Hollywood Underbelly: The Big Knife at Oddball (Event Over)

Event: “Hollywood Underbelly: The Big Knife”  Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present the rarely screened 1955 film noir/high melodrama The Big Knife.  Directed by Robert Aldrich (Kiss Me Deadly, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?) and starring Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Rod Steiger and Shelly Winters, The Big Knife skewers the Hollywood studio system with over-the-top performances and campy, overwrought dialogue.  Long before Altman’s The Player, and amidst HUAC’s Hollywood Red Scare witch-hunt, Aldrich and Screenwriters Clifford Odets and James Poe exposed the dark underbelly, and even darker heart, of Hollywood.  With the 1928 silent classic The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra and the spicy Hollywood As It Really Is.
Date: Friday, November 6, 2009 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or info@oddballfilm.com
Web: http://www.flarerecord.com/?p=376

"Hollywood Underbelly”
The Big Knife Screens at Oddball Films

On Friday, November 6, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present The Big Knife, the 1955 feature directed by Robert Aldrich in a very nice 16mm print.  Although classified as a film noir, it is really a high melodrama with noir elements.  Released during the fallout of the House Un-American Activities Commission hearings (which ruined many Hollywood careers), The Big Knife is a ferocious condemnation of the Hollywood studio system like no other.  Partly (if not mostly) to blame for its poor box office performance- although Aldrich blamed Palance for his lack of matinee star good looks – The Big Knife is overdue for re-assessment.  Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Featuring:

 “THE BIG KNIFE” (B+W, 1955, 111 mins.)
Clifford Odets and James Poe’s play about the black heart of Hollywood gets the full soap opera treatment from director Robert Aldrich ( KISS ME DEADLY; WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?). Rough-hewn matinee idol Jack Palance gets the twice over from venal studio boss Rod Steiger, spineless agent Everett Sloane, damaged spouse Ida Lupino, and everyone else in his orbit. The all-star cast includes Shelley Winters, Jean Hagen and an especially slippery Wendell Corey as Steiger’s euphemism-spewing hatchet man. Deliciously dark fun with none of the Beverly Hills scenery left unchewed.

The Big Knife is based on the stage play by Clifford Odets (who also penned The Country Girl, 1954 and Clash By Night, 1952) and relates two days in the life of Charles Castle (played by Jack Palance), a major Hollywood Star who has sold his dreams to the studio by churning out mediocre motion pictures rather than quality cinema. Not to mention, it’s made to seem as if he likes the ladies, contributing to his wife (Ida Lupino) leaving him, threatening not to come back if he renews a seven year contract that studio head Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger) and his assistant Smiley Coy (the always creepy Wendell Corey) are asking him to sign. The trouble is, Hoff and Coy helped cover up a little DUI incident several years prior in which Castle killed a young child. However, Castle’s press agent took the blame, serving a prison sentence for him. Wishing to save his marriage, Castle attempts to avoid signing the contract, a plan that fails. The situation is exacerbated by an alcoholic studio starlet, Dixie Evans (Shelley Winters), a woman of easy virtue involved in the drunken killing spree that demanded a contract of her own to shut her up. The studio, neglecting to give her any starring roles, asks Castle to feed her poisoned gin to shut her up, a request that sends Castle over the edge and into a very melodramatic conclusion.

“The Life and Death of  9413, a Hollywood Extra” (B+W, 1928) 
Brilliant silent classic directed by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich is strongly influenced by German Expressionism and French avant-garde cinema. Reportedly made for a mere $96.00, the film makes excellent use of cutout miniatures in lieu of large, expensive sets and was photographed by the great Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane). The story concerns the everyman John Jones who longs to be a movie star- only to be numbered, dehumanized and rejected.  He never regains his humanity on earth- only in heaven.

PLUS! “Hollywood As It Really Is” (B+W, late 1940’s)  Hilarious, one-of-a-kind short hits the real streets of Hollywood with spicy commentary, leggy dames and lupine gents!

Curator Biography:
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave.  A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

Upcoming Programs
Fri Nov 6 -  Hollywood Underbelly- The Big Knife
Sat Nov 7 – Lost Animation III
Fri Nov 13 – Weirdsville – Oddities From The Archives
Fri Nov 20 - Mess w/Erik Davis+Gerry Fialka, Plus clips of Anton LeVey, Aleister Crowley, Led Zepplin IV+more
Sat Nov 21 - From Canada! The Best of the Super 8 Challenge
Fri Nov 27 -  Forbidden, Not Forgotten – Banned & Censored Cartoons

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  â€¨Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.