“Oddball Goes To The Movies” July 17, 2010

Event: “Oddball Goes To The Movies”.  Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of short films about filmmaking and film-going: movie palaces, Hollywood and studio promotional shorts.  Highlights include: The Movie Palaces (1973), the great, mostly lost movie theaters of yore; The Cinema Director (1916), rare early Harold Lloyd, one of our greatest silent film comedians; Let’s Go To The Movies (1948), Hollywood promo film feels the looming threat of Television; History of the Cinema (1957), typically genius animation from the Britain’s Halas & Batchelor Studio; Movies Are Adventure (1948), puts moviegoer family in the action at their local theater; Movie Star Mickey (1933), early film star caricatures and a bold statement (at the time) the mouse’s place in film history; Presenting Allen & Rossi (1966), stunning Technicolor promo film intruding the comedy team of Marty “Bug Eyes” Allen and Steve “Mostly Forgotten” Rossi. Plus Ramblin’ ‘Round Hollywood, Daffy Duck In Hollywood and more tinsel town tributes!
Date: Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or [email protected]
Web: http://www.oddballfilm.com/oddballftp/Oddball_at_the_Movies_PR.pdf
"Oddball Goes To The Movies”
Screens at Oddball Films

On Saturday, July 17, Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of filmmaking and film-going films- vintage self-referential promo films, movie “palaces”, cartoons and more. Viva Tinsel Town! Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

The Movie Palaces (Color, 1988)
Hosted by Gene Kelly, The Movie Palaces examines America's most extraordinary theaters (a few still with us). Includes highlights from the Atlanta Fox, the Wiltern in Los Angeles, San Antonio's Majestic, Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and most poignantly- San Francisco’s legendary Fox Theater, torn down in 1963 and now a soul-less, perpetually under-occupied tower block. Shows them in their former splendor, examines their decline, and shows that communities across the country are bringing these architectural masterpieces to life once again. Includes newsreels and clips of classic movies that were shown in those theaters, and veteran theater organist Gaylord Carter performs a variety of old-time movie accompaniments on an old Wurlitzer.

The Cinema Director (aka Luke’s Movie Muddle (B+W, 1916, Dir. Hal Roach)
By early 1915 Harold Lloyd and Hal Roach had exhausted Lloyd's mildly successful character, Willie Work, and Lonesome Luke, a copy of Chaplin's tramp with clothes in reverse (too tight instead of too baggy), was born. In this rare early one-reeler (most of the “Lonesome Luke” shorts were destroyed in an archive fire), Luke is a one-man ticket seller, ticket taker and usher in a small movie theater. The eight minutes of mayhem show Luke rudely pushing customers into their seats, jerking hats off men's head, quieting a talkative woman, fighting with projectionist Snub Pollard and flirting with every pretty lady that comes in the theater. (Hmm… just like Oddball!!)

Let’s Go To The Movies (Color, 1948)
RKO Studio promotional film focuses on cinema’s early days, brightest stars and the advent of sound, just as Television began to encroach.

History of the Cinema (Color, 1957)
The History of the Cinema is an undeniable classic of animation, very British in its humor and very tied in with its period. With an irrepressibly optimistic narrator and great wit it takes us from the cavemen daubing on the rock, the pinhole camera, through the early silent movie era, and eventually to the rise of television. John Halas' 1957 movie also manages to convey facts in an amusing way. Thus we learn why Hollywood was so good for film-making (sun, dependable sun) and the vital role the censor paid in movie history - essentially he snipped away all the good bits of film and left the audience with the rest - and even the fads designed to withstand the impact of the little box in the home.
Action!

Movies Are Adventure (B+W, 1948)
A movie seat is a magic carpet, as promoted and produced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Be whisked away by the "romance, mystery, danger and excitement" bought with a movie ticket and we view a family of three watching movies with rapt attention and putting themselves into the scenes shown from KING KONG, THE SHIEK, SAN FRANCISCO, STAGECOACH, THE THREE MUSKETEERS (Douglas Fairbanks), THE GOLD RUSH and CIMARRON, among others.

Movie Star Mickey (aka Mickey’s Gala Premiere) (B+W, 1933)
Caricatures of the real stars in Hollywood attend the premiere of Mickey's latest film Galloping Romance at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. As famous performers congratulate him after the show, Mickey wakes up; it was all a dream. Real Hollywood personalities characterized include Ben Turpin, Ford Sterling, Max Swain, Harry Langdon, Chester Conklin, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Ethel Barrymore, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Maurice Chevalier, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, John Gilbert, Sid Graumann, Edward G. Robinson, William Powell, Monty Hale, Rudy Vallee, Adolphe Menjou, Janet Gaynor, Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks, Joe E. Brown, Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Mae West, Harold Lloyd, Wheeler & Woolsey, Ed Wynn, Will Rogers, George Arliss, and Marlene Dietrich.

Presenting Allen & Rossi (Color, 1966)
Rare Paramount promotional short “introducing” their newest acquisition: the comedy team of Marty Allen and Steve Rossi. Soon to star in their spy spoof The Last of the Secret Agents?, the comedy duo get a big push from poppa Paramount, complete with glamour gals and fancy cars- in eye-poppingly stunning color.

PLUS- Rambling ‘Round Hollywood, Daffy Duck in Hollywood and more!
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.

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.