Owen Kline presents: Monomania Program 1

Intro and Q&A discussion with Owen Kline and Miriam Linna.

SEIZURE WARNING!

Soul City (M. Henry Jones, 1979, 2MIN, 16mm)

In Henry Jones’ words, this film is intended to, “Visually counterpoint the music of a subculture.”
Punk rock group FLESHTONES perform the song “Soul City,” as tiny black & white cut-out figures, (with hand-tinted flesh tones), against a flickering background of brilliant color.

Putz (22MIN, 16mm)

A short film starring FUNNY PAGES’ basement-dwelling breakthrough star Michael Townsend Wright. One example of many magnificent Rothbard & Wright collaborations of the eighties and nineties, this offbeat 16mm short birthed the character of Charlie Putz and was soon followed by Rothbard’s surreal independent 16mm feature, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLIE PUTZ, starring Townsend Wright as an elevator operator with his head in the clouds, premiering at Anthology Film Archives in 1994.

Who Killed Teddy Bear? (Joseph Cates, 1965, 94MIN, 35mm)

This stylish, psychosexual B-picture is an amazing example of low-budget New York filmmaking and it also happens to be directed by my grandfather. A great time capsule of smutty, old Times Square – in fact, all of the Times Square footage of Sal Mineo was “stolen”, including a chase in the street, and the cinematographer nearly got killed by traffic during the filming of it. It’s definitely the first movie to ever shoot a scene in an adult book store too. Scorsese is a big fan of this movie and there is a lot of proto-Taxi Driver in there: shots of Sal Mineo pumping iron and wandering around adult book stores are an indicator. Also the jazzy Charlie Calello score. And maybe Elaine Strich’s best role as a lesbian nightclub owner preying on Juliet Prowse that gets strangled by Mineo with a silk stocking on the Upper East Side.