Air Head Videos 3 (film #304 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

Still more Stupid Lego Tricks. Highlights of this one include the minifig conga line, the use of plastic wrap to simulate water, and the closing credits, which actually give credit to the minifigs. Silly.

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

Conditions in Paris (film #7 in the 1929 Stock Market Crash and Great Depression section of WPA Film Library). [Category: News]

Silent newsreel footage of the Great Depression as it was experienced in Paris. This is not too different from scenes from the US at that time, featuring as it does scenes of soup lines, homeless people, and children living in appalling shacks. This shows that it really was a world-wide depression.

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

Army Needs Must Be Met, NAM Is Told (film #67 on Universal Newsreels). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

Rousing wartime newsreel featuring a speech by Frederick C. Crawford to the National Association of Manufacturers telling them they need lots more stuff to be made for fighting the war. So go to it, Industry! Build a better tomorrow! Also featured are stories on flooding in Italy, talks between Churchill and Stalin, and a football game. This is one of the more rousing of the patriotic newsreels, reminding viewers over and over that the war will be won through industrial production. And it was.

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

A Dash Through the Clouds (track #3 on The Origins of Cinema, Volume 4: The Arrival of D. W. Griffith (Video Yesteryear, 1995)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

How ya gonna keep 'em in the kitchen after they've been above the clouds? After a dashing young pilot takes Martha for a ride in one of them newfangled flyin' machines, she has no more use for her stuffy old husband Arthur, much to his chagrin. But he changes his tune when Martha and the pilot use the flyin' contraption to rescue him from a fracas in a Mexican border town (over a woman, I'm sorry to say). It doesn't make any difference to Martha, though––she still thinks he's a stuffed shirt even after she rescues him. This exciting early melodrama is loads of fun. The flying scenes in the Wright-Brothers-era plane look authentic, giving the film historical interest as well. A 1912 D. W. Griffith film.

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

Demonstration, London Fire Brigade (film #1388 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

Silent, color film footage from the 40s of firemen putting out assorted fires. This doesn’t appear to take place in London, but in various places in the eastern U.S. Lots of smoke, flames, and vintage fire equipment for firefighting fans.

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

Alice in the Jungle (film #5 on Disc 1 of Disney Rarities DVD (Disney, 2005)). [Category: Hollywood]

Alice goes on a jungle safari, but mostly this is used as an excuse to show lots of silly animal antics, with Alice herself only briefly involved. Never mind, the animal antics are cute and funny, though Alice’s pet cat bears a striking resemblance to Felix. In fact, take out the brief Alice scenes, and this could pass for a Felix cartoon. I will resist the temptation to make a reference to copyright lawsuits and simply say for a Felix rip-off, this is not bad.

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

Communism (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #361 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

Unlike Capitalism, this Coronet film has no dorky teenagers or weenies in it. Instead, it’s a fairly straightforward account of the history of Russian communism and Soviet aggression. This is not nearly as strident as it might have been, given the time that it was made, though it does clearly paint communism as an international conspiracy and a threat to world peace and freedom. Most of it is reasonably accurate, with the most inaccurate part of it probably being the talk about the U.S. fighting communism by supporting freedom in other countries, ignoring the U.S. policy of supporting tyrannical dictators in many countries simply because they weren’t communist. So overall the film is kind of dull, though it does contain a lot of film footage of early Soviet Russia.

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

Beulah for the 1952-53 (film #5 on The Beulah Show section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film & TV]

Brief clip from “Beulah” showing the opening credits and Louise Beavers offering a witty, stereotyped bon-mot. Another example of the difficulties African Americans had to face in show business during that time.

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

Batman and Robin Discover the Missing Show (film #32 in the 1966 ABC Fall Preview section of TVParty). [Category: Commercial]

Campy, silly ending to the 1966 ABC fall preview show, in which Batman and Robin discover Milton Berle under the desk and sentence him to a series run of five years. It ends with some very 60s-style groovy animation. A real blast from the 60s.

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

The Adventures of Gadi Ben Sussi (film #8 in the Pre-State section of Stephen Spielberg Jewish Film Archive). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

Primitive silent cartoon from the early 30s showing the adventures of a Yemenite character in Tel-Aviv, with subtitles in Hebrew. Frankly, I couldn’t make head nor tails of this one, though it was rather fun to look at, what with its tooney animation and body parts flying everywhere.

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

Channah Means Grace (film #3 in the Health section of the State of Israel section of Stephen Spielberg Jewish Film Archive). [Category: Public Service]

This touching film from the early 50s profiles Channah, a girl who cannot walk due to injuries she suffered in a DP camp, and how she is helped by professionals at the Hadassah Medical Center to walk again. Surgery and physical therapy result in her legs returning to normal, yet Channah will not try to walk without assistance. A psychological evaluation reveals that Channah’s traumatic experiences make it hard for her to trust, so the treatment team makes the wise decision to build Channah’s desire for rehabilitation by having her take dance classes, something she has shown interest in. Eventually, she learns to walk by learning to dance. This is a very well-made film that shows an unusual degree of understanding of its troubled protagonist and of the importance of psychological factors in physical rehabilitation. It is one of the better examples of a public service film; one that manages to stimulate empathy in the viewer for the struggles of the people it portrays.

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

Air Head Videos 2 (film #303 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

More Stupid Lego Tricks. The giant baseball is pretty cool, though, as well as the metamorphosis scene.

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

Collision of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm (film #47 in the Featured Clip Archive section of WPA Film Library). [Category: News]

Fairly exciting newsreel story about the early-60s shipwreck of the Andrea Doria after she collided in the fog with the Stockholm. This has lots of historical value, as well as striking footage of a ship sinking below the waves.

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

And on the Seventh Day (film #8 in the Cities section of the State of Israel section of Stephen Spielberg Jewish Film Archive). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

Residents of Jerusalem flash back to painful experiences from the Six-Day War in this 60s film. Unfortunately, it’s in French, so I couldn’t understand the narration, but even given the language barrier, the film has impact. This is one I really wish the archive had provided English subtitles for.

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

Felix the Cat Swtiches Witches (film #7 on Felix the Cat, Vol. 1 (Video Resources, 1994)). [Category: Hollywood]

It's Halloween night, and Felix goes around pulling pranks. Just when you're wondering why he is fooling around with a lame old jack-o-lantern instead of manipulating reality, he starts switching the front and back ends of various animals and inanimate objects. Now that's a prank! The cartoon ends with Felix getting his fortune told and being chased by a witch, which is not nearly as much fun as the pranks, but still, this is a great cartoon.

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

Desert Venture (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #420 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

This 40s film, made by Standard Oil of California, documents the initial search for oil in Saudi Arabia, and how its discovery was so beneficial for Americans, Arabs, starving war victims in Europe, and, oh, everybody all over the world. The film itself is fairly straightforward and unsurprising, but the ironic baggage it carries in light of future events is humongous. Perhaps the most ironic moment is a map that turns arrows pointing from North and South America to Europe, indicating the flow of oil, to a huge arrow going from the middle east to Europe. Point that arrow everywhere and you pretty much have today’s oil situation. Beyond that, there are some mildly fun scenes of the totally unassimilated American community in Saudi Arabia, complete with housewives buying convenience foods in supermarkets; and lots of scenes of sand, oil drilling, camels, and Arabs.

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

Alice Gets in Dutch (film #3 on Disc 1 of Disney Rarities DVD (Disney, 2005)). [Category: Hollywood]

Alice gets in trouble at school for participating in a prank involving a balloon and a bottle of ink, and so has to sit in the corner with a dunce cap on her head. There she falls asleep and has a dream about jamming with some barnyard animals. The jam session is interrupted by the Evil Cartoon Teacher and her evil anthropomorphic textbooks and the inevitable war ensues. Superior firepower is ultimately overcome by creativity and a junk pile. This cartoon is a great deal of fun, featuring delightful characters, excellent acting by the girl playing Alice, and wonderful soundtrack music that enhances the action on screen. Kudos to Disney for digging these “Alice” toons up and restoring them so well. For 20s toons, they hold up remarkably well today.

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

Children of Japan (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #314 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]

Considering the year this was made, 1941, I at first thought it was a WWII propaganda film. But no, this is a charming children’s educational film made just before the war about life in Japan. We follow two siblings, Taro and Yukiko, as they go through their day with their family, at school, and going to a cherry blossom festival. It looks pretty realistic, though in simplified form, about Japanese life at the time, and everything seems peaceful and well-ordered. Look at all those strange but nice people from another culture, children! Don’t be afraid––they may seem different to us, but deep down they’re really like you and me. How quickly that would change! In fact, I wonder if this film got any showing in classrooms at all, considering how quickly its tolerant message became outdated. I could swear I saw the scene of Japanese boys practicing fencing at school in a later propaganda film. Here, it’s shown as another charming Japanese cultural practice, but in the other film it was shown as proof of Japanese indoctrination of children in military values. Overall, this is an interesting snapshot of our attitudes towards the Japanese just before we went to war with them.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *** (gets an extra star for the fact that it just begs for msting about Godzilla). Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ***.

Beulah (film #6 in The Beulah Show section of TVParty). [Category: Early Film & TV]

This clip from the early 50s sitcom “Beulah” features Oriole, Beulah’s vapid neighbor, in a stereotyped performance that is painful to watch today. Let this serve as a reminder of what we don’t want to go back to.

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

Batman (film #13 in the 1966 ABC Fall Preview section of TVParty). [Category: Commercial]

Campy, brief clip from the 1966 ABC fall preview show featuring Batman and Robin doing their schtick. Lots of fun if you like your Batman campy.

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