Backyard Movie Party IV: Voyages

This past Friday — Memorial Day weekend — was our first backyard movie party of the season, we being the usual suspects of Brian, Gary, and myself. The location, once again, was Brian and Gary’s duplex in Ballard, which I’ve come to start calling The Ballard CineYard — tho KinoHortus also crossed the mind. (”Kino” from kinoscope and “hortus” being the Latin for garden or park.) Attendance was a little sparse, probably owing to the double whammy of it being a holiday weekend and a Friday, but everyone seemed to have a good time all the same.

This was the first event we did under the moniker of The Sprocket Society, an idea me and Brian have been toying with which may or may not turn into something more. I was also able to use my new Elmo 16-CL, which meant matching projectors and no need to borrow the second one. Both were equipped with 38mm lenses, which meant an image about 50 percent larger than the standard 50mm lens — very nice.

Anyway, here’s the film list. As always, everything was shown from 16mm prints from my collection.

A still from 'Betty in Blunderland'

Betty in Blunderland (1934, USA, cartoon, b/w)
Directed by Dave Fleischer. Animated by Roland Crandall and Thomas Johnson.

Betty Boop falls asleep while working on a jigsaw puzzle of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” characters. The White Rabbit in the puzzle comes to life, and Betty follows him through a mirror into Blunderland, which is just like Wonderland, except that it has subway stations and a beverage called Shrink-Ola. Songs and wackiness ensue until the Jaberwock runs off with Betty. (Watch the film at Archive.org. Read an essay about this film by Paul Verhoeven.)

Take One (1970, USA, b/w & color)
An anthology of mostly obscure late-’60s period cartoons and short films by various artists, including student filmmakers.

• Ashes of Doom (1970, CA, live action, color) — Directed by Grant Munro & Don Arioli; Munro also appears as a vampire. A comedic anti-smoking PSA produced for the National Film Board of Canada.
• Pollution (1969, USA, animated, color) — Directed by James Conrad and other students of the Univ. of Southern California’s Animation Workshop Project. An animated treatment of the song (live version) by the great Tom Lehrer, which was also once shown on The Carol Burnett Show. (This is a different film from the 1966/1967 versions produced by Astrafilms for the US Communicable Disease Center.)
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  Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967, USA, live action, color) — Directed and written by George Lucas. An impressionistic depiction of a dystopian future in a surveillance state, and a man escaping from an underground city. Lucas’ famous but rarely-shown student film that helped launch his career and would later be the basis for his feature film, THX-1138. Showing this was only appropriate, since this night was the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars. (Watch the film via Google Video.)

• Eat to the Beat (n.d, animated, b/w) — A film by Ernie Schmidt. A parody of game shows and consumer culture.
• Lullaby (n.d., live action, b/w) — A bored married couple in bed, and the wife’s fantasy. Sorry, but I don’t have filmmaker info logged.
• Bananas (n.d., stop-motion animated, color) — Some fruit get it on. Sorry, again I’ve not logged the filmmaker credit.

A Trip to the Moon (orig. Le Voyage dans la Lune) (1902, FR)
Directed by Georges Méliès.
Shown with “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” by Pink Floyd, from Live at Pompeii.

The original science fiction epic (costing an astonishing 10,000 francs), borrowing liberally from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and thus a fitting prelude to the evening’s feature. This print includes the extremely rare concluding scene in which, after the travelers’ return to Earth, the citizens of the port town fete the heroes with medals and marching band, and a captured Selenite is paraded for public view. (Watch the film at Archive.org.)

The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1961, USA dubbed theatrical version)
Originally: Vynález zkázy (1958, Czechoslovakia)
Aka A Deadly Invention (Britain) and Les Aventures Fantastiques (France)
Direction and Production Design by Karel Zeman. Screenplay by Frantisek Hrubín. Set Decoration by Zdenek Rozkopal.

“A magical world of baroque submarines and sailing ships, killer octopus and undersea bicycles dazzles audiences as human actors, puppetry, animation and fanciful scenic design interact to create a cinematic experience that is unique by any standards. Mixing slapstick comedy, action adventure pacing and Méliès style film magic, this little known Czechoslovakian gem transcends the juvenile literature at its source to create cinematic art of the highest order.” (Quoted from RottenTomatoes.com)

Based on the Jules Verne short story The Deadly Invention with additional elements from the novels Face the Flag, The Mysterious Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Master of the World.

The story concerns the machinations of evil millionaire Artigas, who plans to use a super-explosive device to conquer the world. Artigas operates from a pirate submarine, wherein he has imprisoned the explosive’s inventor, Professor Roche, Roche’s assistant Simon Hart, and Roche’s daughter Jana. All are spirited away to Artigas’ secret base inside a huge island volcano, where the professor — foolishly believing that Artigas is a humanitarian — designs and builds the enormous, fantastic machines required to make the super-explosive. The uncooperative Hart sees the truth of the situation and tries to stop Artigas’ mad plan. In the end, Hart and Jana escape in an observation balloon as Professor Roche, now stripped of his illusions about Artigas, detonates the explosive himself and destroys the entire island in a mammoth atomic explosion.

The real star of the show is Karel Zeman’s gorgeous production design, which makes everything on screen look like an 19th century engraving come to life. Indeed, Zeman drew extensively (sometimes verbatim) on the original illustrations created by Alphonse de Neuville and others for the French editions of Verne’s novels. Zeman’s effects work is spectacular, using nearly every trick available at the time: miniatures, forced perspective, stop-motion and flat animation, marvelously detailed sets, matte work, and more. The American distributer dubbed the approach “Mysti-Mation,” though Zeman himself never gave his techniques such an overarching name. If you can find it, the Wade Williams DVD of this film includes a bonus “making of” short showing Zeman and his crew creating the effects for this and other Zeman films. (Scarecrow in Seattle has it for rent.)

Some related links:

• Selected clips from The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (via YouTube)
• Original press materials (in German): page one and page two
• Video clips from Eastern European animation masters (including Zeman) via Darkstrider.net

Poster for 'The Fabulous World of Jules Verne'