Curt McDowell Programme #1: Stinky Wieners and Dreamy Beavers

Don’t miss this special celebration of gay artist Curt McDowell; the first of two programmes, all films newly restored on 16mm by the Academy Film Archive.

Beaver Fever (1974)

Curt McDowell’s short films cover a wide range of stylistic and thematic territory, including musical theatre, sex, screwball comedy, abstract narrative, sex, diaristic collage, deviancy, sex, deconstructed Hollywood tropes, sex, and sex. From his cheeky yet moving self-portrait Confessions to the rarely seen absurdist melodrama Beaver Fever (starring George Kuchar as Hunk), this programme of early short films hits all the above keywords, often several in a single film.

Mark Toscano

Total running time 74min

Ainslie Trailer (For Underground Cinema 12)

USA 1972. 2min

Confessions

USA 1971. 11min

Wieners And Buns Musical

USA 1972. 14min

True Blue And Dreamy

USA 1973. 13min

Dora Myrtle

USA 1973. 9min

The Mean Brothers “Get Stood Up”

USA 1973. 4min

Stinky-Butt

USA 1974. 3min

Beaver Fever

USA 1974. 20min

Projected in 16mm

Archive Film Restorations: Curt McDowell

Gay San Francisco artist Curt McDowell made experimental films that were bold, hilarious, confessional and exploratory. Collaborator and lover George Kuchar said ‘Life for him was a fast track to fast times that included devilish detours into forbidden erogenous zones.’ Though best known in the UK for the multi-sexual romp Thundercrack!, he in fact made over thirty films before succumbing to AIDS in 1987. We are delighted to present two whole programmes of his bawdy, life-affirming, frequently sexually explicit work, all titles newly restored on 16mm by the Academy Film Archive and curated and introduced by the Academy’s Mark Toscano.

William Fowler