Begin the Beguine. Latin dancing couple Varios & Vida dance to “Begin the Beguine” in this 40s soundie. Their costumes are beautiful and some of the dancing moves are impressive, but mostly this is pretty ordinary. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Animal Cunning. In which various kinds of wild animals are tormented and abused for our amusement. If they’re not feeding cigarettes to deer, the filmmakers are poking lizards with sticks, pulling sloths from trees, and forcing a vulture and a puma, respectively, to fight an iguana. And then there’s the narration! It’s fun to make fun of animals, kids! This film is only “educational” in the loosest sense; it looks like it was made as a theatrical short, though it looks like the New York Board of Education distributed it, probably to schools. It’s not quite as upsetting as some of the worst of this genre (Catching Trouble, anyone?), and animals are always fun to watch, but I’m glad we seemed to have grown out of thinking this sort of thing is entertainment (if we haven’t, I don’t want to know about it.) Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: ***.

The All-American Ski Tournament. Water skiing, that is. This early 60s film from Cypress Gardens, Florida shows us the highlights of what looks like the American waterskiing championships for that year. The action is pretty impressive, and both’s women’s and men’s events are shown. Also shown are bits of the show skiing by bathing beauties that they had between events. If you want footage of waterskiing, then this is your film Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

African Pygmy Thrills (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYvaA0Lz70A). This 30s travelogue, although very unenlightened in its narration, nevertheless impresses in its documentation of a Pygmy tribe’s building of a bridge across a crocodile-infested river. Their obvious ingenuity and bravery almost completely counteracts the unfortunate narration that calls them “little men.” There is lots of educational content and historical interest in this rather exploitatively-titled film. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Abbott & Costello TV Cartoon Intro (available for viewing on You Tube).

OK, folks, time to play Guess the Decade. This is an intro from an Abbott & Costello cartoon show. It features an animated Lou Costello running around yelling “Hey Abbott!!!!” It also features a James-Bond-like jazz soundtrack. Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! The 60s is correct! Not that this was at all difficult to guess. I totally don’t remember this cartoon, and I was a kid during the 60s. That only makes this more fun to me, because I like obscurities.

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

Lady Lifeguards (available for download on Prelinger Archive. Also available for viewing on You Tube).

This newsreel featurette shows us the intensive training female lifeguards received at New York’s Manhattan Beach during the 30s. They were trained in speed and distance swimming, rowing, breaking dangerous holds that drowning victims often subject lifeguards to, and the tedious out-goes-the-bad-air-in-comes-the-good kind of artificial respiration (which the narrator tells us sometimes goes on for hours before the victim is revived). After all this, they are qualified to “assist” the male lifeguards, and must undergo leering “inspections” by the potbellied head lifeguard, while the narrator says such clever things as, “This is a company anybody would love to inspect!” I’m sure they received “assistant” pay as well. The bland sexist assumptions of this film tell us just how far we’ve come in improving our view of women––the narrator seems throughout like he can barely believe that the “girls” can do all that lifesaving stuff. Another good film for an ephemera “ladies night.”

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

Empires of Steel (extra on Disc #1 of New York DVD Boxed Set (PBS Home Video, 2004)).

This silent Pathe newsreel featurette, sponsored by U.S. Steel, documents the construction of the Empire State Building in great detail. We get to see scores of workers being dwarfed by huge steel beams and working nonchalantly higher and higher in the air as the building goes up. This has lots of historical value, making it an appropriate archival extra for the New York DVD set.

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

Bela Lugosi Interview (available for viewing on You Tube).

This early 50s clip features Bela Lugosi being interviewed by reporters upon discharge from a state mental hospital, where he had been treated for his heroin addiction. He looks cheerful here, and claims to be “cured” of his addiction. Sadly, what we know now about both addiction and Lugosi tell us that it was not to be. This interview has quite a bit of historical interest for Lugosi fans, as well as being a rare public glimpse (for the time) into a celebrity’s private struggles with addiction.

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

La Paz (available for download on Open Video Project. Also available for download on Prelinger Archive).

Standard-issue travelogue on La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. Since this was made by the government, it focuses more on the various cultural groups and on economic development than on touristy things. The stuff about the different cultural groups is pretty interesting, actually, as are the oddities related to La Paz’s extremely high altitude. I would love to get a bunch of those miniature items that the natives are shown selling during a particular festival. Mostly, though, this is pretty ordinary.

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

Keep 'Em Rolling (film #38 on Hey Folks! It's Intermission Time, Vol. 4 (Something Weird). Also, film #16 on V for Victory WWII Cartoons & Shorts Show (Something Weird, 1996)).

This is another stirring wartime sing-along film, urging on production workers in the defense plants. Stirring scenes of Industry Creating the Arsenal of Democracy illustrate the song "Keep 'Em Rolling". The one spot of weirdness is the lyric "work your head off, so you can keep your head." Some neat examples of wartime propaganda posters appear during the opening and closing credits.

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

Knife-Thrower and Children (available for download on Prelinger Archive).

Can you spell “child endangerment”? I thought you could. In this newsreel featurette, a mom who’s a circus performer throws knives at her two daughters, ages 5 and 2 1/2. Now I know she’s a skilled performer and the point is that she misses, but don’t scare me like that!

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

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (Castle Films) (available for viewing on You Tube).

This is sort of a Reader’s Digest Condensed Movie version of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. They managed to trim down an 83 minute movie to a little over 8 minutes, mostly by showing us only the scenes that contain plot development. Unfortunately, you don’t really watch an Abbott & Costello movie for the plot; you watch it for the comedy bits, which are absent here, with the exception of a bit of slapstick schtick during the chase scenes, and the amusing ending, which I wont’ give away. Still, this has some historical interest in showing us what people watched at home on their movie projectors in the days before home video.

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

Junior Rodeo Daredevils (MST3K Episode #407: The Killer Shrews, Also available on The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 2 (Rhino). Also available on The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 7 (Rhino). Also available for viewing on You Tube).

This film pretends to have a plot about Old-Timer Billy Slater (he's always referred to that way) organizing a Junior Rodeo to keep kids out of trouble, but it's really just an excuse to show some dull footage of a 4-H rodeo. The kiddie matinee Western feel is slightly campy, though, and the msting is great.

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

Jubilee Excerpt (film #8 on World War II Remembered (Diamond Entertainment, 1995)).

"Jubilee" was a sort of black "Command Performance", made for the entertainment of black G.I.s and featuring black stars. In this excerpt, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson sings a duet with Lena Horne of "That Ol' Devil Consequence". Fairly interesting from a historical perspective, though it would have been more interesting had they included more excerpts from this.

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

Johnny at the Fair (MST3K Episode #419: The Rebel Set. Also available for viewing on You Tube).

Little Johnny goes with his parents to the Canadian National Exhibition, but when his folks would rather view some boring old exhibit rather than do the exciting stuff like rides, he wanders off in disgust and has a bunch of adventures of his own. Another boring newsreel featurette about something that's supposed to be fun. The msting is pretty good, though.

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

Abbott and Costello Bloopers (available for viewing on You Tube).

Short blooper reel of outtakes from various Abbott and Costello films, all featuring Lou Costello. This is a typical collection of fluffed lines and unexpected happenings on the set. No real surprises here, but a few are mildly amusing.

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

Jiveroo (film #1386 on Prelinger Archive).

This soundie features a slightly strange nightclub floor show, with chorus girls in mini skirts, a geeky-looking Spanish dancer in a bolero jumpsuit, and what looks like an African-American woman in a French maid’s outfit. They all dance to a peppy jazz tune in typical floor show style, except for the Spanish guy, who bends like he’s Gumby. For the most part, though, this is a pretty typical soundie.

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

Bellazza (available for download on Bedazzled).

Bobby Rydell sings an Italian love song to his lady love in this Scopitone with an Italian flavor. Well, OK, he pronounces the title word “bell-late-suh.” And his sings to his blonde girlfriend at a ski resort. And there are three annoying female backup singers with no discernible singing or dancing talent, but cool pairs of white go-go boots, who break into the proceedings periodically. And they dance the limbo in a very Caucasian way. OK, I guess this is as Italian as Spaghettios, but that’s what makes it fun.

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

A Jazz Etude (film #1383 on Prelinger Archive).

A guy in white tie and tails does a tap dance to a peppy jazz tune. This soundie had my toes tappin’.

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

Ammi Belcacem (available for download on Bedazzled).

This Arabic Scopitone features an attractive female singer in Western dress singing what sounds like the Arabic version of pop music. She has flirty facial expressions, but doesn’t move her body at all, though at one point she shows us her hair, a decidedly non-Muslim thing to do. Her backup singers all sport Western dress and hairstyles, but rather than dancing, they sit politely behind her while singing their parts. This Scopitone provides a fascinating glimpse into the pop music of another culture.

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