The Movie Orgy is a 1968 film directed by Joe Dante and produced by Jon Davison.[1] It was an evolving compilation of film clips, commercials, and film trailers, initially assembled by Dante when he was an undergraduate at the Philadelphia College of Art. At its longest, it ran for seven and a half hours[2] and could be considered the analog prelude to the mash-up videos and supercut edits now prevalent on digital platforms like YouTube and Vimeo.
Summary
The film stands as a simultaneous celebration and campy tweaking of mid-20th century Americana, culling liberally from the B-movie cinema of Dante and Davison's youth (including brief clips from The Phantom Planet and Teenagers from Outer Space), early TV commercials, newsreel footage of early A-bomb tests, cartoons, westerns, sci-fi, bloopers and war movies as well as clips from children's TV shows its college-age audiences had forgotten they had seen.[3] Perhaps most memorable among these is the excerpted moment from Andy's Gang of a puppeteer-controlled cat and mouse performing “Jesus Loves Me".[4][1]
The Movie Orgy comprises clips of copyrighted materials, and thus the film can only be shown for free when it plays museums and cinemas around the world. Joe Dante retains a copy.[6]
Production
The film, assembled without permission of the clips' owners, toured colleges and repertory cinemas[7] with support from Schlitz beer.[8][9][10]
