Living Better Cinematically

Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs (film #4 on WWII Cartoons, Vol. 1 (The Authentic History Center)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This Warner Brothers toon is filled with outrageous African-American stereotypes, hot jazz, and wartime references. Almost as outrageous as the stereotypes are wildly exaggerated rubbery moves of the characters. If you can get past the stereotypes (which are pretty awful), this is a fun toon. But I’m not necessarily sure that you should get past the stereotypes. It is, though, a great piece of history, revealing both good and bad sides of WWII-era popular culture.

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

Empty Life (film #479 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This 50s film claims to be about boredom, but it’s actually about the depression, angst, and neuroticism that lay just under the surface of many middle class families. Hugh Marriott is bored with life, but actually he’s angry and depressed because his wife disapproves of him doing the kind of work he loves, and he’s too much of a wimp to go against her wishes. He’s the main case study here, but other “bored” people in his neighborhood are mentioned as well, including a neighbor woman who’s an alcoholic, a local grocer who’s a sex addict, and a teen hot rodder who’s headed down the road towards being a grim traffic statistic. The film is bizarre and jaw-dropping in some moments, and quite realistic and sensitive in others, especially the portrayal of how Hugh’s “boredom” affects his son, leading to problems for the boy. The narration is relentless and deadpan, and the soundtrack music is wailing, angst-ridden jazz, giving the film a dark, heavy feel that resembles the leaden pain of depression. This combination of good and bad qualities results in a film that is hard to evaluate one way or the other, being both campy and weird, and realistic and sensitive by turns. At any rate, it’s far from boring. Hope they eventually post its sequel: Boredom II: The Search for Zest (and if you think I’m making that up, watch the movie).

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

The Selling Wizard (MST3K Episode #603: The Dead Talk Back). [Category: Industrial]

Cheesecake is used to sell display freezers to grocers. A bizarrely-dressed but silent woman (Crow once calls her "the pizza domanitrix") points out the outstanding features of Anheuser-Busch display freezers gameshow hostess-style, while a male narrator delivers the sales pitch. Like most advertising of this type, this film is extremely sexist and objectifying. Both the woman and the freezer are referred to as "The Selling Wizard" and every effort is made to get the assumed male audiences to see them as interchangeable. Appalling, and dull to boot. The msting makes it bearable, though, especially Tom Servo's falling head over heels for the pitch: "O.K., I wanna buy it now!! Just name your price, I'll take it, I'll take it!!"

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet #3 (film #3 on Side B of Disc #1 of TV Favorites DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

This episode is a supremely silly tale involving a bunch of really ugly ashtrays a neighbor lady made (said neighbor played by Mary Jane Croft, who later went on to be Lucy’s best friend) and a shotgun, and what fun is had when one meets the other. This is a lot weirder and thus more enjoyable than the usual “Ozzie and Harriet” fare, and thus is recommended. I would venture to say that its “shotgun approach” to the criticism of really bad art has some merit.

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

BBC News #2 (film #21 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Lemon curry?

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: * (mainly due to Python influence). Weirdness: . Historical Interest: **. Overall Rating: *.

Atom in the Hospital (film #131 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This early 60s film shows various forms of medical research and treatment using nuclear radiation. It’s pretty straightforward for the most part, with some rather striking images of patients being hooked up to various kinds of huge machines. It does provide us with a look at the state of the art of nuclear medicine in the early 60s.

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

Chevrolet Advertising Rings the Bell (film #294 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

No, really, it does! Disembodied hands spring out of Chevrolet print ads and ring doorbells! It’s true, I swear! This film with a missing soundtrack blows the lid off of this whole conspiracy! And who’s responsible, you may wonder? Why it’s Chevrolet Man, a robot-like apparition built of wire and bits of advertising ephemera! He places an evil curse upon all ads for the 1951 Chevrolet, and suddenly billboards start walking around! Print ads show up on people’s doorsteps and demand to be taken in and made members of the family! People become mesmerized by their tv sets! And here’s the really scary part of it: the 1951 Chevrolet was not actually released until December of 2000! Take heed everyone! Lock up your children!! They’re here already!! YOU’RE NEXT!!! [Ed. Note: Sorry about that outburst. The author has been taken away for reeducation and treatment. You may now return to your regularly-scheduled Chevrolet advertising.]

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

The Angry Movie (film #2 on Angry Night DVD (A/V Geeks)). [Category: Educational]

This late-70s Coronet film is a weird pseudo-psychedelic animated romp through the mind of an angry child, including such disturbing content as death wishes against parents and moments of depersonalization. In the end, the kid suddenly gets over it when the kid who originally made him angry gives him a telephone call. No discussion of this disturbing journey through the dark recesses of a child’s mind is given. My, we’ve come a long way from such Coronet fare as Control Your Emotions or Act Your Age. This thing leaves you wondering what the justification was for actually showing it to children. Granted, it portrays thoughts that commonly occur to angry children, but without any sort of context or discussion, it’s more frightening than illuminating. A weird little film that provides you with more than you probably want to know about the mind of a child.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ** (though really you don’t know whether to laugh or cry). Weirdness: . Historical Interest: . Overall Rating: **.

Axel and His Dog (film #3 in the Twin Cities’ Local Kid Shows section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film & TV]

Clip from an early local kid show in the Twin Cities area, featuring goony Norwegian Axel, his perpetually offscreen dog, and his magic spyglass made of two paper towel tubes. Here, he’s obviously winging it. This sort of thing is representative of early local kid shows, making this a great historical relic, as well as a lot of fun to watch.

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

Andy Griffith Show (film #28 in the 1964 section of TVParty). [Category: Commercial]

Commercial for Post Toasties where Barney gets Andy to exercise so he can steal his Post Toasties. Mildly amusing and quite nostalgic.

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

Blonde Pick Up (film #17 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

Campy, lurid trailer for the exploitation cheapie Blonde Pick Up, aka Racket Girls (msties, take note!). Lots of great over-the-top ad lines, plus a scene featuring Timothy Farrell, always a sign of high-quality cinema! Lots of fun.

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

Desert Demons (film #25 in the Documentary section of Movieflix (www.movieflix.com)). [Category: Hollywood]

Here we see an ant in a life-or-death struggle with a wolf! Seriously, it's this kind of nature documentary that the Pythons were making fun of. With the exception of a few very brief shots of owls and turtles, this is all about desert animals killing other desert animals. I guess that's how they packed 'em into the theaters during the 1930s.

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

Crowded Out (film #373 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This 50s film exposes the problem of school overcrowding during the baby boom and how it makes it hard for teachers to teach effectively. An elementary school teacher labors over her letter of resignation after a school year in which her class size doubled, causing her to have to get rid of the piano, the class library, and tables containing class projects in order to make room for more desks, and to neglect the individual needs of her students. One little girl, Kathy, has trouble with reading, and after her incredibly bitchy and intrusive aunt complains to her single mother, the mother gets all up in arms and meets with the school principal to try to get the teacher fired. But the principal asks her to take a tour of the school before judging, and this gives her a chance to see classes being held in hallways, the school library, the auditorium, a Quonset hut, and even the boiler room in the basement! This gives her a pretty clear idea of why Kathy’s teacher has no time for her. Unfortunately, but perhaps more realistically, the film offers no solutions for this, other than perhaps getting parents more involved, but it even acknowledged that parents have lots of demands on their time already. This message of this film is still relevant today, and its still a difficult problem to solve, making this one of the more realistic of the public service films from this period. However, I can’t help but think in Kathy’s case that things would improve quite a bit if her mother would tell her aunt to shut up.

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

Boats (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #226 on Prelinger Archive.). [Category: Educational]

This ERPI film should have been titled Dick and Jane Go on a Boat Ride. Nancy and Roger go on a boat ride down the Hudson River and the narrator tells us all about it in a bright, simplistic fashion. For an ERPI film, though, this is pretty darned exciting. The soundtrack is full of boat whistles and water sounds and there’s even a part where characters talk to each other in synchronized sound!! This is when Nancy and Roger visit the captain of the boat, who tells them that when he turns the wheel this way, it makes the boat go to the right, and when he turns it this way, it goes to the left. This is great msting fodder, folks. See Roger and Nancy on the boat. Go, Roger and Nancy, go!

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

Chaplin - By the Sea (film #28 in the Silent section of Movieflix). [Category: Early Film & TV]

The Little Tramp gets into a tussle with two married couples, some cops, and an ice cream stand at the beach. As usual, the Tramp leaves chaos wherever he goes. A mildly amusing Chaplin outing with some brilliant moments of physical schtick. A 1915 Essanay film.

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet #2 (film #2 on Side B of Disc #1 of TV Favorites DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

In this episode, David has to work at home for a couple of days and keeps getting annoyed by his wife June. June is usually portrayed as pretty sensible, but in this episode she’s so annoying it makes you want to scream. Apparently, housewives have nothing more to do but hover around their husbands when they are working at home, or so this episode seems to imply. Since this is not very true to June’s character, it just screams sexism. Still, this is so bland that it’s not as annoying as it might be. And it ends with Ricky singing with his band, which is not too bad.

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

BBC News #1 (film #17 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Opening credits and a brief clip from a 60s BBC newscast. Gives you some idea what newscasts were like in England back in the days of black-and-white tv.

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

The Atom and You – Second Episode (film #132 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

Breezy 50s newsreel documenting various peaceful uses of atomic energy, mostly in research. This mostly involves exposing animals to radiation in various ways and studying its effects, though everybody’s favorite use of atomic energy––radiation treatment of cancer––is also gone over in detail. The presentation of research on the safety of nuclear power plants at the Hanford Nuclear Facility in Washington is ironic when viewed from today’s perspective, since Hanford turned out to be one of the worst nuclear facilities in terms of leaking radiation into the environment. Overall, this is fairly straightforward, with just enough irony to keep it interesting.

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

The Butcher, the Baker and the Ice Cream Maker (film #5 on Sell Sell Sell DVD (A/V Geeks)). [Category: Industrial]

The butcher and the baker have been abandoned by the candlestick maker, who would rather make more candles than sing at the Mother Goose Festival (workaholism, anybody?). So they travel around Mother Goose Land until they find a friendly ice cream maker who is willing to join their trio, after giving them a tour of his ice cream factory and expounding on the virtues of square cartons for ice cream. All of this is animated with rhyming dialogue, but for once, children are not the expected audience for this torture, but other ice cream makers, in order to sell them square ice cream cartons. I’m not sure who thought this was an effective way to sell to these customers, but it does leave us with a film with a fair amount of camp value, especially the song about the helicopter they use to toodle around Mother Goose Land, which contains lyrics that tell us all about how high they are, and when they get high enough, they gently come down. Maybe ice cream is an improvement for these two. Of course, since I am an ice cream fanatic, I enjoyed this film from beginning to end.

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

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (film #5 in the Christmas Specials of the 60s and 70s section of TVParty). [Category: Hollywood]

Clip from the cute Fleischer cartoon about Christmas in an orphanage. The children wake up on Christmas morning and grab their stockings. That’s it. Wish they had included all of it.

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

Alive and Kicking (film #1 in the Schools section of TVArk). [Category: Educational]

Opening credits and first few minutes from a 70s British educational show. Ironically enough, this actually has more the feel of an educational film, since the soundtrack wavers a bit and we hear the clackety-clack of film going across sprockets. The show features a British mom getting her two young children up in the morning, and it’s charmingly realistic and very British. One of the more interesting TVArk Schools clips.

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

Animated Buffers Featuring Ricky and Lucy (film #1 in The Lost Lucy Themes section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film and TV]

First we see the cute animated buffers that appeared as transitions to commercial breaks in the original run of “I Love Lucy.” Then we get to see a great campy commercial for Fluffo Shortening. We’re supposed to admire the golden brown color Fluffo gives fried chicken compared to chicken fried in The Other Leading Brand, but in grainy black and white, what’s the difference? Then it goes to the closing credits for “I Love Lucy,” featuring a bizarre animated guy in pajamas. A great sampling of mildly weird early tv.

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

Anastasia (film #5 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Commercial]

Fairly standard trailer for the big budget 50s movie about the woman who would be the Russian princess. The movie looks competent but unsurprising.

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

The Black Gestapo (film #29 in the Trailers section of Movieflix). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

OK, get this. A “Watts Army” of African-Americans fighting against crime, drugs, and corruption is ineffective until it turns into “the Black Gestapo.” I guess it’s classier than the Black KKK would be. Seriously, though, there is something pretty disturbing about this ultra-violent blaxploitation film from the 70s, though I can understand the anger behind it. Actually contains the line, “You stinkin’ honky!”, though the rest probably won’t make you laugh.

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

Three Smart Daughters (track #9 on Ephemeral Films CD-ROM (Voyager). Also in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #1513 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Commercial]

Another "minute movie"––really a 60-second commercial––made to show in movie theaters of the 1930's. Three teen-aged girls are upset when Daddy won't pay for new dresses for the big party––a friendly Singer salesman takes them to the local Singer Sewing Center where they learn to sew––they are the belles of the ball in their new homemade dresses and everybody lives happily ever after. Already the condensed story form of the commercial is down. Though one wonders how many in those Depression-era movie audiences could relate to this at all other than as pure fantasy.

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

Community Health in Action (film #325 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This 50s film exhorts communities to beef up their health departments, by showing all the things an ideal health department does, ranging from keeping statistics on births and deaths, regulating milk production, inspecting the sanitary conditions of restaurants, holidng well-baby clinics, vaccinating pets against rabies, getting farmers to replace their outhouses with indoor plumbing, running a child guidance clinic, and more, more, more! This results in a detailed document of public health practices during the 50s, and a fairly interesting one to boot. And although it’s not particularly campy in and of itself, it does present many opportunities for msting, as the narrator often pauses at significant points, which just beg to be filled in with smart-ass comments.

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

Close Harmony (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #352 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

General Motors made this wartime film to explain to the general public why it was taking so long for factories to retool for war production. A guy in a barbershop explains to everybody in the shop that retooling involves not only installing new machinery, but getting new materials, drawing up new manufacturing plans, and retraining workers. In case this gets boring, there’s an African-American porter present to provide comic relief in the form of racist stereotypes. This film has the breezy Jam Handy style applied to wartime content, which means its fairly campy, though the main character’s lecture gets tedious after awhile. It does have quite a bit of historical interest in that it gives you an idea of some of the rumors going around about war production in the early days of the war.

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

Round and Round (track #11 on Ephemeral Films CD-ROM (Voyager). Also in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #1275 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

Capitalism is explained extremely simplistically via primitive puppet animation. Little toy workers make little toy widgets in a little toy factory. Other little toy puppets buy the widgets with large coins, then those same puppets sell little toy raw materials to the factory, so it can make more widgets. It's hard to tell who this movie was made for. I don't think it's a children's educational film, but it's certainly on a kindergarten level. Again, it tries to convince us that capitalism is a perfect system that makes everybody happy. But if that were so, why did they need films like this?

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet #1 (film #1 on Side B of Disc #1 of TV Favorites DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

In this episode of the bland sitcom, David goes back to work after his honeymoon and spends the day playing telephone tag with his wife. Nowadays cell phones would have solved this problem. This is a particularly lightweight episode of “Ozzie and Harriet.” Mild tension is supposed to be generated by David’s fear that June will be angry at him for not being able to get ahold of her, but you just know she’ll be understanding, and she is. Still, this is so inoffensive that it’s not even annoying, and the blandness becomes mildly enjoyable after awhile.

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

BBC Election ’97 (film #23 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Brief opening credits sequence to coverage of the 1997 British elections. Not much here to even comment upon.

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

Daydreams (film #4 on Side A of Disc 2 of Comedy Classics DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Hollywood]

Buster Keaton loves his sweetie. Sweetie loves Buster. Buster and Sweetie want to get married. Problem: Sweetie’s father doesn’t think Buster can support her. So Buster takes off for the big city to make his fortune. There he screws up various jobs in that brilliantly incompetent way that only he can, while sending back glowing letters to Sweetie that only stretch the truth a little bit (OK, a lot). This is another wonderfully funny Buster Keaton short, with brilliantly timed slapstick gags, including a chase scene that gets more and more ridiculous as it goes on (they really knew how to do ‘em back then). Loads of fun.

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

Army Transfer to NASA (film #814 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

Silent footage of the dedication ceremonies of the U.S. space program’s official transfer from the military to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This mostly involves bigwigs making speeches, which lessens the usefulness of this as a document, since it is silent. There’s also a marching band and a milling-around festival we don’t get to hear. Somebody making a documentary on the history of NASA may find this useful, unless there’s footage of this with sound still around somewhere. For others, it’s just a random historical blip.

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

Artificial Respiration (film #5 on AV Geeks). [Category: Industrial]

A very 70s film made for miners on artificial respiration. It’s pretty straightforward for the most part, though there are a few campy moments where they show examples of situations where artificial respiration may be required, such as showing drowning person as a hat floating on the surface of the water (Bing Crosby––oh no!!) or showing an incredibly stupid auto mechanic working on a running car in a closed garage until he becomes overwhelmed by carbon monoxide. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was the standard by the 70s, so it’s surprising to see several older methods demonstrated, though briefly. Mostly, though, this is your standard first aid film, with surprisingly little mining content.

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

Blasting Cap Danger (film #222 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]

This cheaply-made film tries to warn kids away from playing with blasting caps. Tag and Chuck, after bullying Kathy, who bragged about a cookout her family was going to have for her father’s birthday, ride their bikes up to visit Mr. Barrow, the local bicycle repairman and demolitions expert. While they wait for Mr. Barrow to fix Tag’s bike, Chuck finds a blasting cap and decides to sneak into Kathy’s family’s cookout and throw it into the barbecue grill. Tag doesn’t like the idea, so Chuck takes off in a huff, vowing to do it by himself. Tag lingers behind to help Mr. Barrow load his truck with various items you can use to blow things up, and this gives Mr. Barrow the opportunity to lecture Tag on the dangers of blasting caps. Tag suddenly realizes that Chuck’s little prank could result in serious injury, so he races his bike back to Kathy’s house, only to see her lying on the patio, apparently unconscious. But she was only playing cowboy with her father, so Tag takes the opportunity to wrestle the blasting cap out of Chuck’s hand before he can throw it into the fire. This gives Kathy’s dad the opportunity to give another lecture on the dangers of blasting caps. This is a cheap film with uniformly bad acting, which actually makes it a lot of fun. The kids in particular are terrible actors, but they seem real nonetheless, especially bullying Chuck. The film repeats the words “Don’t touch it!” more than the mother of a 2-year-old, and the montage sequence of Tag riding his bike back to Kathy’s while seeing images of injured kids is a classic. Where they thought kids would get ahold of blasting caps is not explained, though. A classic in the cheesy safety film genre.

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

Chaplin - A Woman (film #26 in the Silent Section of Movieflix. [Category: Early Film & TV]

The Little Tramp gets into some farsical situations with a family he meets in the park, consisting of a mother, an adult daughter, and a father with a roving eye. After knocking Dad into the pond, he goes home with Mother and Daughter. After some silly things happen, he ends up putting on Daughter's best dress and passing himself off to Dad as her old college chum. Dad, of course, cannot keep his hands off the merchandise, at least until he figures out who he's trying to woo. This is not quite as funny as it sounds, but Chaplin does make a surprisingly attractive and convincing woman. A 1915 Charlie Chaplin film.

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

Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid (film #19 on Disc #4 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1 (Warner Bros., 2004)). [Category: Hollywood]

Bosko was the first Warner Bros. cartoon character and this is his first cartoon, so this is a historical landmark. A live-action cartoonist draws Bosko, who comes to life on the page and attempts to entertain the audience with piano-playing, lame jokes, and tooney antics. Unfortunately, he’s a black stereotype, though he’s drawn pretty abstractly. Beyond that, his tooney antics are fun to watch, though his jokes are pretty bad and his singing is excruciating. No wonder the cartoonist decides to put him back into the inkwell.

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

The Aggressive Impulse (film #8 on Angry Night DVD (A/V Geeks). [Category: Educational]

Here we see an ant in a life-or-death struggle with a wolf! Seriously, this is the type of film the Pythons were spoofing in that sketch. Aggressive animal behaviors are compared with human aggression in this 70s film, the point being that aggression can be controlled. This is actually quite a mild film, considering its subject matter. There’s a 70s “niceness” to it. There’s nothing blatantly unrealistic about it, but its overall tone has an idealistic feel to it. It feels sort of like the filmmakers thought that violence could be eliminated by having everybody watch this film. How quickly that kind of idealism would die! A mild, feel-good 70s kind of film.

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet #4 (film #4 on Side B of Disc #1 of TV Favorites DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

In this episode of the low-key sitcom, Ozzie decides to stay in bed all day, just because he wants to do whatever he wants to for once. Of course, he lives to regret this decision, as lots of interesting things happen that he would have to get out of bed to participate in, and people start to treat him like he’s sick. The best part is when a guy from his lodge, representing the “Cheer Up Committee,” depresses him to no end with talk of illnesses and death. As usual for this series, this is mildly amusing.

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

Across 110th Street (film #5 in the Trailers section of Movieflix). [Category: Commercial]

Fairly standard trailer for a very violent 70s gangster movie that seems to be heavily influenced by The Godfather. Anthony Quinn stars as a cop who won’t play by the rules, making the clichés as thick as the violence. No surprises here, really.

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

Au Pair Girls (film #15 in the Trailers section of Movieflix). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

Trailer for an early-70s British softcore film, in which sexy miniskirted au pair girls take care of all their male employers’ needs, to bouncy, annoying theme music. This is about as leering as it gets without crossing the line into parody, making it pretty campy.

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

Chance to Lose (film #275 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This campy driving safety film from the 30s is breezily narrated like a newsreel featurette and features drivers who end up in humorous pratfalls as a result of their unsafe driving habits instead of tragedy, though the narrator gives plenty of stern warnings about such. The highlight is a young couple who end up crashing into a pigpen because of the young man’s tendency to associate manhood with speeding. Obviously, this humorous tack didn’t work, for driver safety films were to get more and more horrific as time went by, culminating in the gore films of the 60s. Although this was made by the National Safety Council, the ending exhortations about how cars are built entirely safe (so the fault of accidents must lay entirely on the driver) makes me wonder if the auto industry might have gotten their fingers into this.

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

Those Crazy Ol' Commercials (Goodtimes, 1986). [Category: Commercial]

Despite its lame title and $2.99 bin packaging, this is a pretty good collection of interesting commercials. There are quite a few fun moments here and a couple of real jaw-droppers (listed below). It gets docked 5 points for including one commercial with inaudible audio (the Tony Randall Libby's Fruit Juices one––don't panic when you get to it, it's the only one affected).

Highlights:

The ad for "Old Happiness" liquor is a parody, not a real commercial. But it's so well done and amusing, I'm not going to dock the tape any points for including it. It looks like it's from "The Twilight Zone" series––I wonder if any of the videos from that series bother to include it. If not, it's a great obscurity.
"Put Royal Triton in Cynthia's little tummy," coos Marilyn Monroe, camping it up even more than Edie Adams.
There's a really great example of early TV in the form of a commercial for the 1950 Ford Victoria. It's the slowest-paced commercial I've ever seen. Life must have been really slow paced back in the 50's for a commercial to be that slow.
The real jaw-dropper is a public service announcement about highway safety featuring James Dean. Jimmy urges us not to drive too fast on the highways: "Take it easy on the highways, folks. The life you save may be mine." Unfortunately, it was not to be.

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

The Adventures of the Road Runner (film #16 on Disc #2 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 2 DVD (Warner Brothers, 2004)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

This is the pilot for the Road Runner tv show, made by Chuck Jones by stringing together footage from various cartoons and making linking bits featuring Wile E. Coyote analyzing his failures, and two young viewers of the show making comments about it. This was later split apart and made into several different cartoons. It’s better seen all of a piece––you can see how cleverly it was put together. The scenes of Wile E., in particular, are a lot stronger than I remember them from the hacked-up cartoons. Of course, the scenes from the original cartoons are great, especially the classic catapult gags. A great relic from the vaults for Warner Bros. fans.

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

Assignment: Shoot the Moon (film #1 in the Science section of Movieflix). [Category: News]

This NASA film documents the many unmanned spacecraft built to photograph the lunar surface to determine if a manned lunar landing was possible. The film is well-made and full of pre-Apollo 11 photographs of the moon, as well as the first photographs of the earth from space. This provides an interesting historic backdrop to the Apollo missions, as well as some striking images.

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

Cleanliness Brings Health (film #25 on disc 1 of Walt Disney on the Front Lines DVD (Disney, 2004)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

Disney made this educational film for South American audiences as part of the governments “good neighbor” policy during World War II. It appears to be aimed at poor rural folk, encouraging them to engage in proper hygiene practices to prevent the spread of disease. This is competently made, but one wonders who actually saw it, considering it was made in English rather than Spanish. It’s basically a Goofus-and-Gallant film, featuring the Clean Family, who relieve themselves in a latrine, wash before eating, and keep flies off their food with mosquito netting (and thus don’t get sick); and the Careless Family, who relive themselves in their cornfield, never wash, and let their farm animals wander all over the place, even into the house. They also look vaguely like “lazy Mexican” stereotype, which is unfortunate. The message is valid, though after seeing Forgotten Village, I wonder whether it really resulted in much change in traditional practices among rural peoples.

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

Army in Space and Under the Sea (film #39 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This early-70s episode of “The Big Picture” documents the army’s early experiments with rockets and missiles that were precursors to the space program, and various forms of experimental deep sea diving. It’s pretty standard for the most part, with a definite pro-army spin to everything. Lots of footage of rockets taking off and of deep-sea diving here, if you’re a fan of that.

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

Check the Neck (film #1 on AV Geeks). [Category: Industrial]

Straightforward 60s film for emergency personnel for dealing with persons who have had a laryngectomy, and thus breathe through a hole in the neck. This is important information to know and it’s presented in a straightforward non-sensationalistic manner, so you don’t want to laugh at this film at all. One interesting part of it features a picnic of such people, and they’re all chatting away with each other, using the “esophagal method of speech,” which sounds suspiciously like the same process kids use to burp on command. Still, there but for the grace of God go I––these people actually deserve admiration for coming up with a new way to communicate. All in all, this is an interesting film, but not one to laugh at.

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

Additional Bit of Dialogue (film #19 in The Lost Lucy Themes section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film & TV]

This is a bit of dialogue between Fred and Ethel from an episode of “I Love Lucy” that was cut for syndication. It mainly involves Fred making jokes about Ethel’s appetite. This has mild historical interest, especially for Lucy fans, but mostly is pretty ordinary.

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

Aesop and Son (film #10 in the Daws Butler’s Cereal Commercials section of TVParty). [Category: Commercial]

The “Aesop and Son” characters from “Rocky and Bullwinkle” pitch Cheerios. Somehow, this involves beavers (not evil ones, fortunately) and what was probably the first usage of the term “power breakfast.” Ordinary, but mildly fun, as Jay Ward characters usually are.

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

Purely Coincidental (film #23 on AV Geeks. Also, film #10 on The Educational Archives, Volume Four: On the Job DVD (Fantoma, 2002)). [Category: Industrial]

This maudlin industrial safety film has a convoluted plot. It features two guys who like to hunt––one who works in a dogfood plant, the other in a food processing plant. Both plants are chockfull of food handling violations, which are announced by scary synthesizer whines on the soundtrack, but which are nevertheless completely unnoticed by anybody. The guy who works in the dogfood plant uses a drill to fix a broken canning line, creating iron shavings which he casually brushes into an empty can. Before he can dispose of the can, he is called away from the line, and another clueless worker puts the can on the line to be filled with dogfood. Meanwhile, the guy who works in the food processing plant gets grease all over his fingers fixing a broken packaging machine, then later handles dough with the same greasy fingers. By an incredible coincidence, his prize hunting dog is killed from eating the can of dogfood with the iron shavings in it, while a package of contaminated food from his plant is eaten by the dogfood plant guy's little girl, who gets a bad case of food poisoning and has to have her stomach pumped, causing her mom to go into hysterics (good thing she wasn't Eggbert's mom!). Both guys complain bitterly to their friends that those guys in those other plants just don't care about food safety. Then they meet and befriend each other at a hunting lodge, still clueless about their coincidental attachment. Oh, the irony! This is one of the most labored films I've ever seen. The film makers try so hard to sell their point and are so unconvincing. There should be some sort of award for that.

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

Cabin in the Sky (recorded off of Turner Classic Movies). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

This 40s all-black cast musical was not made for black audiences, but for white, so there are stereotypes aplenty. Eddie Anderson plays a hapless gambler who gets a reprieve from hell provided he clean up his act in six months. Ethel Waters plays his good-hearted, religious wife Petunia and Lena Horne plays the temptress Georgia Brown who keeps getting him into trouble. Although the stereotypes and general portrayal of African American culture is awful, the cast, as you might expect from the names I just mentioned, often rises above the material. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a movie containing more black talent of that time in one place. Duke Ellington’s band provides the music and there’s even a cameo by Louis Armstrong as a minor devil who plays a smokin’ horn. This is also one of the few all-black cast films that had a sizable budget, and it shows. It’s too bad all this talent had to work with material that made them look (or tried to make them look anyway) ignorant, simple bumblers, in order to satisfy the prejudices of white audiences. But that’s racism for you. As you might expect, this is lively and fun if you can get past the stereotypes.

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

Date with Duke (film #2 on George Pal Puppetoons (Loonic Video)). [Category: Hollywood]

Duke Ellington conducts some anthropomorphic perfume bottles in a smoother-than-ice rendition of his "Perfume Suite." Then he accepts the challenge of an evil perfume-bottle-sprite-guy who insists that he doesn't like music and hates to dance, that is, until Duke produces some irresistably toe-tapping music. Only in animation and probably only in ephemeral animation do you see such goings-on presented as if they make perfect sense. Which they do.

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

A Case for Beer (film #1 on AV Geeks). [Category: Public Service]

This early-70s film is aimed at convenience store employees, discouraging them from selling beer to underage kids and giving tips on how to spot cheaters. This just screams 70s, and if you were a teen during that time, it’ll probably bring back lots of memories. The tips given are extremely basic and the clerks shown are universally dorky, so I bet plenty of clever teens got away with their six-packs back then. It brought back memories for me as a Midwesterner because of all the Midwestern brands shown, such as Falstaff beer and Kitty Clover potato chips, brands that don’t exist today. Mildly campy and a real blast from the past.

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

Birds of Prey (in the ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #221 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]

Dry Encyclopedia Brittanica film about owls, vultures, and hawks. Now I’m a real owl fan, and the owls in this film are as great as owls usually are, but no thanks to the film’s presentation of them. The filmmakers must have been thinking, “Let’s take a really interesting subject, like prey birds, and see how boring we can make it.” God help us if an educational film actually holds students’ interest.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: . Weirdness: . Historical Interest: . Overall Rating: (gets an extra star for the presence of owls).

Are You Ready for Marriage 2004 (film #2 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

Scenes from classic Prelinger marriage films are interspersed with a contemporary couple, who act as if they are interacting with the characters from the films, especially the marriage counselor from Are You Ready for Marriage? This is lively and fun, though it could be funnier. On the other hand, it’s far and away the best wedding video I’ve ever seen.

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

BBC Election 70 (film #18 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Very brief, very blurry clip of the opening to an election report from 1970. Not much to see here, folks.

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

Check and Let Me Know (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #290 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

The president of the Snodgrass Company meets a salesman from an industrial film company on a business trip and gets all hopped up about making an industrial film. So he puts the wheels into motion by telling his vice president about it and asking him to do some research on the cost. This order gets passed around from employee to employee, changing in the process like a game of Telephone, until it metamorphoses into an order for 5000 toasters and the “fact” that a great industrial film can be made for only $5000. The salesman must bear the brunt of this, because the guy from Snodgrass who calls him insists that the $5000 was his (the salesman’s) bid. This is sort of like a 50s version of Dilbert, which makes it amusing, though it’s hard to figure out who this was made for. The film company that made it obviously has a poor opinion of its customers, but no advice is given for how to handle such a screwed-up situation. This makes it a great weird piece of ephemera, giving us a glimpse into what it was probably really like in the corporate offices of that time. Of course, Calvin, the company that made it, revealed in Calvin Workshop that its films were made by chimps, so maybe they could make a film for under $5000. So what’s the salesman’s problem? On the other hand, the employees of the Snodgrass Company make the chimps look pretty smart.

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

The Centaurs excerpts (film #5 on Animation Legend Winsor McCay DVD (Lumivision, 1997). Also, film #6 on Origins of American Animation). [Category: Early Film & TV]

A very attractive centaur (half-human, half-horse) couple romances each other. Eventually, the male centaur takes his lady love home to meet Mom and Dad, and they show off their new foal. These excerpts are very brief, but beautifully animated and quite touching nonetheless. I'd rather see this than the centaur scene in Fantasia any day. A 1918 Winsor McCay animated film.

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

Answering the Child’s Why (film #1 on AV Geeks). [Category: Educational]

This is a charming little film about answering little kids’ questions. Parents are encouraged to answer every question their little darlings ask in a patient and accurate fashion, lest they grow up to be like awkward shy Molly, who never asks any questions. Not shown are the kids who say “Why?” over and over again just to annoy their parents, or the really embarrassing questions they sometimes come up with. Of course, this doesn’t take place in the real world, but in the ideal world of educational films, where teachers have time to patiently go over tests individually with their students, uncles are never inappropriate with little girls, and only really, really old and sick people die. It goes without saying that parenting is a lot easier in that world. Why? I don’t give a darn! He’s our shortstop!

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

Band Drill (film #25 on Edison Film Archive). [Category: Early Film & TV]

Hey, kids! Look at the marching band! OK, I know it’s boring, but the whole parade can’t be Bart Simpson floats, can it? At least it’s only 22 seconds. An 1894 Edison film.

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

The Amazing Transparent Man (film #4 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Commercial]

Fairly campy trailer for a silly 60s science fiction movie about a criminal that gets turned invisible by a scientist under the thumb of an evil guy who wants to control the world. Lots of invisible fight scenes are shown (Hey, bank guard! Watch out for that––do’h!!), which are the most fun.

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

Boy Meets Dog (film #1 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

Somebody had the bright idea to revive a bunch of old Castle Films cartoons from the 40s and make them accessible for the deaf. So we have a cute, slightly scary cartoon about a boy and a dog and a mean father and the elf justice system, interrupted every few minutes by a perky sign language interpreter, who tries to explain things deaf children might not get. This cartoon is pretty weird to begin with, containing a truly frightening dad and a scary “Youth Machine” that turns him into a baby, but the sign language interpreter makes it even a weirder experience to watch––some of her facial expressions are priceless. This could be the cartoon on a film program featuring Deafula––now all we need are some sign language snack bar promos.

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

Anatomy of an Accident.

Another weeper of a driver’s ed film. A guy who was killed in an auto accident comes back as a ghost and watches his wife sell his favorite chair to a couple of old biddies for 35 bucks. Then he tells us all about the accident. Apparently, after taking an extensive defensive driving course given by his employer, the Bell System, and preaching to his family endlessly about safe driving, he gets himself killed when he breaks one of his own rules, which frankly doesn’t speak too well for the driving course. Of course, he does live in a town where the driver’s are all universally terrible and you can count on seeing an accident every few miles. And you gotta wonder when the guy does an elaborate check on all his car’s lights before driving, but doesn’t have his family fasten their seat belts. The film ends with much wailing and gnashing of teeth by the guy’s wife when their little boy dies in the hospital. It’s a good thing she’s clueless about the fact that the old biddies who bought her husband’s chair were the very ones who caused the accident in the first place. The first part of the film is pretty campy, the middle part with the driver training course is boring (though I want the magnetic road board and the magnetic cars for the Film Ephemera Museum of Quirky Devices), and the end is tear-jerking. No gore in this one, but the opening credits end by smashing into the windshield, just as if you are in your very own accident.

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

Teenage UFO Rock 'n' Roll Monster Show (Something Weird). [Category: Commercial]

Teens! Sex! Hippies! Monsters! Rock 'n' Roll! It's all here on this fun tape of trailers from movies for and about teenagers. Lots of J.D. flicks, teen monster movies, and rock & roll movies are represented here and most of 'em are very campy. And if that's not enough, there's lots of extras, including some drive-in ephemera, a few spook show promos, and two uncut shorts: Twist Craze and A Preview to Teenage Crusade (reviewed separately). Johnny Legend even threw in a few weird video goodies at the end, a la Cartoons Celing Commercials. Loads of fun.

Highlights:

Some great claims from the trailers: "Parents! Do you actually know what your children do for thrills and kicks?" "Alcoholic frustrated wives spending their days in bars!" "Hold on to your sanity if you can! And be grateful this did not happen to you!" "Teasing becomes torture! And torture terror!" "Youth! Emotionally mixed-up! Pent-up! Ready to explode into sex and violence!" "He's got hot rodders va-hoomin'! And hep cats suz-zoomin'!" "The Endsville from Sendsville!" "Every feverish moment in the emotional life of the immature!" "For Ivy Leaguers, Junior Leaguers, Little Leaguers, and Union Leaguers!" "See what happens when a pair of singin' swingin' teenagers turn Squaresville into Hipsville!" "If you're under 30, you'll want to see it! If you're over 30, you better see it!" and perhaps the least, but more likely the most idealistic claim of all: "Nobody will fall asleep during this picture!"
Some great lines from the trailers: "She wasn't bad looking for a girl. Personally, I prefer a hopped-up roadster!" "You'll wind up in the gutter before you're old enough to vote!" "O.K., so you tell 'em we're gonna quit school for the twist!"
Some well-known rock & rollers who appear in the films: Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, Chuck Berry, the Moonglows, the Flamingos, the Johnny Burnette Trio, Clyde McPhatter, The Isley Brothers, the Clovers, Cliff Richards, Joey Dee & the Starliters, Chubby Checker, Del Shannon, Gary U.S. Bonds, Gene Vincent, the Beach Boys, Gerry and the Pacemakers, James Brown, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Jan and Dean, the Supremes, the Rolling Stones, Joan Baez, Ray Charles, the Byrds, the Lovin' Spoonful, Donovan, Ike & Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, the Ronnettes, Neil Sedaka, the Seeds, the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Some lesser-known rock & rollers who appear in the films: Jimmy Camello, the Three Chuckles, Sereno & the Bowties, the Temperance Seven, the Rockin' Ramrods, Millie, the Bachelors, the Applejacks, Johnny B. Great, the Offbeats, the New Society Band, the Grit.
Gimmick Alert: Teenage Caveman is in Superama! Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory is in Nerve-O-Rama! It is recommended that teenagers and their parents see The Explosive Generation together! You must relieve the theater from all responsibility for death by fright before seeing The Horror of Party Beach! The T.A.M.I. Show is in Electro-Vision! And don't forget the free Fabian pix!
Msties, take note: Contains the trailers for I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Teenage Caveman, The Horror of Party Beach, and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Dr. Macabre's Frightmare of Movie Monsters features the Teenage Werewolf and the Colossal Beast alive! In person!

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

American Scene Magazine (film #6 in the Gleason’s Greatest Bomb section of TVParty). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

Opening from a 50s version of Jackie Gleason’s variety show. This is before my time, but it brought back memories of Gleason’s 60s show, as well as the way variety shows used to have such a special event air about them. The June Taylor Dancers do an impressive dance routine, complete with a kaleidoscopic aerial camera sequence (Busby Berkeley, eat your heart out!), then Gleason himself comes out and does some high-kicking in the chorus line (and about has a heart attack in the process). This is one of the longer and better clips on the TVParty site, and it’s something you probably can see nowhere else.

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

BBC Breakfast News: Local Elections Special (film #3 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Opening credits for a special morning report on the 1987 British elections. Scenes of candidates are shown in slow motion and there’s some nice animation of the globe. For the most part, this is pretty ordinary, though.

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

After Mein Kampf? (film #1 on Side B of Disc #9 of War Classics DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

Well, what a coincidence. This turns out to be the British propaganda film that forms the first half of Adolf Hitler. My comments about it in the review of that film still stand, of course, and it’s nice to see the original film in its entirety. It contains a number of dramatic reenactments that were cut out of the other film, including a real tearjerker scene of a cold-hearted Hitler Youth kid being confronted by his mother for turning in his father for some sort of violation of Nazism. The film has a bit of American footage tacked on at the end, which is jarring. It must have been the version for American distribution. Again, this is a great piece of propaganda.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ** (mainly for its breezy narration; the atrocities, of course, are not funny). Weirdness: . Historical Interest: *. Overall Rating: ***.

Best Food in Town (film # 1801 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

This is the last part of a 50s film for restaurant workers about safe food-handling practices. There are plenty of opportunities to go “ewwww!!!” here, not least of which is some of the food. Mostly, though, this is pretty ordinary, though it does have lots of footage of 50s dinerware.

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

Civil Defense Commercials (film #6 on Atomic Scare Films, Vol. 1 (Something Weird, 1996)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

These are really 5 promos for the National Guard. Two of them feature a singing cowboy who I probably should be able to identify, since he seemed to have his own tv show, but can't. Two of them are animated in the 50s "cute" style, which is highly unusual for armed services promos. A nice, historically interesting extra on the Atomic Scare Films tape.

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

And Then There Were Four.

Jimmy Stewart narrates this real weeper of a driver’s ed film from the 40s. We are introduced to five “ordinary people,” one of which will die in a car accident before the day is over. At one point, Stewart apologizes for the next scene, but there is no gore in it, just footage of a burning car. It wouldn’t be until the 60s that driver’s ed films would bring up your lunch. Instead, this uses soap opera tactics, dragging out the suspense of finding out which character ends up dead, showing all their family members worrying and twisting their hands. Is it the jerky rich white guy who dies? The teen hot-rodder? The poor-but-lovable ethnic gardener? No, it’s the one that jerks the most tears. Stewart’s presence makes this more interesting than it might be, but it’s not nearly as much fun as Tomorrow’s Drivers.

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

Promotion By-Pass (film #22 on AV Geeks. Also, film #1 on The Educational Archives, Volume Four: On the Job (Fantoma, 2002)). [Category: Industrial]

This is another “What would you do?" film for supervisors. Robbins, an office manager, gets a call from another office to "send over his best man" to take over management of that office. Robbins has two men to choose from: Bob, a nice younger fellow who's a real "people person," and Harry, an older guy who's a company veteran with an excellent work record, but whose people skills frankly suck. One guess who gets the promotion before you can say "age discrimination." Robbins tries to soften the blow to ol' Harry by giving him a long explanation justifying his decision, full of compliments and "you're our best man, but..." excuses. Harry seems to take it well at first, but when asked for his honest comments, gives Robbins two words: "I quit." Robbins doesn't know what he did wrong and the question is posed to the viewer. This film is more fun than the other films in this series. Robbins' twangy accent and exaggerated speech patterns give the film a positively Centronesque feel. And the character of Harry is well-drawn––you understand why he got passed over for the promotion, but you feel for the guy just the same. But this is the 50s, so you know the deck is stacked from the beginning for boring Bob in the grey-flannel suit.

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

Amos ‘n’ Andy Was a Chance to See Real Middle Class Blacks (film #5 in the Amos ‘n’ Andy section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film & TV]

Clip from the Amos ‘n’ Andy tv show where we see Andy and the Kingfish being unable to understand the musical terminology of Madame Queen’s voice teacher. Although the two main characters are portrayed as incredibly ignorant, according to stereotype, the erudite voice teacher is also black, which is unusual for the time. This doesn’t totally make up for the stereotypes, but it is something to take notice of.

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

Dancing on the Moon (film #8 on Cartoon Crazys: Sci-Fi (WinStar Home Entertainment, 1999)). [Category: Hollywood]

This Dave Fleischer cartoon is beautifully animated and has an interesting premise: animal honeymoon couples are taken on a rocketship to the moon so they can dance and spoon. Unfortunately, a cat couple is late and the tomcat just barely makes it through the door, while his tabby bride gets left behind. He has a lonely, miserable time on the moon playing solitaire and making cat's cradles while the other couples neck (the giraffes taking this concept to new, uh, heights). The real attraction of this cartoon is its pseudo-3D animation, combining flat characters with modeled backgrounds. The scenes in outer space are particularly stunning. This deserves to be thrown in as the cartoon at any film festival with the subject of voyages to the moon.

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

Billie the Buffalo Baby (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #219 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]

This confusing film has some campy moments. It starts with scenes of Billie, a newborn buffalo calf. The narrator tries hard to get the kids in the audience to bond with Billie, his mother Polly, and his best friend April (I don’t know about you, but “April” just seems like the wrong name for a buffalo). Then it suddenly switches gears and tries to scare the kids by telling them how dangerous buffaloes are, showing a horse with a bloody injury from being gored by a buffalo, and sternly stating, “Buffalos are not tame and should not be kept as pets!” with the intent, I guess, of discouraging the kiddies from bringing into the house any stray buffalos that follow them home from school. Then it switches gears again, and we get to see an Indian explaining in sign language the role of the buffalo in Indian culture (you know, that generic, non-tribal Indian culture that sells so well in souvenir shops). Then it ends very abruptly. I won’t give away the name of the veterinarian who treats the horse that got gored, except to say that it probably gave the boys in the elementary school audiences this was aimed at a good snicker (adults like you and I, of course, are too mature for such lowbrow humor).

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

Caught in a Cabaret (film #1 on The Chaplin Collection DVD (Madacy Entertainment, 2002) ("Charlot, Garcon de Theatre"). Also, film #3 on Charlie Chaplin Festival (Diamond Entertainment, 1991). Also, film #29 in the Silent section of Movieflix.) [Category: Early Film & TV]

The Little Tramp is a waiter in a cheap tavern, lorded over by a loud dictatorial boss. On his few brief breaks from work, Charlie passes himself off as the Greek Ambassador in order to court a pretty heiress. Unfortunately, the heiress discovers the truth when she and her rich friends go slumming and happen to stumble upon Charlie's workplace. This is not one of Chaplin's better efforts. There's lots of slapstick, but not a lot of laughs. And this kind of plot we've seen many times before. I do want a copy of his "Greek Ambassador" calling card for the Film Ephemera Museum, though. A 1914 Keystone film.

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

Alexander’s Ragtime Band (film #3 on Sabucat Movie Trailers). [Category: Commercial]

Trailer for a bouncy 40s musical of the type they don’t make anymore. This is pretty ordinary, but it has some nostalgia value.

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

Progress Island (MST3K Episode #621: The Beast of Yucca Flats (short #2)). [Category: Commercial]

This is probably the worst short they've ever done, both in terms of the film itself and their msting of it. The film is a promotional travelogue for Puerto Rico made in the early 70s. They're trying really hard here to get more tourism and industrial development in their country while at the same time showing how completely modern and successful it already is. These two goals constantly undercut each other, creating a slightly bizarre tension. But mostly the film is rather dull, like most travelogues. The msting seems to be mostly on the level of the "...is not present!" joke over and over.

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

Sex Psycho Trailers (extra on The Psycho Lover/Heat of Madness DVD (Something Weird, 2003)). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

A collection of trailers from 70s exploitation movies about psycho madmen who like to rape and kill women. Being one myself (a woman, not a psycho madman, you dingbat), this is not my cup of tea. I will say that the last trailer, for Scream Bloody Murder, is mildly campy, featuring as it does the term “Gore-nography” and a gimmick blindfold that was given out free to audience members. Also, seeing Haley Mills here is a tragic testament to the fate of child stars in this culture.

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

Christmas Island (film #1 in the 0800064 JTF-8 Presents Operation Dominic section of DOE Nevada). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

The narrator tells us a little bit about the history of Christmas Island, then says that nothing else in its history has given it as much notability as being blown up by an atomic bomb. Appalling and mercifully short.

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

Plan for Pleasant Living (film #3 on The 1950s Time Capsule (Video Resources, 1994)). [Category:Industrial]

Why, hello! So nice of you to drop by the Good Housekeeping Model Home! A smiling perfect 50s housewife gives us a tour of a perfect 50s suburban home for a perfect 50s family, complete with twin beds in the master bedroom, sparkling new kitchen appliances, garishly colored wallpaper and upholstery, and telephones in every room, including the bathroom, the little boys' bedroom, and the patio (you don't suppose the Bell System had a hand in making this film, do you?). Campy elements include the hostess' super-bright white teeth; the first person perspective of the film, complete with complimentary comments you're supposed to be thinking ("Why how lovely!", "That's certainly practical!", etc.); and a deliveryman who's confused by the disembodied voice of the hostess coming through an intercom system (and the strong implication that the great thing about the intercom is that nice middle class housewives like our hostess won't have to deal with working class people like the deliveryman face-to-face). Everything is so darn "nice" and "lovely" that after awhile you just want to scream. A great slice of 50s suburbia at its campiest.

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

Accidents Don’t Just Happen (film #33 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

After operating unsuccessfully on an accident victim, a sleep-deprived doctor relaxes in the tiny, ill-equipped doctor’s lounge and settles down to read a government pamphlet on accident prevention. The pamphlet does a good job of putting him to sleep, but he ends up having a weird animated dream about accident prevention, in which he helps a limited-animation family become “accident free” by having the wife lose weight (this is considered to be a major cause of this family’s accidents, for some reason––she ends up with a 50s hourglass figure and blonde hair, to boot) and getting the husband a pair of glasses. The dream ends by insisting that more money be spent on research into accidents, so that they can be “conquered” like polio was, and insisting that the doctor get seat belts in his car. Before it can get to the dangers of sleep-deprivation, though, the doctor is awakened for another round of surgery on accident victims. This is mildly weird, with plenty of the 50s “cute” style animation, though it somehow seems foreboding here. At least this is one safety film that doesn’t attribute accidents to “carelessness.”

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

Big Man on Campus (film #215 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]

High school student Jerry Warner sits in front of the principal's office, his life flashing before his eyes. Mostly it's a life filled with such horrible crimes as throwing milk cartons, riding a bicycle with no hands, and spray-painting a teacher's lab coat. Jerry narrates his life story, and either puberty is still several years in the future for him, or they got a 4th-grader to dub in his voice. Jerry gets suspended for his pranks and this causes him to turn over a new leaf in the direction of conformity to adult expectations. He'd better, or I'm sure Sid Davis has gruesome consequences in mind for him.

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

Carmaux: Drawing Out the Coke (film #19 on The Movies Begin, Volume One: The Great Train Robbery and Other Primary Works (Kino Video, 1994). Also, film #19 on The Art of Cinema Begins (Video Yesteryear, 1997)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

Coke, a coal-mining product, is drawn out of a stone oven in a long block and cooled with water. Where else but in film ephemera can you witness turn-of-the-century coal-mining practices? An 1896 Lumiere film.

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

Next Week Promos (Hollywood's Attic, 1996). [Category: Commercial]

Next week on Living Better Cinematically: A tape full of closing segments from 50s and 60s tv shows telling us all about next week's show. Some of them will include commercials. Some will give away most of the plot of the show. Many of them will be from cartoons. And you'll have fun playing "Spot the Star in an Early Performance". You'll see all this and more on "Next Week Promos", next time on Living Better Cinematically. This segment of Living Better Cinematically was brought to you by Glib Soap, the Slime Scraper.
Highlights:

Next week's episode of "The New Casper Cartoon Show" features very limited animation.
The makers of Philip Morris ask us, "Do you inhale?"
Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" promos are the best ones on the tape, and he just uses narration!
O.K., I've found it––the dorkiest commercial ever made! Check out the 5th Avenue Candy Bar commercial featuring the dancing teenagers at the very end of the tape. Worth the wait, wasn't it?

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: * (gets an extra star for the 5th Avenue commercial). Weirdness: * Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: *.

Are We There Yet? (film #22 in the Comedy section of Brickfilms. Also, film #5 in the Music Video section of Brickfilms). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

The Lego family goes on vacation, and before they get too far, the kids ask the inevitable question. Unfortunately, they fail to take into account that Dad is an amateur Zen master, at least until Mom gets into it. This is an amusing Brickfilm with an unusual concept. It’s also very well made, with beautiful sets that make you want to shout, “Hey kids! Look at the scenery!” And with Glenn Miller’s “String of Pearls” on the soundtrack, how can you go wrong?

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

BBC Breakfast News: Gulf War Special (film #2 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Opening credits for a special news report from the BBC on the Gulf War of the 90s. This already seems like it was a lot classier, and a lot less biased, than the news coverage here, and it wasn’t even their country or their war. A nice little bit of recent history.

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

Adolf Hitler (Side B of Disc #3 of WWII: The Ultimate Collection (Brentwood Home Video, 2004)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This 1948 documentary about Hitler starts with quite a bit of footage from a British propaganda film about the Nazi dictator, so it’s almost like two films in one. Actually, the British footage is a great deal of fun. It has two narrators and it skips through Hitler’s life at a breakneck pace, reminding you of the documentary parodies the Pythons loved to do. It then continues in a more straightforward fashion, documenting Hitler’s life and exploits, with particular emphasis on his relationship with Eva Braun. This is an excellent example of a propaganda film, even though it was made when the war was already over. Every effort is made to make you see Hitler as the ultimate in evil, not that he made it all that difficult. The British section features a number of propaganda illustrations of Nazi leaders, including a set of playing cards that have outrageous characters of Nazis as the face cards––I bet they would go for a lot on eBay. All in all, this is a fascinating piece of propaganda with great historical value.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ** (mainly for the British section, the atrocities, of course, rate an N/A). Weirdness: . Historical Interest: *. Overall Rating: ***.

Agriculture USA (film #51 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

Industry! Building a better––no, wait! Agriculture! Building a better tomorrow! This USDA film tries desperately to make agriculture seem as exciting as the industrial World of Tomorrow. Technology is touted as The Answer to better farming, right down to sharing pastures with missile silos, educating people in India about The Atom on the Farm, and spraying everything in sight. It’s as bombastic as most industrial films and that makes it very mstable. It also has some wonderful factory footage of various forms of food processing. It kind of drags after awhile, though, and you just want to say, “I get it already!! Farming is good!!”

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

The Chow Hound (film #17 on The Complete Uncensored Private SNAFU DVD (Image Entertainment, 1999)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

A patriotic bull leaves his newlywed cow behind and joins the Army to provide food for Private Snafu. The processed meat of the bull is sent over hill and dale, with great difficulty, until it finally reaches Snafu's unit's camp. There Snafu vastly overloads his plate, eats until full, and then throws a huge amount of leftovers away. The ghost of the bull is so enraged by this that he butts Snafu halfway around the world! This is one of the shorter Snafus and it makes its point simply and well.

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

American Pioneer (film #122 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]

This is a fairly straightforward social studies film about American pioneers making their first forays into the west, crossing the Appalachian mountains into what would later be Kentucky. The reenactments shown on screen seem pretty authentic for the most part, and the acting is good, though you don’t get to hear anyone speak since the film is narrated. The attitude of the film towards Indians, though, will make you wince––they are constantly portrayed at ruthless killers. Mostly, though, this is pretty ordinary.

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

Out of This World (MST3K Episode #618: High School Big Shot. Also, film #1078 on Prelinger Archive). [Catgory: Industrial]

This film would have us believe that both heaven and hell are extremely interested in the fortunes of bread truck drivers. A driver with a poor sales record recently repented and changed his evil ways, so the Devil of Bread Sales makes a bet with the Angel of Bread Sales that he will go back to his old habits if a pretty woman makes fun of him. So the angel poses as a magazine writer and goes with the bread man on his route, where she is taunted by the devil in various guises (cab driver, cop, etc.). She makes a token effort to make light of the bread man's sales efforts, only to have him come back with the full-blown Gospel of Bread, to her delight and to the devil's chagrin. The whole concept of this film is really weird, and thus it is really fun to watch. Or, if you don't believe me, then heed the words of the Giant Mutant Tom Servo: "MOVIE BAD!!" Don't forget to watch the special bonus host segment on specialty breads!

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

Amos ‘n’ Andy #2 (film #4 in the Amos ‘n’ Andy section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film & TV]

Closing credits of the controversial 50s tv show, featuring the theme music made famous by the radio show. This has a real feel of a radio show transposed to tv, making it a good example of early television programming.

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

The African Queen (film #2 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Commercial]

I never dreamed a mere physical experience could be so stimulating! Sorry, I just gave away the best line in this trailer for the classic John Huston film. It’s a good record of the film, beautifully preserved. And it ends with a fun bit of theater ephemera announcing Humphrey Bogart’s Oscar.

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

Daddy (film #1303 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Hollywood]

This soundie features the original material girl, Lazy Daisy Mae, singing to her sugar daddy about how expensive her tastes are. Actually, she seems way too nice for this song, as does the nerdy combo that accompanies her.

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

Sex Madness (film #131 on Feature Films). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

This is more of a soap opera than an exploitation film. Small-town girl Millie wins a beauty contest and gets to go to New York City, leaving her fiancé Wendell behind at home. After the contest is over, she has stars in her eyes and tries to Make It Big. Unfortunately, she quickly lands on the street with no job, no money, and no prospects, so she falls for the pitch of a “theatrical agent,” lands on the casting couch, and ends up with syphilis. Now she can’t go home and marry Wendell, so she must drown her sorrows in her job as a chorus girl in a burlesque show. Fortunately, a kindly doctor puts her in the hospital and gives her effective treatments for the disease. Eventually, she is well enough to go home, but under strict orders to continue the treatments with a doctor at home and not marry Wendell until she is completely cured. She follows doctor’s orders, going to a neighboring town for the treatments and keeping her condition a secret from her family and Wendell. But when Wendell pressures her to get married, she falls for the pitch of a quack doctor who promises to cure her in 30 days. She marries Wendell, and they have a baby, but soon the baby gets desperately ill, and Wendell discovers he doesn’t see too good anymore. What’s a poor girl to do? There is plenty of tear-jerking and scenery-chewing in this film, as well as uniformly bad acting, bottom-of-the-barrel production values, lots of preaching about the evils of “social diseases,” a silly “ironic” subplot involving the son of the local anti-sex crusader coming down with syphilis (d’oh!!), and a couple of creepy moments where lesbianism and child molestation are hinted at in leering ways. Mostly, though, this is a real weeper, lacking the energy of Reefer Madness or the goofiness of Assassin of Youth, but making up for it in preachiness.

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

The Big Deal (film #4 on Christian Youth Scare Films, Vol. 5 (Something Weird, 2000)). [Category: Educational]

10-year-old wheeler-dealer Pete swindles his best friend out of his birthday watch and then talks him into getting the goods on another kid who is going to cheat in a contest they are all going to enter. Pete's mentor is his Uncle Fred, a deli owner who engages in shady shenanigans like putting rabbit meat in his "chicken salad." But then Pete has a heart-to-heart talk with his dad, who sets him straight about this whole honesty business. This 30-second conversation that vaguely mentions the Bible causes Pete to have a complete change of heart. He gives back his buddy's watch and abandons his bright idea for "fighting fire with fire" in the contest. Wow, I didn't know parenting was so easy. This is actually an appealing little film. The child actors are unschooled and amateurish, but that makes them seem more real. And the complex moral issues raised are more than I would expect from this kind of film. Of course, the super-easy resolution takes all that realism and throws it out the window, but that's ephemera for you.

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

Captain Midnight (film #10 on Atomic TV (Video Resources, 1994)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

This episode of the early 50s kiddie adventure show has Captain Midnight trying to save a kidnapped scientist from a bunker that's about to be hit by an atomic bomb. They don't make it out of there in time, but fortunately for them, the scientist's cold-generating machine creates "absolute zero, which counteracts the absolute heat of the bomb", so that it only generates enough force to blow the door off its hinges, allowing them to escape to safety. Yeah, right. Msties will want to watch for Sid "Monkey Boy" Melton as the Captain's dorky assistant. Comes complete with Ovaltine commercial.

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

Going Places (film #603 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This 50s film, amazingly enough, promotes better public transportation rather than better roads, more parking, and cars, cars, and more cars. It’s a valid message––too bad nobody listened to it. This is a great film to contrast with The Dynamic American City, or Freedom of the American Road. It’s also a good film to see lots of big ugly 50s cars, as well as buses, trolleys, and streetcars.

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

Monsters on the March (Video Images, 1987). [Category: Commercial]

Short collection of 14 trailers from classic horror and 50's science fiction movies. The few interesting trailers (The Return of the Fly, The Thing, etc.) also appear in other better collections. Fairly dull as a whole, though it does get 5 extra points for listing the trailers in order on the package.

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

Chosin Reservoir (film #6 in the Korean War section of WPA Film Library). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

British newsreel clip of soldiers trapped in the Chosin Reservoir area under severe winter weather conditions during the Korean War. An interesting document of a little-known event in the history of that conflict.

Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs (film #4 on WWII Cartoons, Vol. 1 (The Authentic History Center)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

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

Empty Life (film #479 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

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

The Selling Wizard (MST3K Episode #603: The Dead Talk Back). [Category: Industrial]

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet #3 (film #3 on Side B of Disc #1 of TV Favorites DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

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

BBC News #2 (film #21 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *** (mainly due to Python influence). Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Atom in the Hospital (film #131 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

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

Chevrolet Advertising Rings the Bell (film #294 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

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

The Angry Movie (film #2 on Angry Night DVD (A/V Geeks)). [Category: Educational]

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **** (though really you don’t know whether to laugh or cry). Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Axel and His Dog (film #3 in the Twin Cities’ Local Kid Shows section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film & TV]

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

Andy Griffith Show (film #28 in the 1964 section of TVParty). [Category: Commercial]

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

Blonde Pick Up (film #17 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

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

Desert Demons (film #25 in the Documentary section of Movieflix (www.movieflix.com)). [Category: Hollywood]

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

Crowded Out (film #373 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

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

Boats (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #226 on Prelinger Archive.). [Category: Educational]

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

Chaplin - By the Sea (film #28 in the Silent section of Movieflix). [Category: Early Film & TV]

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet #2 (film #2 on Side B of Disc #1 of TV Favorites DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

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

BBC News #1 (film #17 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

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

The Atom and You – Second Episode (film #132 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

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

The Butcher, the Baker and the Ice Cream Maker (film #5 on Sell Sell Sell DVD (A/V Geeks)). [Category: Industrial]

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

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (film #5 in the Christmas Specials of the 60s and 70s section of TVParty). [Category: Hollywood]

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

Alive and Kicking (film #1 in the Schools section of TVArk). [Category: Educational]

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

Animated Buffers Featuring Ricky and Lucy (film #1 in The Lost Lucy Themes section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film and TV]

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

Anastasia (film #5 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Commercial]

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

The Black Gestapo (film #29 in the Trailers section of Movieflix). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

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

Three Smart Daughters (track #9 on Ephemeral Films CD-ROM (Voyager). Also in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #1513 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Commercial]

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

Community Health in Action (film #325 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Public Service]

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

Close Harmony (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #352 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

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

Round and Round (track #11 on Ephemeral Films CD-ROM (Voyager). Also in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #1275 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet #1 (film #1 on Side B of Disc #1 of TV Favorites DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

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

BBC Election ’97 (film #23 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

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

Daydreams (film #4 on Side A of Disc 2 of Comedy Classics DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Hollywood]

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

Army Transfer to NASA (film #814 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

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

Artificial Respiration (film #5 on AV Geeks). [Category: Industrial]

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

Blasting Cap Danger (film #222 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]

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

Chaplin - A Woman (film #26 in the Silent Section of Movieflix. [Category: Early Film & TV]

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

Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid (film #19 on Disc #4 of Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1 (Warner Bros., 2004)). [Category: Hollywood]

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

The Aggressive Impulse (film #8 on Angry Night DVD (A/V Geeks). [Category: Educational]

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

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet #4 (film #4 on Side B of Disc #1 of TV Favorites DVD Megapack (Treeline Films, 2004)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

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

Across 110th Street (film #5 in the Trailers section of Movieflix). [Category: Commercial]

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

Au Pair Girls (film #15 in the Trailers section of Movieflix). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

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

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

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

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

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: . Weirdness: . Historical Interest: . Overall Rating: (gets an extra star for the presence of owls).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ** (mainly for its breezy narration; the atrocities, of course, are not funny). Weirdness: . Historical Interest: *. Overall Rating: ***.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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