Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Girls! Girls! Girls!, a program of vintage short films all about (you guessed it) girls! From young girls to young ladies, from mean girls to tough girls, with newsreel oddities, mini-docs, mental hygiene primers, cartoons, trailers and musical numbers, we're highlighting the strangest, funniest and campiest girls of the collection. Marvel at the dedication and synchronicity of The Sofia Girls: Rhythmic Gymnastics in Sweden (1950s). Fashion meets the farm when a young lady leaves her home to be in a mobile modeling show in Rolling in Style (1954). Two little girls love to touch ladies' furs and end up in a grand adventure in the fetish primer The Fur Coat Club (1973). Little Lulu hallucinates a bar full of celebrity babies in the bizarre cartoon The Babysitter (1947). The Goldilocks fairy tale gets a sexy twist in one segment from the nudie cutie series Bikini Girls (1949). In the mental hygiene classic The Snob (1958), girls can be so mean, but who's meaner, the snob or the girls who call her a snob? Di$ney brings us the inner thoughts inside little girls' heads, in the Les Clark animated socialization primer What Should I Do? The New Girl (1970). And in an exciting twist, the audience will get to choose between three menstruation films: Girl Stuff (1980), Naturally, A Girl (1973), or It's Wonderful Being a Girl (1966). Plus Vintage Trailers, Commercials, little B@by Jane singing "I've Written a Letter to Daddy", three Junior High School girls sing our favorite song of the pubescent blues "The Itty Bitty Titty Committee" and even more girlie surprises! Come early for a good seat and the beautifully dreamy National Film Board of Canada coming-of-age tale The End of Summer (1963). 
Date: Friday, February 28th, 2014 at 8:00 pm
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/2014/02/girls-girls-girls-fri-feb-28-8pm.html
The Sofia Girls: Rhythmic Gymnastics in Sweden (B+W, 1950s)
This film showcases an extended performance by an all-female team of rhythmic gymnasts from Sweden, whose hypnotizing feats are impossibly synchronized. The precise movements of the girls create clean-cut lines of motion, generating spectacular images within the frame. However, such exercises had aims beyond the aesthetic, as schools incorporated gymnastics into their curriculums as an attempt to cultivate a united regime of physical and mental hygiene.
This film showcases an extended performance by an all-female team of rhythmic gymnasts from Sweden, whose hypnotizing feats are impossibly synchronized. The precise movements of the girls create clean-cut lines of motion, generating spectacular images within the frame. However, such exercises had aims beyond the aesthetic, as schools incorporated gymnastics into their curriculums as an attempt to cultivate a united regime of physical and mental hygiene.
Rolling in Style (B+W, 1954)
A young woman leaves the farm to go to modeling school, where she receives lessons in movement, posing and makeup. She joins a "fashion caravan" mobile modeling show. The fashion caravan stops in Fogelsville, a rural town with pseudo Amish women in bonnets, a cement plant and Harold Ziegler's farm bringing the latest in fashions to the agricultural and working classes.
The Snob (B+W, 1958)Why are some girls snobs? This campy mental hygiene primer seeks to answer the question and to illustrate the effects such snobbery has on the perpetrator and those around them.
The Fur Coat Club (Color, 1973)
Early short by Joan Micklin Silver (Crossing Delancy), depicts the adventures of two nine-year-old girls who have invented a secret game of touching fur coats without the wearer realizing it. Follows them as they inadvertently become trapped in the vault of a fur store, where to their surprise when the vault door opens, two thieves appear and the girls manage to trap them and become heroines. Great fetish primer.
I've Written a Letter to Daddy from Whatever Happened to B@by Jane? (B+W, 1962)
Vaudeville star Baby Jane Hudson (played by Julie Allred) sings her signature song in the opening scene from Robert Aldrich's creepy horror classic. Of course we know this sweet little girl is going to turn into Bette Davis down the line, make her adorableness all the creepier.
The Babysitter (Color, 1947)An extremely bizarre and surreal 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!
Bikini Girls (B+W, 1949)
Titillating tales featuring bikini-clad women and an over-the-top narrator. Shot over 60 years ago these risque shorts always feature women doing things that expose themselves like applying suntan lotion, trying on clothes and “getting comfortable” in the hot sun. A sexy and sexist look at the lighter side of eroticism in the 1940s. In this segment, goldilocks has stumbled upon the three bears swingin' pad and can't help but take a dip in the pool!
"The Itty Bitty Titty Committee" from Junior High School (Color, 1978, excerpt)
As if Junior High wasn't awful enough, imagine adding song and dance numbers about the most awkward aspects of your life and changing body! This musicalamity revolves loosely around a party, planned by Sherry, played by none other than 16 year-old Paula Abdul. Everybody's gotta be there, and lots of singles still need a date, which leads to triangles and hilarity. In this hilarious excerpt, the song and dance numbers tread into uncomfortable territory when the whole girl's locker room dances around 3 gals in the "Itty Bitty Titty Committee". It's an epic camp musical masterpiece!
And You Choose!
Girl Stuff (Color, 1980)
This film plays out like many men’s nightmares: a bunch of girls sitting around talking about their periods. Periods and douches and perspiration and vaginal infections and boyfriends and growing up, you know…Girl Stuff! With plenty of fantastic vintage product placement.
Naturally- A Girl (Color, 1971)
This girly puberty-fest uses vignettes, animation and comments by girls and boys to explore the medical facts and some personal feelings about menstruation.
It’s Wonderful Being a Girl (Color, 1966)
Mom explains the facts of life to her pre-teen daughter. Presented by Personal Products Company the makers of Modess- it’s not a “curse”, it’s Wonderful Being A Girl!
For the Early Birds:
The End of Summer (B+W, 1964, starting at 7:45pm)
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.
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.