Motorboat Explosion (film #24 in the Public Info. Films section of TVArk). [Category: Public Service]

Brief 70s British PSA that warns motorboat owners to check for gas leaks before setting out. They do this by, as you can guess, showing a boat blowing up real good. Brief, but effective.

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

The Aggressive Brown Water in the Tubes of the Professor (film #12 on German Cinema). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

Early 70s German experimental film that appears to be about mass apartment evictions, possibly for urban renewal. A middle-aged white man argues with a group of women, possibly about the evictions. This alternates with more experimental scenes, such as a scene of a drawing of the man spewing blood from his mouth. The theme music from Shaft is somehow involved. It’s hard to make sense of this without understanding German, but there are some striking images here.

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

Apollo 9: Three to Make Ready (film #4 on Open Source Movies). [Category: News]

This NASA film documents Apollo 9, the mission that tested the Lunar Module and spacesuits later used in the moon landings. This is told straightforwardly, with few surprises, but in an interesting way nonetheless. There are some lovely images of the earth from space in the film, which also adds to its value. This was an important, but not very exciting mission, so the film did a good job in keeping it from being boring.

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

The Battle of the Bulge (film #7 on Side A of Disc #2 of the War in Europe section of Combat Classics DVD Megapack (Mill Creek Entertainment, 2006)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This documentary covers the Battle of the Bulge, when the German lines bulged outward into northwestern Europe, slowing the Allied advance. The film covers the battle straightforwardly, with lots of compelling archival footage. There’s also an interesting section on the attempts made to allow the beleaguered GIs occasional opportunities for rest and recreation––I would like to see the original films the archival footage was taken from.

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

Flitful Flashes of First Alarms (film #22 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

This 30s film shows us a great variety of the everyday tasks of New York’s firefighters, from putting out vehicle fires to stopping an ammonia leak to pulling a horse carcass out of the sewer to putting out prank fires kids set on election day. Lots of great scenes of vintage firefighting equipment are in this film, including scenes of old-time steamers. Lots of historical value here, and firefighting fans should find this interesting.

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

Developing Self-Reliance (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #429 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Eductational]

This Coronet film stars Woody from Dating Dos and Don’ts, though it’s not nearly as campy as the other film. Now that he’s got dating under control, his next problem is being too dependent on others, so a teacher gives him a set of simple steps to self-reliance, and soon Woody is so self-reliant he’s taking over whole projects at the Student Council. Of course, the adults responsible for this film didn’t really want teens to “make their own decisions,” or rather, they only wanted them to make their own decisions if their decisions were ones the adults would have made for them. Still, this film is not quite as farfetched as the usual Coronet outing. If we take its premise at face value, the “Steps to Self-Reliance” seem reasonable, though somewhat simplistic. But the teacher even admits that, saying that it takes a long time to develop self-reliance. For the most part, though, this is pretty standard Coronet stuff, meaning it’s charming in its own innocent way.

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

Cops (film #7 on Feature Films). [Category: Hollywood]

Buster Keaton’s snooty girlfriend won’t marry him unless he becomes a rich businessman, so after convolutedly stealing a guy’s wallet, he makes his first big investment, buying a load of furniture off of a con-artist who tells him a sob-story about being evicted. Unfortunately, the furniture actually belongs to a family that is waiting for the movers. But Buster doesn’t know this, so he drives the furniture away in a huge wagon. Eventually, after having some trouble with his horse, he ends up in a policeman’s parade, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he ends up catching a bomb thrown by the local anarchist, using it to light his cigarette and then casually tossing it into the massed policemen. This gets the whole force angry at him, and it all ends with a wonderfully clever chase scene, as Buster takes on and prevails over every cop in town. This is a fun Buster outing, with lots of great off-the-cuff gags, and some amazing stunts that show you just what an acrobat he was.

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

Extraordinary Cab Accident (film #19 on The Movies Begin, Volume Two: The European Pioneers (Kino Video, 1994)). [Category: Early Film & TV]

A man gets run over by a horse-and-buggy cab but emerges unscathed due to the magic of special effects. Nya! Fooled ya! A 1903 Robert W. Paul film.

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

Catching an Early Train (film #57 on Edison Film Archive). [Category: Early Film & TV]

A guy gets dressed in the morning with lightning speed thanks to the magic of running the film backwards. It’s fun to watch filmmakers discover all the neat little camera and editing tricks you can play in these early films. A 1901 Edison film.

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

Handbook for Air Raid Wardens (film #6 on WWII V for Victory War Bonds & Rallies Show (Something Weird, 1996)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This training film for air raid wardens and the general public on how to deal with air raids is quite quaint when you consider that the U.S. never had to deal with any. It has a stark, educational-film quality about it that gives it a real wartime feel. It's hard to remember that in the days after Pearl Harbor people were really afraid of being bombed. This is a great wartime relic with much historical interest and a bit of campiness as well.

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

Blondie on a Budget Trailer (film #18 on SabuCat Movie Trailers). [Category: Commercial]

This trailer for a film in the 40s Blondie-and-Dagwood series is made way more annoying than it needs to be by a whiny-voiced narrator. Also, it gives away most of the plot. Still, the narration is bizarre and oblique, making this way weirder than your average trailer for a conventional comedy such as this. If ever there was a really bad trailer for a movie that wasn’t so bad, this is it.

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

Ain’t That Loving You, Baby (film #9 on Bedazzled. Also, film #8 in the Video section of Bedazzled). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

In this 60s TV clip, Glenn Campbell sings “Ain’t That Loving You, Baby.” This was back when he was a rock and roller, rather than the country star he would later be better known as. He really does rock out here, complete with backup singers and screaming teenyboppers. His guitar playing is impressive, though not helped at all by the dancers wielding prop guitars, though this only makes the clip more fun, reminding us that television, as well as other mainstream media of the time, just didn’t know how to deal with rock and roll.

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

Fireworks Recipe (film #16 in the Public Info. Films section of TVArk). [Category: Public Service]

70s British PSA urging parents to follow the Firework Code, a set of safety instructions available at fireworks dealers. This is straightforward and fairly effective at conveying its message, without resorting to sensationalistic depictions of injuries, like other PSAs of this type.

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

Apprentice (film #10 in the Action section of Brickfilms). [Category: Outtakes & Obscurities]

In medieval Legoland, an old man’s apprentice battles the apprentice of an evil king in order to rescue a kidnapped girl. This silent brickfilm is technically well done, but the story seems to be only a section of a larger work, which cuts down the interest level somewhat.

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

Hollywood Extra Girl (film #39 in the Documentary section of Movieflix). [Category: Hollywood]

This charming short tells the story of a female extra and how she is given her big chance by Cecil B. DeMille during the filming of The Crusades. Memorable scenes include hearing the thoughts of various extras and why they keep doing it even though their chances of stardom resemble a snowball’s chance in hell, and hearing DeMille bawl out the hairdresser for letting an extra through with one of the latest 1930s hairstyles. The film is both encouraging and discouraging of ordinary peoples’ dreams of stardom, which is par for the course for this sort of thing. There’s a real charm to this, though, and despite its romanticized view of Hollywood there’s still a somewhat realistic “behind the scenes” feel to the proceedings. This film typifies the sort of thing I like to see in the Hollywood category.

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

Apollo 8 – Go for TLI (film #3 on Open Source Movies). [Category: News]

This 1969 film documents the Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit the moon. The story is well told, giving a fair amount of drama to the proceedings, and adding interesting little details, like the fact that the astronauts got to have turkey TV dinners for their Christmas meal, while the mission control staff ate burgers and chips at their desks. This mission would be overshadowed by Apollo 11, so it’s interesting to see it get its due as an amazing feat in itself.

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

The Battle of Supply (film #5 on Side A of Disc #2 of the War in Europe section of Combat Classics DVD Megapack (Mill Creek Entertainment, 2006)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This documentary covers the difficulties of shipping supplies to the front in the months after D-Day. It also covers the taking of Antwerp, Belgium, important to the Allies as a port city and thus a solution to the supply distribution problem. This is all told straightforwardly, with the help of some striking archival footage, as most of the films in this series. Military transportation buffs should enjoy the extensive scenes of trucks and of rebuilding European rail lines.

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

500,000 to One (film #21 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

This film about insects starts with a dramatic scene of the end of the world, with the last surviving form of animal life being a bug. Cheery thought, isn’t it? The rest of the film gives us way more information than we want to know about insects, with lots of visuals of various kinds of bugs, some creepy and some beautiful. It tells us that human beings have altered the balance of nature in ways that affect insect populations, mostly creating overpopulation of pests. The solution to this is to wage all-out war on the insects we don’t like––after all, we can’t be expected to alter our routines any, can we? Lots of spraying of everything with chemicals is shown, but to the film’s credit, other types of insect control are also mentioned, such as traps, quarantine, biological warfare, importing predators, and the good old-fashioned flyswatter. Priceless moments include the animated apocalyptic opening scene, a 50s housewife rescuing her freshly-frosted cake from an overeager kid armed with a flyswatter, a big ugly 50s car pulling a trailer that sprays everything in sight with insecticide, a scary scene of an exterminator in a gas mask fumigating a house with cyanide (says so on the warning signs), and a scientist injecting larvae one at a time with a deadly insect disease. Still, at least lip-service is paid to the idea that the cure of the insect problem shouldn’t create new problems in the future, making this a slightly more enlightened film than most 50s films on this subject. And junior entomologists will enjoy all the footage of bugs.

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

Destruction: Fun or Dumb? (film #11 on AV Geeks). [Category: Educational]

This 70s anti-vandalism film is as strident as any 50s film, plus it has an incredibly dorky theme song and lots of bad acting to boot. They may leave it to the students to decide if destruction is fun or dumb, but as for the film itself, I pick the latter. Sometimes you just want to break something, you know?

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

Convict 13 (film #7 on Feature Films). [Category: Hollywood]

While playing golf near the penitentiary, Buster Keaton gets knocked out by his own ball just when an escaped prisoner happens by. The prisoner exchanges clothes with Buster, causing the pursuing guards to think he is the escaped convict. Buster runs, but because nothing ever goes right for him, he ends up back in the prison. The warden’s daughter helps him to escape hanging, and he gets the opportunity to exchange clothes again with a guard, but must contend with a huge bullying convict and a prison riot. Unfortunately, this is one of Buster’s weaker efforts, exchanging a complicated, farcical plot for Buster’s usual difficulties attempting to do ordinary things, which are hilarious. It does have its moments, especially in the satirical hanging sequence, but it could have been way funnier.

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