BALLYHOO: The Hollywood Sideshow (1996) is an early documentary on the world of exploitation cinema and its origins. Originally aired on American Movie Classics-- when it was still commercial-free and supported Hollywood's Golden Age-- what it lacks in high energy it makes up for in being an adequately informative introduction to anyone newly discovering this uniquely American genre of low budget filmmaking and the sensationalism used to promote it. Hosted by Frankie Avalon and featuring comments from John Waters, Roger Ebert, Peter Bogdanovich, Mamie Van Doren, and exploitation pioneer Dave Friedman, among others. Introduction by former AMC host, Nick Clooney. These videos were transferred from VHS which were recorded from broadcast over 10 years ago, so you may find the quality offered a couple of miles this side of inferior. But hey, what d'ya want fer nuthin'? ;-) Enjoy.
If you'd like to see more, you can watch parts 2 thru 7 via my YouTube channel
Girlfriend/botched abortion victim Jill St JohnStudio head Joseph Cotten
Since Mavis' AC is broken and it's over 100 here, we're cooling off by watching "The Oscar." Or rather, she is, and I was inspired by her post to put up these screengrabs I took the last time I watched my own DVD copy. These are from Stephen Boyd's bad dream. Everyone should have one! A copy of "The Oscar," that is. Then again, this dream sequence is pretty hilarious.
"I've heard this is directed by Robert Altman but can't seem to find any info on that on the internets...can anyone confirm?
UPDATE: Bob Orlowsky of the Scopitone Archive has the scoop (of course): "Hey Spike, I saw your question about Altman and Bittersweet Samba. If you do a Google search for Altman Color-Sonics Fortier, you'll find a PDF file from a college film seminar on Altman, which has an interview with Altman that includes a brief reference to a film that is clearly Bittersweet Samba:
"Q: While you were waiting for your break into features, you made some comic short films, three of which you’ve occasionally allowed people to see: The Kathryn Reed Story, a birthday present for your wife; The Party, with Robert Fortier as a hapless guest at a very 1960s party, one of a projected series of juke-box movies called ColorSonics; and Pot au feu, a parody of a TV cookery programme explaining the recipe for a perfect marijuana joint.
A: I did those just for myself. They were unfinanced, just bringing together a few friends, borrowing a camera, and so on. But because of one of those films I got hired to do M*A*S*H: Ingo Preminger looked at Pot au feu and loved it, so it served its purpose."
This is not your average cheesy Scopitone! I'm trying to work out which came first, "The Party" directed by Blake Edwards and starring my favorite actor, Peter Sellers, or this!? Clearly there's some mutual admiration between the two!
I might even prefer Altman's party...but then I'm a big fan of Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass!
My AC is on the fritz and even the lemon co-colas with lots of chipped ice aren't cooling me off. They say you should have something hot and spicy if you want to cool down, so here's a little Jill St. WOW from "The Oscar":
Another VHS discovery in my video vault! This was part of TNT's "Bad Movies We Love" series, hosted by Ed Marguiles and Steve Rebello who wrote for "Movieline" magazine before it went bland and boring.
More about "The Oscar" another day, but it's a good thing Tony Bennett didn't give up his day job.
All of the inmates here at Celluloid Slammer are incarcerated for the same crime - love of movies! The good, bad, ugly - we don't use such mundane terminology.
Many of us honed our skills in working in video stores, and others have chosen - beyond all advice to the contrary - to work in "the biz" exposed by such hard-hitting exposes like "The Oscar" and "The Loved One."
Then there are those of us who grew up only to be disappointed that life didn't have parties like "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," or took LSD only to find that it wasn't like Mimsy Farmer portrayed.
In any case, we all ended up here - the Slammer!
Hell, it cuts down on innumerable cc'd "Have you ever seen THIS?"emails to LA, Boston, NY, Wales, Montreal, North Carolina, Virginia - the Slammer's inmates aren't bothered by pesky maps. Or reality. Check yourself in!
Warden
Slammin' Design
Thanks to Glyph Jockey for fabulous revolving designs!
