Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 94, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ vast collection of 16mm film prints. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 94th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This
installment, Strange Sinema 94: Sex in Cinema is an eye-popping exploration of
sex in cinema and all its genres from industrial films, commercials, animated
features, amateur films, documentaries and musical shorts. Sex sells, they say and this program showcases
the vast variety of outlets for it. We lay the foundation for our program with The
Most (1963), a rarely screened, award-winning biopic by Richard Ballentine
and Gordon Sheppard, that chronicles Pl*yboy’s Hugh H*fner, the man known for selling
sex to America and creating a socio-sexual cultural phenomenon. Insightful and
ferocious, this doc uncovers the banal layers of H*fner’s lifestyle and narcissistic
“genius”. Winner of the San Francisco International Film Festival’s Golden Gate
Award. We continue our program with a jaw-dropping sexist commercial for Chemical
Bank (1970s)
“When her needs are financial her reaction is
chemical” and a 1960s inspired occult spot for Bigelow Carpets followed
by Wear
Safety Shoes (1970s), a fetishistic advertisement for safety shoes. Other
gems include a peek inside Fredericks of Hollywood (1970s) and
its sexist camp and over–the-top fanny pad saleswomen, Erik Is Here! (1960s) featuring a man, his
Viking ship and his sexy cigar, Sadie the Sunbather (1948), a rare, titillating soft-core
“nudie cutie” by Seaside films featuring a buxom female and a snarky sexist
narrator and Clorets
(1950s), a pseudo-scientific study of bad breath (!) and social stigmas. Other
highlights include Texas Strip (1948), the musical Soundie that inspired
the Devo video “Whip It”, where a singing cowboy flirts with cowgirls
sitting on a fence, then strips one of them with his whip (oh my!), the trailer for American
Dreamer (1971) the most pretentious, hilariously awful, mind-boggling
bio-sex film to ever come from the coked out head of Dennis Hopper. Other
eye-popping shorts include highlights from the infamous New York Erotic Film Festival (1971), a fashion trip to polyester land
as statuesque models show off Christian Dior Action Wear Hosiery and Yves St.
Laurent belts and scarves amidst the picturesque ruins of Athens in The
Greeks Have a Word For It (1969), Woody Woodpecker in romantic drag romances
Wally the Walrus in The Gate Crasher (1969) and don’t miss The Magician (1970s) as
he strips he-men naked through the wonders of stop-motion animation. We climax
with a Salvo soap ad starring Wally Cox (TVs Mr Peepers) as he plays two roles (one in drag) to sell laundry
detergent and Dirty Duck (1974) Charles Swenson’s infamous animated
cult film trailer produced by sleaze meister Roger Corman!
Date: Friday, November 6th, 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
Oddball Films presents What the F(ilm)?! 14: Cine-Insanity from the Archive, an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection. This compendium of 16mm madness is too strange to be believed and too baffling to be forgotten. This time around we've got boxing chimps, boxing robots, burlesque cartoons, mimes, musical promotional films, a John Cleese office training film and even more celluloid psychosis! British comedy legend John Cleese produced, wrote and stars in Meetings, Bloody Meetings! (1976) a hilariously infotaining training film on running more effective meetings. Famed French mime Marcel Marceau takes us through the comedic and the ridiculously melodramatic facets of the age-old creepy traditions of mime in Pantomime: Language of the Heart (1975). The hilarious Doubletalk (1975) lets you in on what everyone is really thinking when a boy has to meet his date's parents. Take a musical-political break with Schoolhouse Rock and Sufferin' till Suffrage (1974). Little Billy heads out into the woods and makes friends with a man wearing a shag carpet in the f#*ed up communication primer Billy and the Beast (1972). Bell telephone presents a mini-musical of telephone switching boards and automatic shoe machines in the West Side Story of promotional films Conversation Crossroads (1958). Get a taste of antiquated entertainment with the spoof newsreel Goofy Movies Number 4 (1934) featuring boxing chimps, ladies on train tracks, and rockets on row boats. Plus, two antique cartoons: M*ckey Mouse builds a robot boxer and pits him against an ape in Kongo Killer (1933, AKA M*ckey's Mechanical Man) and Krazy Kat's girlfriend takes the stage to do a risqué burlesque fan dance in Frogs and Kats (1930s). 
Date: Friday, November 13th, 2015 at 8:00pm
