Date: Friday, March 20th 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: www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com
Featuring:
Lot in Sodom (B+W, 1933)
Lot in Sodom was one
of the strangest works of cinema of the early 1930s. Even by the standards of
Pre-Code cinema, the blatant sexuality pushes the envelope to
the point of being shredded. Lot in Sodom was the second and final
collaboration of two Rochester, N.Y.-based creative artists, James Sibley
Watson Jr. and Melville Webber. In 1928, the duo created an expressionistic
silent short based on Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher.” Inspired by German
Expressionism this avant-garde interpretation of the Old Testament tale of the
trials of Kit and features sensual dances and distorted multiple images in
telling its tale of a good man and his family living amidst a sexually charged
band of Sodomites. Lot in Sodom is a sensual depiction of the Sodom and
Gomorrah story filled with sinewy and semi-clad bodies, delirious bacchanales
devoted to physical pleasure, and a searing, cataclysmic finale depicting the
fall of a city devoted to sins of the flesh.
Lot in Sodom is an early and important and influential film
(this film greatly influenced Barbara Hammer’s “Nitrate Kisses”) in the history
of American avant-garde cinema. The overlapping multiplies the sensual
landscape of human flesh and gives a choreographic grace to the erotic
movements of the Sodomites. Print courtesy of the Jenni Olson Queer Archive.
A Dream
of Wild Horses aka Le Songe des Chevaux Sauvages (Color, 1962)
This landmark short film was written &
directed by Denys Colomb Daunant. It’s a cinematic poem which uses slow motion
and soft focus camera to evoke the wild horses of the Camargue District of
France, showing them as they roam on the beach through fire and water. The raw
yet elegant physicality of the horses in motion is breathtaking, erotic and
euphoric.
Lovemaking (Color,
1970)
The famed experimental work by film pioneer Scott Bartlett
is a delicate and arousing treatment
Bartlett’s films often form an interaction between film material and
photographed image by combing complex analog film effects with film and video
images to create a lush, colorful, and layered flow optical and auditory
information. Its mode is simple and classical, combining technical mastery and
personal restraint. The image is vivid subtle and ambiguous while the sound is
sharp and clear. Barlett's “Lovemaking” is an imaginative, suggestive,
artistic, non- clinical evocation of the sexual act of lovemaking. Both visually and
conceptually dense, Lovemaking explores eroticism, sex, and the body in a
completely new and innovative way.
Frederick's Of Hollywood
(Color, 1970s, excerpt)
The appeal is sex. We
see models prancing around in ridiculous lingerie, and extolling the miracle of
padding in all of the right places, old ladies opening mail in the mail order
department and couples selecting sexy underwear. The clothes are designed to
please men; to put a man in their life and a little life in their man. Since women aren't born equal its Frederick's
of Hollywood's job to make them more equal. Does Frederick's of Hollywood treat
women like sex objects? Of course, that's the point.
Ego
(Color, 1970)
Brilliant animation by Italy’s Bruno Bozzetto (of the
cult favorite Mr. Rossi series)- 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 erotic situations. Utilizes a number of animation styles
including optical printing and dazzling pop art imagery. Wild soundtrack by the
ultra-lounge master Franco Godi…
Bigelow (Color,
1970s)
Bigelow Carpets designed these shaggy rugs especially for
Scorpio women-in this case erotic model Erin Grey purring away on a carpet made
in heaven.
Chemical Bank (Color, 1970s)
“When her needs are financial her reaction is chemical”.
Glamorous sexism in this New York City shot commercial for Chemical Bank.
Safety Shoes (Color,
1970s)
This unconsciously perverse and comedic film is actually an
industrial safety film. Watch sexy legs in sparkly tights do a little dance before
turning into a pair of bare feet dancing around broken glass, rusty nails,
falling cinderblocks and metal pipes, kitchen sinks, lawn movers and boat
anchors. Finally we see the results of this reckless lady’s
behavior-remember-wear safety shoes!
The Groping Hand (Color,
1968)
This bizarre slice of homoerotica was shot in San
Francisco’s North Beach in the heyday of free love. A hunky male gets all
revved up gazing at the live sex show signs and clubs on Broadway when he’s
beckoned in by a female hand. Once inside he cuts loose, “stripping” his time
away to down and dirty soul music.
The
Sofia Girls (B+W, 1950s)
The Sofia Girls is a rare Swedish instructional exercise
film with a brilliant choreographic style, wondrously shot in an iconic post
Riefenstahl style. One of the gems of the Oddball Archive!
This excerpt from the groundbreaking “Mondo Cane” has famed
artist Yves Klein utilizing human
paintbrushes on a giant canvas. Klein, a student of Eastern spirituality was on
a quest for pure color and form. His live performances were groundbreaking
precursors to minimalism, conceptual, land and performance art. Klein was a
showman and one of his most famous events was the imprinting of paper with
naked models smeared with his trademark blue paint, as he
directed their performance to music. As well as his
monochrome works, Klein created sculptures using sea sponges, paintings made
with fire, and is well known for his exhibit called The Void, in which he chose
to exhibit an empty gallery room, void of everything but a large cabinet.
Buried Treasure
(B+W, 1928)
The Granddaddy of pornographic cartoons, persistent rumors
suggest that Max Fleischer (Betty Boop and others), Paul Terry (of Terry Toons)
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!
Red Hot Riding Hood
(Color, 1943)
This sensual adaptation
of the old fairy story soon liberates its principals from their cute
Disney-style forest and slaps them right in the middle of swanky Manhattan.
Grandma's a nymphomaniac swinger, and her rustic cottage home a hip penthouse
pad. Little Red has become a red-hot singer-stripper; the Wolf is a model of
lupine lechery; and the forest is supplanted by a big-city nightclub as the
enchanted place of forbidden sexuality. The Wolf tries to pull the old Red
Riding Hood gag in order to meet up with Little Red, but Grandma has other
ideas. A super-surrealist sendup!
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.
Memories With Miss
Aggie (Color, 1974)
Porn auteur Gerard Damiano fancied himself as a
modern day Hitchcock and in this psychobilly-smut trailer he manages to combine
horror and low life white trash. From the golden age of Triple xxx features.
L.A. Too Much (Color,
1968)
A couple having sex is interposed over shots of the
architectural details of a house. Strange noises fill the sound track. Ultimately the old house succumbs to a
violent death.
Satan-Tease (B+W, 1955)
Burlesque queen Betty Dolan brings new meaning to the phrase
dancing with the devil. Cleverly costumed, Miss Dolan's right hand is the hand
of the devil and she can't stop it from trying to get to third base. Strange
and erotic on many different levels, it must be seen to be believed!
|
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.
