Ellis in Freedomland (Hollywood's Attic).

When I saw the description of this one in the Movies Unlimited catalog, I knew I just had to have it, and when I got it I was not disappointed. This industrial film made by Westinghouse delivers a triple whammy of weirdness. The first part of the film tells the story of Ellis, a discouraged Westinghouse appliance salesman, and how he falls asleep in the department store he works for one evening and wakes up to find all the appliances talking to him––and not just talking, complaining about how he's been trying to sell them. The second part outlines the Westinghouse Freedom Fair––one of the most blatant examples of corporate coopting of women's desire for emancipation. And then it turns into another Design for Dreaming, as a harried housewife is whisked away from her messy kitchen by a Westinghouse salesman and taken to "Westinghouse Wives' Heaven", where women dress in frilly pinafores and dance ecstatically around appliances. This film has something for everybody: supernatural visitors (talking appliances, mannequins who come to life, a dancing appliance salesman who takes housewives to heaven), weird sexual innuendo (MALE-VOICED REFRIGERATOR: "Ellis, I love you!" FEMALE MANNEQUIN: "I better leave you two alone.", a swishy Daniel Boone mannequin that embarrasses two other male mannequins, a randy Indian chief mannequin who chases a female bathing beauty mannequin until she hides from him in a refrigerator), racial stereotypes (the black doorman mannequin loves watermelon, the Indian chief mannequin says, "Ug! Ug!"), weird credits ("Jerry Colonna as the Voice of Waste-Away"), bad acting, and more jaw-dropping moments than you can shake a stick at. Jerry Colonna's singing garbage disposal is probably being used right now as a torture device in some third-world dictatorship (though he is convincing as a garbage disposal who fancies himself a singer). I could go on and on about this one––let's just say that you need it in your collection!

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: *****.