, a bleak and experimental psychological pseudo-horror film involving a young woman's breakdown after the death of her father. Restored in 2K.

Wakefield Poole's Bible, a lavishly mounted avant garde sexploitation adaptation of three bible stories. Restored in 2K.

Alex deRenzy's Little Sisters, a fascinating blending of Kuchar-esque underground filmmaking and subversive hardcore. Restored in 2K.

Eric Haims'Jekyll & Hyde Portfolio, a bizarre sexploitation/horror/period piece from the tail end of the era of softcore features. Restored in 2K.

Carlos Tobalina's Jungle Blue, a low budget hardcore jungle film that plays off of both Tarzan and mondo films. Restored in 2K.

Peter Savage's A Saint A Woman A Devil, a hardcore adaptation of The Three Faces of Eve directed by Jack Lamotta's cousin. Restored in 2K

Kemal Horulu's The Oral Generation, an early 'white coater' instructional film which details the most common type of pioneering hardcore features. Restored in 2K.

About Joe Rubin:

Joe Rubin is the co-founder of Vinegar Syndrome, a home video distribution company focused on preserving and releasing rare, underground, and forgotten sexploitation and exploitation cinema. Rubin has worked as a film programmer, archivist, and preservationist for nearly 10 years his curatorship at Vinegar Syndrome has gotten him and the company recognition in The New York Times, Village Voice, Playboy, Dangerous Minds, Flavorpill, and other periodicals.

Oddball Films presents Monkey Time, a night of antique 16mm simian insanity from the archive. In this program we examine and explore the hilarious and sublime lengths humans go to entertain us via these proxy mammals. Before the heyday of television and the domination of cinema, vaudeville, theater, circus acts, magic shows, impossible and death-defying stunts were all that amused thrill-seeking audiences across the US. Animal acts were a big hit and monkeys basked in their glory. Hollywood primate Zippy the Chimp almost has his birthday party ruined by a bully, until quits monkeying around and gets revenge in Zippy's Birthday Party (1950s). Zippy then hits the big top in Small Fry Circus (1956). Monkeys do all kinds of crazy things like fixing cars and running film cameras in Monkies is the Cwaziest People! (1939). Monkey spy, monkey do with Lancelot Link Secret Chimp (1971), the crime-fighting slapstick simian. The range ain't no place for monkeying around, but one cow-chimp will have to make do in Chimp the Cowboy (1937) starring Shorty the Chimp. See how these plucky primates learn to do what they do in Chimps in Training and Show Business (1950s). Tiny capuchin monkeys zoom around the track in tiny little race cars in Monkey Go 'Round (1961). Make sure to meet Rikki: The Baby Monkey (1949), a little rhesus in the wild, and listen to the music with The Monkey and the Organ Grinder (1971). Plus, more simian surprises for the early birds.

Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 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

Featuring:

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (Color, 1971) in “To Tell the Tooth”.

Get Smart meets James Bond in this chimptastic TV spy spoof as the top agent of APE (Agency to Prevent Evil) detective Lance Link discovers a dentist working for C.H.U.M.P. (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan) has been inserting secret radio transmitters into the teeth of military officials.

Monkies is the Cwaziest People!(B+W, 1939)
Part of Lew Lehr's "Dribble-Puss Parade" this odd and ridiculous short shows trained chimps doing all kinds of "people" things like cinematography, tooth brushing, fixing cars, carpentry and the obligatory riding on tricycles!

Zippy's Birthday Party (B+W, 1950s)

It's primate powerhouse Zippy the Chimp's birthday and he wants nothing more than a party with his friends. Everyone's having a grand old time, in their pretty party dresses, watching zippy roller skate in a white tuxedo and open his presents; until the town bully comes to the party with a jack in the box and a bad attitude. When the bully steals Zippy's cake, the birthday boy is done monkeying around and plots a sinister (especially for a children's film) revenge on the human child. Not necessarily the best lesson we've learned, but revenge by bodily harm certainly is sweet when administered by a chimpanzee.

Chimp the Cowboy (1937)

A mischievous chimp comedy featuring "Shorty", a trained chimp donning various costumes playing multiple “career” roles. In this western spoof, Shorty must fight off a group of bandits!

Small Fry Circus (B+W, 1956)

Zippy the anthropomorphic, clothes-wearing chimp is back and he's ready to help out the kids who have gathered together to put on a circus. With Zippy as the main attraction, it's sure to be a hit!

Chimps in Training and Show Business (B+W, 1950s)

Watch them get trained for circus and onstage action!

Monkey Go 'Round(B+W, 1961)

Tiny monkeys in tiny racecars! A retired circus performer in Germany falls on hard times. His family is made up of little capuchin monkeys, whom he can’t afford to feed anymore and is thinking of sending to a zoo. The monkeys repair the mini cars they had used in their old circus act and perform in a new act racing the cars on a mini race track. The crowd loves them. They sign a contract to start performing their show around the world.

Rikki: The Baby Monkey(B+W, 1949)

Tag along with a tiny rhesus baby as he hangs out with his family, has breakfast, and goes on an exciting adventure in the wild.

The Monkey and the Organ Grinder (Color, 1971)

"Traces a typical day in the life of three monkeys and their organ-grinder master, Bob Jones. As Bob plays lively tunes in the shopping section of a large city, Coco takes coins from passerby and tips his hat for silver. The sensitive photography in this non-narrative film suggests to children what it must be like to be a gentle man who is closer to his animal friends than to other people but who enjoys bringing pleasure to children as he moves about the city." - Publisher's Catalog.

For the Early Birds:

Monkey Tale with Marquis the Chimpanzee and Family (B+W, 1952)

Produced by the New Zealand National Film Unit for their national Transport Department, this bike safety film features “Marquis the Chimp and Family” as they reallymonkey around on their bikes!

Zippy the Chimp in Hot Shot Zero(B+W, 1950s)

Poor destitute Zippy in a shirt, overalls, a hat, a bindle stiff and his pet dog wander the street looking for food. He’s homeless and not treated kindly. But Zippy steps up saves little child on a runaway carriage that’s about to be hit by a train by mounting a horse and chasing after him. Crooks try to blow up the safe at the railroad station. A killer turtle comes out of its kennel/ doghouse which has the word “beware” over it. The chimp attaches a candle to its back and it causes an explosion in the badguys hideout.

Oddball Films presents Weird Science, a compendium of eccentric, unknown science films from 60ish years of scientific discovery, all on 16mm film from the archive. From animated TB germs to sequin-clad aliens, to babies in goggles, songs about slugs and even electric shocks from eels, it's a bizarre night of scientific infotainment. An alien and his computer friend land on Earth and seek to classify the animal life they find in the incredibly weird Mission Third Planet: Creatures of the Land (1979). Noir and B-movie legend Edgar G. Ulmer brings us a tale of tuberculosis for the kiddies with an animated TB bug in Goodbye Mr. Germ (1940). Find out what happens when your vision is flipped upside down (and you're paid to live like that for two weeks!) in the imported short Living in a Reversed World (1958). Sun Healing (1930s), a jaw-dropping forerunner of the infomercial, pitches an ominous health device that's "safe" to use on your own children. Sing along with kids about those disgustingly cute yellow mollusks, Banana Banana Banana Slugs! (1988). Get a double dose of Christian science with the evangelical Moody Science Institute and the literally shocking Electric Eel (1954) as well as Slow As a Sloth (1954). Plus, the trailer for ”The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”, clips from Popular Science and more!

Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 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

Featuring:

Mission Third Planet: Creatures of the Land (Color, 1979, Don Klugman)
During a meteor shower, the robot Ten-Ping and Aarak, a young gold and sequin-clad alien scientist, are separated from their mother ship and stranded on Earth. While awaiting rescue, they begin classifying the land animals of the planet, comparing body structures of both vertebrates and invertebrates with the help of Ten-ping's magical TV screen head!

Goodbye, Mr. Germ (B+W, 1940 Edgar G. Ulmer)
A mixed animation/live-action TB scare film from legendary directed Edgar Ulmer. This antiquated campfest features actor (and sometime director) James Kirkland, this short film apparently predates the TB vaccine, or at least its widespread use. Kirkland is the doctor (or scientist) father of two youngsters. His lab consists of various different animals and pets. He imagines inventing a radio that can hear germs speak, and that he can understand their language. Most of the film features Kirkland talking to a animated tuberculosis germ (he views through his microscope) as they discuss how TB is transferred from one person to another, how the body fights it, and how it can live dormant for years in a person's body waiting for a moment of physical weakness that allows it to escape. TB causes one to cough until eventually it ruptures blood vessels such that the discharge contains blood. Kirkland then tells the germ that they've been able to discover "him" in the body now, which is then verified with an X-ray.

Banana, Banana, Banana Slugs! (Color, 1988)

Sing along with science when a group of kids tramp through the redwoods looking at the giant yellow mollusks and singing their praises in squeaky little voices.

Living in a Reversed World (B+W, 1958)

An excellent re-rending of our external visual environment, directors and vision specialists Ivo Kohler and Theodore Erismann stitch the viewer into a weird world of screwy visual illusion and corky dystopia via the use of optical illusions.

Sun Healing: The Ultra-Violet Way with Life Lite (B+W, 1930s)
Quack science in all its glory, this long-form commercial from the 1930s was produced by Ultra-Violet Home Products Inc (out of Los Angeles, surprise, surprise) and demonstrates an ‘amazing’ new product – a handheld quartz instrument that will blast you the ultraviolet light you’re supposedly missing out on by being indoors. Watch it cure diseases of all kinds while starting new ones!

The Mouse Activated Candle Lighter (1973, Color)

Watch this offbeat Rube Goldberg device consisting of a mouse trap, fishing pole, alarm clock, ice pack, train motor, rubber band, match and candle illustrating various forms of kinetic energy.

Clips from Ppular Science featuring Wacky Inventions and Desert Destroyers* (Color, 1954)
The newsreel/TV special form of Ppular Science was a beacon in the Cold War, drawing America’s youth towards progress in industry and science. In these featurettes, see a woman slather her bosom with wine and spaghetti sauce (it’s new stain proof nylon!) and a new missile being tested in an uncharted Nevada desert. Area ’54 anyone?

Liquid Air* (1950, B+W)

Ten minutes of fun used to be the norm with shows like John Kieran’s Kaleidoscope (1949-1952).With episodes that focused on unraveling the mysteries of earth in sizable chunks of time, Kieran, a quiz show panelist and noted intellectual was our guide to the unknown. This particular short explores the magic of gas and liquid with on screen experiments and candid conversations.

With a Double Dose of the Evangelical Science Organization, The Moody Institute of Science!

The Moody Institute of Science, founded under the auspices of the Moody Bible Institute, an evangelical group started by Erwin Moon in San Francisco in 1938, produced a number of religious cult science films that were intended to demonstrate intelligent design through scientific experiments. These were marketed to schools and churches across the United States and their biblical subtext hit the viewer over the head with the proverbial hammer of faith. Evangelist Erwin “The Million Volt Man” Moon stars in many of these eye-popping classroom science films as he inhales helium, runs electricity through his body, makes metal float in space, experiments with electric eels and preaches god’s creationist “intelligent design” ideology.

The Electric Eel (1954, Color)
Dr. Irwin Moon - part showman, part scientist, part crackpot religious nutcase shows us the electric eel and demonstrates its amazing abilities to shock fish for food and to use "radar" to find them. Don’t miss the scene where he illuminates a florescent light tube using his eel then jolts his staff with electrodes attached to the deadly fish!

Slow as a Sloth (1954, Color)
Moon presents different breeds of sloths with the help of his lab-coated assistant. The duo explain interesting facts about sloths and attempt to elicit reactions from the animals by petting their fur the wrong direction, poking them with sticks and other "scientific" methods.

For the Early Birds:

Mr. Pasteur and the Riddle of Life (1972, Color)

This stop-motion educational film attempts to use humor in the form of an animated puppet-scientist. The puppet plays devil’s advocate to the narrator, debating the theory of spontaneous generation. Learn how it is possible to reach false conclusions with an insufficiently thorough application of the scientific method!! Pasteur’s mold experiments are re-created!

Curator’s Biography

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Cartoons go to War: Animated Propaganda from WWII, a night of outlandish, hilarious and didactic cartoons from the 1940s (and a couple from the 1930s) calling for a patriotic spirit, heralding the soldiers, shilling war bonds and warning against the scourges of malaria and The Axis Powers. During World War II, cartoons changed to reflect the times, both heralding and roasting the war effort, doing their part to grease the American propaganda machine, demonizing the enemy and guilting viewers into patriotism, or simply just adding a bit of humor into an otherwise trying era. Porky Pig reveals all America's goofiest secrets when he presents a faux-propaganda satire in Meet John Doughboy (1941). Humor meets education in the US Army’s propaganda short Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike (1944) written by Theodore "Dr. Seuss" Geisel which shows Snafu (Situation Normal All F*cked Up) learning the hard way about the consequences of not protecting himself from malaria infection. Mosquitoes go to boot camp in the hilarious send up of War-time newsreels in Of Thee I Sting (1946). Di$ney got into the war effort in a number of films from a variety of perspectives. In The Spirit of '43 (1943), Don@ld Duck is guilt tripped into filing his taxes (to defeat The Axis!); while in The Grain that Built a Hemisphere (1943), Di$ney touts the miracle properties of that native grain: corn; and in allegorical fashion, Chicken Little (1943) warns of falling for sweet-talking foxes reading from Mein Kampf. From Friz Freleng comes a similar allegory: Fifth Column Mouse (1943) only with a freewheeling community of mice that become slaves to a hungry cat until they stand up and fight back with a mechanical bulldog. Bugs Bunny gets in the patriotic spirit when he attempts to thwart a tiny gremlin hell-bent on detonating bombs at a US air base, in Falling Hare (1943). The puppetoons take to the skies in George Pal's Sky Pirates (1938). Funny pages favorites Nancy and Sluggo help raise money for war bonds in Nancy and Sluggo Doin' Their Part (1944). One World Or None (1946) is a postwar film warning against the new threat of total global nuclear annihilation. Plus, an early version of Porky Pig in Boom Boom (1936), Woody Woodpecker flies a PU-2 bomber (get it? PU?) in Ace in the Hole (1942) and more surprises for the early birds!

Date: Thursday, September 17th, 2015 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

Featuring:

The Spirit of '43 (B+W, 1943)
Don@ld Duck is here to tell everyone to file their taxes ("Taxes to defeat the axis!") in this didactic propaganda piece from Di$ney. Donald has just gotten his paycheck and he's got an angel and a devil trying to tell him how to spend his money. The angel, a kilt-wearing Scotsman that may or may not be Scrooge McDuck, urges Donald to file his taxes and give his money to helping the war effort. The devil - a zoot-suiter - wants Donald to have a good time with his cash. When the devil turns out to be a Nazi covered in swastikas, Donald's right on his way to his accountant!

Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike (B+W, 1944, Chuck Jones)

Keep those pants up, Private Snafu! A cunning mosquito is loaded with malaria and he’s eying your USDA choice rump! The witty Private Snafu series was designed to convey vital information to servicemen who had wildly varying levels of education and literacy skills. Made by the folks who brought you Looney Tunes, this one was written by Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss!

Looney Tunes: Meet John Doughboy (B+W, 1941, Robert Clampett)

America's Defense Effort is caricatured in this phony newsreel introduced by Porky Pig. Full of goofy site-gags and jokes about the draft, the mess hall and the clucking machine gun nests, this isn't quite propaganda as much as satire. Jack Benny and Rochester are a secret weapon in an uncomfortably racist moment in an otherwise tame and hilarious cartoon.

Falling Hare (Color, 1943, Robert Clampett)

That rascally wabbit finally gets what's coming to him when he goes from tormenter to tormented by a tiny little gremlin who is out to ruin the war effort. A tiny little monster is out to detonate a bomb in an army airbase, and it's up to Bugs to stop him.

Of Thee I Sting (Color, 1946, Friz Freleng)

Movietone-style spoof narration is used in this tale of one man’s desperate stand against all odds. Mosquitoes go through an intense and very specific boot camp in this entertaining documentary send up of war effort newsreels of the day. Looney Tunes fans will thrill to Robert C. Bruce’s jaunty March of Time style narration.

Fifth Column Mouse (Color, 1943, Friz Freleng)
An allegory for the axis powers; this cartoon pits a hungry cat against a group of rodents. The cat tricks one of the mice that he is there to protect them as long as they appease him and serve him like a King. When his true colors are shown, the mice storm onto the battlefront in a mechanical bulldog to even the score.

Chicken Little (Color, 1943)
Another allegory for the Nazis' rise to power, this twisted fable features Foxy Loxy utilizing Hitler's own philosophies of mind control to fetch himself a feast of fowl. Originally, Foxy got his ideas from "Mein Kampf", but the studio switched the title of the book (but not the content) to read "Psychology".

The Grain That Built a Hemisphere (Color, 1943)

A different kind of propaganda short from Di$ney, this mini-doc on the importance of corn was made in conjunction with Canadian government. Tracing its roots from the communities of indigenous Americans to the insidious bi-product that invades almost every aspect of our daily lives, this short ends with a blitz of corn patriotism!

One World or None (B+W, 1946)

An animated warning against the threat of nuclear annihilation, featuring a stern and foreboding narrator. Watch as San Francisco becomes a giant skull surrounded by the graves of our imaginary fallen. This didactic piece of propaganda is pretty rich considering we're the only country that has ever dropped an atomic bomb on another country.

Nancy and Sluggo Doin’ Their Part (B+W, 1940s)

Our favorites from the funnies get down to the serious business of raising funds for the USO. Sluggo comes up with a suitably money-making schemes of all and all the gang joins in!

Sky Pirates (B+W, 1938, George Pal)
The Puppetoons take to the skies when a marauding band of air pirates begin dropping bombs. An air battle ensues and the military must make the skies safe again. Quirky and visually stunning, this short features Pal's hand-carved wooden puppets and some great aerial imagery and sight gags. Made for Horlicks malted milk in Britain.

Boom Boom (B+W, 1936 Jack King)

A very early Porky Pig is a World War I doughboy along with Beans the Cat. Animals sing "You're in the Army Now" to a frightened Porky who wishes he were back home on the farm. Porky and another soldier rescue General Hardtack from the enemy and fly him through enemy lines.

Ace in the Hole (1942, Alex Lovy)

Woody Woodpecker is at a military base and wants to fly an airplane. After reading a textbook he pilots a PU-2. Large bulldog acts as antagonist.

Curator’s Biography

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
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.

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 95, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ vast collection of 16mm film prints. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 95th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 95: Experiments in Art and Cinema is a heady, techno-cultural look at the multimedia art forms and cinematic uprisings of the tumultuous 60s and 70s featuring a vast array of evolutionary artists, cultural criticism and eye-popping movement art. Art of the Sixties (1967), features the monumental soft sculptures of pop icon Claes Oldenburg, machine artist and animator Len Lye, Les Levine’s interactive environments, action painter provocateur Jackson Pollock and more. A seldom seen NET documentary USA Artists: Robert Rauschenberg (1966) showcases a young Rauschenberg’s innovative “Revolvers” or “Combines”- multilayered painted sculptures that expand the boundaries of art. Merce Cunningham (1964) the extremely rare French-made poetic montage of movement pioneer Merce Cunningham’s dance performances in collaboration with life partner and composer John Cage with “found object” sets by Robert Rauschenberg. Underground Film (1970), is another rare exploration into the work of seminal experimental filmmaker (and SF Cinematheque foundress) Chick Strand, a pioneer in blending avant-garde techniques with documentary. The Critic (1963), an animated Oscar-winner from the great Ernie Pintoff -watch as comedy legend Mel Brooks relentlessly rags on the experimental animation he's shown to hilarious effect. Also screening will be an excerpt from USA Artists: Jim Dine (1966), a live performance from the sixties artist instrumental in creating early “Happenings” - live, non-linear multimedia events. The evening will also include a breathtaking selection of Whitney films, featuring motion graphics pioneer John Whitney Sr., brother James and son Michael's work, all profoundly audacious and inspiring in their fluidity, motion and spiritual subtext. John Whitney's Arabesque (1975) is a legendary masterpiece of shimmering, oscillating waves set to the music of Persian composer Maroocheher Sadeghi. Michael Whitney's Binary Bit Patterns (1969) is a hypnotic psych-folk audiovisual experience that suggests a secret symbiosis between the digital and the organic as various Eastern graphic permutations appear, dissolve and undergo metamorphoses on the screen. Lapis (1965), made by a spiritualized James Whitney (one of only 7 films he created) and one of the most accessible experimental films ever made; Lapis was created with handmade cels evoking a single mandala moving within itself; its particles surge around each other in constant metamorphosis. To foreground our program, and starting promptly at 8PM is the rare documentary Richter on Film (1972) profiling Dadaist and abstract/avant-garde filmmaker Hans Richter as he talks about his ground-breaking experimental films of the 1920s.

Date: Friday, December 11th, 2015 at 8:00PM

Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating, RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or RSVP@oddballfilm.com
Web: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Featuring:

The Art of the Sixties (Color, 1967)
This rarely seen documentary aired on CBS at the height of the revolutionary and hopeful changes sweeping the art world (not to mention the rest of society). The film takes an inside look at some of the leading figures in art during the decade, including rare glimpses into their studios and working processes. Highlights include soft-sculpture pop iconographer Claes Oldenburg who states “My work is not meant to be funny or even art, my work is just made to be important”, Jackson “The Dripper” Pollock, conceptualist Sol Lewitt, Les Levine, and other artists who have since become emblematic of the wild experimentation of and use of industrial processes (Rauschenberg’s silkscreens, Barnett Newman’s steel fabricated sculptures) of the 60s. We also follow pioneering filmmaker, sculptor and oddball engineer Len Lye as he demonstrates his large-scale kinetic sound sculptures.

USA: Artists: Robert Rauschenberg (B+W, 1966)
A fascinating portrait of Robert Rauschenberg, one of the forerunners of Pop Art and one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Rauschenberg’s legendary explorations into painting, mixed media, theater, performance art and costume design influenced generations of artists and together with Pop artists like Jasper Johns, collaborators like composer John Cage and dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham stretched and redefined the boundaries of the American art. From his patricidal “Erased DeKooning”* work to his co-founding of (E.A.T.) Experiments in Art and Technology in 1966, (formed as a collaborative link between artists and engineers), to his pioneering “combine paintings” using revolving discs to his work incorporating found objects and photo silkscreened images, Rauschenberg’s work is legendary.

Merce Cunningham/ Image et technique/Merce Cunningham (B+W, 1964)
A very rare 16mm print, this French-made poetic montage features excerpts of movement pioneer Merce Cunningham’s dance performances shot at the Théâtre de l’Est Parisien and Comédie de Bourges in June 1964. Cunningham, a major figure in 20th century dance collaborates here with life partner and composer John Cage (who creates a wall of industrial sound) with “found” material sets by pop artist Robert Rauschenberg. The film features dancers Raynal, Jackie, Etienne Becker, and Patrice O’Wyers.
For more info on Cunningham and Cage’s influence read:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/john-cage-with-merce-cunningham-revolutionized-music-too/2012/08/30/a3edbaf8-f177-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story.html

Underground Film (1970, Color)
An exploration into ‘underground’ film through the eyes (and films) of California experimental filmmaker, Chick Strand (1931-2009), this documentary gives a close look into the life and work of one of the west coast’s (and Bay Area’s) most innovative independent filmmakers. Included among the interviews and footage of Strand working is a full-length version of her film, Anselmo, shot in Mexico in 1967. Lush color, layered images and intimate cinematography create an inimitable portrait of a musician friend and a tuba in Anselmo. Working in 16mm and Super 8mm, Chick Strand was one of a group of Bay Area filmmakers including Bruce Baillie, Gunvor Nelson, Dorothy Wiley, and Robert Nelson (to name a few) who established Canyon Cinema, San Francisco Cinematheque, and self published a journal of writings from and on filmmakers working in the area in the ‘60s and ‘70s. These filmmakers’ film work and efforts established a unique Bay Area community of distribution and exhibition for local film artists and have had an indelible impact on West Coast experimental and independent film aesthetics.

The Critic (Color, 1963)
An animated Oscar winner from the great Ernie Pintoff- the “Critic is Mel Brooks, sitting in a movie theater. Loudly describing/deriding what he sees on the screen (a spoof of a Norman McLaren-styled animation). Brooks' old man character relentlessly rags on the experimental animation he's shown to hilarious effect.

USA Artists: Jim Dine (excerpt, 1966, B+W)
From NET (National Educational Television) we feature an excerpt from one of artist Jim Dine’s “Happenings”, an early form of performance art. While critics tried to pigeonhole Dine as a “pop” artist he strongly insisted he was simply making art and not part of a school. “I don’t care anymore about the avant garde-it’s too easy to be a shocker”, said Dine. He created happenings like “Smiling Worker” (1959) and “Car Crash” (1960) and worked with John Cage, Alan Kaprow and leading neo-dada, surrealist and avant garde artists of his time. His experiments with exposing himself as a medium broke boundaries in the theater and pushed audiences to come forward toward his work instead of being catered too. “I trust thoroughly the meat of the unconscious” said Dine.

Arabesque (Color, 1975)
John Whitney‘s Arabesque, is considered by many to be the seminal computer film. Set to the music of Manoochelher Sadeghi, and created during a residency at IBM Whitney balanced science with aesthetics as he experimented with the eccentricities of Islamic architecture creating whirling, exotic flows of computer generated images. Arabesque was one of the first computer generated films that married technology and art is a focused, cinematic manner. Working with his early home-made computerized motion-control set-up, Whitney could produce a variety of innovative designs and metamorphoses of text and still images, which proved very successful in advertising and titling of commercial projects. He also did various commercial assignments including the title design for Hitchcock's feature Vertigo (in association with Saul Bass), and the preparation (in association with Charles Eames) of a seven-screen presentation for the Buckminster Fuller Dome in Moscow.

Binary Bit Patterns (Color, 1969)
The spectacular, fast-paced film features quilt-like tapestries of polyhedral and crystalline figures pulsating and multiplying with a kind of universal logic eliciting a hypnotic, trancelike effect from the viewer. This film echoes a preoccupation with the mandala image and the interest in Eastern meditative philosophy that is seen in the work of the whole Whitney family. Employing computer generated imagery with optically introduced color and flicker effects, Michael Whitney creates a hypnotic, psych-folk audiovisual experience that suggests a secret symbiosis between the digital and the organic as various Persian inflected graphic permutations appear, dissolve and undergo metamorphoses on the screen. With original sound-score.

Lapis (Color, 1965)

This film, by film pioneer James Whitney consists entirely of dot patterns. Like a
single mandala moving within itself, the particles surge around each other in constant metamorphosis, a serene ecstasy of what Jung calls "individuation." For 10 minutes, a succession of beautiful designs grows incredibly, ever more intricate and astounding; sometimes the black background itself becomes the pattern, when paths are shunned by the moving dots. A voluptuous raga soundtrack by Ravi Shankar perfectly matches the film's flow, and helped to make LAPIS one of the most accessible "experimental films" ever made.
The images were all created with handmade cels, and the rotation of more than one of these cels creates some of the movements. John Whitney Sr. had built a pioneer computerized animation set-up—the prototype for the motion-control systems that later made possible such special effects as the "Star Gate" sequence of 2001. James used that set-up to shoot some of his handmade artwork, since it could ensure accuracy of placement and incremental movement.

For more information about John, James and Michael Whitney’s work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whitney_(animator)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Whitney_(filmmaker)
Another link to James Whitney’s influences and life: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/WM_JWsight.pdf

Richter on Film (1972)
The brilliant painter, Dadaist and abstract/avant garde filmmaker Hans Richter talks about his experimental films of the 1920's. Excerpts from Rhythm 2 (1921), Race Symphony (1928), and Ghosts Before Breakfast (1927) are included. Richter moved from Switzerland to the United States in 1940 and taught in the Institute of Film Techniques at the City College of New York.
While living in New York, Richter directed two feature films, Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) and 8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957) in collaboration with Max Ernst, Jean Cocteau, Paul Bowles, Fernand Léger, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, and others. In 1957, he finished a film entitled Dadascope with original poems and prose spoken by their creators: Hans Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Raoul Hausmann, Richard Huelsenbeck, and Kurt Schwitters. Richter was also the author of a first-hand account of the Dada movement titled Dada: Art and Anti-Art which also included his reflections on the emerging Neo-Dada artworks.

Curator Biography:
Stephen Parr’s 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 Films, a stock film company 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.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
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.

Oddball Films presents Learn Your Lesson on Mental Health and Hygiene - A Therapeutic Shockucation, the 33rd in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational scare films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month we're examining the mind with shocking psychiatry shorts, schizophrenic and anti-social teens, and tons of social conditioning shorts to make all of us valuable, well-adjusted and courteous members to society. Behold the marvels of "modern" psychiatry in the 1950s, including an unabashed look at shock therapy as one method of mental conditioning in What's on your Mind? (1956). One young man finds himself in the beginning stages of schizophrenia, drawn by the voices in his head into the comforting world of snow in Silent Snow, Secret Snow (1966). A white-coated "scientist" explains the basic emotions and uses the tale of angry young Jeff to explain how anger can ruin everybody's day in Control Your Emotions (1950). Discover the changes all young people go through, and how to navigate the new and exciting worlds of Jr. and Sr. High school in TheAge of Turmoil (1953) and Junior High: A Time of Change (1960s). Don't spend your childhood years lonely, go talk to your mom and discover The Fun of Making Friends (1950) Plus, emotional excerpts from Help Me!: The Story of a Teenage Suicide (1970s) and for the delusional: Facing Reality (1959), with more pre-show surprises and everything screened on 16mm from the archive, it's an unbalanced night to learn your lesson.

Date: Friday, December 18th, 2015 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

Featuring:

What's on your Mind? (B+W, 1956)
A shocking early short from the National Film Board of Canada about psychiatry. See the mind of a deranged schizophrenic and follow scores of mal-adjusted people discover the plentiful ways in which 1950s psychiatry offered as help in re-normalizing the human mind, including group therapy and a disturbing and unapologetic shock therapy sequence.

Silent Snow, Secret Snow (B+W, 1966)
A stark and chilling tale of a teen boy's onset of schizophrenia, demonstrated by the voices in his head beckoning him further and further into a comforting silent world of snow. More of a psychological horror film than an educational one, this bleak adaptation of a Conrad Aiken story has never been screened at Oddball before, and it's about snowy time! Directed by Gene Kearney, screenwriter of the bunny-rabbit horror film The Night of the Lepus.

Control Your Emotions (B+W, 1950)
In this classic mental-hygiene primer from Coronet Films, A white coat scientist introduces the range of emotions in relation to a burning fire. Then, we visit with angry Jeff who gets upset at school and loses his cool (and his sh*t) all over town.

Help Me! The Story of a Teenage Suicide (Color, 1977, excerpt)

Sandy, a teenager facing a crisis in her life, commits suicide. Through watching her and the reactions of her parents, teachers and friends to her problems and confusions, the viewer is led to see some of the reasons for her suicide and what might have been done to prevent it.

Age of Turmoil (B+W, 1953)

This educational film outlines the developmental changes teenagers undergo for the benefit of concerned parents. The focus lies in an obsession with normality; an assurance “that giggling, that unconstructive criticism of school, the criticism of families, and the unrealistic ideas of their own future,” are not to be feared, but understood with patience. Age of Turmoil offers an antidote to the delinquency films of the period, assuring adults that teens will one day gain some sanity.

The Fun of Making Friends (B+W, 1950)

Joey wants a friend...desperately! Some how he has made it to age 9 or 10 without ever having made a friend. When he goes to his mother for advice, she gives him four simple rules for making friends all over town.

Junior High: A Time of Change (Color, early 1960s)

Why do they separate the pubescent kids from everyone else? Because Jr. High is when children are most annoying! Learn about your changing body and attitude and discover that it's perfectly normal that you're still a shrimp even though girls your age are already towering over you, because you've got the answer in science class. Don't worry, puberty is awful for everyone, and that's perfectly normal.

Curator’s Biography

An American in Madras - Bombay Filmmaker Karan Bali in Person - Fri. October 23rd - 8PM

Home Movie Day 2015 - Free Workshop and Screening of Bizarro Home Movies - Sat. Oct. 17th

Learn your Lesson on the School Bus: An Accidental Shockucation - Fri. October 16th - 8PM

Southern Gothic - The Haunting Tales of Ambrose Bierce - Thur. Oct. 15th - 8PM

Vintage Halloween Hullabaloo - Fri. Oct. 30th - 8PM

Suck on This! - Vamps and Vampires - Thur. Oct. 29th - 8PM

Cursed Kids - The Horror of Childhood - Thur. Oct. 22 - 8PM

Cinema Soiree - Canyon Cinema - Thur. Nov. 5th - 8PM

Strange Sinema 94: Sex in Cinema - Fri. Nov. 6th - 8PM

What the F(ilm)?! 14: Cine-Insanity from the Archive - Fri. Nov 13th - 8PM

Art and the Machine: The Birth of Electronic Arts - Thur. Nov. 12th - 8PM

Learn your Lesson from the '60s - A Groovy Shockucation - Fri. Nov. 20th - 8PM

Tunes and Toons: Animated Adventures in Musicland - Thur. Nov. 19th - 8PM

Oddball will be Closed for the Week of Thanksgiving

Sexploitation Cinema Soiree with Joe Rubin from Vinegar Syndrome - Thur. Dec. 10th - 8PM

Monkey Time - Fri. Dec. 4th - 8PM

Weird Science - Thur. Dec. 3rd - 8PM

Cartoons Go To War: Animated Propaganda from WWII - Thur. Sep. 17th - 8PM

Strange Sinema 95: Experiments in Art and Cinema - Fri. Dec. 11th - 8PM

Learn Your Lesson on Mental Health and Hygiene - A Therapeutic Shockucation - Fri. Dec. 18th - 8PM