Short Things

 

 (mubi.com)

BARBEQUE DEATH SQUAD FROM HELL-1986-Penn & Teller star in this short advertising their company that turn boring family home movies into horror films. Lydia Lunch is their secretary. Crude, clever, deranged and funny. Directed by the wool hat wearing guitarist of “The Monkees”, Michael Nesmith.

 (imdb)

THE ADVENTURES OF RED ROOSTER-1984-So it seems around 1984, no budget sleaze master Andy Milligan decided to tackle the TV sit-com! He and screenwriter Donald Tobey made 5 episodes of the title show. This is sometimes called the pilot but it really seems like some kind of highlight reel with scenes edited together from the episodes. The plot concerns a young country girl (Leslie Den Dooven) who comes to NYC to work for the company Red Rooster, that manufactures a Viagra type pill. It reminded me more of a Hershell Gordon Lewis hillbilly movie. It's pretty bad. Star Den Dooven was also in Milligan's CARNAGE the same year.

 (archive.org)

INSTANT ADORING BOYFRIEND-A British guy (Brodie Bass) speaks into the camera. He seems to be talking to a woman he loves and worships, throwing out compliment over compliment while he works out, irons, etc. It's left to the viewer to figure out what's going on. Strange.

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2 Shorts

 

 (imdb)

LE SPECTRE ROUGE-(THE RED SPECTRE)-1907-This silent 9 MINUTE short was made in Spain by two directors and was influenced by Georges Melies. A skeletal demon does lots of magical tricks thanks to the use of many optical film tricks. It's crude but clever (hey, it was made over a hundred years ago!) and features great tinted color scenes. Sometimes confused with SATAN S'AMUSE made the same year by the same directing team.

 (imdb)

Il CASO VALDEMAR-1936-Weird, haunting silent short adaptation of the Poe story done in Italy. It might be hard to follow if you're not familiar with the story (I am and still found it a little mind boggling). It's sometimes referred to as the first "gore film" and I can see why in the climax. 26 years later Roger Corman used the same story for the third segment of TALES OF TERROR. It's only 12 minutes, judge for yourself:

https://youtu.be/qz3bw_21K8M?feature=shared 

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Short Shorts

 

 (world atlas)

POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN-1983-This is a strange surreal plot-less musical short with two women being stalked by a weird guy named Arthur. After some incomprehensible scenes they turn the tables on him (???). Weird shit made with funds from The National Endowment for The Arts and The Ohio Arts Council.

MAMMALS-1962-This weird short about two guys in the snowy frozen wilderness has been described as "Waiting for Godot" on ice. Roman Polanski co-wrote and directed it before his first feature film, KNIFE IN THE WATER. Yuk it up. It's Roman Polanski. He's a genius...

 (grepmed.com)

MUCHAUSEN-2013-Very well made short without any dialogue, about mother's (Bonnie Bedelia) obsessive behavior toward her son who is ready to leave home for college. Written and directed by Ali Aster. 

 (getty images)

GRANDMOTHER'S BEDTIME STORY-1979-A tired grandmother fed up with her bratty grandson who won't go to bed, reads him a story about a little princess who won't go to bed and is terrorized by a witch, a goblin, a hunchback and finally a dragon. Weird little gore short by Michael Hitchcock.

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Mammal by They Might Be Giants:

https://youtu.be/14jjo7MtSzE?feature=shared

Short Western

 

OKLAHOMA OUTLAWS-1943-The Kincaids battle corruption led by bad guy Whip McCord (Warner Anderson) and his gang of thugs (including Charles Middleton). When Pop Kincaid (Erville Alderson) is framed for murder, son Nate (Robert Shayne) finds evidence that proves his innocence but while he's off finding the judge (Addison Richards) McCord leads a lynch mob that hangs dad. He and McCord have a furious fist fight and McCord is killed. Nate becomes sheriff and marries the judge's daughter Jean (Juanita Stark). 

First in a Warner Brothers series called "Santa Fe Trails", most starring Shayne but playing different characters. This 20 minute short was directed by B. Reeves Easton who made many westerns and short subjects and the serial UNDERSEA KINGDOM (1936) starring Crash Corrigan.

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Jack London

TO BUILD A FIRE-1969-Very good but depressing UK adaptation of Jack London's short story of the same name. A doomed man (Ian Hogg) tries to cross snow bound mountain in -70 degree weather with only his dog. It doesn't turn out the way he expected. Orson Welles narrates. Writer/director David Cobham made many documentary shorts before this.

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Propaganda

THE HOAXTERS-1952-In this post-WW2 cold war propaganda short film Adolf Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini are compared to snake oil salesmen. It uses footage of war torn Germany, Italy and Japan and blames everything on Karl Marx, the “fourth pitchman of the apocalypse” and says communism is the new snake oil. Stalin (a WW2 ally) is shown watching troops march in Red Square. FDR, Truman, Adlai Stevenson and Dwight David Eisenhower all agree that Communism is the new Nazism. Howard Keel, George Murphy, Walter Pigeon, Robert Taylor, Barry Sullivan and James Whitmore are credited as narrators and Sid Tomack appears as a salesman. No director is credited for this MGM production but the screenwriter Herman Hoffman later directed TV shows and soap operas so it might be him.

DECEMBER 7TH-1943-This film commissioned by the US Navy was directed by John Ford and Greg Toland. Uncle Sam (Walter Huston) explains what's going on in Hawaii (before Pearl Harbor). It kind of ignores how the US came to the islands but talks about all the Japanese who worked and settled there (many of them American citizens). It tries to say that most of the Japanese who live there were loyal to America except those that were part of the Shinto religion (actor Philip Ahn, of Korean descent plays a Shinto priest). Yet then it implies that most of the Japanese were spies who helped bring about the bombings and collaborated with The Nazis. After Sam has a debate with Mr. C (Harry Davenport) he falls asleep. Everyone then goes about their business on that fateful Sunday morning. Many actual and detailed and tragic scenes are shown. It then goes on to show how the attacks negatively affected the Japanese-Hawaiians. Dana Andrews appears as the spirit of a dead sailor while Ralph Byrd and Robert Lowery have un-billed roles as does the narrator Irving Pichel.

 It won a 1943 Academy Award for best documentary short subject.

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Italy

L'AMORE-1948-This landmark film (actually two short films) by Italian neo-realist Robert Rossellini was banned in many parts of the US until a Supreme Court decision citing "artistic expression" was protected by "freedom of speech". The film is also a tribute/tour de force for it's star Anna Magnani. 

The first story is "The Human Voice" written by Jean Cocteau (based on his play). It's about a woman speaking on the phone to her lover who no longer loves her. It takes place entirely in the woman's bedroom. The second story called "The Miracle"  (co-wrtten by Rosellini & Fredrico Fellini) is the one that caused the controversy. It concerns Nammi (Magnani again), a simple very religious peasant who meets a stranger (Fellini) she believes is St. Joseph.  He gives her too much wine and she passes out. When she awakens (and the stranger is gone) she goes on her way only to discover a few weeks later she is pregnent. She thinks it's immaculate conception but the town shuns her and later publicly humiliates her. She goes off alone and has her baby. The end.

Despite all the controversy the reason it was rarely seen for years had to do with a copyright on the Cocteau play.

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Health Short

HER NAME WAS ELLIE, HIS NAME WAS LYLE-1967-Bruce (John Pleschette) is a NYC high school basketball player who believes he has syphilis. He's rude to his girlfriend, takes lots of showers and when his grouchy father tries to talk to him he clams up. He tries to steal some penicillin from a druggist and then goes to a clinic and gets examined by an African American doctor who tells Bruce he's got the clap. Bruce got it from a waitress named Ellie (Lynne Lipton) and he breaks the bad news to her. ("Of all the lousy luck"). She goes to the clinic for help and gets a lecture.  His well informed girlfriend gets very angry when he tells her the truth (apparently from their conversation they were having sex) then she goes to the clinic and gets checked out. The counselor at the health clinic searches for a guy named Lyle who gave the dose to Ellie. By the end of this 28 minute short Lyle is still out there and "remains dangerous to himself and the community".  This black and white Dept. of Health warning  is the only directorial effort by German born Lothar Wolff who according to some sources edited Fritz Lang's THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE and THE LAST WILL OF DR. MABUSE! Filmed in Manhattan.

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A Problem “Down There”...

THE INNOCENT PARTY-1959-Don and his friend go to the city to see a movie and pick two easy girls. He has sex with one of them and the next night he convinces his steady girl Betty to have sex with him in his car. Things really change between them especially when Don finds out he has contracted syphilis from his encounter with “the city girl”. Even though a doctor shows him slides of chancre sores (“Boy, pretty awful looking”) and such Don doesn't want to reveal that Betty might be infected (and ruin her reputation).

 Produced by the Kansas State Board of Health, it was directed by Herk Harvey who made dozens of short documentaries and industrial film before and after his only feature film in 1962: CARNIVAL OF SOULS... 

The washed out color print I saw was tacked on to Alpha Video DVD version of DAMAGED LIVES.  

Shorts

In the  middle of Hurricane Sandy so I'll have to keep it short (with some shorts)!

PERVERSION FOR PROFIT-1965-Infamous propaganda film warning of the horrors of adult magazines (called smut) and it's effects on society. It's on screen narrator is George Putnam, at the time a popular radio and TV commentator. It makes some valid points but it's all lost on it's unintentionally funny dialogue. It was produced by real estate developer and financier Charles Keating, later involved in the 1980's savings and loan scandal.

ASK ME, DON'T TELL ME-1961-Interesting short produced by Youth In Service, an early '60's organization that tired to help teenagers in gangs (or jacket clubs). Black, White and Hispanic youth are all involved. There's straight narration but occasionally another guy talks in jive and nice background music by The Five Chips (they do versions of Johnny B. Goode and La Bamba). It's very positive and not the usual propaganda crap.

THE TROUBLE MAKER-1957-Mel, a big mouth liar who likes to spread rumors gets 2 football players into trouble after lying about dating a female student. Not much else happens and at the end the narrator asks "what would you do?". It was directed by Herk Harvey who a few years later made the unforgettable CARNIVAL OF SOULS.

GANG BOY-1954-Badly made but interesting little short about teenager violence as two street gangs (one White, one Chicano) do battle. Danny, the leader of the Chicano gang narrates most of it as he looks back on his life and remembers how he became a "gang boy". Was this the inspiration for WEST SIDE STORY? 

Producer Sid Davis and writer/director Arthur Swerdloff made several other shorts along this line. Most of them used post-sync dialogue, a device later used to the hilt by Doris Wishman on most of her films.

Take care and stay dry!