Oddball Films

Oddball Films presents Oh Canada! The Best of Canadian Animation, a program of 16mm cartoons all from Canadians, eh! Clever, hypnotic, mind-blowing, and often politically progressive this program highlights the work of some of the best innovators Canadian animation has to offer. The brilliant experimental animator and director of the National Film Board of Canada, Norman McLaren gives us two breathtaking works of pixilation animation. We'll begin with his Opening Speech. In Neighbors (1952), McLaren presents a much darker world (in beautiful color) where neighbors come to words, then blows, then bombs over who gets the beautiful flower that grows between their houses. Yellow Submarine animator Paul Driessen gives us a strange vision of the Inquisition in a spider's web in Cat's Cradle (1974). From the Oscar-nominated Caroline Leaf, the astounding sand animation based on Inuit legend, The Owl Who Married a Goose (1976). Evelyn Lambart's delightful cut-out animation Fine Feathers (1968) features birds that trade their feathers for foliage. With more cut-out creativity from Grant Munro and Gerald Potterton in the stylish mid-century My Financial Career (1962) based on Stephen Leacock's witty essay. What on Earth? (1966) brings us a martian's point of view of our auto-obsessed world. For some musical mayhem, we've got the eye-popping and surreal animated trip that is Brad Caslor's Get a Job (1985). In honor of the season, we bring you the delightfully strange Christmas Cracker (1964) featuring 3 odd Christmas vignettes from the brilliant Norman McLaren among others, and Jeff Hale's The Great Toy Robbery (1963), where Santa is held up by bandits in the Old-West. Plus, more pre-show surprises from our neighbors to the North!

Date: Thursday, December 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 Sweater (Color, 1980)
Wonderful coming of age/mortified youth story written and narrated by Canadian novelist Roch Carrier. The film is about his trials when he is forced to wear a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey sweater rather than his favorite, rival team the Canadiens. The story is widely considered an allegory for the linguistic and cultural tensions between anglophone and francophone Canadians, and is an essential classic of Canadian literature (it is even featured on the back of the Canadian $5 bill). A Leonard Maltin favorite, the animation is by Sheldon Cohen.

Opening Speech (B+W, 1961)

Featuring Norman McLaren himself, he tries to master a recalcitrant microphone at the opening of the 1st Montreal International Film Festival. At every turn, McLaren finds himself duped by the wily mic. McLaren gives a performance worthy of Tati’s Monsieur Hulot or Peter Seller’s Clouseau.

Neighbors (Color, 1952)

Utilizing the new technique of animating live actors (fellow NFB animators Paul Ladouceur and Grant Munro), the Oscar-winning Neighbours is Norman McLaren’s most famous and important film. A parable of aggression and war, two men sit peacefully in lawn chairs when a flower appears on the boundary of their properties. In the quarrel that ensues the flower is destroyed, and the men turn to demons, destroying everything, including themselves.

Get A Job (Color, 1985)

This animated film that was written, directed, and animated by Brad Caslor presents all the frustrations, anxieties, and absurd hurdles of the job hunt in a funny and entertaining story. A cartoon dog gets booted out of one job interview after another, always being nagged by a group of grotesque looking singing pigs and heckled by a posse of singing bum animals. Finally, after a nightmarish trip through yet another series of interviews, the dog lands himself a job. Great music mixed with great, colorful animation, make this yet another gem from the National Film Board of Canada that is not to be missed!

Caninabis - The Junky Dog (Color, 1979)
Yes, you read that right: CANINABIS! This head-scratcher from the National Film Board of Canada chronicles the animated exploits of a scruffy street dog, who develops a taste (and smell) for that sticky icky icky, but uses his powers to help the police, where he is rewarded with huge joints for every drug bust. But when the weed starts playing tricks on his mind, the scruffy mutt drops the ball and ends up on the street again, chasing tailpipes for one more high!

Fine Feathers (Color, 1968)

A charming cut out animation from Norman McLaren's frequent collaborator Evelyn Lambart. Two birds try to show each other up by trading their feathers for foliage and both end up paying the consequences when the wind ruffles their leaves.

My Financial Career (Color, 1962)
A wry and stylish retelling of Stephen Leacock's essay, directed by Gerald Potterton with fabulous mid-century cut-out animation by the great Grant Munro. A man tries his best to start a bank account only to get so overwhelmed by the institution, he bungles the whole transaction.

Cat’s Cradle (Color, 1974)
Directed by Dutch animator Paul Driessen, one of the principle artists who worked on “Yellow Submarine” (and immigrated to Canada in 1971 to join the NFB), this curious piece is reminiscent of the Blue Meanies style, but with a darker tone. Witches, cloaked riders and other gothic characters in a tale about the hungry natural world.

The Owl Who Married a Goose (B+W, 1976, Caroline Leaf)

A mesmerizing sand-animation based on an Inuit legend touting the consequences of not staying true to your own nature. Made for the NFB by the always innovative Caroline Leaf who experimented with multiple forms of animation, from sand-animation to paint-on-glass. Leaf was nominated for an Academy Award for The Street (1976).

What On Earth! (Color, 1966)

If aliens looked at planet Earth from outer space, what would he or she see? In this film, automobiles are perceives as life forms – with particular habits and behaviors! See beautifully animated lines of cars, dancing figures and stoplights, and other objects dancing. This psychedelic simplified world of shapes and signs, emphasizes consumerism and the ways in which earthlings are being conditioned! Produced by the National Film Board of Canada and directed by Les Drew and Kaj Pindal.

Christmas Cracker (Color, 1964)

A witty seasonal pleasantry consisting of three animation segments, employing tricks in movie magic by National Film Board of Canada artists and animators, including famed animators Norman McLaren, Grant Munro and with specially arranged music. Three scenarios are presented: A jester mimes introductions to each act, the first of which is a play on Jingle Bells in which a boy and a girl of paper cutouts move to the music. There follows a dime-store rodeo -- a whirring, hopping, ballet of tin toys done in animation to jazz composition. The third act is a tall tale of a Christmas tree trimmer who needs a star to top his tree and builds a space vehicle to pluck one from the sky.

Great Toy Robbery (Color, 1963)

Acclaimed Canadian animator Jeff Hale ascribes a not so fortunate tale of Santa and the Wild West. With a structured and mechanical aesthetic, Hale erects a cartoon world full of good, bad, ugly and in between. A beautiful and sprite sound design completes the work, giving it a quality of magic, kind of like Santa Claus himself. Hale is best known for his work on a variety of animated television programs including Transformers, The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, and Stanley, the Ugly Duckling.

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 been scouring the archive for the best and worst of international animation for over 4 years.

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 will not be having any screenings this week, so you will have to wait until next year to get your fix of obscure and eclectic cinephemera. Here's hoping your holidays are painless and your feastings are plentiful!

Happy New Year! We are going to be closed this week, but we will see you next week for more eclectic and bizarre 16mm cinema!

Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Antique Erotica with the best of the oldest smut, burlesque and erotica of the collection. From the 1910s-1950s, this program of 16mm sinful celluloid includes insane pornographic cartoons, marionette strippers, early stag films, bizarre burlesque, nudie cuties and more! One of the earliest stag films, Getting his Goat (1923), a man is in for a surprise when he propositions sex through a hole in a gate. Eveready Hardon heads to the beach in the outrageous pornographic cartoon Buried Treasure (1928). Nudism: A Way of Life (c. 1950) sheds light on the rise of nudist culture in Mid-Century America. A drunk old farmer tries to tune in to naked ladies on his new TV set in the bizarre and notorious nudie cutie Uncle Si and the Sirens (1938). Hop on board for what some say is America's first hardcore porn, the notorious silent stag film A Free Ride AKA Grass Sandwich (1915). Mrs. John Barrymore does the least enticing striptease you've ever seen in the entirely unsexy How to Undress for your Husband (1937). Plus more bizarre burlesque, The Fabulous Cat Girl struts her stuff, the marionette striptease The Doll Dance with Rene and Arlene, Busman's Holiday, a film for serious artists only, and the double vision of Stereoscopic Smut!

Date: Friday, January 8th, 2016 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:

On the Beach aka Getting His Goat (B+W, 1923)
“Idylwild Beach where the men are idle and the women are wild”
From 1923 here’s one of the earliest stag films ever made starring Creighton Hale (from D.W. Griffith’s “Way Down East”). A man peeps through a knot hole on a group of girls and gets more than he bargained for.

Buried Treasure (B+W, 1928)

The Granddaddy of pornographic cartoons, persistent rumors suggest that Max Fleischer (Betty Boop and others), Paul Terry (of TerryToons) and Budd Fisher (Mutt & Jeff) were responsible for this bawdy masterpiece. The legendary porno cartoon with a boogie woogie piano soundtrack depicting the unlikely adventures of the perpetually aroused title character (Eveready Hardon) with, among others, a man, a woman, and a cow. You’ll laugh and the guys may even scream!

Disn*y animator Ward Kimball gave the following account of the history of the short:

"The first porno-cartoon was made in New York. It was called "Eveready Harton" and was made in the late 20's, silent, of course-by three studios. Each one did a section of it without telling the other studios what they were doing. Studio A finished the first part and gave the last drawing to Studio B Involved were Max Fleisher, Paul Terry and

the Mutt and Jeff studio. They didn't see the finished product till the night of the big show. A couple of guys who were there tell me the laughter almost blew the top off the hotel where they were screening it."

Nudism: A Way of Life? (B+W, c.1950)
An unbiased and unabashed exploration of the nudism movement which first gained popularity in Germany in the early 20th Century. While the narrator claims to be objective, the lingering shots of partially disrobed women seem to indicate otherwise. With a visit to a nudist colony and a housewife in nothing but an apron, you'll learn more about the (female) body than you thought you needed to...

Doll Dance (B+W, 1940s)

A 1940s Burlesque tit for tat dance number with Arlene and Rene. Both ladies are lovely, only Arlene has someone pulling her strings.

How to Undress in Front of Your Husband (B+W, 1937)

An exercise in exhibitionism and the least titillating striptease ever starring Elaine Barrie AKA Mrs. John Barrymore (!) wife of the famed Hollywood legend. It's a wonder she was his last wife!

Free Ride AKA Grass Sandwich (B+W, 1915)

This infamous stag short is touted as being the earliest example of American hardcore pornography, though its actual date of production is still hotly debated. A motorist stops to pick up a couple of lovely ladies from the side of the road and they embark on the ride of their lives! Silent with added soundtrack.

Uncle Si and the Sirens (B+W, 1938)

An early illicit film in which the recently invented television promises exotic treats. A truly remarkable anticipation of the Internet, drunken Uncle Si escapes to a private room where he turns into a ravenous animal upon seeing the Sirens!

The Fabulous Cat Girl (B+W, 1950s)

A sexy blonde gets her frisky feline on in this offbeat burlesque number.

Busman's Holiday (B+W, 1940s)

"This motion picture is produced exclusively for study by artists" warns an intertitle, but something tells me this nudie cutie made its way to more than one stag party! The "story" centers around a lovely young lady who is not only a model, but a budding photographer as well. Thank goodness she's a bit of a klutz and ends up revealing a lot more of herself than her talent!

Stereoscopic Smut (B+W, 1940s)

Yes, you are seeing double! It's double trouble in this unique piece of vintage erotica. A lovely brunette undresses for the cameras. Originally made to be viewed in a specialized stereoscopic viewer, this lovely lady won't be in 3D, but she's still got twice the goods!

Burlesque Screen Tests and Dancers (B+W, 1950s)

Watch these “Screen tests” and super-quirky burlesque dancers get way-out and weird. Shorts feature Bunny Spencer modeling the “stockings of tomorrow”, Barbara Nichols doing a Latin Mambo on a rooftop and “Afro-Cuban Genni”, masked and dancing with a bowl of fire on her head. Now that’s burlesque!

Bubble Bath Dance (B+W, 1952)

Lili St. Cyr was the most influential burlesque dancer in the second half of the 20th century. Her hip-swiveling ways swayed pop-culture sirens from Marilyn Monroe (who copied her style) to Madonna (who bought her famous push up bras) for decades to come. St. Cyr shimmied across the country with inventive routines in posh nightclubs amassing legions of famous fans, including Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan. Her notoriety and fame brought financial and commercial successes, with roles in movies like Howard Hughes' Son of Sinbad and Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. Here, we see a segment of her infamous Bubble Bath Dancefrom the film Love Moods.

About Oddball Films

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 Film Under the Influence - Vintage Drug Scare Films, a program of mind-expanding, terror-intending and hilarity-inducing short 16mm educational films about the dangers of drugs. These classroom classics from the 1950s through the 1980s were meant to scare the pants off the junior-high set but probably encouraged as many to experiment with drugs and alcohol as it discouraged. Strap in for Subject: Narcotics (1951), a very early drug education film produced for police orientation and training presenting dramatized sequences of addicts in shooting galleries with excellent footage of pre-renewal downtown Los Angeles (a neighborhood now lost). McGruff the Crime Dog is back (as a man in a clumsy dog suit and trademark trenchcoat) and he's got a lesson for the kiddies on how to narc on your druggy friends in McGruff's Drug Alert (1987). Tragic figure Sal Mineo knows the pressures on teens to fit in, but warns that taking acid is nothing more than a "kick in the head" in the appropriately psychedelic trip LSD: Insight or Insanity (1967). Tony's a junior high student and already a raging alcoholic in the very special classroom film The Glug (1981). Kindergarteners hand-draw the story of John and his search for an escape from his pain through drugs and alcohol in A Story About Feelings (1981). Scaremeister Sid Davis takes us into the world of pills and three boys' needs to feel good in The Pill Poppers (1970). Get drunk and animated with A Snort History (1971), a cartoon depiction of drunk drivers throughout history. Early birds can learn all about Gina's Story: From Cocaine to Crack (1984), plus the trailer for the 1935 exploitation film Marijuana: Assassin of Youth and more surprises.

Date: Thursday, January 7th, 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:

Subject: Narcotics (B+W, 1951)

"If a junkie is lucky, he dies early."

Produced for police orientation and training, police officers, and "restricted from the general public and from all youth groups” this early drug education film presents drug addiction not simply as a crime but as a deep-seated social problem. With dramatized sequences of addicts in shooting galleries and excellent footage of pre-renewal downtown Los Angeles, a neighborhood now lost. Produced and directed by renowned filmmakers Denis and Terry Sanders, who wrote this film with Jay Sandrich.

McGruff's Drug Alert (Color, 1987)
Everybody's favorite dog detective, McGruff the Crime Dog teaches children that pills and medicines can be poisonous if they are taken by the wrong people or in the wrong amounts. He teaches also about “illegal” drugs and how to narc on your friends!

LSD: Insight or Insanity? (Color, 1967)

Sal Mineo narrates this trip-adelic anti-acid scare film. We begin with a bunch of groovy teenagers, doing whatever hairstyle or game of chicken they need to do to be cool. When that includes the kick of LSD, you better get ready for "the end of your life kick; a kick in the head." Swingin' chicks, hot hot-rodders and tons of psychedelia make this one hell of a trip!

The Glug (Color, 1981)
Begins with a dramatic beer-heist and drinking games but ends with young Tony's dependency on on alcohol. This quintessential classroom film hits all the right campy notes.

A Story About Feelings (Color, 1981)

This should really be called "A Story about Chemical Dependence as Drawn by 5-year-olds". A handful of tots illustrate the tale of John, a guy that's after feeling good. When living straight isn't enough for John, he turns first to alcohol and then to drugs to feel good.

The Pill Poppers (Color, 1970)

It's the educational Valley of the Dolls! The blue pills will make you fly and the red pills will chill you out!  Classic early 70s Sid Davis social guidance film about 3 boys and their barbiturate and amphetamine habits. A laugh riot!

A Snort History (Color, 1971)

A short partially animated anti-drunk driving film that details the foibles of men throughout history failing to do things while drunk, from crossing bridges with sabre-toothed tigers to toppling Roman architecture.  A silly cartoon with an important message. Directed by Stan Phillips with animation by Pat Oliphant.

For the Early Birds:

Gina's Story: From Cocaine to Crack (Color, 1984)

Are you uncomfortable at parties? Feel like you don't fit in? Try cocaine; it will help you dance all night and feel like part of the gang...until you are strung out on crack, dealing to get by and eventually overdosing and dying, just like Gina.

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 and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Stop-Motion Explosion!, a program of mind-blowing stop-motion animation from the 1950s to the 1980s. In a world saturated with CGI, Oddball Films opens the vaults to celebrate when historical, fantastical and anthropomorphic creatures were hand-sculpted and manipulated into “life.” This program features stop-motion heavy-hitters Ray Harryhausen, Art Clokey, Co Hoedeman, Bretislav Pojar, Jane Aaron, and Istvan Imre with tons of new finds and a few all-time favorites. Gumby and the gang make a spectacle of a pair of glasses in Art Clokey's Dopey Nopey (1956). Practical-special effects legend Ray Harryhausen gives us a sweet puppet version of The Story of Rapunzel (1951). Bretislav Pojar's Nightangel (1986), made for the National Film Board of Canada combines stop-motion with breathtaking pinscreen animation to create an ethereal dream world. Another NFB treasure, Co Hoedeman's Oscar-winner The Sand Castle (1977) takes a trip to the beach and creates a magical land of ridiculous sand creatures. Jane Aaron's breathtaking short short Traveling Light (1985) utilizes tiny scraps of paper to simulate sunlight pouring in through a window. In the rarest film of the night, Bill Has 100 Faces (1967) Hungarian animator Istvan Imre brings us a delightful romance between two billiard balls. The beloved children's book Corduroy (1984) comes to life in mixed-animation with a living stuffed bear. A hammer, nails and wrenches have a dance party in the George Pal-produced Toolbox Ballet (1971). One Caveman evolves with the help of some dino pals in Stanley and the Dinosaurs (1989). Plus more surprises for the early birds! It's a night one million minute movements in the making!

Date: Friday, January 15th, 2016 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:

Dopey Nopey (Color, 1956)

A little boy loses his glasses and Pokey picks them up, hoping that they will make him smarter, despite Gumby's objections. When the puppy Nopey gets hold of the coveted spectacles, four-eyed hilarity ensues. Print on generous loan from Carl Martin.

The Story of Rapunzel (Color, 1951)

This tale is brought to life with wonderful puppetry animation from the great special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen.

Nightangel (Color, 1986)
A seamless blend of puppet animation and the pinscreen technique is used in this evocative, romantic story by Břetislav Pojar of a man's obsession with a mysterious and benign spirit. When tragedy befalls him, he finds refuge in the love this nightangel has shown him. Winner of the L.A. Film Critics Award.

The Sand Castle (Color, 1977)

An Oscar-winning animated film utilizing clay and sand. A funny little sand man emerges from a dune and slides around. He creates another little man out of sand and a small creature. They find more creatures and decide to work together on building a big sand castle. Once they are done, they all dance around together. Then, the wind starts to pick up and sand starts to blow in, destroying all their hard work. Brought to you by the National Film Board of Canada and director Co Hoedeman and winner of 22 international awards.

Stanley and the Dinosaurs (Color, 1989)
Stanley the caveman lives with his kind in a cave. One day, he decides to befriend a bunch of dinosaurs who help him to build the very first house.

Corduroy (Color, 1984)
The beloved children's book comes to life with the help of an adorable stop-motion bear who decides to tour the mall in search of the missing button from his overalls. Will he make it back to the toy department in time to be chosen by a little girl for Christmas, or will the slightly-irregular stuffed friend get left behind again?

Traveling Light (Color, 1985)

"I definitely do have a passion for light. It’s a very emotional thing. Light is thrilling for me."
- Jane Aaron

Fascinating and beautiful film from the innovative Jane Aaron who recently passed away in June. Utilizing tiny scraps of paper, Aaron mimics the light from windows traveling across her house and furniture. Featuring music by Steely Dan's Donald Fagen.

Bill Has A Hundred Faces (Color, 1969)
An incredibly rare and delightful puppet film from the Hungarian animation house Pannonia Film Studio and Istvan Imre - one of the first Hungarian animators to use puppets. The story begins on a billiard table with two balls in love. When a rival ball aggressively attempts to woo the lady away from her lover, our hero (Bill) retreats "back-stage" and fools his evil rival with a succession of ridiculous outfits and masks. Once free of the competition, Bill seeks out a body for his lady love and the two reunite passionately.

Toolbox Ballet (Color, 1971)

Animated tools perform an intricate ballet dance. Wrenches, hammers, nails, pliers, chisels, screwdrivers, and a welding torch all dancing about. Produced by the legendary George Pal, directed by Gene Warren.


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 presents Technicolor Dreams and Kodachrome Fantasies: The Mid-Century in Full Color, a gorgeous time capsule of 16mm ephemeral films showcasing the long-lasting beauty of two obsolete film stocks that allow us a full color glimpse into the world of yesteryear. With Hawaiian Tiki vacations, campy promotional films, beauty pageants, fashion shows, Chevy cars, and even a bird circus - all from the late 1940s-1950s in unblemished color - it's a vibrant cinematic trip back in time. A soldier stalks his lady love across the country and breaks out in song in the camptastic Greyhound promotional film The Shortest Way Home (1948). Set out for exotic ports of call in the vintage cheeky travelogue Polynesian Holiday (1955). Behold the marvelous spectacle of parakeets riding bicycles and tightrope walking in the jaw-dropping Bird Circus (1950s). Tony Curtis hosts a poolside party for the winners of Miss Universe 1955. See one girl's dream fashion classes and an incredible array of mid-century casual fashions in Jantzen: Completely You (1954). Behold the beauty of the "newest" line of Chevy sedans in the stylish promotional film The Rainbow is Yours (1951) from Jam Handy. Plus, snippets of Kodachrome Smut, Home Movies, and more!

Date: Thursday, January 14th, 2016 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 Shortest Way Home (Color, 1948)
A campy and beautiful Greyhound promotional film that's a great companion piece to Oddball favorite "America for Me". This long-form commercial (or short romantic comedy) focuses on a pair of war-crossed lovers who met overseas as nurse and patient and now appear to be bussing around the country in search of each other while gaining a lot of knowledge about the history of America all thanks to Greyhound! It's a Technicolor schmaltzfest that ends with the entire bus breaking out in song!

Bird Circus (Color, 1950s)

In this antique aviary gem, a flock of exotic birds display their mastery at a number of circus tricks. From riding bicycles, to tightrope walking to a spectacular miniature carnival of whirling parakeets, this Kodachrome dream is sure to dazzle and delight.

Miss Universe 1955 (Color, 1955)
Film star Tony Curtis narrates this Technicolor gem and politically incorrect display of cultural stereotypes. Wild lounge band sounds and some truly eye-popping moments!

Jantzen: Completely You (Color, 1954)

A beyond stunning Kodachrome campy promotional film for Jantzen clothing. A stylish young woman walks through town and onto a college campus where she falls asleep and dreams that she is attending various classes about the Jantzen clothing; discussing color choices and correct color combinations, as well as fabrics, designs, and body shapes. Throughout the film, she is admired by a young blonde man who finally meets her on a bench as she awakens from her fashionable dream. Directed By: Erven Jourdan and starring, Lita Blott, Dave Smith, James Lewis, Elenora Peterson, Irving Lerner, Adrian Money, and Dave Sohr. Vintage fashionistas won’t want to miss this- looks like it was filmed yesterday!

The Rainbow is Yours (Color, 1951)
Behold all the stunning colors of the newest line of shiny new Chevys in this kitschy promotional film made by industrial film giants Jam Handy.

Polynesian Holiday (Color, 1955)

Filmed in stunning Kodachrome color, this rare short travelogue stars bandleader Harry Owens in a tongue-in-cheek island vacation, where he’s fanned and feted by beautiful native women. Harry established the “hapa haole” style of Hawaiian music (native music as interpreted by foreigners) and won an Oscar for his song “Sweet Leilani”.

For the Early Birds:

Training You to Train Your Dog (Color, 1952)

The narrator gleefully intones at the start of the film "Pay attention and practice what we preach and you'll end up as smart as your dog". Watch genuinely useful advice and examples in glorious (and now defunct) 1950s Kodachrome as we learn how to choose a pooch, train a poodle to fetch a purse, learn doggie do's and don'ts and watch dogs dressed up for a tea party- just like people! This 1952 film is based on the groundbreaking book of the same name by Blanche Saunders. Almost all dog training is based on the methods she discovered and developed.


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 welcomes experimental animator, artist and professor Ben Ridgway to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Ridgway's mind-blowing abstract animations feature hypnotic and futuristic geometric forms that bring to mind the interior of an alien spaceship or the otherworldly beauty of an Ernst Haeckl engraving. Ridgway has been working on his sublime and hallucinatory experimental films since 1992 and his work has been featured in film festivals around the world. His“abstract animations investigate the metaphysical features of reality. They are designed to stimulate archetypal associations and invite the viewer to make personal connections to the visual and auditory experience without any reliance on narrative or spoken language. The focus is using newly available software applications in unconventional ways to generate innovative approaches to creating avant-garde films." Ridgway will be discussing his innovative approach to computer imagery as well as some of his influences in experimental animation and screening a selection of his metamorphic metaphysical work includingCosmic Flower Unfolding(2013),Inner Space Artifacts(2014),Tribocycle(2013),Continuum Infinitum(2012),Triboluminescence(2010) and more! To foreground his work, the archive will be screening transcendent experimental works on 16mm film including John Whitney's Arabesque (1975), James Whitney's Lapis (1966), Norman McLaren's A Phantasy (1952) and Blinkity Blank (1955) and Ishu Patel's Perspectrum (1974).

Date: Thursday, January 21st, 2016 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:

Inner Space Artifacts(Color, 2014)

“Inner Space Artifacts” is a depiction of artifacts from inner space transformed into moving digital sculptures.

Tribocycle(Color, 2013)

“Tribocycle” is an abstract animation that explores the concept of infinity and time through a continuously evolving set of rings. The film is designed for large scale projections and installations.

Cosmic Flower Unfolding(Color, 2013)

“Cosmic Flower Unfolding” is a constant flow of emerging and dissolving oceanic, futuristic, and mandala forms. It is a tribute to abstraction, its connection to the inner space we inhabit and how it can be externalized.

Continuum Infinitum(Color, 2012)

“Continuum Infinitum” unfolds before your eyes revealing finer and finer details emanating from a single point. It is a meditation on the mechanics of time and space as infinite and seamless processes. The film is designed to loop so it essentially has no beginning and no end.

Cellular Circuitry (Color, 2011)

“Cellular Circuitry” is a stream of digital sculptures and soundscapes that dynamically transmute between organic and circuit-like motifs. It is a reflection of artificial versus natural systems animated in such a way to show that they are intimately connected to one another.

Triboluminescence (Color, 2010)

“Triboluminescence” is intended as a digital muse and an opportunity to engage in a world of abstraction that has it’s own intrinsic meaning and message. The movie does not rely on words. Rather, it is designed to stimulate archetypal associations and invites the viewer to make personal connections to the visual and auditory experience without any reliance on narrative.

Ad Infinitum(Color, 2010)

“Ad Infinitum” is an exploration of the fractal like details of a sculptural continuum.

16mm selections from the archive:

Blinkity Blank (color, 1955, 6 min.)
An eye-popping experiment in the use of intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. the brilliant animator Norman McLaren plays with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye. He engraves pictures on blank film, with percussive effects added in the same way.

A Phantasy (color, 1952, 8 min.)
Cut-out animation by Norman McLaren, and music for saxophones and synthetic sound by Maurice Blackburn. In a dream-like, meditative and surreal landscape drawn in pastel, inanimate objects come to life to disport themselves in grave dances and playful ritual.

Arabesque (Color, 1975, John Whitney)
Early abstract computer-generated film by pioneer John Whitney- shimmering lines and waves of oscillating color dance to the music of Eastern rhythms and evolve from randomness to patterns inspired by 8th century Persian designs. Inspired by his 1974 visit to the city of Isfahan in Iran, Whitney found a relation between the formal and visual tradition of Islamic art and architecture and his own computer graphic study. Whitney famously collaborated with Saul Bass on the title sequence to Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Lapis (Color, 1963–1966, James Whitney)

James Whitney’s Lapis (1966) is a classic work of abstract cinema, a 10-minute animation created with primitive computer equipment over a three-year period. In this piece, the smaller circles oscillating in and out in an array of colors resemble a kaleidoscope and are accompanied by Indian sitar music. The patterns gradually have a hypnotic, trance-inducing effect. The auditory and visual senses clearly correlate in this work and deliver a wonderful example of the phenomenon of synaesthesia.

James Whitney is regarded as one of the great masters of visual music and he and his brother John (see Arabesque above) were pioneers in the use of computer technology in cinema.

Perspectrum (Color, 1974)

A film without words produced for the National Film Board of Canada. This animated short consists of simple geometric forms, as thin and flat as playing cards, but so arranged that a sense of perspective is conveyed. The effect is kaleidoscopic, but much more active, forming and re-forming constantly to the music. The koto, a thirteen-stringed Japanese instrument, is played by plucking the strings; the sound has a tinkling effect, synched to the glasslike shapes of the moving designs. Directed by famed Indian animator Ishu Patel with music by Michio Miyagi.

Bio – Ben Ridgway

http://benridgway.com/

Ben is currently an Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California, USA. He has 15 years of professional experience as both a 3D artist in the video game industry and as a Professor. While in the games industry he helped to create games for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft console systems. Ben has been making experimental animations since 1992.

“My abstract animations investigate the metaphysical features of reality. They are designed to stimulate archetypal associations and invite the viewer to make personal connections to the visual and auditory experience without any reliance on narrative or spoken language.

My art is intimately connected to the exploration of new technologies used for 3D computer graphics and animation. My focus is using newly available software applications in unconventional ways to generate innovative approaches to creating avant-garde films. The driving vision behind my work is fueled by drawings I make using traditional media. These drawings are created spontaneously using a vocabulary of structural forms that I have developed over time that can be arranged and interchanged in a multitude of different ways. My drawings are mostly abstract but sometimes can cross over into figurative designs fused with abstract forms. The musical compositions in my work are inspired by the use of both analogue and digital sources. Most of the time the musical arrangements I design straddle the line between atmospheric noise and music. My goal is to use sound in a way that creates an auditory parallel to the visual experience. Lighting, color, visual symbols and qualities of motion all inform the music I create. Both music and motion play equal roles in my film making process and a deep knowledge of both of these disciplines have allowed me to create unique works of art that few people can create single-handedly.

My work is abstract by nature and uses non narrative film making techniques. The undercurrents of my work point to themes centered on time, cycles, the concept of infinity, and the similarities between artificial and natural systems. In a world where technology and artificial systems are becoming more prevalent my films are a reminder that they are both a product of nature. The processes I develop to create my work are equally important as the final product. I strive to find new and innovative methods for creating sophisticated animations while retaining the ability to use intuition and spontaneity throughout the creative process. My films do not contain dialogue or written language of any sort. This allows my films to be enjoyed and interpreted by anyone regardless of their native language."

Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 96,a monthly evening of newly discovered films, rarities and choice selects from the stacks of the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled this 96th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 96: Visionary Music and Beyond features films that expand the boundaries of cinema and music. The program presents rare music documentaries, experimental animation and genuinely forward-thinking films that meld together music and moving images. From the 20^thcentury’s most revolutionary avant garde genius Harry Partch to Bruno Bozzetto’s brilliant cameraless collaboration with swingin soundtrack maestro Franco Godi this program is an eye-popping and ear-opening excursion into the beyond. Selected films include The Dreamer That Remains(1973)featuring a rare profile oflegendary composer, musical inventor and hobo Harry Partch;Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953), Ward Kimball’s brilliant Technicolor, mid-century cartoon that explores the development of Western musical instruments from caveman to present day; Glass(1958), the beautiful, masterful, Oscar-winning short film about glass-blowing featuring the occasionally eerie mixture of jazz, bebop, and the metallic punctuations of industry at work performed by the Pim Jacobs Quintet; Ego (1970) Italy’s Bruno Bozzetto optical printing and pop art imagery bond with master Franco Godi’s wildly ultra-lounge soundtrack; Begone Dull Care (1949) a cameraless, abstract, constantly morphing film by internationally renowned National Film Board of Canada animator Norman McLaren, cut to a upbeat jazz score by Oscar Peterson and winner of six international prizes; Allegro Ma Troppo (1963) French director Paul De Roubaix’s award-winning, hyperkinetic vision of Parisian nightlife between 6PM and 6AM, shot at two frames per second utilizing automatic cameras and montage sound; Jammin’ The Blues (1944), the most famous jazz film ever made- produced by jazz impresario Norman Granz, directed by Gjon Mili with noir like cinematography and featuring incredible performances by jazz legends; Free Fall (1964) famed Canadian filmmaker Arthur Lipsett’s synesthetic experience created through the intensification of image and sound utilizing single-frame editing and tribal music; A Balinese Gong Orchestra (1974), features the Tunjuk Orchestra. Each instrument is explained and demonstrated, then the orchestra plays a hypnotic and mesmerizing piece from the Ramayana Ballet Suite. Plus, for your preshow pleasure Discovering Electronic Music (1983), veteran director Bernard Wilets’ introduction to music synthesizers and computers used to create electronic music.

Date: Friday, January 22nd, 2016 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

I feel taste, and smell sound – it's all one – I myself am the tone-Arthur Lipsett

Featuring:

The Dreamer That Remains(Color, 1973)

“Harry Partch is an American visionary. He has built his own musical world out of microtones, hobo speech, elastic octaves and percussion instruments made from hubcaps and nuclear cloud chambers.”

Stephen Pouliot's portrait of Harry Partch, one of the most innovative and influential composers of the 20th century. Partch invented instruments (cloud chamber bowls, cong gongs, the harmonic canon, more), experimented with drama and ritual and created a live ensemble utilizing dozens of invented instruments.

Partch influenced virtually every forward thinking composer and experimental musician of the 20th century. A fascinating artist Partch lectured, performed and rode the rails as a hobo during the Great Depression, incorporated everyday speech into his melodic lines. He transcribed graffiti and used it as text. Partch was one of the great musical innovators of the last century.

“The work that I have been doing these many years parallels much in the attitudes and actions of primitive man. He found sound-magic in the common materials around him. He then proceeded to make the vehicle, the instrument, as visually beautiful as he could. Finally, he involved the sound-magic and the visual beauty in his everyday words and experiences, his ritual and drama, in order to lend greater meaning to his life. This is my trinity: sound-magic, visual beauty, experience-ritual.”-Harry Partch

Note: Recently the rock performer Beck created a musical tribute to Harry Partch. For more info visit: http://www.beck.com/news/index.php/page/3

Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (Dir. Ward Kimball, Color, 1953)

Academy Award winner in stunning Technicolor- this short was originally released in theaters as part of the “Adventures in Music” educational series. The short features a stuffy owl teacher lecturing his feathered flock on the origins of Western musical instruments. Starting with cave people, whose crude implements could only "toot, whistle, plunk and boom," the owl explains how these beginnings led to the development of the four basic types of Western musical instruments: brass, woodwinds, strings, and percussion. Directed by the brilliant Ward Kimball, this is a classic of mid-century cartoon design and has been ranked one of the top 50 greatest cartoons.

Glass (Color, 1958)

A simple but stunning film by Dutch director Bert Haanstra, this short looks at glassmaking in a beautiful and interesting way. Winning an Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 1960 the amazing photography and inventive soundtrack make this a unique melding of filmic improvisation and sound. Molten blobs of beautiful colored glass, fluid motion and editing, and a quirky musical score make this a near perfect film, perfectly balancing images and rhythm with the occasionally eerie mixture of jazz, bebop, and the metallic punctuations of industry at work performed by the Pim Jacobs Quintet.

Ego (Color, 1970)

Brilliant animation by Italy’s Bruno Bozzetto (of the cult favorite Mr. Rossi series and the outrageous feature Allegro Non Troppo)- starts with traditional comic-style animation until the factory-working family man goes to sleep and unleashes his subconscious thoughts sending him into a battleground of situations. Utilizes brilliant animation styles including optical printing and pop art imagery. Featuring ultra-lounge master Franco Godi’s mesmerizing soundtrack. An Oddball favorite!

Begone Dull Care (Color, 1949)

In this film without words vibrant abstract images are drawn directly onto the

film by the legendary National Film Board of Canada animator Norman McLaren. “Begone Dull Care” shines with masterful use of scratching and painting on film stock. The film gives warmth and movement to compositions resembling a constantly morphing Jackson Pollock painting, yet never fails to remind us of

its very calculated aesthetics when it suddenly adapts to the score's slower movements and shifts from expressionistic and oversaturated explosions to minimalist vertical lines that vibrate accordingly to Oscar Peterson's jazz piano. “Begone Dull Care” won six international prizes between 1949 and 1954.

Allegro Ma Troppo (Color, 1963, Paul Roubaix)

A Parisian evening, conveyed through automatic cameras and imaginative cinematography of the life of Paris between 6PM and 6AM shot at two frames per second utilizing automatic cameras. From strippers to car crashes, Paul Roubaix’s Allegro Ma Troppo evokes the intensity and variety of nocturnal life in the City of Light through speeded-up action, freeze-frame, and virtuoso editing.

Jammin’ the Blues (B+W, 1944)

Probably the most famous jazz film ever made- produced by jazz impresario Norman Granz, directed by Gjon Mili and featuring incredible performances by Lester “Prez” Young, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Illinois Jacquet, Barney Kessel, Marlowe Morris, John Simmons, George “Red” Callender, “Big” Sid Catlett and “Papa” Jo Jones. Nominated for an Oscar in 1945 and entered into the National Film registry in 1955, this film simply must be seen by any serious jazz fan. Cinematography was by the later Hitchcock stalwart Robert Burks on his very first DP assignment. There is a noir ambience to the film and each scene has a formal elegance that is enthralling. Mili has total command of his form (his only film as director!), and the mise-en-scene and continuity are impeccable.

Free Fall (B+W, 1964)

Free Fall features dazzling pixilation, in-camera superimpositions, percussive tribal music, syncopated rhythms and ironic juxtapositions. Using a brisk “single-framing” technique, Arthur Lipsett attempts to create a synesthetic experience through the intensification of image and sound. Citing the film theorist Sigfreud Kracauer, Lipsett writes:

“Throughout this psychophysical reality, inner and outer events intermingle and fuse with each other – “I cannot tell whether I am seeing or hearing – I feel taste, and smell sound – it's all one – I myself am the tone.'”

*Note: Free Fall was intended as a collaboration with the American composer John Cage, modeled on his system of chance operations. However, Cage subsequently withdrew his participation fearing Lipsett would attempt to control and thereby undermine the aleatory organization of audio and visuals.

A Balinese Gong Orchestra (Color, 1974).

A simple, explanatory film on the well-known gamelan gong, featuring the Tunjuk Orchestra. Each instrument is explained and demonstrated, then the orchestra plays a hypnotic and mesmerizing piece from the Ramayana Ballet Suite, which is based on traditional music.

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.

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 from the 1940s: An Antique Shockucation, the 34th 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 taking the way back machine to 70ish years ago to learn about hygiene from naked sailors, menstruation from Di$ney, making new friends with Dick York, not being a slut, and even giving an enema! We're declassifying two homoerotic rarities from the US Navy: dozens of naked sailors go full frontal for their medical exam and a hands on posture lesson in Bluejackets Personal Hygiene (1943) and get down and dirty in the infirmary with an uncomfortable excerpt of Giving an Enema (1944). Watch out for hucksters slinging their nose shapers, spine straighteners, eye mallets, and pendiculators in the bizarre consumer scare film Fraud By Mail (1944). Are You Popular? (1947) one of the best examples of post-World War II moral hygiene films, features examples of "good" and "bad" girls, proper and improper dating etiquette and courtesy to parents. The animated brushes with sad faces want you to learn proper Care of Art Materials (1948). Dick York takes dad's advice on how to go from geek to BMOC in the classic social engineering short Shy Guy (1947). Plus, Oddball's favorite puberty cartoon: Di$ney's The Story of Menstruation (1945), war bond guilt trip Who Died?, excerpts of Men in Danger (1941), and more surprises! Everything screened on 16mm film from the archive.

Date: Friday, January 29th, 2016 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:

Giving an Enema (B+W, 1944 excerpt)

Of all the instructional films the US Navy has made Giving an Enema is no doubt the weirdest and most hilarious. If you can find anything stranger than a crash course in how to inject water into another man’s rectum let us know. Don’t worry-you’ll be seeing an abbreviated version not the entire 22 minute film!

Bluejackets Personal Hygiene (B+W, 1943)
Get unclassified with this naval training film featuring dozens of naked sailors! That's right, these brave boys in blue reveal much more than their courage, we get to see all their artillery. Learn about proper care of feet, posture, teeth, wardrobe and an all important lesson in group showering! All the homoerotic tension you could dream of and vintage beefcakes galore!

The Story of Menstruation(Color, 1945)
A Walt D*sney Production, The Story of Menstruation is an animated short film produced for American schools detailing the menstrual cycle. Rumored to be the first film with the word “vagina” in it’s screenplay, this vintage gem is both matter of fact and dreamily flowery. A large-headed girl takes you through the dos and don’ts of menses while helpful diagrams guide us all to better understanding.

Fraud By Mail (B+W, 1944)

Meet ‘Joe Gullible’ and his cohort of dim-bulbed dummies in this Universal Studios short about bogus mail order products. Which is funnier, the devices themselves (nose shapers, spine straighteners, electrical hair stimulators, eye mallets, pendiculators) or the idiots who bought them? With a satirical narration by Joe Costello, this film sure does point out the fools among us!

Care of Art Materials (1948, B+W)  

Bob Ross would love this cute and helpful film that is a mix of animation and live action, with an animated mouse instructor and brushes with sad faces.

Are You Popular? (B+W, 1947)

Watch misplaced gender roles in this all-time favorite “mental hygiene” howler. Teen girls (who are portrayed as either princesses or sluts) must "repay" boys for entertaining them with milk and  cookies, and are complimented on their observance of social graces. "Look at you, all ready and right on time too; that's a good deal," says Wally to Caroline.

Shy Guy (1947, B+W)
Phil, new in his high school, follows his father's suggestion and observes the most popular students to determine what makes them popular. By offering to help others he becomes popular himself and sheds his shyness. If the "shy guy" were living now, he would be a hero. But hackers, geeks, and bad girls were not popular in 1947 and this movie is all about "fitting in." Phil (played by Dick York, later to star as Darin in the tv series “Bewitched”) is the son of an apparently single father has a problem "fitting in." Everything from the nature of the kids in the new town ("different") to what they wear ("not jackets like me, but a regular sweater") sets Phil apart. Armed only with confusing advice from his father, Phil has to reorganize his behavior and make a new home for himself. Shy Guy marks a kind of turning point in postwar history. When Mr. Norton advises Phil to "look around him" and see what the other kids are wearing and how they behave, he's conceding parental authority to the "gang" and, ultimately, helping to legitimize the formation of a distinct youth culture that rests on group identity and validation rather than the authority of elders. Such a youth culture probably has its roots in the wartime autonomy that teens experienced, but here the adults are okaying it. This change, of course, is one of the key social currents in postwar America. This is Dick York at his dorkiest. Dick's father is especially strange in this classic. Shy Guy is the film that established Coronet as THE social guidance filmmaker. Required viewing!

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.

Oddball Films presents Dream Theater: Surrealist Cinema, a night of 16mm short films and animation that delve into the non-narrative world of dreams and dream logic with works by Man Ray, Roman Polanski, Georges Melies, Maurice Sendak, Istvan Szabo, Busby Berkeley and more. Realism is overrated and this program explores the magnitude of creative expression when freed from the constraints of rational and linear structures. Man Ray's surrealist classic L'Etoile de Mer (1928) captures the furtive, flirting moments of sexual desire, ever so dreamily obscured. Two men emerge from the sea and search for meaning in a meaningless world in Roman Polanski's early short Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958). István Szabó's A Dream About a House (1972) wryly demonstrates the absurdities of war when contrasted with the consistencies of the familial unit. Georges Melies employs his magic bag of cinematic tricks to bring to life the story of the infamous hallucinating nobleman in excerpts from Baron Munchausen's Dream (1911). Busby Berkeley choreographs a dreamy musical sequence featuring hundreds of bathing beauties in By a Waterfall from Footlight Parade (1933). Slip off into a dream world of cannibal cooks, naked babies and delicious pastry with the beloved banned children's classic In the Night Kitchen (1975) and join cartoon heroine Little Lulu as she hits her head and ends up in a bizarro nightmare of celebrity babies and bartending storks in The Babysitter (1947). So, leave logic at the door and treat yourself to a beautiful night of nonsense!

Date: Thursday, January 28th 2016 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:

L’Etoile de Mer (B+W, 1928)

a.k.a. The Star of the Sea and The Starfish

Directed and written by Man Ray.

Based on a poem by Robert Desnos.

A classic of Surrealist cinema, Man Ray’s L’Etoile des Mer (Starfish) is a haunting, dreamlike ode to subconscious sexual desire, inspired by a poem from Robert Desnos and starring the iconic Kiki of Montparnasse.

"In the modernist high tide of 1920s experimental filmmaking, L’Etoile de Mer is a perverse moment of grace, a demonstration that the cinema went farther in its great silent decade than most filmmakers today could ever imagine. Surrealist photographer Man Ray’s film collides words with images (the intertitles are from an otherwise lost work by poet Robert Desnos) to make us psychological witnesses, voyeurs of a kind, to a sexual encounter. A character picks up a woman who is selling newspapers. She undresses for him, but then he seems to leave her. Less interested in her than in the weight she uses to keep her newspapers from blowing away, the man lovingly explores the perceptions generated by her paperweight, a starfish in a glass tube. As the man looks at the starfish, we become aware through his gaze of metaphors for cinema, and for vision itself, in lyrical shots of distorted perception that imply hallucinatory, almost masturbatory sexuality." - Donald Faulkner

A Dream About a House (Color, 1972)

Part of István Szabó's trilogy Budapest, Why I Love It, this bizarro poetic paean to his birth city starts out with a fish-eye travelogue of classic edifices before happening upon a strangely choreographed street scene. Time and space are compressed and the distinction between indoors and outdoors eradicated as assorted personages eat, sleep, marry, die, and chop wood, all out in the open. The camera pans and zooms fluidly to follow various figures, who not infrequently turn to wave back at us.

Two Men and a Wardrobe (B+W, 1958)

Roman Polanski’s darkly comic early film has many of the director’s preoccupations already present: alienation, crisis in identity, and a bizarre view of humanity that sees us as some very strange animals. In this quasi-surrealist jaunt, two otherwise normal looking men emerge from the sea carrying an enormous wardrobe, which they proceed to carry around a nearby town. Seeking fun, solace, or maybe some place to put the damn thing, all the two find is rejection at every turn. Watch Polanski in a bit part he later reprises in Chinatown. “Two Men and a Wardrobe” initiated Polanski’s collaboration with Krzysztof Komeda, the great Polish jazz composer who went on to score such Polanski hallmarks as Knife in the Water, Cul de Sac, and Rosemary's Baby.

Baron Munchausen’s Dream (B+W, 1911)
From the influential Georges Melies comes the strange drunken adventure of the Baron. After feasting and drinking, Baron Munchausen is put to bed, and he begins to drift into dreamland-where he travels to distant lands and times-- including ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece, and is met with nightmarish creatures. This film makes excellent use of extravagant sets, props, and costumes while the mirror serves as the dream portal.

In the Night Kitchen (Gene Dietch, 1975, color)

With its Sunday comics format and flash of baby nudity, Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen was groundbreaking (and censored!) upon its 1970 publication. Mickey tumbles into the pantry metropolis of the night kitchen, landing in giant bowl of batter for the morning cake. After hours baking is overseen by a trio of Oliver Hardy look-a-likes, who pop him in the oven. Freely referencing Windsor McKay’s Little Nemo,Sendak enhanced his standing as cool uncle to generations of kids. Animator Oldrich Haberle brings the book’s bold illustrations to vivid life. Angelo Michajlov's Kitchen Sink-o-Pators provide the appropriately swinging score.

The Babysitter (Color, 1947)
Bizarre Little Lulu cartoon- Lulu is taking care of a very naughty baby who won’t stay in his crib. When Lulu hits her head while chasing him, she dreams a visit to the fabled Stork Club night spot- where all the famous Hollywood guests and musicians are babies… a weird one for the ages!

"By a Waterfall" from Footlight Parade (B+W, 1933)
A dazzling and jaw-dropping musical number featuring dozens of lovely synchronized swimmers all choreographed by the legendary and hallucinatory Busby Berkeley. Ruby Keeler serenades her love by a waterfall and as he nods off to sleep, the waters come alive with bathing beauties, who then form incredible visuals and patterns with only their bodies culminating in the incredible "Human Waterfall". This extravagant number took over 6 days to film and the pool used for filming took up an entire sound stage and required 20,000 gallons of water to be pumped per minute.

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, educationals, 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 The Stupor Bowl: Potheads and Pigskins, a night of 16mm marijuana scare films and bizarro vintage football ephemera just in time to get weird with super bowl weekend. This program of gridiron and ganja includes Afterschool Specials, antique Mi©key Mouse cartoons, wacky newsreels, soundies, and (of course) good old-fashioned anti-pot scare films with appearances by Woody Allen, Scott Baio, Jonathan Winters and more. Shock-meister Sid Davis (who would have turned 100 this year) brings us young Tom's descent from good kid to "weedhead" in the hilarious educational short Keep Off the Grass (1970). Mi©key Mouse and his rag tag team square off against the formidable Alley Cats in the early Di$ney cartoon Mi©key's Football Manglers (1932). Scott Baio goes from square nerd to raging pothead, until he nearly kills his own brother in the ABC Afterschool SpecialStoned (1980). Woody Allen and the Hot Dog bunch try to determine just exactly How Do They Make Footballs? (1970). Pre-teens and teens talk about their chronic pot-smoking in the NBC Special TreatReading, Writing, and Reefer (1978). See what football was like 120 years ago in the Universal Newsreel Football Forty Years Ago (1936). Plus, an excerpt from The Ballad of Mary Jane (1970), the sporty soundie Always on the Bench (1940s), the melodramatic trailer for Marihuana: Assassin of Youth (1936), double-projected marijuana footage and football follies, a Halftime Spectacular featuring Isaac Hayes performing the theme song from Shaft with dozens of groovy dancers, the hilarious documentary The Pigs vs The Freaks (1973) for the early birds and even more surprises!

Date: Friday, February 5th, 2016 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:

Keep Off The Grass (Color, 1970)
Tom's mother discovers a marijuana joint in his room. When his parents confront him, Tom denies being a "dope fiend." He goes down to where the local "weedheads" hang out (a hilarious headshop), is mugged by a desperate band of marijuana addicts, and finally realizes how right his parents were: "keep off the grass!" From the master of the educational scare film, Sid Davis.

Mi©key's Football Manglers-AKA Touchdown Mi©key (B+W, 1932)
Mi©key Mouse and his rag tag team The Manglers take the field against the enormous Alley Cats. Things look bad for the manglers, and the fat cats certainly aren't playing fair. Can Mi©key's motley crew use their wits to win the game? It's Mi©key Mouse, what do you think?

Stoned (Color, 1980)

ABC Afterschool Special starring that lovable rascal Scott Baio. Baio plays Jack, a shy teen with a book of jokes and no friends to use them on. That is until he is lured into stonersville by a skateboard-riding dope dealer. The munchies, jokes and problems at school ensue, climaxing with the near death of his older brother when the stoned Baio clobbers him with a boat paddle. Strangers with Candy fans will delight in a nearly identical scene of an outdoor rap session with a hip teacher.

Always on the Bench (B+W, 1940s)
A sporty soundie featuring musical football players that sing in between punts and tackles. Soundies were the original music video, dating from 1940-1947 and were distributed on 16mm film to be played in a "Panoram" film jukeboxes in night clubs and amusement centers.

Reading, Writing and Reefer (Color, 1978, excerpt)

A report on the dramatic increase in the use of Marijuana by American teenagers and adolescents and the drastic effect it has on their lives. Aside from the potential health consequences for youthful smokers (and the deleterious effect on their school work), it is pointed out that these 4 million juveniles are on the receiving end of a vast criminal network of marijuana growers, smugglers, and distributors.

How Do They Make Footballs? (Color, 1970)
The Hot Dog gang of Woody Allen, Jo Anne Worley and Jonathan Winters are back to extoll ridiculous information and misinformation in this mini-educational show on manufacturing. Head to the factory and see how those pigskins are stitched up and shipped out.

Football Forty Years Ago (B+W, 1936)

See how football has changed in the last 120 years in this Universal newsreel from 80 years ago! Football player and Hall of Famer coach, Glenn "Pop" Warner describes and demonstrates football of the previous century by dressing football players in old uniforms, helmets and padding, and having them show how different types of plays were done with an old-fashioned football.

For the Early Birds:

The Pigs vs. The Freaks (Color, 1973)

After several violent clashes between the police and the long-hairs of East Lansing Michigan, one hippy had the novel idea to challenge the police to a friendly football game. 16,000 people showed and The Freaks won, two years in a row. This film documents the third annual game. Will the pigs finally be able to triumph over their long-haired opponents, or will the hippies take the title for a third time? Directed by Jack Epps Jr and Jeffrey Jackson.

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.

Oddball Films presents I, Asimov, a program of 16mm short documentaries, television episodes and short film adaptations from the great mind of Isaac Asimov. Asimov (1920-1992) began his writing career at the ripe age of 11 and went on to publish hundreds of short science fiction stories and books and dozens of non-fiction books and articles as well as coining the term "robotics", researching technology for the Department of Defense, and teaching bio-chemistry as a professor for Boston University for decades. Explore an Unseen World (1970) in the science film written by Asimov (his first foray into TV writing). From microscopes to slow-motion cameras, the film explores the question: what secrets lay beyond our present view of the unseen world? Ugly Little Boy (1977), an Asimov adaptation, brings us a surprisingly heart-wrenching story of the connection formed between a neanderthal baby brought from the past through time travel and the nurse tasked with caring for him. Another adaptation: All The Troubles of the World (1978) ponders the emotional wear on sentient technology in a world run by the omnipotent Multivac. The Weird World of Robots (1968), a segment of the CBS short-lived series The 21st Century, hosted by Walter Cronkite, examines the strange and surreal world of robots in the 1960s. This episode features Asimov advocating worker robots to replace blue collar workers, robotic dogs, human amplifiers and more. Plus, an excerpt of Population Time Bomb (1976), where he theorizes on several nightmare scenarios on the effect of overpopulation from Philippe Cousteau's Oasis in Space.

Date: Thursday, February 4th, 2016 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 Weird World of Robots (Color, 1968)

Famed sci-fi author and futurist Isaac Asimov and Walter Cronkite investigate the strange and surreal world of robotics in the 1960s. Asimov advocates a race of “worker robots” to do the blue collar work for planet earth. Watch a robotic dog (Old Yaller), human amplifiers, a centaur and robotic machines designed to stimulate human responses to medical students. Later the “grave” questions are posed: “There is no question that man can live with the robot. The question is, can the robot live with man?”

All the Troubles of the World (Color, 1978)
Multivac is tired of the world's problems and wants to die! A dramatization of the story of the same title by Isaac Asimov, about a civilization run by Multivac, an all-powerful computer that directs the society's economy, scientific progress and human psychology. Multivac's "life" is being threatened and young Ben Manner's father is the main suspect. Ben knows that his father is innocent, and in trying to save him, unwittingly becomes involved in a suicide plot from a world-weary computer. Directed by Dianne Haak.

Ugly Little Boy (Color, 1977)
Ugly Little Boy is an adaptation of the short story by sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, about a Neanderthal boy whom scientists have transported through time for scientific testing. A conflict arises when a the nurse tasked to care for the little guy from the past grows attached and can’t bear to return him to the past. Asimov said this was his second or third favorite of his writings. The film adaptation gained acclaim for staying true to his story and the for Kate Reid’s powerful performance as nurse Fellowes.

The Unseen World, Part I: How Small is Small? (Color, 1970)

From microscopes to slow motion cameras, humankind has learned to overcome physical limitations of the eye by inventing instruments that extend sight into otherwise unseen worlds. “Unseen World” explores a stunning array of matter, forms, colors and movements, reissuing the question: “What secrets lie beyond our present view and understanding of the unseen world?" Written by science-fiction author Isaac Asimov and narrated by actor Eddie Albert, this film invites you to penetrate the every-day.

Oddball Films welcomes back Animation Historian, Author and Professor Karl Cohen for our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. This program will be a mixture of fine films from Canada, the US, the UK, Western Europe and a few things from the other side of the Iron Curtain all handpicked from several decades worth of The Tournee of Animation, a wonderful series of shows of internationally acclaimed animation. The Tournee ran from the late '60s to the '90s with 25 separate programs. For many years it was the only way to see animated shorts that were of outstanding artistic merit in the US. Karl Cohen and Ben Ridgway have been reviewing original 16mm archival prints from past Tournee shows and are selecting some of the most creative and remarkable works for this program. Come be surprised by what they have uncovered from the 1970s and early 1980s. Films include Instant Sex (1980), Ubu (1978), Elbowing (1979), The Fly (1980), John and Faith Hubley's Tender Game (1959), Killing of an Egg (1979), Why Me? (1978), and more!

Date: Thursday, February 18th, 2016 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 (but not limited to):

Opening Titles for the 12th Tournee of Animation (1977) by Marcy Page and Richard Finn

Ubu Geoff Dunbar (1978) The brutality and outrageous tone of Alfred Jerry's controversial play are dynamically realized in Dunbar's telegraphic cartoon-styled interpretation of a tyrannical king and his ambitious queen's rise to power. 16th Tournee

Tender Game by John and Faith Hubley (1959), music by Ella Fitzgerald, 12th Tournee (1977)

A Christmas Carol, Richard Williams (excerpts), 8th Tournee (1973), Oscar winner

Killing of an Egg, Paul Driessen, Holland, 14th Tournee (1979)

Why Me? by Janet Perlman and Derek Lamb, National Film Board of Canada, Special Jury Prize at Ottawa ’78, awards at 9 other festivals (Varna, SF, etc.), 14th Tournee (1979)

Changing Times, Istvan Kovacs, Hungary, “The Eastern European animators have a special way of pointing up the human foibles and ironies of everything including a firing squad.” Prescott Wright, 1979 Henry Selick, Los Angeles, Cine Golden Eagle and awards at Ann Arbor Film Festival, Sinking Creek and Annecy, France, 13th Tournee (1978)

Entry Sentry, Gary Guterrez for Korty Films, SF Courtesy of Stanford University, Project on Nuclear Arms Control, Drew Takahashi, who worked on the film told me, “It was done for a film about nuclear disarmament. It was a commercial for mutually assured destruction.” 12th Tournee (1977)

Premier Jours / Beginnings, Clorinda Warny (National Film Board of Canada), 17th Tournee (1980)

More about the Tournee of Animation:

Prescott Wright, the director of the Tournee for most of its existence, championed international animation when most Americans assumed animation was only quickly made stuff for kids. Prescott traveled to Annecy, Zagreb, Ottawa and other festivals seeking out films to introduce to US audiences. His advisors were a few ASIFA-Hollywood members (June Foray, Bill Littlejohn, Bill Scott and others) and other people who appreciated animation as a great art form. The shows they produced premiered at the LA County Museum, the Castro Theatre in SF and at other major independent venues. The series were also popular in college towns.

The 1980s saw the decline of theatres showing programs in 16mm. Prescott couldn’t afford to produce the shows in 35mm so he sold the name and the rights to the programs to the Landmark Theatre chain. They produced two outstanding 35mm programs, but it was decided it wasn’t economically wise to continue producing the shows as the number of independent 35mm theatres was also declining.
So come and enjoy what may be your last chance to see what Ben and Karl are rediscovering. The collection we are working with will soon go to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science archive/museum in LA.

About Karl Cohen:
Karl Cohen has been teaching animation history at SF State for over two decades, is the president of ASIFA-SF, the Bay Area's chapter of an international animation association, and he is the author of the book Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators as well as hundreds of serious articles about animation that have been published in dozens of publication including the Guardian in England, books published in the US, China and other countries and in dozens of film magazines and newsletters.

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 Dating, Sex, and Marriage - A Valentine's Shockucation, the 35th 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 Valentine's Day, we're taking a look at romance with 1950s dating instructional films, VD cartoons, divorce scare films, teen pregnancies and more! Junior High students take their first plunge into dating at the Winter party, see who does it right and who needs a few extra takes to not fail miserably in the newly acquired Beginning To Date (1953). Winnie and Ken seemed so in love, now see them in mid-century divorce court screaming at each other and wondering where it all went wrong in another new find: This Charming Couple (1950). More couples ponder what makes a good match for marriage in Is This Love? (1957). Planned Parenthood sponsored Mark and Susan (1975) is a simple film with an important message: "No means No!". Peter Sellers lends his voice to an animated father struggling to educate his child in Birds, Bees and Storks (1965). Di$ney brings us a very different kind of cartoon, the disturbingly knee-slapping VD: Attack Plan (1972) featuring a syphilitic army sergeant directing his VD troops into battle against stupid humans. The Canadians bring us a melodramatic account of Teenage Pregnancy (1971). Debbie Harry, Carrie Fisher, Gilda Radner and more celebrity babes in their prime explain why American Women Love Creeps (1979). Confused about your teenage hormones? The Sexual Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together (1982) will give you a healthy dose of some Christian morality and schmaltzy expository theme songs to help you keep those hormones in check and save it for marriage. Early love birds will be treated to Mormon-made audience favorite The Phone Call (1977) a film that wants you to know that even geeky, karate and bassoon-loving fast food workers deserve love, and with a little self-confidence and a great ginger-fro, they just might get it.

Date: Friday, February 12th, 2016 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:
Beginning to Date (B+W, 1953)
Learn proper first date etiquette in this social engineering classic making its Oddball debut. The first co-ed party of junior high is on the horizon and the whole school is in an uproar over The Winter Frolic. After some encouraging words from the swim coach and several analogies to diving, George decides to take the plunge and ask Mildred. Bill doesn't fare so well with Ellen, but thanks to editing and several takes at the same scenario, these youngsters might have a chance at the perfect date. Plus, plenty of awkward pubescent dancing.

This Charming Couple (B+W, 1950, Willard Van Dyck)
Divorce Court, mid-century style! What turned one happy, loving couple into a bitter pair of hateful divorcees? Go back in time and see if you can spot the cracks in the foundation of their love affair before they head to the altar and finally off to divorce court. Another Oddball debut!

Is This Love? (B+W, 1957)
"Peggy thinks it's all hand-holding and looking into each other's eyes". College kids Peggy and Joe have only been dating for three months, but they're so in love and already engaged. Peg's roommate (who appears 20 years her elder) might be square, but she thinks that marriage isn't something to be rushed. Have they even thought about money and children and parents? Maybe they aren't the perfect match she thought they were, and maybe the dull and square couple are really the ones who ought to be tying the knot. See which couple makes it to the altar and wonder where they'll head from there.

Mark and Susan (Color, 1975)
No means no! A Planned Parenthood-sponsored film aimed at the teen date rapist about not pressuring girls into sex. Visually, all we see is a car parked by the river, but we get to listen in as one teen boy tries to change his girlfriend's answer in the backseat.

Birds, Bees and Storks (Dir. John Halas, Color, 1965)

A father sets out to explain the facts of life to his son, but becomes increasingly embarrassed to the point where his explanations are so vague as to be incomprehensible. Inspired by Gerard Hoffnung's 1960 book of the same name, this is a delightful and all too familiar study of the embarrassed middle-aged British male, as a father attempts to explain the facts of life to his son but ends up delivering a monologue so packed with euphemisms about birds, bees and butterflies that it ends up being totally incoherent. Produced by the esteemed Halas & Batchelor Animation Studio, the visual style (inspired directly by Hoffnung's drawings) is simple in the extreme - for much of the film, we just watch the father squirming and blushing in his chair, which focuses our attention both on Peter Sellers' monologue and director John Halas' subtle visual characterization, all nervous tics and fidgeting.

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

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

The Sexual Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together (Color, 1982, excerpt)
If you ever wanted expository songs to better illustrate the confusing and ever-changing sexual attitudes of adolescence, look no further than this camptastic sex-ed film brought to you by Gospel Films and Josh McDowell Ministry. A 40-something "youth counselor" (who is in fact minister Josh McDowell himself) in a polyester leisure suit talks to teens about their sex lives while his points are illustrated by musical melodramatizations with a variety of issues facing Christian teens "today". Each teen presented gets their very own theme song to underscore their insecurities and changing bodies.

Teenage Pregnancy(Color, 1971)

No one can bring you the melodrama of teen pregnancy quite like the Canadians. This campy morsel features a lot of worry, disappointment, facts and good old-fashioned overacting. Like a lost Degrassi episode, the touching story of 16 year-old Betty’s life will bring you to tears…of laughter!

VD: Attack Plan (1972, color)
“Yes, it’s true. Walt D*sney Productions has made a significant contribution to the war against VD. “VD Attack Plan” – A fully animated Walt D*sney 16mm motion picture.” states the brochure accompanying this 16mm educational film. VD Attack Plan had some forward thinking and enlightening approaches (not just for D*sney but everyone else producing this type of film in 1973) to the subject of sexually transmitted diseases including promotion of condoms (instead of abstinence) and the fact that VD can be spread through same sex couplings. This “war against disease “ film doesn’t miss a beat-even showcasing some of the graphic effects of the disease in action. In brilliant Technicolor, just like you’d want it to be.

For the Early (Love)Birds:

The Phone Call (Color, 1977)

30 years before Napoleon Dynamite, this BYU-sponsored "comedy" follows an awkward teenage boy with Art Garfunkle's hairstylist and a penchant for karate and bassoons as he works up the courage to ask his crush for a date. The Mormons want you to know that nice guys can finish first! An Oddball audience favorite. Starring Marc McClure (Jimmy Olson from the Christopher Reeves Superman series).

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 presents Cold-Blooded Murder, a program of 16mm shorts on that most heinous yet fascinating of crimes: homicide. From the fictional to the factual with a vintage police training film, Poe and Bradbury adaptations, dark animation, Orson Welles deconstructing a true crime classic and more, it's one night of murder and mayhem you won't see anywhere else. Films include Crime and the Criminal (1973) edited from In Cold Blood (1967) and featuring Orson Welles making literary alliterations about the book and the film, a gorgeous print of rare police training film Homicide Investigation (1960s) to give you a taste of real-life criminal investigations before the advent of DNA and other high-tech forensic technology, the feverish episode of Ray Bradbury Theater: The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl (1988) starring Michael Ironsides as a man moments after a murder, Wolfgang Urchs' dark animation on escalating violence Die Pistole (1964), the Gracie Barrie Soundie about justifiable homicide: Stone Cold Dead in the Market (1946), and a noir-inspired adaptation of the Poe classic The Tell-Tale Heart (1971) for the early birds, plus plenty of deadly Trailers and more!

Date: Thursday, February 11th, 2016 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:

Crime and the Criminal (B+W, 1973)
Study of the criminal mind that focuses on Perry Smith, who, with his friend, robbed and ruthlessly murdered a Kansas family. Emphasizes the criminal as a human being and poses the question of the morality of capital punishment. Edited from Columbia Pictures' 1967 motion picture In Cold Blood - directed by Richard Brooks and starring real-life acquitted murder suspect Robert Blake - which was based on the book of the same title by Truman Capote. Orson Welles comments on the literary themes from behind a desk, bookending the 30 minute cut of the classic crime film with references to Oedipus and Dostoevsky.

Homicide Investigation (Color, 1960s)
This gorgeously colored Mad-Men era police training film provides a look into the procedures used in a homicide investigation fifty years ago. A cast made up of DPS officers, investigators and employees enact a murder mystery scenario that, through its twists and turns, takes the viewers through the many departments required to solve the case and bring the perpetrator to justice. Included are demonstrations of fingerprint matching, ballistics testing, chemical analysis, toxicology, autopsy, and a polygraph session.

The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl (Color, 1988)

A killer episode of Ray Bradbury Theater starring Michael Ironsides as a man just moments after killing his boss. He reminisces on the murder as he attempts to erase all evidence of him in the crime scene. In his frantic state, can he possibly remember all the things he touched while inside the house?

Die Pistole (Color, 1964)

Wolfgang Urchs was among the prime shapers of film animation in the West German media landscape of the sixties. Urchs made only a few of the graphic films he had envisioned as most of his work was for hire in the industrial and advertising realms. Die Pistole, a powerful stop-motion animated film, demonstrates that even the most insignificant little bug is capable of great things, and that each of us can make his own modest contribution; though the film makes it clear that the path to non-violence is still a long one, steep and rocky. Urch was a member of the radical cinema group that published the Oberhausen Manifesto in 1962. The manifesto was a call to arms to establish a "new German feature film”. The signatories to the manifesto became known as the Oberhausen Group and are seen as important forerunners of the New German Cinema that began later in the decade.

Stone Cold Dead in the Market (B+W, 1946)

Big Band leader and 1930’s Broadway starlet Gracie Barrie sings a lovely little ditty about a wife’s revenge on her cheating husband.

For the Early Birds:

The Tell-Tale Heart (B+W, 1971)

Arguably the best film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's notorious tale of murder and conscience, this film made in 1971 features a moody noir-like quality in stark black and white. Directed by Steve Carver for AFI.

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 presents What the F(ilm)?! gets Political: Presidential Cine-Insanity, an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane politically-themed films from our massive 16mm collection. With primary fever in the air and the democractic process playing out in all its glory, this month we're tapping into the historical and hysterical vaults of the collection with tons of cartoons, commercials, spoofs, smut, propaganda and musical numbers. A tiny Shirley Temple tarts it up and tries to cheat an honest man in the "Baby Burlesk"Polly Tix in Washington (1933). Betty Boop sings for your vote in Betty Boop for President (1932). Escalation (1968) an animated anti-war short from Academy Award-winning Di$ney animator Ward Kimball is jam-packed with a montage of everything from erotic imagery to commercial mascots to skewering LBJ's policies on Vietnam. Fictitious candidate Roy Hardale preens and poses like a model while spouting his campaign promises in the hilarious spoof Political Posture (1984). Ford Motor Company sponsors the vintage voter guilt trip Where Were You? (1960). Walter Cronkite surveys the great American pastime of yellow journalism in a segment of Smear: The Game of Dirty Politics (1964) from the TV show The Twentieth Century. Psychedelic animator Vince Collins produced the mind-bending animation 200 (1975) for the country's bicentennial, and it will still blow your eyeballs out today. Kinestatic collage documentarian, Chuck Braverman tells the story of America in 3 minutes utilizing 1300 still images in American Time Capsule (1968). Take a feminist musical break with Schoolhouse Rock and Sufferin' till Suffrage (1974). See why America is number one in consumption in the capitalist propaganda cartoon Meet King Joe (1949). Plus, a girl gets hot and horny for a magazine spread of Richard Nixon in a Tricky Dick Cheesecake Reel, footage from journalist and activist Robert Scheer's local grassroots congressional campaign and William Howard Taft's 1908 campaign, a bouncing ball Sing-Along cartoon of When I'm the President (1945), Lance Kerwin in an excerpt of afterschool special PJ and the President's Son (1976), the trailer for All the President's Men (1976), 1970s political ads from Virginia, a creepy animated turkey commercial, Ronald Reagan hosting GE Theater, and more weirdness! This compendium of 16mm political madness is too strange to be believed and too baffling to be forgotten.

Date: Friday, February 19th, 2016 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:

Escalation (Color, 1968)

An animated anti-war short from Academy Award-winning Di$ney animator Ward Kimball (1914 –2002). The film protests then-president Lyndon B. Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam war using violence, montage and sexuality.

Polly Tix in Washington (B+W, 1933)

One of the weirdest things to come out of the depression, this “Baby Burlesk” casts a group of toddlers in adult roles, including Shirley Temple starring as a prostitute who discovers her heart of gold in the face of on honest politician. The result is cringe-worthy, but gives an honest glimpse of the laissez faire attitude towards censorship in the pre-code era.

Shirley Temple later called this film "a cynical exploitation of our childish innocence." In her autobiography Shirley Temple Black recalls the plot: "I was a strumpet on the payroll of the Nipple Trust and Anti-Castor Oil Lobby. Mine was the task of seducing a newly arrived bumpkin senator." Shirley’s mother designed the black lace undergarments and bra her daughter wears on screen.

Political Posture (Color, 1984)

A hilarious and Oscar-nominated short skewering political campaign commercials. Taking his movements from television advertisements featuring sinuous performers who posture for the camera as they fashion blue jeans, fictitious presidential candidate Ray Hardale offers his platform as he humorously poses for the camera. Writer and Director, Bill Tunnicliffe.

Schoolhouse Rock: Sufferin' Till Sufferage (Color, 1974)
Line up for the voting booth with this super groovy musical break for the ladies from the iconic cartoonucational show Schoolhouse Rock about the women's suffrage movement.

Betty Boop For President (B+W, 1932, excerpt)

Betty runs for the office of President against Mr. Nobody while parodying real candidates. Both candidates state their platform through song and dance, referring to political issues of the time. The House of Representatives is portrayed by elephants and asses-just like they are in real life!
Betty sings: “Oh, when I'm the president, When I'm the president, I'll give you all a great big kiss, When I'm the president!” We see Times Square with billboards proclaiming that Betty Boop has been elected; there are fireworks and a tickertape parade.

Where Were You? (B+W, 1960)
Ford Motor Company sponsored this campy long form PSA on why everyone needs to do their part in participating in elections or we'll all end up with somebody nobody really wanted. This pro-voting propaganda will surely guilt you all the way to the polls.

Meet King Joe(Color, 1951)

Subtitled “Fun And Facts About America”, this animated, Technicolor propaganda short from MGM demonstrates how Americans are better off than the rest of the world, singling out the Chinese in particular with racist portrayals (America was at war in Korea at the time, often fighting North-allied Chinese forces). “Americans own practically all the refrigerators in existence… as we drive about in 72% of the world’s automobiles”, crows the narrator.

Tricky Dick Cheesecake Reel (Color, 1960s, excerpt)
One girl's got it bad for Richard Nixon as she gets down and dirty with herself and a Time Magazine with Nixon on the cover.

Smear: The Game of Dirty Politics (B+W, 1964, excerpt)
Walter Cronkite examines the mudslinging and yellow journalism that accompanies the presidency from its earliest roots against George Washington and up through the Nixon/Kennedy campaigns. Features tons of historical political cartoons and salacious smears against all your favorite presidents.

Taft Election from Screen Souvenirs (B+W, 1931)

Catch highlights of the 1908 election with William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft and Taft's indoor inauguration during a blizzard in 1909.

200(Color, 1975)

Vince Collin’s supremely psychedelic animated celebration of our nation’s bicentennial, sponsored by the United States Information Agency. They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore. But then again, not as many LSD-inspired animators make it through the grant process.

American Time Capsule (Color/B+W, 1968)
Chuck Braverman presents the history of the United States up to 1968 in 3 minutes, utilizing a montage of 1300 images set to the music of Sandy Nelson’s Beat That Drum. Originally aired on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

PJ and the President's Son (Color, 1976, excerpt)

Child-star Lance Kerwin takes a double roll in this ABC Afterschool Special adaptation of "The Prince and the Pauper". It's tough being the president's only son, even with the entire staff of the White House at your disposal. When his limo nearly runs over his doppelganger delivering groceries, both Lances get a shot at a new and exciting life.

For the Early Birds:

Soup for President (Color, 1978)

Rob's not cut out for politics. His best friend Soup is running for class president, but so is Norma Jean, the prettiest girl in school who promises a relationship in exchange for his vote. What makes matters worse is Rob and Soup's arch-nemesis Janice is Norma Jean's campaign manager. What's a boy to do? An ABC Weekend Special starring Shane Sinutko and Christian Berrigan, directed by afterschool special veteran Larry Ellikan, and based on the books by Robert Newton Peck.

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 presents Strange Sinema 97, a monthly evening of newly discovered films, rarities and choice selects from the stacks of the archive. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled this 97th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 97: “Laservision: Science Art Cinema” features films that explore the boundaries of science, art and cinema using light as a starting point. The program features a pulsating panorama of films highlighting the discovery and uses of lasers and holograms in science, art, medicine, the military and law enforcement-with a solid dose of sci-fi and futurism thrown into the mix. This program of shorts and excerpts premiered at the Frost Museum of Science in Miami in August 2015 to a sold-out audience. Highlights include West Coast experimental filmmaker Donald Fox’s exhilaratingly beautiful, optically printed poem Omega (1970), foretelling the end of the world through a series of stunning images dissolving into ethereally apocalyptic visions, Laser Blast (1978) a high-octane trailer from the cheesy sci-fi knock off where a teenager stumbles upon an alien weapon, transforming him into a grotesque killer, We Study in Moscow (1960s, excerpt) a weirdly bizarre Russian propaganda clip featuring students being taught principles of laser physics with a eerie pre-electronic music track, Holography: Memories in Light (1985) a fascinating and comprehensive look at the invention and use of holography in industry and art-from holographic space ships to a holographic Andy Warhol, The Simple Lens: an Introduction (1976, excerpt) an animated segment showing how light is organized by the human eye or a camera, Kinetic Art in Paris (1971) - the works of legendary Kinetic artists Julio Le Parc, Victor Vasarely and John Rock Yvar are some of the futuristic artists featured in this ultra rare, quirky documentary featuring music from the short-lived cult British pop duo White Trash, Learning About Light (1976, excerpt) shows experiments with light and applications of lasers, Laser Bra 2000 (1979) features sexed-up lingerie wearing female soldiers demonstrating a top-secret military weapon - bras that shoot lasers, Lasers Unlimited (1969) - produced by ATT - this short shows lasers scoring electronic circuits at Western Electric and deep research into the laser’s potential for memory storage and information processing at Bell Labs, Crime: Dye Guns, Lasers, Justice? (1972, excerpt) a futuristic look at high-tech law enforcement tools using surveillance, laser walls and dye guns with a very timely look at the role of the police by famed activist attorney Ramsey Clark, Airborne Laser Laboratory (1960s, excerpt) a surreal demonstration of the wide range of laser based military weapons produced for Air Force Now Films. Plus! For early birds: Laser (1979), a lush and mesmerizing visual depiction of lasers and their various uses from medical to industrial. From gorgeous vintage laboratory interiors to an optical kaleidoscope of the many uses of this magical harnessed light beam, with a great Moogy soundtrack. Also! Rare news outtakes from the construction of the Shiva Laser (1977) at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

Macintosh HD:Users:stephenparr:Desktop:220px-Laserblast.jpg

Date: Friday, February 26th, 2016 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:

LaserBlast (Color, 1978) A teenager stumbles upon an alien weapon, which transforms him into a grotesque killer in this trailer for the cheesy sci fi film.

Omega (Color, 1970)
An optical poem by West Coast experimental filmmaker Donald Fox. This is a dazzling, highly original non narrative, exhilaratingly beautiful film. Omega deals with the end of mankind on earth, prophesying man's liberation from his earthly bounds to roam the universe at will. By sending an energy ray to the sun and harnessing its solar power, man is able to make an evolutionary leap. The film can be used to explore the outer limits of the concepts of death, evolution the afterlife, and the future of mankind. Phew! A film that over 40 years later still inspires.

Macintosh HD:Users:stephenparr:Desktop:lot_122.jpg

We Study in Moscow (Color, 1960s, excerpt) This propaganda clip features a Russian students being taught principles of laser physics and experiments with lasers-with eerie pre-electronic music track.

Holography: Memories in Light (Color, 1985) Presents a fascinating and comprehensive look at the invention, development and use of holography in industry and art-from holographic space ships to a holographic Andy Warhol.

The Simple Lens: an Introduction(Color, 1976, excerpt)

Shows how light is organized by the human eye or a camera, using the directed light from a laser. Illustrates refraction and explains how images are formed and translated.

Learning About Light(Color, 1976, excerpt)

Shows experiments which illustrate the way in which light normally moves, how it bends and is refracted, how a prism separates white light into its component colors, and various applications of lasers.

Lasers Unlimited (Color, 1969)
This fascinating industrial short explains what lasers are, how they work, and how they developed. Describes research and 1960s advances in the application of the laser in medicine, science, communication, and industry, including use of the “laser knife” in surgery, for scoring electronic circuits at Western Electric, and as an alignment tool for the Boeing 747 aircraft. Focuses on work at Bell System research labs into the laser's potential in memory storage and information transmission. Demonstrates holograms and their potential use in communication.

Crime: Dye Guns, Lasers, Justice? (Color, 1972, excerpt) Former Attorney General Ramsey Cark talks about lasers and crime, surveillance, laser walls and crime prevention tools of the future.

Airborne Laser Laboratory (Color, 1960s, excerpt)

A surreal demonstration of the wide range of laser based military weapons-produced for Air Force Now Films.

Technical Note: The Airborne Laser Lab was a gas-dynamic laser mounted in a modified version of a KC-135 used for flight testing. Similar to the commercial Boeing 707, The NKC-135A was extensively modified by the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, and used in an 11-year experiment to prove a high-energy laser could be operated in an aircraft and employed against airborne targets. During the experiment, the Airborne Laser Lab destroyed five AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and a Navy BQM-34A target drone.

Kinetic Art in Paris (Color, 1971)

The works of Kinetic artists Julio Le Parc, Victor Vasarely, John Rock Yvar aren’t the only things explored in detail in this ultra rare, quirky documentary that features music from the short-lived cult British pop duo White Trash. Viscerally challenging, this kaleidoscopic homage to light, sound, motion and restraint is quintessential viewing for anyone with a desire to be fascinated by anything…even if just for a moment. Don’t miss this!

Laser Bra 2000 (Color, 1979)

Michael O’Donahue (1940-1994) was one of the most important writing and creative forces behind the original Saturday Night Live. This mind-blowing erotic excerpt from his feature film debut Mr. M*ke's M*ndo Video features sexed up lingerie wearing female soldiers demonstrating a top-secret new weapon being developed by the military the “Laser Bra 2000”-bras that shoot lasers.

Plus! For early birds: Laser (1979)

A lush and mesmerizing visual depiction of lasers and their various uses from medical to industrial. From gorgeous vintage laboratory interiors to an optical kaleidoscope of the many uses of this magical harnessed light beam, with a great moogy soundtrack.

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 and curator Kat Shuchter present The Reel Housewives of Yesteryear, a tongue-in-cheek program of rare vintage 16mm cartoons, commercials, soundies, promotional films, educational and comedy shorts and other cinematic oddities about the old social mores of a woman's place within the family and society. Generally made by men and often misogynistic and downright offensive, these cinematic slices of life remind us just how far the modern woman has come. One housewife can't contain herself once she discovers RIT fabric dye in the swingin' promotional short Color for Joy (1962). In Merrie Melodies - Wild Wife (1954), the legendary Robert McKimson animates the "average" mid-century housewife's harried day as well as her unsympathetic husband. One teenaged boy's mom has a lot of men over to the house while his dad's away in the philandering soundie The Man That Comes Around (1940) from the Music with Spice series. Pawn off some of your chores on your delightful domestic in the Pete Smith Specialty comedy Home Maid (1944). A good housewife is never done decorating, so why not try your hand at creating tissue-paper flowers in Cut Yourself a Bunch of Fun (1969). Mrs. John Barrymore gives us a lesson in how to keep your hubby happy in the tantalizing How to Undress In Front of Your Husband (1937). One mother is doing everything wrong by feeding her family poisons in the form of food products, but one creepy British gentleman is stalking around her kitchen to give her proper nutrition information in an excerpt from Mystery in the Kitchen (1958). And while we're in the kitchen, learn how to not make brainless mistakes like the silly woman you are with Cooking: Kitchen Safety (1949). Then, it's time to take off the pounds for your man with the ridiculous Battle of the Bulge (1950). One woman single-handedly works a farm while her husband enjoys his off-grid leisurely lifestyle in the hilarious Finnish short Elsa (1982). Plus tons of commercials, snippets and other surprises!

Date: Thursday, February 25th, 2016 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

Highlights Include:

Color For Joy (Color, 1962)
A housewife dances and prances around the house, dyeing everything in sight with RIT fabric dye in this odd promotional film. Stars Patricia Harty, who played Blondie in the late 1960s sitcom, in perhaps her first “dramatic” role. Makes a nice companion piece to Oddball favorite Match My Mood. No housewife has ever been this peppy- not without a handful of leapers!

Elsa (Color, 1982)

A hilarious satire of gender roles from Finnish director Marja Pensala. A man speaks about his family's decision to move to the country and adopt a simpler way of life. In every shot, as the man relaxes and enjoys himself, we can see his wife Elsa doing all the strenuous and difficult work in their little off-grid paradise; from chopping wood to laundry to bricklaying, and all while she's pregnant.

Home Maid (B+W, 1944)

A Pete Smith Specialty comedy short for the domestic set from MGM. Pete Smith was a publicist that went into filmmaking; churning out 150 shorts and winning 3 Oscars. Watch Polly as she cleans the house with ease and grace, all with quips from narrator/producer Pete Smith himself.

Cut Yourself a Bunch of Fun (Color, c. 1969)

Dennison presents a groovy promotional film featuring an extremely innovative character....a house wife who never finishes decorating! When hubby and the kids are away, she notices her home is looking dull so she decides to get into making paper flowers - the perfect solution for the bored house wife! You too can join along (BYOTP) and learn the whimsical and stylish craft of paper flower making!

Merrie Melodies - Wild Wife (Color, 1954, Robert McKimson)

Men just don't understand! A wife recounts her terrible day of calamities and nuisances to her unsympathetic husband who seems to think this wonder woman is nothing but lazy. Well, he's got it coming, you can count on that!

Music with Spice - The Man that Comes Around (B+W, 1940s)
A teenage boy sings about all the men that come over to the house after his father leaves for work, while his philandering mother preens herself in the mirror in this scandalous soundie.

How to Undress in Front of Your Husband (B+W, 1937)

An antiquated exercise in exhibitionism starring Elaine Barrie AKA Mrs. John Barrymore (!) wife of the famed Hollywood legend. No wonder she was his last wife!

Cooking: Kitchen Safety (B+W, 1949)
Poor Eleanor; she slipped off her ladder in the kitchen and ended up in the hospital. What a careless woman! Don't you too be just another dumb injured housewife, learn how to cut things without cutting off a finger and other important lessons for us simple women.

Mystery in the Kitchen (Color, 1958, excerpt)

Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, this soft-boiled film aimed at housewives uses satire and humor to teach proper nutrition and good eating habits by pointing out the subtle poisons you may be subjecting your family to. A well-dressed dapper man slinks around the kitchen and pantry, lecturing a long-suffering mother on how she is responsible for her family's personality problems by denying them nutrients. Beautiful color mid-century domestic scenes from our neighbors to the North.

Battle of the Bulge (B+W, 1950)
Part of the Variety View segment, this antiquated and offensive short aims to keep women in their place by joking about their rotundness and their men's displeasure. The narrator follows several women who are overweight and offers various advice and instructions on how to thin down for your ungrateful husband!

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 presents Film on a Bender, a night of film drenched in booze with intoxicating cartoons, rare all-star television, sauced soundies, alcoholic commercials and (of course) shocking educational shorts; all on 16mm film from the archive. Join Patty Duke and Rue McLanahan for a very special episode of Catholic mental-hygiene show Insight: A Slight Drinking Problem (1977). Four friends head out for a day of fishing, but head over a cliff instead in Social Drinking: Fun and Fatal (1974). In the early Chuck Jones cartoon Naughty but Mice (1939), Sniffles the mouse gets drunk on cough syrup and tangles with an electric razor. Bill's got a nagging wife, a terrible commute, a high-pressure job and worst of all, a nasty Hangover (1978). Be on the jury for one Mr. "Al K. Hall" while he defends himself against a barrage of witnesses whose lives he affected in the ridiculous cartoon The Day They Tried Alcohol (1976). Watch who you're drinking with in the cowboy soundie Seven Beers with the Wrong Woman (1941). With a drunk-tank full of Lucky Beer Commercials (1960s) and loaded excerpts, like Robert Mitchum narrating America on the Rocks (1973), drunk-driving massacre Just Another Friday Night (1984) and so much more!

Date: Friday, March 4th, 2016 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: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com/

Featuring:

A Slight Drinking Problem (Color, 1977)

A sobering episode of Catholic mental hygiene show Insight starring Patty "Sparkle Neely Sparkle" Duke (Valley of the Dolls) and Golden Girl Rue McClanahan. Jim is an alcoholic. He denies it and so does his wife Loretta (Duke). Yet his repeated alcoholic escapades cause her acute embarrassment and suffering. In desperation, Loretta attends an Al-Anon meeting. She forces Jim to face the truth about himself.

Social Drinking: Fun and Fatal (Color, 1974, 504)
A fishing trip turns into a disaster when four young men (that look like they're on their way to Folsom Street Fair) are killed while driving under the influence. Realistically recreates a tragic accident while covering the one-drink-per-hour concept, stages of intoxication, hard liquor vs. beer or wine and various drinking reflexes.

Naughty But Mice (Color, 1939)

Sniffles the mouse - in his first appearance in a Warner Bros. cartoon - goes to a drugstore and gets drunk on a cold remedy, then befriends an electric razor and gets it drunk as well. One of the first films directed by legendary animator Chuck Jones for Warner Brothers.

Hangover (Color, 1978)
This is no hilarious buddy comedy. Bill has a problem, a problem a lot of us are facing right now, he had too much fun last night, and now he’s got to face the day. Face the shakiness of his hands, face the “nag nag nag” of his wife, Bess, face the morning commute. And that’s just before he has to go operate heavy machinery at work. I hope it was worth it, Bill.

Lucky Beer Commercial Highlights From the 1960s (Color, 1960s)
They don’t make commercials like this anymore. From kooky animated films with figures like Christopher Columbus, the Wright Brothers, Comedian Rich Little in a space suit in a lunar landscape, with a mountain goat (!), jumping out of a airplane, in front of a steamroller to cartoon cavemen with bows and arrows these spots pull out all the stops in their attempts to sell their product.

Seven Beers With the Wrong Woman (B+W, 1941)

This intoxicating soundie with comedian Snub Pollard and Greta Granstedt is the musical answer to the earlier hit song Seven Beers with the Wrong Man. Opens with the Chump in bandages starting to sing about drinking with the wrong woman. Fades to the bar scene with the chump in a neat suit and bow tie, and the girl comes downstairs in a frilly dress. The husband saunters up wearing a Davie Crockett hat and beats him up with the bartender.

America On The Rocks (Color, 1973, excerpt)

Hilarious but ultimately (alas) sobering documentary on America’s favorite pastime- getting loaded. Narrated by Robert Mitchum (a rather legendary drinker himself), the film starts off on a merry-go-round filled with drunks, and then explores the history, the nightlife and the perils of Boozelandia.

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.

Oh Canada! The Best of Canadian Animation - Thur. Dec. 17th - 8PM

Oddball will be Closed this week for Christmas

Oddball is Closed this week for New Year's

Antique Erotica - Fri. Jan. 8th - 8PM

Film Under the Influence - Vintage Drug and Alcohol Scare Films - Thur. Jan. 7th - 8PM

Stop-Motion Explosion! - Fri. Jan. 15th - 8PM

Technicolor Dreams and Kodachrome Fantasies - The Mid-Century in Full Color - Thur. Jan. 14th - 8PM

Cinema Soiree with Experimental Animator Ben Ridgway - Thur. Jan. 21st - 8PM

Strange Sinema 96: Visionary Music and Beyond - Fri. Jan. 22nd - 8PM

Learn your Lesson from the 1940s - An Antique Shockucation - Fri. Jan. 29th - 8PM

Dream Theater - Surrealist Cinema - Thur. Jan. 28th - 8PM

The Stupor Bowl: Potheads and Pigskins - Fri. Feb. 5th - 8PM

I, Asimov - Science Fact and Fiction - Thur. Feb 4th - 8PM

Cinema Soiree: Long Lost Treasures of the Tournee of Animation - Thur. Feb. 18th - 8PM

Learn Your Lesson on Dating, Sex, and Marriage - A Valentine's Shockucation - Fri. Feb. 12th - 8PM

Cold-Blooded Murder - Thur. Feb. 11th - 8PM

What the F(ilm)?! gets Political: Presidential Cine-Insanity - Fri. Feb. 19th - 8PM

Strange Sinema 97: Laservision - Science Art Cinema - Fri. Feb. 26th - 8PM

Reel Housewives of Yesteryear - Thurs. Feb. 25th - 8PM

Film on a Bender - Fri. Mar. 4th - 8PM