Beat Comedy: "Pull My Daisy" and Fat Feet

AD HOC presents two anarchic comedies of the beat era: "Pull My Daisy" (1959), Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie’s classic fable (with narration improvised by Jack Kerouac, from an anecdote about Neal and Carolyn Cassidy) about an encounter between a member of the clergy, a young couple, and their eccentric beatnik friends. Frank and Leslie’s film will be followed by a screening of multimedia artist Red Grooms and Mimi Gross’s Fat Feet (1966), a surrealistic city symphony inspired by the films of Emile Kohl and George Melies, a live-action comic strip made with support from Rudy Burckhardt, George Kuchar and others.

Program:

• "Pull My Daisy" (Alfred Leslie and Robert Frank, 1959, 16mm, 28 mins)
• Fat Feet (Red Grooms and Mimi Gross, 1966, 16mm, 19 mins)

TRT: 47 minutes

AD HOC aims to rethink what an experience of cinema can be. We seek to reposition historical landmarks and buried treasures within the on-going tradition of experimental and other non- commercial modes of filmmaking, drawing on work from Toronto, throughout Canada, and internationally. Within these parameters, we aspire to diversity in programming, as well as to multimedia and interdisciplinary screening events that bring together varied communities.

AD HOC = Stephen Broomer, Madi Piller, Jim Shedden, Tess Takahashi, Bart Testa.

AD HOC would like to thank James Cahill, Denise Ing, Charlie Keil, and the staff of Innis College and the Cinema Studies Institute.