Oddball Films presents Oral Exam - You Can't Handle the Tooth, a program of vintage films dedicated to those pearly whites. From silent slapstick to psychedelic instructional shorts to swingin' chimps, you never knew how funny a mouth could be! Sink your teeth into the hilarious Charlie Chaplin classic Laughing Gas (1914), when the tramp takes a stab at being a dentist. Get ready for one swingin' party with The Munchers (1973), a groovy oral hygiene rock opera featuring a mouthy bandstand of claymation teeth. Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (1971) gets into the oral action, when he discovers a dental spy in To Tell the Tooth. Toothache of the Clown (1971) is one bad acid-trip to the dentist when children pull yarn and candy of a clown's rotten molars. Caesar Romero (The Joker from the 1960's Batman) will scare you into flossing in the strange and spooky The Haunted Mouth (1974). No dental show could be complete without W.C. Fields in The Dentist (1932) and the tastiest treat of the night, double-projection of vintage oral pornography overlaid with shark footage for one mouthy mash-up. With more than a mouthful of vintage toothpaste commercials, sweets to chew on and a toothy giveaway to boot!
Date: Thursday February 7th, 2013 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 RSVP (Limited seating) to programming@oddballfilm.com or 415.558.8117.
Highlights Include:
Laughing Gas (B+W, 1914, silent w/added sound)
Pretending to be a dentist Charlie Chaplin wreaks havoc on his “patients”, pumping them full of laughing gas, knocking them out with clubs, pulling the skirt off the dentists’ wife and pulling the wrong tooth out of an unfortunate patient. Watch this laugh riot from the master of silent silliness.
Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (Color, 1971) in “To Tell the Tooth”.
Get Smart meets James Bond in this TV spy spoof as the top agent of APE (Agency to Prevent Evil) detective Lance Link discovers a dentist working for C.H.U.M.P. (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan) has been inserting secret radio transmitters into the teeth of military officials.
The Haunted Mouth (Color, 1974) Veteran actor Caesar Romero stars as “The Spectre of Plaque” in The Haunted Mouth, an oral hygiene scare film produced for the classroom by the American Dental Association.
The Munchers (Color, 1973)
Like the California Raisins of Oral Hygiene, The Munchers is a trippy, psychedelic rockucational film for all tastes. Dancing and singing on some kind of a mouthy bandstand, the Munchers fall victim to the Pusherman Jack Sweet, a masked demon that has an endless supply of delicious candy. Can the peg-legged, metal-skulled old toothman convince the young Munchers to stay clean and candy free? If not him, then maybe the conga-line of anthropomorphic healthy foods can do the trick.
Teeth Are for Chewing (Color, 1971)
This film features cool shots of people and animals chewing! Get a good look at canines, incisors, and molars and take a few tips on dental hygiene in this bizarre combo!
Toothache of The Clown (Color, 1971)
Made to assuage children’s fears of the dentist, this film manages to combine nothing but the creepiest elements into one terrifying mind-scratcher. Hallucinating from pain, or laughing gas, this clown has surreal nightmares of children dressed as dental technicians pulling arts and crafts out of the insides of other children dressed as decaying teeth. This is one “trip” to the dentist you won’t want to miss.