Sunday, June 14, 2009

TONIGHT ON PUBLIC DOMAIN MOVIE CLASSICS:

7:30 PM - Hell is for Texans and Certain Oklahomans (1937). Ill-fated attempt to make a star out of Rex Knipper, "the Singeing Cowboy." Knipper plays George "Wild Bill" Hochfliesch, a Sheriff enlisted to clean up the lawless town of Cordwood. Keeping a promise he made to his wife on her father's deathbed, he vows to do the job without killing anybody. Instead, he shoots with undeadly accuracy and burns the ends of his enemies' eyebrows and facial hair instead, making them so crazy from the smell that they leave town. Bart Herckmann directs with his usual flair, keeping the camera pointed at whoever is speaking at the moment three out of five times. (78m, b/w)

8:50 PM - Short Film: Hollywood's Golden Goiters! (7m, b/w)

9 PM - Freak-Off! (1968). Exploitation master Rod Cowper (Deathsponge '70, Schwinn Sadists) sent Damiel Flelm (The Dampening) to San Francisco to research, write and direct the definitive cinematic exposé on the then-burgeoning "peace and love" generation. Despite being 47, slightly deaf and cursed with inadequate handwriting, Flelm delivered the goods as only he could. Wide-eyed innocent Joanie Edswiller (Gertie Whettnap) heads across country in search of her runaway sister and quickly finds herself right at the intersection of Hake and Ashburger, where she falls in with a band of pet-smoking, antacid-eating youngsters whose motto is "tune up, turn over and drop it." An ASPCA letter-writing campaign and a protracted lawsuit from Tums kept this film out of circulation for years, but it remains a worthy artifact, with strong-smelling performances from G. David Schine Jr., Huntz Hall III, and, as the charasmatic "Dr. Drug Supplier," Christine Jorgensen, not to mention its shockingly accurate depiction of the horrors of cat-smoking. The haunting theme song ("Psycho Deli [Meat Platter of the Mind]") is by the Banana Split Infinitives. (97m, color)

10:40 PM - Documentary Short: Cold Remedies of the Incans (16m, color)

11 PM - The Glorious Event (1953). Seventy different full-scale sets spanning six continents, a shooting schedule topping 36 months, a screenplay co-written by John Steinbeck, Eugene O'Neill and Evelyn Waugh, and the largest international cast assembled in motion pictures to that time came together to produce this four-hour CinemaScope epic about Len Paltrow (Eddie Bracken), inventor of the dickey. (235m, color)

2:55 AM - Profiles in Celluloid - Myrna Loy: Christ, What a Whore (35m)

3:30 AM - We're Discussing Movies Over Here with Bendix Cratt (a PDMC original). This week, Cratt discusses the art of film with director L.N. McKittrick (Flaming Chiropodists, A Gilded Cyst, Cats Have Strokes Too). As McKittrick died six years ago, he does both parts. We didn't think anything of it until afterwards. (60m; last show of the series)

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