FLARE

Event: “As Seen On TV: 70s Back To School Special”. Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare, weird and wonderful 1970s TV on 16mm, dredged from the massive Oddball film archive. An After-School Special, primetime, Saturday morning, documentary, cartoons and of course, commercials will all be represented- highlights include: “The Pinballs” with Kristy McNichol; “Is A Career in Radio or Television For You?”, a hilarious gem from 1971; several episodes of the Saturday morning “Hot Dog” shorts; plus 1970s commercials, promos, cartoons and much, much more.
Date: Friday, September 4, 2009 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or info@oddballfilm.com
“As Seen On TV”
70s Back To School Special

On Friday, September 4, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present a veritable orgy of 1970s television on 16mm. Although perhaps not the greatest decade in television history, for most of us growing up then it was a massive presence- primetime, Saturday morning cartoons, after school specials and re-runs. The Oddball Films archive is full of titles originally intended for transmission to the masses- most of it hasn’t seen the light of day (or the twilight of the rumpus room) for decades. Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

“The Pinballs” (Color, 1977)
ABC After School Special starring 70s tomboy icon and Dynamite Magazine cover girl Kristy McNichol in a heartwarming tale of a tough-skinned foster kid who is bounced from home to home. Fresh from her success playing Buddy on the Family TV show, Kristy was just three years away from her peak in the teen sex comedy Little Darlings. Since the early 90s, she is firmly in the “where are they now” category. “Me an’ Harvey and Thomas J., we’re like pinballs. Somebody came along with a dime, put it in, pushed a button and out we came, ready or not. You don’t see pinballs helping each other now do you? Because they can’t, they’re just things.” Scores an 8 out of 10 stars on kristymcnichol.net.

“Kids For Sale” (Color, 1979)
Hard-hitting documentary on the commercial exploitation of children by television broadcasters and commercials. Produced by Action For Children’s Television, the group founded by Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Peggy Charren, the group some blame for the demise of locally produced children’s programming (no revenue) and the rise of Barney, the purple dinosaur travesty.

“Is A Career in Radio or Television For You?” (Color, 1971)
Hilarious career guide to the “glamorous” world of radio and television with lots of campy early 70s fashions and ‘fros and super funky music.

“Hot Dog: How They Make ???” (Color, 1971-2)
Saturday morning TV shorts where kids ask how something is made, make guesses, then get smart-alec answers from Woody Allen and Joanne Worley (Laugh-In), before it’s off to the factory for the real answer.
Three surprise episodes.

PLUS! Snippets and clips, show promos, Saturday morning cartoons, and those delightful 1970s commercials. BYOBFSS (Bring Your Own Bowl of Frosted Sugar Smacks).

Event: “On The Bowery” Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present Lionel Ragosin’s rarely screened tour de force documenting the human desolation in New York’s skid row.  A unique combination of scripted scenes utilizing real locations and real life alkies presaged the direct cinema experiments of the 1960s with devastating effect. Most of the cast was dead within a year of its release, and despite critical recognition and restored re-release at the Anthology Film Archives in 2007, it remains criminally unknown, out of print on VHS and never released on DVD.
Plus, the short impressionistic film “3rd Ave El” by Carson Davidson and the animated short “Returnable Botttle” by Johan Hagelback.  Note: “On The Bowery” will be shown on video, the two shorts are 16mm.
Date: Saturday, August  29, 2009 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or info@oddballfilm.com

“On The Bowery”
Screens at Oddball Films

On Saturday, August 29, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present a screening of the 1956 rarity On The Bowery, one of the most astonishing and unforgettable docu-dramas ever filmed.  Shot in 35mm (the lightweight sync-sound and high speed film 16mm cameras utilized in the 1960s were not yet available), director Lionel Ragosin worked with real life alcoholics as actors, scripting the piece during six months of rehearsals.  The result was something that positively reeks of sordid reality, but is much more engaging than any straight documentary.   Plus, the short film “3rd Ave El” by Carson Davidson and the animated short from Sweden “Returnable Bottle”.
Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Films Include:

“On The Bowery” (B&W, 1956, 65 mins.)

Director Lionel Ragosin’s first film is a remarkable achievement- an uncompromising work of art and an incredible document. Ostensibly the story of Ray, who arrives in the Bowery looking for day work and makes “friends” quickly by buying a round of drinks. He is taken under wing by a somewhat fatherly figure who binges with him and immediately pawns his suitcase for flop and muscatel money (and a certain kind-hearted gesture at the film’s end).

It is a film of indelible portraiture; the plot, as it is, exists largely to transfer our protagonists (and the camera) between congregations of winos, from gin mills to games of dominos around a flophouse common room’s pot-bellied stove, from a listless sermon at the Bowery Mission to bums in a side street squeezing a “Good morning” cup of pink lady from a can of Sterno. All throughout, the film looks hard at that which we’re accustomed to turning away from, exposing a litany of exploded hairdos, gardens of gin blossoms, trench-like worry lines, loose blubbery lips, toppled orthodontia, eyes glistening from burrows, noses pitted like no-man’s-land or broken across the bridge (even a couple of visages that are positively Beckettian). In numerous bar scenes, the atmosphere is palpable: the Rheingold on tap, the raw onions in the beards, the cracked-leather barstools soaking up rancid farts. – Nick Pinkerton, Glasses Full of Rye

On The Bowery was nominated for an Academy Award in 1957 and profoundly affected the direct-cinema scene of the 1960s, England’s Lindsay Anderson (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, If…) and John Cassavettes:

To tell the truth as you see it, incidentally, is not necessarily the truth.  To tell the truth as someone else sees it is, to me, much more important and enlightening.  Some documentaries are fantastic.  Like Lionel Ragosin’s pictures,  for instance; like “On The Bowery”.  This is a guy who is probably the greatest documentary filmmaker of all time, in my opinion.  He doesn’t care what anyone thinks, the Cahiers du Cinema crowd, the underground or anyone else. – John Cassavettes

Further Reading  Nick Pinkerton’s essential review of the 2007 re-release of On The Bowery and a primer on Ragosin: http://www.reverseshot.com/article/on_the_bowery

“Returnable Bottle” (Color, 1977, 12 mins.)
Swedish animation by Johan Hagelback tackles a rather grim subject with humor and pathos- much like “On the Bowery”, but a wordless tale with the animator’s freedom of fantasy.

“3rd Ave El” (Color, 1954, 11 mins.)
By the great Carson Davidson (director of the Oddball Films favorite Help, My Snowman’s Burning Down), this impressionistic picture of a ride on the elevated 3rd Ave. train (long since torn down) passes over the Bowery but shows little of the desperate struggles in its shadow.

Event: “Don’t Touch That Dial…”  Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare 16mm TV commercials and PSA’s from the 1950’s through the 1970’s, along with several vintage documentaries exploring/ exposing the television advertising industry and consumerism.  The documentaries include “The 30 Second Dream” (Color, 1977), “Why Do You Buy?” (Color, 1971), “The Buy Line” (Color, 1972) and “TV Ads: Our Mini Myths” (Color, 1977).  Plus several hundred of the wildest, weirdest commercials both familiar and obscure from “the golden age of TV”!
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or info@oddballfilm.com

“Don’t Touch That Dial…”
Consumer Films and TV Ads From the 50s, 60s & 70s

On Saturday, August 22, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare commercials and Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) from the “golden age” of television culled from the massive collection in the Oddball Films archive.  Spanning the 1950’s to about 1980, these weird, wild, wacky, funny, frightening and fabulous 30 second slices of vintage TV were designed to entice, dupe or otherwise coerce the American Consumer in a most entertaining way.
In addition, several short documentaries on the subject will be screened.
Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Films Include:

The 30 Second  Dream (Color, 1977)
Award winning mini documentary on the seductive power of TV ads.  Juxtaposes carefully selected commercials to reveal how they exploit our fears, hopes and fantasies.

“The Buy Line” (Color, 1972)
Examples of manipulative, misleading and deceptive advertising as well as informative advertising stressing the psychological appeal of ads. Special focus on how consuming relates to self worth and conveys a false sense of fulfillment.

“Why Do You Buy?” (Color, 1971)
Comical, fictionalized commercials demonstrate the emotional elements involved in the consumer’s decision to buy, and how the commercial makers exploit this to hook the suckers.

“TV Ads: Our Mini Myths” (Color, 1977)
Compilation of Clio Award (the Academy Awards of Advertising) winning  ads from 1966-1977.  Among many great ads is the mind-blowing Levi’s commercial, entitled “The Stranger”, made by local designer Chris Blum and featuring the voice of “Word Jazz” genius Ken Nordine.

PLUS: Hundreds of rare and amazing 16mm TV ads- beer, cars, hair products, underwear, junk food and much, much more!!

Event: “Weirdsville: Oddities from the Archives”.  Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare, weird and some highly entertaining 16mm shorts, movie trailers and commercials culled from the 50,000+ archive at Oddball Films.  This month’s highlights include: “Color For Joy”, a bizarre early 60’s promo film for RIT Dyes; “Route One”, Jr. High kids learn all about booze; “Clay Or Origin Of The Species”, Darwinism in clay; “The Blackbird”, kooky Hungarian troublemaker bird; “The What Did You Think Of The Movie Movie”, the great unwashed speak; “The Trendsetter”, colorful but dark British animation; “The Winged Scourge”, an anti-Malaria propaganda film from 1943; “Hot Dog: How Do They Make Mustard”, with Jonathan Winters in drag, Woody Allen and Jo Anne Worley;  plus movie trailers and commercials straight out of Weirdsville!
Date: Friday, August 14, 2009 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or info@oddballfilm.com

“Weirdsville”
Oddities From The Archives
Screens at Oddball Films

On Friday, August 14, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of the strange, the bizarre, and the sometimes baffling short films, commercials and trailers from deep within the Oddball archive. These “found” films surface in the process of research for other programs: too good to languish on the shelves, they demand to be screened!  A monthly companion program to the Strange Sinema series.  Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00.  Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to:  info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

Color For Joy (Color, 1962)
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 “film” role.  No housewife has ever been this peppy- not without a handful of leapers!

Route One (Color, 1976)
Alcohol Awareness film shows an 8th grade class all about booze and hangovers with help from a dog who got drunk at a wedding reception and is suffering a hangover, plus some twisted animation of alcohol in the bloodstream- portrayed by a Kaiser-helmeted jet-chopper riding biker.

Clay or Origin of The Species (b+w, 1965)
Academy Award-nominated claymation short by Eli Noyes- a visual representation of Darwinism through clay.  Noyes worked for Sesame Street in the 1970s, where he produced the beloved Mad Painter series (he also designed the MTV logo).

The Blackbird (Color, 1979)
Bizarre live-action, wordless film from the Budapest Filmstudio in Hungary- a mischievous blackbird gets out of his cage and wreaks havoc on the dog, the room, the mail, the desk, and a little sleeping boy.  Revenge for the 4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie!!

The “What Did You Think Of The Movie?” Movie (Color, 1970)
Early comic-documentary short from the director of Heroes, The Big Fix and The Chosen, moviegoers are interviewed as they leave the movie theater- to much comic effect.  Not least of which is the 1970 NYC milieu.

The Trendsetter (Color, 1970)
Cool British animation from the great Vera Linnecar portrays a little man who is annoyed with the little trendies who ape and one up his every move.  Illustrates how the trendsetters depend on others for their sense of self worth

The Winged Scourge (Color, 1943)
WWII propaganda film from Disn*y aimed at controlling Malaria through mosquito eradication.  Actually a movie within a movie as the Seven Dwarves are shown to be watching and spring in to action, including use of motor oil and the highly toxic Paris Green (replaced in the 1950s with the “safer” DDT).

Hot Dog: How Do They Make Mustard (Color, 1972)
Jonathan Winters (in drag), Woody Allen and Jo Anne Worley (Laugh-In) are back in this early 1970s Saturday morning TV short on how things are made.  In this episode, they tackle a hot dog’s best friend: mustard.

PLUS- Movie trailers and commercials straight out of Weirdsville!

Curator Biography:
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave.  A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

Event: “Dog Days of Summer” Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of short films focused on… dogs. Canis Familliaris figures prominently on the silver screen and, unlike cats, is almost always portrayed on the side of good. The Oddball archive has coughed up a slew of rare and unique shorts featuring man’s best friend, including: “A Boy, A Dog, And a Frog”, a live action version of the Mercer Mayer book; “A Dog-Gone Story”, about a country Wiener dog who runs away to Paris; “One Eyed Men Are Kings”, Oscar-winner about man who figures out how to enjoy walking the dog; “Dogs”, a touchy-feely, i.e. hippy film about dogs; “Training You To Train Your Dog”, in stunning 1952 Kodachrome color; “Canine Capers”, vintage dog tricks; “Harry The Dirty Dog”, a live version of the beloved children’s book; “Wonder Dogs in Action”; “Frank and His Dog”; and much more! Woof!
Date: Friday, August 7, 2009 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or info@oddballfilm.com

“Dog Days of Summer”
At Oddball Films

On Friday, August 7, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of films featuring or about… DOGS. Hot on the heels of the sold-out “Crazy Cats!” program, we thought it was time to let the dogs out (and stay tuned for Crazy Cats 2!). The Oddball Film Archive has a great collection of doggie films- and not a Rin-Tin-Tin, Old Yeller or Benji in sight (although Lassie may make a brief appearance). Be sure to bring your camera, as Oddball’s human-sized, pink, furry doghouse will be available for photo ops.

Show time is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Films Include:

“A Boy, A Dog, And A Frog” (Color, 1980)
A little boy and his dog go frog hunting- the frog escapes, but misses the fun of the chase and follows them home. From the book by Mercer Mayer.

“A Dog-Gone Story” (b+w, late 1940s)
Little Weiner dog lives in the French countryside and decides nobody wants him around. He splits for Paris, only to find it’s not such an easy place to live. Lots of adventures, including, of course, some stolen salami. But watch out for the dogcatcher!

“Training You To Train Your Dog” (Kodachrome Color, 1952)
Beautiful color film of the famed TV show- lots of good tips!

“One-Eyed Men Are Kings” (Color, 1974)
Oscar winning short about a Parisian man who lives with his mother and is forced to walk her mean little Terrier. He finds that the dog gets him in trouble, is not allowed in the park and is a general nuisance. Until, however, he puts on some dark sunglasses and pretends to be blind. Suddenly, everyone wants to help him, the park is his oyster, and walking the dog is the highlight of his day.

“Dogs” (Color, 1974)
Beautiful hippy film about dogs just being dogs- no tricks, no real story, just dogs at home and out in nature running, frolicking, eating, napping and birthing. Looks like it was filmed in Marin? Music by Jazz legend Charles Lloyd.

“Canine Capers” (b+w, 1944)
Kooky dog tricks with Max and His Gang.

“Harry The Dirty Dog” (Color, 1987)
Film adaptation of the beloved children’s story by Gene Zion. Harry hates to take a bath…

PLUS- “Wonder Dogs in Action”, “Frank and His Dog” and more!

Curator Biography:
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave. A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.