The Movie Orgy

I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles Ca. for a very rare screening of The Movie Orgy on April 22nd 2008. It was shown on the last night of the Joe Dante festival, Dante's Inferno, two weeks of films programmed by the famed director. In 1968 Joe Dante and producer Jon Davison, then college students, spliced this massive collection of film and television bits together and toured college campuses with The Movie Orgy. It was a four and a half hour bombardment of imagery from television, movies, old serials, news programs, musical performances, etc., to form a pop culture explosion of pre-1968 baby boomer nostalgia. It was a lot of fun, truly the most entertaining cinematic experience I ever had. For someone like me that was born around the time this film was playing the college circuit, it was a chance to watch the influences and yearnings of an entire generation before me splayed out in a bouillabaisse of cinematic insanity. I loved it.

I really gotta see College Confidential now, don't I?

10 minutes into this and I have to give if 5 stars by default. Not simply because I know this is a tremendous epic effort of a singular, incisive American pop-culture satirical force, but because this is basically the movie equivalent of looking around my father-in-law's workroom. And... his workroom is friggin' fab!

So, I know (thanks to an intro from a friendly rep from AGFA before the screening that Joe Dante has said that he just sees this as a bunch of "stuff;" but editing and flow matters, pacing matters, and as an editor, taking himself as well as a college audience raised on some/much of this, Dante knew what he was doing here - at least to get a laugh whenever possible.

Examples: like when he has the clip of the kids coming in to the clubhouse or whatever to watch something and then it cuts to a nudie movie with two ladies taking off their clothes by the rocks. Or the kid in the one Western show saying "and rmthis here dog" and it cuts right to a close-up of Lassie in another show. Or in a Bible program and the line "as the hour of the lord drew near" and it it cuts to a killer Gorilla movie. There's a plethora of examples like that.

It's Free Association cutting, but often it isnt; it's madness and there's a method, as sometimes Dante and Davison let a set piece play out longer than you expect because, hey, who doesnt want to see Elisha Cook Jr in College Confidential. Other times, the Movie Orgy is what it may be most easily pegged as: flipping through channels - at a time when kids or anyone couldn't do that so easily. It works like the brain does to make connections between references... only this has 10,000 of them. And sometimes, well, what else are you going to cut to when Jimminy Cricket is in a Pinocchio commercial than... Elsa Martinelli?! Sure! And the Abbot and Costello scene is legit a laugh Riot.

It's a crazy, uproariously funny, surreal, abstract, proto-Keyboard-Cat cameoing cornucopia-smorgasbord of mid 20th century Escapism, advertising, propaganda (both nuclear and political purposes, from cops to the first televangelists to of course why giving bonds to Vietnam is important, you listen to Ann Margaret now) and shtick. When you are watching things on TV, you almost don't know how maddening as well as entertaining (and, indeed, crap) it all is until its presented as such. Or maybe we always knew.

I understand all the better how the Boomers, who were glued to TVs, fed ads for cigarettes, peanut butter and fear, and oh right those nice youngsters the Beatles (or that one cringe bit with Elvis and the hound dog), got attitudes about certain parts of life, the opposite sex, and living they may not have been conscious of (how could they be). It's a Boob Tube but a Dream Machine and Magic Store. And it would be the most staggering coincidence to me that the makers of The Atomic Cafe didn't seen it at some point. The whole thing feels like a miracle. And a cacophony. It's what Advertisers and Schlockmeisters and Hacks and the Government have wanted us to see from the start.

Unique. Look out for giant grasshoppers and Nixon reading the Checkers speech!

Though I never saw the original "Movie Orgy" I, also, remember seeing "Son of Movie Orgy" in 1972.

It was 3 1/2 hours long, and sponsored by Schlitz Beer. I know because I still have the mini-poster advertising it. (I'll have to see if I can upload a scan of this)

2 years later they came out with "Movie Orgy Rides Again" and it, also, was 3 1/2 hours long. I have the mini-poster for it as well.

I'd love to see these again.

I have to believe they were the inspiration for part of what later became the "Night Flight" weekend shows on the USA TV network?

As the Committee Chairman of the Sunday Night Student Film Committee at BSU, part of Student Program Board, I was approached by Schlitz to screen both the original Movie Orgy and Son of Movie Orgy the next year. Along with the movie, which was a compilation of B-movies, Army training films, commercials and other various stuff, Schlitz offered a dozen kegs of beer. Boise State University had a strict policy of no alcohol on campus in 1972 but I was not going to let 12 free kegs of beer pass on a technicality. Across the street, off state property, sat the American Legion Hall. They would not allow us to have just a kegger so I invented the Schlitz Movie Orgy Talent Show. You had to have a legitimate "act" to enter and there were no prizes as such... but there was free beer. It was a most awesome occasion but the next year when Son of Movie Orgy was offered, I was informed that no such repeat of the previous year would be allowed under threat of expulsion... both movie compilations were worth the watch but the kegger... now that was memorable...

I saw the "SCHLITZ MOVIE ORGY" at the University of Wisconsin when I was a TV & Film major around 1977. It was projected outdoors and the students brought blankets to spread on the lawn. The film consisted of commercials and cult TV series and B movies. The editing was done as to unite unrelated shots to create humor. Sound was also done this way as well. I found most of the humor in the dialog spoken by the actors. A typical line of dialog would be like: "Yes Billy...You too can get the froppy top through a Barters department store".Billy: Wow We Captain Jimmy" The dated perfect - press clothes and the simplistic set design added to the corny-ness.

The film was a bit too long once the corny-ness eventually wore off on the audience. ...but the outdoor presentation on a warm and humid summer night made it truly an experience I'll never ever forget !