"As Seen On TV 3" at Oddball Films February 26, 2010

Event: “As Seen On TV”. Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare, weird and wonderful vintage TV on 16mm, dredged from the massive Oddball film archive. Featuring Flesh and Leather, aka Pier 23, a lost TV noir featuring a pre-Leave It To Beaver Hugh Beaumont and femme fatale Ann Savage; Some Like It Hot, the un-aired, lost TV pilot for a series based on the classic Billy Wilder film; an hilarious and ridiculous Jackie Gleason/Ralph Carney skit from Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town; Television Land, brilliantly edited visual history of the great communicator; plus The Nut House! (early Laugh-In styled parodies) and plenty of vintage commercials!
Date: Friday, February 26, 2010 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or [email protected]
Web: http://www.oddballfilm.com/oddballftp/TV3_PR.pdf

"As Seen On TV”
Rare, Weird and Wonderful
Vintage Television

On Friday, February 26, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare, weird and wonderful vintage television on 16mm. The archive is full of film 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 8:00PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

“Flesh and Leather” aka “Pier 23” (B+W, 1951)
In 1951, movie producer Robert L. Lippert had a sudden inspiration: He decided to launch a series of low budget mystery movies about a part-time private eye who ran a boat supply business out of Pier 23 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco's waterfront. To play Denny O'Brien, his cynical gumshoe hero, Lippert hired small-time B-movie actor Hugh Beaumont, who had been in pictures since the early 1940s, but wouldn't even begin to have any nationwide name recognition until he was cast as Ward Cleaver, the quintessential American TV sitcom dad in CBS' "Leave It to Beaver" in 1957.

To fill out the cast, Lippert Pictures checked around to see which low-rent character actors listed in the Academy Players Directory were currently looking for work and not being too particular about how much they might be getting paid over the union minimum. He hired Ed Brophy, Richard Travis, Tom Neal, Ann Savage (Detour) and others like them. You know, people who look awfully familiar, but you're not sure if you saw their faces in the movies or on WANTED posters in the post office.

Lippert had this brilliant concept working. He would make several films of about 60 minutes duration each, but would have Denny O'Brien solve TWO cases per movie, each in about 30 minutes. Then, when the movies had finished their brief, but hopefully profitable run in theaters on the bottom half of double bills, he would cut each movie in half and then sell them all as a half-hour TV series for syndication to local TV stations.

Pier 23 was renamed the slightly more evocative Flesh and Leather and made the TV rounds before being filed away in the dustbin of obscurity.

“Some Like It Hot” (b+w, 1961)
Super rare TV pilot (un-sold and un-aired) attempted to franchise the all time classic Billy Wilder film as a weekly program. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis appear at the opening before undergoing plastic surgery (the mob is still after them), re-emerging as “look-alikes” Vic Damone and Dick Patterson. For some reason, they continue to dress in drag and play with the all-girl band… Tina Louise (of Gilligan’s Isle fame) replaces Marylin Monroe and a bit part by George “I wish my brother George was here” Liberace.

“Television Land” (color/b+w, 1971)
Brilliant, impressionistic, narration-free history of Television utilizing original clips, similar to the Oddball Films favorite “The Car of Your Dreams”. Directed by Charles Braverman, the snappy montage is divided into three sections: entertainment, news and commercials.
One Nation, Under Television

PLUS! Jackie Gleason and Ralph Carney in a brilliantly ridiculous skit from Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of The Town”: Spoof of quiz shows called "Can You Do This?" Carney is the host, and accidentally kills the first contestant with the starting gun, after which Gleason comes on and performs a series of stunts of escalating difficulty, becoming more and more ridiculous. Also, snippets from The Nut House!, a 1963 Laugh-In-esque parody program featuring animations by Jay Ward (Rocky & Bullwinkle) and plenty of kooky vintage TV commercials!

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.

Upcoming Programs
Fri Feb 19- “Kooks, Eccentrics and Oddballs”
Sat Feb 20th- “Strange Sinema”
Thurs Feb 25th-”A Ubu Moment” with Other Film from Australia
Fri Feb 26- “As Seen On TV 3” and 2nd program “86’d” with Jennifer Blowdryer from NYC
Sat Feb 27th- Portland Curator Dennis Nyback’s “Terrorism Light and Dark” and “I Know Why You’re Afraid”

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, educationals, 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.

Official Website: http://www.flarerecord.com/?p=527