(January 9, 1945 – June 3, 1987)
Curt McDowell shot his first films in 1969 on an 8mm Keystone camera, and although he did produce one or more edited works and sequences in this earliest period, some of them don’t quite have a form or identity as discrete, completed works, and often don’t have titles. These pieces are not listed below, but some of it does exist in his film collection. Listed below are only his works known to be complete, with titles.
THE BAG FILM (ca.1969)
8mm, bw & color, sound on tape, 18fps, 52.5m
BURY THE BAG (ca.1969)
8mm, bw & color, silent(?) 18fps, 7m
The autopsy footage featured in this film does seem to be the likely source for the autopsy material seen in the film Taboo (The Single and the LP).
GETTING OLD (1970)
8mm, bw & color, silent (?) 18fps (presumed), 4m
This film was found in McDowell’s collection as a spliced original with labeling on the reel by Curt, suggesting it’s possibly a finished film, but may not have been printed/shown by him. It does not have sound, which is atypical for him, so it’s also possible that sound was intended but never added.
FRIED EGG AND SADDER DUCK (1970)
8mm, bw, sound 18fps, 6.5m
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (1970)
8mm, bw, sound 18fps, 3.5m
HE DOESN’T CARROT ALL (1970)
8mm, bw, sound 18fps, 7m
RACHAEL ON THE ROAD (1970)
8mm, bw, sound 18fps, 6.5m
SPADE OF HARDS (1970)
8mm, bw, sound 18fps, 6m
A VISIT TO INDIANA (1970)
8mm, color, sound 18fps, 10m
A VISIT TO INDIANA [16mm version] (1970)
16mm, color, sound (24fps), 10m
PORNOGRA FOLLIES (1971)
16mm, bw, sound, 27.5m
CONFESSIONS (1971)
16mm, bw, sound, 11.5m
This film seems to have originally been longer, about 16 minutes, but McDowell shortened it at some point (probably early in its life) and the 11.5m version should be considered final. There don’t seem to be any extant prints of the original longer version, although the removed material does possibly seem to survive in McDowell’s collection.
WIENERS & BUNS MUSICAL (1972)
16mm, bw, sound, 13.5m
RONNIE (1972)
16mm, bw, sound, 4m
TRUTH FOR RUTH (1972)
16mm, bw, sound, 3m
THE SIAMESE TWIN PINHEADS (1972)
16mm, bw, sound, 4m
PEED INTO THE WIND (1972)
16mm, bw, sound 54.5m
LUNCH (1972)
16mm, color, sound, 71m
TASTELESS TRILOGY (1972)
16mm, bw, sound, 12.5m
AINSLIE TRAILER (1972)
16mm, color, sound, 1.5m
A trailer produced by McDowell for Underground Cinema 12.
AINSLIE TRAILER #2 (1972)
16mm, color, sound, 1.5m
A trailer produced by McDowell for Underground Cinema 12. This version doesn’t seem to have been released – it features Ainslie Pryor performing and singing the same material as Kathleen Hohalek does in Kathleen Trailer.
KATHLEEN TRAILER (1972)
16mm, color, sound, 1.5m
A trailer produced by McDowell for Underground Cinema 12.
NOZY TOZY (1973)
16mm, color, sound, 4m
A NIGHT WITH GILDA PECK (1973)
16mm, color, sound, 9.5m
DORA MYRTLE (1973) (w/ Mark Ellinger)
16mm, bw, sound, 9m
EDWINA MARLOW (1973) (w/ Academy of Art students)
16mm, bw, sound, 12m
THE MEAN BROTHERS “GET STOOD UP” (1973) (w/ Mark Ellinger)
16mm, bw, sound, 3.5m
BOGGY DEPOT (1973) (w/ Mark Ellinger)
16mm, bw, sound, 17m
TRUE BLUE AND DREAMY (1973)
16mm, bw, sound, 12.5m
STINKY-BUTT (1974) (w/ Mark Ellinger)
16mm, bw, sound, 3.5m
NAUGHTY WORDS (1974)
16mm, bw, sound, 2m
BEAVER FEVER (1974)
16mm, bw, sound, 19.5m
I SUCK YOUR FLESH (1974) (w/ Academy of Art students)
16mm, bw, sound, 20m
FLY ME TO THE MOON (1974)
16mm, bw, sound, 5.5m
PORN ON THE COB (1974)
16mm, color, sound, 1m
NUDES: A SKETCHBOOK (1974)
16mm, bw, sound, 27.5m
THUNDERCRACK! (1975)
16mm, bw, sound, 158m [short version is 120m]
THUNDERCRACK! TRAILER (1975)
16mm/35mm, bw, sound, 3.5m
CURT MCDOWELL’S L.A. SHOW TRAILER (ca.1979)
16mm, bw, sound, 2m
LOADS (1980)
16mm, bw, sound, 19.5m
TABOO (THE SINGLE AND THE LP) (1981)
16mm, bw, sound, 52m
LITTLE SHOWOFFS (aka DEFINITELY X) (1984) (McDowell is credited as “Roger Halcyon”) (w/ Zachary Strong)
16mm, bw & color, sound, 79m
The film is made up of six sequences, entitled (in this order): “Music Master”, “Pick Up”, “Little Egypt”, “Communion”, “Museum Piece”, and “Teacher’s Pet”.
LITTLE SHOWOFFS is the final release title of the film, and DEFINITELY X was the working title, according to both the labeling of outtake elements in the Curt McDowell collection, as well as a reference in an interview with the film’s writer, Molly Seagrim.
Although Curt McDowell is not credited as the director of the film, and he is credited as “Roger Halcyon” in his role as the interviewer in the film, listening to audio outtakes clearly indicate he was a director of at least a good portion of the film (at least the scenes for which outtakes exist). Additionally, in the same aforementioned interview, Molly Seagrim describes Curt as the director and Zachary Strong as the producer (Strong is credited as director in the film).
SPARKLE’S TAVERN (1985)
16mm, bw, sound, 119m
UNFINISHED WORKS
INITIATION ON KING STREET (ca.1978-79)
16mm, bw, sound
Initiation on King Street is an unfinished feature by Curt McDowell. According to Melinda McDowell, the film was basically shot, but never edited fully. According to various sources, including collaborator Mark Ellinger, the film was shot more or less between 1978-1979.
Quoted in Film: The Front Line by David Ehrenstein, Curt McDowell describes this film as being “about children and their parents meeting each other at the same age and experiencing each other’s problems.”
Mark Ellinger, Curt’s longtime friend and collaborator, described the film as follows on his website (dancingonthinice.wordpress.com): “It’s a shame that Curt never finished King Street. It was, or would have been, one of his best films: dreamlike, dark and moody, unsettling and prophetic, densely layered with metaphor; it was an allegory of Curt’s self-discovery as an artist. Initiation on King Street was not Curt’s final film, but it was the last film on which I worked with him. It was another lifetime—we were so damn young. In ’78 and ’79 Curt and I shared a flat near the foot of Utah Street at the bottom of Potrero Hill, when it was still an active industrial district. There were no condos, galleries, or jewelry marts. Our neighbors were companies like Forderer Hollow Metal Products, Best Foods, Kilpatrick’s and Hostess Bakeries, Crown Zellerbach Paper, Lone Star Concrete, Hamilton Hardware, and diners; lots of little diners that fed the factory workers, truckers, and trainmen. Most streets in our part of town were embedded with train tracks, spur lines to the area’s industries, and at night we were often serenaded by the soulful chimes of Western Pacific air horns as switching engines shuttled raw materials and finished products to and from the factories. Much of Initiation on King Street was filmed near the Southern Pacific train depot, within a cobble-stoned labyrinth of low, wooden warehouses between King and Berry Streets, stretching from Fourth Street almost to Seventh.”
SONG OF THE NORTH POLE (ca.1974?)
This is an unfinished project of Curt’s that seems to date to roughly ca.1974. It’s possible that any further work on this project may have been scuttled by Curt’s opportunity to make Thundercrack!, but this isn’t certain. As any other information emerges, I will add to it here. So far, I have encountered a 1/4″ tape of production audio labeled by Curt as being from Polk St. in 1974, and featuring “John, Michele, Melinda, Vincent, and Margo”
PARADISE PENNY ARCADE
HETMAN / HET(ERO)MAN
STAND BY (ca.1984)
16mm, bw, sound, 60m
Stand By is an unfinished film by Curt McDowell. It was apparently assembled to a roughly semi-finished form, because Curt previewed it in this state for Michael Lumpkin to be included in the Frameline Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1984. I talked to Lumpkin about the film, and he said that Curt had shown it to him as a work in progress, and Michael thought highly enough of what he saw to program it in the 1984 Frameline festival. But according to Michael, Curt never finished the film, and as a result it never screened. The catalog text in the 1984 Frameline festival catalog reads as follows:
STAND BY
U.S.A. 1984
Stand By is the latest revelation in Curt McDowell’s lifelong, sideways search to find out “where we came from.” It’s cut (like Taboo) in the manner of an LP album, tracking personalized images of Sex, Dad and the American Way along grooves of snapshot images extended into vignettes. Dedicated to a photo of Pop in his potent prime, the film formulates an impression of overlapping generations of popular social history with a free-wheeling mix of eroticism, humor, found footage, Snakefinger’s “beatnik” party, and self-exposure.
*
A list was found in Curt’s papers, probably written in 1970, in which he enumerated a number of primarily 8mm films and their varying states of completion, noting what was still needed to finish them. Three of the films seem clearly to be works he did actually finish (He Doesn’t Carrot All, Visit to Indiana, and “hitchhiking film”, which is almost certainly Rachael on the Road), but the rest are partial or complete mysteries. Below are the remaining titles from the list, with Curt’s notes under each, taken from the list I found.
“The Ted Film”
not completed / needs editing, sound track, titles
“rejection film”
not completed / needs titles / sound track
This film does exist, and seems to be called REJECTION, but it probably shouldn’t be considered completed, as it doesn’t seem to have a soundtrack or titles.
COOKIE BITS
not completed / needs editing, titles
DEAR TOOTS
not completed / needs more shots of Willi, titles
“I LOVE YOU FILM”
not completed / needs sound track, editing, titles
I did spot something labeled with this title in his collection, and will provide more info if possible, though it doesn’t seem likely to have been finished.
THAT OTHER PLACE
not completed / needs sound track, editing
IT’S ALRIGHT HARRY
16mm – not completed / needs sound track / title (one for the end), editing
“Ainslie – outdoor film”
not completed / needs editing, sound track, titles
NUDE STROLL
not started
BLACK MUD
not completed / needs filming, titles, editing
UNCERTAIN WORKS
MEOW MIX
This is NOT confirmed to be one of Curt’s films, but matching picture and sound rolls turned up in his collection, with what appeared to be his handwriting on the can. It comprises a re-edited cat food commercial set to a different soundtrack. Melinda McDowell and Mark Ellinger were both skeptical this was a film of Curt’s.
LIGHTSTRUCK 