Les Babouches a Buddha (film #5 on Scopitones). [Category: Hollywood]

Silly French Scopitone in which a woman in a belly-dancing costume sings in French to a man dressed like a sheik about, I think, his gold Buddha slippers. This has a lot of that early 60s “sexy” feel, as well as poor sound synchronization. Add a dog who tries to steal the slippers, and you’ve got a mildly surreal experience.

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

The Adventurer (film #48 on Feature Films (in “Charlie Chaplin Festival”)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

Charlie plays an escaped convict who gets in good with a rich family by saving them from drowning. This is a very funny Chaplin outing, with especially brilliant chase scenes. Chaplin really knew how to defy expectations when being chased, and I’ve not seen funnier chase antics outside of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Highly recommended––this is one of the silent comedies to watch when you really want to laugh. A 1917 Charlie Chaplin film.

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

Baby Doll Trailer (film #9 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Commercial]

Lurid but well-made trailer for a movie that looks lurid, but well-made. Carol Baker plays Southern jailbait in a movie that looks to have every Southern cliché in the book. Still, the trailer makes it look reasonably intelligent, as well as being a dark little piece of filmmaking in and of itself.

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

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (film #119 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

Sign language version of the classic old cartoon in which Grampy cheers up some orphans on Christmas by making all kinds of clever toys from kitchen junk. This is a really fun cartoon, and the sign language interpretation is pretty straightforward and not too intrusive, so the deaf kids should enjoy this one.

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

Help Them Stay Safe (film #19 in the Public Info. Films section of TVArk). [Category: Public Service]

Straightforward British PSA from the 70s urging people to fix loose carpets in the homes of elderly relatives, lest they have a nasty fall. Since I have an elderly mother, this hits close to home. All I can say is, “Do it.”

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

The Adventures of Daddy McGregor (film #675 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

Silly horror movie about a guy who torments bunnies, animated with pencil drawings of stick figures on typing paper. Despite production values giving new meaning to the term “low budget,” this is genuinely amusing and fun. In fact, the amateurishness of it makes it more fun somehow. Animal rights activists will be happy to know that no bunnies were harmed in the making of the film, and that PETA plays a prominent role. Animal haters will enjoy the scene with the guilloutine.

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

BBC Nine O’Clock News #3 (film #11 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Another opening credits sequence and first few seconds of the BBC Nine O’Clock News, this time from 1978. We get to see footage of a prime minister who lost the majority trying to patch things up, Margaret Thatcher commenting on it all, and, for the first time, a female newscaster. For its length, this packs in lots of late 70s Britain.

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

Campaign in Europe (film #2 on Side A of Disc #2 of WWII: The Ultimate Collection DVD Boxed Set (Brentwood Home Video, 2004)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This WWII German propaganda film documents the German takeover of Poland in September of 1939. The Germans first portray themselves as victims of “Polish Terror,” stating that Germans in the city of Danzig were treated badly by the Poles. Although the goals of the invasion were first explained to be the “liberation” of limited areas of northwestern Poland, once it gets going, all concepts of limitation are forgotten, and we see the German war machine relentlessly blast through the entire country, decimating the Polish military in a matter of weeks. This is all portrayed in an extremely stark, deadpan style, with occasional narration in British English. This film gives you a good idea of what the Germans were saying in their propaganda, as well as showing how relentless the German war machine was in its early days.

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

Chevrolet Leader News, Vol. 2, No. 1 (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #298 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

More silly “news” from Chevrolet, this time featuring the latest swimsuit fashions, ski-jumping, a ferryboat run with a Chevrolet engine, more animal abuse as hunting dogs are shoved into a car trunk, a traffic school with kindergarteners in kiddie cars a la Tomorrow’s Drivers, a Chevrolet pulling a glider made by a high school student, and a chimp driving a car, in what has to be revenge for all the animal abuse that’s gone on in this series so far. This one is even more lightweight than the others so far, which is saying something.

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

Battle of Mafeking (film #26 on Edison Film Archive). [Category: Early Film & TV]

An old-fashioned battle ensues, involving lines of soldiers running towards each other, swords hacking, and the cavalry galloping through the foreground. You won’t see this kind of battle footage again. Still looks pretty violent, though. A 1900 Edison film.

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

Babette Goes to War Trailer (film #8 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

Sexist trailer for a 60s Brigitte Bardot comedy. It seems that this was made to introduce Bardot to a wider audience of women as well as men, but with lines like calling Bardot the “cuddliest doll in the world,” or calling the women of the audience “75 million American girls,” I wouldn’t bet on it.

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

Christmas Circus (film #166 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

This sign-language version of a cartoon is more straightforwardly done and less weird, even though it also uses the box on top of a character effect. The cartoon itself is mildly strange, though, featuring animals who give a circus on Christmas. The way the interpretation is done seems to make more sense here, or maybe I’m just getting used to these interpreted cartoons.

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

Hard Shoulder (film #18 in the Public Info. Films section of TVArk). [Category: Public Service]

Straightforward British PSA warning motorists not to stop on the shoulders of superhighways unless it’s an emergency. The couple that stops to argue over the map is mildly ditzy, but mostly this is ordinary.

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

Air Enforcement (film #14 in the Action section of Brickfilms. Also, film #13 in the Comedy section of Brickfilms). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

Simple object lesson on the dangers of speeding when “Speed Limit [is] Enforced by Aircraft.” An unpretentious little film that made me smile.

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

BBC Nine O’Clock News #2 (film #10 in the News section of TVArk). [Category: News]

Another standard opening credits sequence and first few seconds of a BBC Nine O’Clock News broadcast, this time from 1974. This one is a bit more interesting, as it includes the evening headlines, giving you a snapshot of events in Britain in 1974.

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

The Big Lift (film #1 on Side B of Disc #6 of War Classics DVD Megapack). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas star in this fictionalized account of two air force men involved in the Berlin Airlift, when the U. S. Air Force flew in food and supplies to Berlin after the Soviets blockaded the city. What is unusual about this film is that all the other American military personnel in it were played by the real GIs involved in the airlift. The story is personal, however. It involves the two main characters each getting involved with women in Berlin. Clift almost gets suckered into marrying a woman who is trying to get into the U.S. so she can hook up with her German lover there, while Douglas, who is anti-German after having had traumatic experiences as a P.O.W. during the war, becomes more sympathetic to them after teaching a German woman what democracy is all about. The film is intelligently made for the most part, showing the complexities of the situation in post-war Berlin. It shows that the roots of many of the German’s corrupt and unethical behaviors come from post-war social disintegration, the need to survive, and the corrupt values they were taught as children in Hitler’s Germany, yet it also doesn’t let them off the hook for them. It also shows that a desire for revenge, though understandable, can nevertheless have painful consequences if it is acted out, in a disturbing scene where Douglas beats up a German man who may have been a prison camp guard who tormented him (the film doesn’t totally tell us whether the man actually was the guard, or whether he just looked like him––this makes the scene far more disturbing), then discovers that he feels worse instead of better from doing that. A few other scenes are a bit farfetched and pat, especially the scene where Douglas’ girlfriend finally “gets” the Constitution, but they are outnumbered by the more intelligent sequences. An interesting, if Hollywoodized, portrait of post-war Berlin, and the American military’s experience of it.

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

Chevrolet Leader News, Vol. 1, No. 3 (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #297 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

More silly “news lite” from Chevrolet, including the wonder of self-mixing cement trucks; the controversy over which house in St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest house in America; more lame yux about old car ads; a bizarre-looking experimental car that looks like it may be Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Car (or a rip-off thereof); jewelry inspired by auto design; a lame joke about car interiors that block out noise; military vehicles made by Chevrolet; and, in yet more animal abuse news, using a live Chihuahua as a hood ornament. The most interesting segments are the experimental car and the one just mentioned about the poor dog who is not only forced to be the first smashed in a crash, but must wear dorky-looking glasses as well. PETA, where were you back in the 30s?

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

Bathing at Atlantic City (film #15 on America at Work, America at Leisure. Also, in the Historical section of Open Video Project). [Category: Early Film & TV]

It looks like back in ought-one, the beaches were just as crowded as they are today. But the people wore a lot more clothes in the water. A slice of turn-of-the-century life. A 1901 Edison film.

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

Babes in Toyland Trailer (film #7 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Commercial]

Trailer for the 30s version of Babes in Toyland, starring Laurel & Hardy. This is quite fun to watch, as the graphic design is wonderful and some of the most visually striking moments are chosen to show, particularly the stop-motion animated wooden soldiers. A great relic from the 30s.

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

The Chocolate Princess (film #69 on Open Source Movies). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

Sign language version of a 70s cartoon with an anti-racist message, narrated by Bill Cosby. In this one, they experiment not just with having the interpreter break in at various points, but with inserting boxes on top of the characters with interpreters, in costume, playing the various roles in sign language. This gives the film a weirdness the other interpreted cartoons don’t have. The Chocolate King looks especially strange and surreal. It’s also curious that although the cartoon has an anti-racist message, the girl playing the sign-language “Chocolate Princess” is white, as are all the other sign-language actors. They deserve points for getting creative here, though.

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