Every Saturday Night (film #12 on Blood of Floor Sweepings (LSVideo)). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

Every Saturday night a nude woman takes a bath in a cinderblock bathroom, and we get to watch. That’s pretty much it, folks.

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

California the Golden (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #158 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Hollywood]

This straightforward 30s travelogue about California is historically interesting for the view it gives us of California in the 30s. Perhaps the most dated aspect of it is that it was made by a steamship line, and it assumes we've taken a cruise through the Panama Canal in order to get there. Not very campy, but pleasant and watchable all the same.

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

As Boys Grow.

This 50s sex-ed film is very straightforward and informative about puberty and sex. It even covers––are you ready for this––how the sperm gets into the uterus! Thus, it was probably never shown in the vast majority of American classrooms. A friendly high school track coach answers any and all questions about sex and stuff that members of his team fire at him, even bringing along helpful, though not inappropriate, visual aids to some practices. He never even hints that sex is evil, does not mention any horrible diseases the guys could get from it, and tells them that masturbation is "normal at your age" and will not lead to blindness or sterility. Therefore, it is pretty safe to assume that he was fired at some point by some of the boys' parents. Such healthy and informative sex education has never been tolerated in the schools, not even today, making this film a real curiosity.

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

The Barber Shop (film #7 on The Movies Begin, Volume One: The Great Train Robbery and Other Primary Works (Kino Video, 1994). Also, film #7 on The Art of Cinema Begins (Video Yesteryear, 1997)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

A man gets a nice shave and a haircut while two other patrons enjoy a joke in a men's magazine. Another early slice-of-life film. I want the sign that says, "THE LATEST WONDER: SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT FOR A NICKEL." An 1894 Edison film.

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

Drive-In Movie Double Feature #58 (Sinister Cinema). [Category: Commercial]

Rip-Off!! This double feature's intermission is only seven minutes long, instead of the required ten minutes. It does have the Rico's Nachos promo, though, which is essential.

Highlights:

• BUCKY BEAVER WARNING!! Well, not exactly. But the bizarre animated characters in the Rico's Nachos promo did cause my husband to exclaim, "They're relatives of Bucky Beaver!", which means they require a warning of some sort.
  
• Now we want everybody to support their local P.T.A., and to make sure, we're going to give the announcement a psychedelic, amoebae-like background.
  
• Other items for the Film Ephemera Museum of Quirky Devices: the bizarre coffee machine from the coffee snack bar promo, and a really cool neon Coca-Cola clock from the Coca-Cola promo.
  
• Try our one-line snack bar promos.
  

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: **** (gets docked a star for being only seven minutes long).

Red Hot Riding Hood (film #4 on Cartoons for Big Kids (Turner Home Entertainment, 1989)). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

This cartoon has one of the all-time great beginnings: the characters from "Little Red Riding Hood" complain about having to do that hoary old tale one more time, so the animators change it to reflect modern sensibilities. This time, the wolf is of the Hollywood-and-Vine type, Grandma is a Mae-West-type proprietor of "Granny's Joint", and Red is a sexy nightclub singer. Add lots of great Tex Avery gags, and you've got one of the all-time classic cartoons. And I want for my museum the wolf's clapping and whistling machine and the sign that says, "Imagine that! No door!"

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

Godzilla and Other Movie Monsters (Passport Video, 1998).

This is a two-tape history of Godzilla, but obviously there's only so much you can say about Godzilla, so it ends up broadening its focus to include movie dinosaurs and giant monsters of all types, making it a lot like the Dinosaurs! set. Most of the clips are from feature films, though it does have the usual array of movie trailers and clips from early dinosaur films. So this is really only marginally ephemera, but it's pretty fun anyway. There are a lot of really creatively-edited montages of all kinds of footage, with lots of fun juxtapositions, such as when the narrator tells us that eventually the dinosaurs died out and we see a clip of a cartoon dinosaur floating up to heaven from "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur." And it does have the complete Bambi vs. Godzilla near the end of tape two (not that that's particularly hard to find). Giant monster fans should enjoy this quite a bit, non-giant monster fans less so.

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

The Battle of London (film #10 in the Documentary section of Movieflix (www.movieflix.com)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This British film rather breezily documents the London Blitz and the pluck of the Londoners in coping with the hardships of the bombings. It's historically interesting and fun to watch, but not especially deep. This has more nostalgia value than value as an historical document, though it was made at the time. A mildly interesting bit of WWII ephemera.

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

Apollo, Segment 1001 (in the Documentary section of Open Video Project). [Category: News]

This is a short film about the Apollo XI mission, the first one to land a man on the moon. There’s mostly just footage of highlights of the mission, with radio transmissions to and from Mission Control and synthesizer music on the soundtrack. The synthesizer music gets rather annoying after awhile, but other than that, this is a nice little wrap-up of the most memorable space mission ever.

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

Beer and Art (film #10 in the Indie section of Movieflix (www.movieflix.com)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

A neurotic woman shares a poem she wrote with a coworker who ridicules her. She then goes psycho and tries to kill the coworker, but she can’t escape the vision of her stern writing teacher. I suppose you’re supposed to sympathize with the coworker, but I’m a bit neurotic myself and I root for the poet every time (though I will admit the poem is excruciatingly bad). This is pretty well done, but I don’t really get what the point of it is supposed to be. The fact that it was directed by a man doesn’t reassure me, either. Still, it’s better than much of the stuff in the Indie section of Movieflix.

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

Down & Out! (film #2 on The Educational Archives, Volume Four: On the Job (Fantoma, 2002)). [Category: Industrial]

This safety film about fall prevention has one actor in it who is required to fall over and over and over again, poor shmoe. After awhile, you begin to wonder about the workplace safety conditions of this stunt man, that is, if you're not busy laughing at all his pratfalls.

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

California Picture Book (film #157 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Hollywood]

This black-and-white, silent film from the 40s shows us a series of scenic views of things to see and do in California. That's it, really. It's sort of like a film version of one of those postcard strips, only in black-and-white. It does have some historical value, though.

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

Beatrice Foods News Reports from Around the World (film #191 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

This early 60s film is pretty much what the title says––news reports from all over the world about Beatrice Foods’ various corporate subsidiaries. We get to see milk processing on a military base in Japan, a company that makes cookware and serving utensils for restaurants, a Belgian milk processing plant, and a bizarre underground storage facility near Kansas City. This is all narrated in a way that implies that its audience finds this all fascinating. And it is, in an odd sort of way, though you have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. Me, I like stuff about foods and the kitchen, so this held my interest. There’s lots of factory footage for folks who like that sort of thing. And the last segment, about the underground storage facility, is the weirdest. The employees of the facility have their lunches in a “Caveteria,” a name that is so lame it’s brilliant. But the most interesting thing is the Atlas Wire Products Company, a company that rents underground space for its factory from the facility. This company make––are you ready for this?––wire racks! Get it?? Kansas?? Wire racks?? That’s where the guy in Speech: Using Your Voice, a Centron production, got his nifty wire rack! It has to be! This is just too handy to be a coincidence! This blows the lid off the whole Kansas-Centron-public speaking-evaporated milk-wire rack conspiracy! I––what? Oh…OK, I’ll take my meds and go to bed now.

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

Arranging the Tea Table (film #155 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Educational]

In which we learn that behaving as if you have obsessive-compulsive disorder is the best way to make your tea guests feel at ease. "Exactness in details helps tremendously to ensure a sense of perfection," is a direct quote. If you only own a white linen tablecloth, but not a lace or embroidered one, then you might as well throw in the towel right now, because your tea will be an excruciating failure and you will lose all your friends. Have fun!

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

Army Pack Train Bringing Supplies (film #15 on Edison Film Archive). [Category: Early Film & TV]

This was back in the days when horses and mules were the main forms of transport, even for the army. They sure made mule trains long in those days. An Edison film.

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

The Bank Robbery (film #5 on The Origins of Cinema, Vol. 5: Rare Films (Video Yesteryear, 1997)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

Now this is a Western! It almost looks like it could be a home movie of a real Old-West bank robbery. Considering the time period in which it was made, and the fact that it stars real bank robber Al Jennings, it might as well have been. It's very primitive technically––half the time they don't seem to know where to point the camera and they don't even know enough to edit out the shots where the horses relieve themselves––but that just adds to the authenticity. A band of thugs robs a small town bank, leading to an extended manhunt and the inevitable shootout and milling-around festival. The bad guys are eventually hauled out of the Wicheta National Forest and Game Preserve (says so!) and brought back to town to face justice. Not particularly romantic, and there's lots of dirt, but that's probably what the Old West was really like. An Oklahoma Mutoscene Film.

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

Drive-In Movie Double Feature #48 (Sinister Cinema). [Category: Commercial]

This collection of drive-in ephemera has mostly ones that I've seen before. The film quality is better than average, though.

Highlights:

• Nutrition Alert! Buttercup Popcorn is "nutritious", as always.
  
• The "2 minutes to go" snack bar promo features the exact same animated snacks as the earlier alien snack bar promo.
  
• The hamburgers in the "Last Chance" snack bar promo look way too much like the donuts, and they both look like they're made of tar.
  

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

A Prologue to Forbidden Desire (film #2 on Exploitation Mini-Classics, Vol. 1 (Sinister Cinema)). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

This prologue was made for the wartime rerelease of Forbidden Desire, a 30s exploitation movie about syphilis and prostitution. They try to make the movie seem timely by relating it to a bunch of wartime problems such as the housing shortage and juvenile delinquency. Narration by a gnarled old man is punctuated by scenes from the movie and other scenes which were probably filmed especially for this prologue. It's all quite campy, but the highlight is a scene featuring two "kept women" sitting around in their underwear ("Boy, it's hot! I think I'll shed this," says one immediately upon entering the room), discussing their sugar daddies in derisive terms. It's one of the all-time Greatest Moments in Bad Acting. One of the best items in the Exploitation Mini-Classics series.

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

The Girls and Daddy (Unedited Version) (film #8 on The Origins of Cinema, Volume 4: The Arrival of D. W. Griffith (Video Yesteryear, 1995)). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

This is the unedited footage for The Girls and Daddy shown in the order it was shot. Even back in 1909 they were already shooting scenes out of order. It's hard to make any sense of the story when it's in this form, but if you watched the edited version right afterward it gives you a good sense of how movies are put together. An interesting historical extra.

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

Battle of China (tape #6 of the series WWII Special Edition (Madacy Entertainment, 1997)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This sixth film of the "Why We Fight" series documents Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion of their country. I expected to find this dull, but actually this seldom-told story is quite interesting and inspiring. China was ill-prepared for war, but after suffering terrible atrocities at the hands of the Japanese, they banded together, moved most of their population and industry to the west, destroyed most of what they left behind, and set about to develop the military strength they needed to drive out the Japanese. There are many amazing images in this film of the Chinese doing what seems to be the impossible with primitive tools and the sweat of their own bodies, particularly in the segments about the western migration and the building of the Burma Road. One of the most visually compelling films in this series.

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