21^st November Les Blank Series

Blank makes rich, careful documentaries, sideroad explorations of regional music, both the people who make it and the people who it comes from. His movies make you find your way into the lives of all these people. He works through textures, glimpses and small telling scenes.

Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers U.S.A 1980

51 minutes, 16mm English

Blank tenderly documents love and lovers of garlic. This a collage of interviews with people who preach garlic-evangelism. They include flamenco singers, beauty-contest queens, mothers, cooks, farmers, restaurateurs and just plain aficionados. A joyous, nose-tweaking, ear tingling, mouth-watering tribute to a life force….. The facts and fancies of garlic are explored with dazzling energy and imagination!

Gap-Toothed Woman U.S.A. 1987
Director / Screenplay / Cinematography / Sound / Editors: Les Blank, Maureen Gosling, Chris Simon & Susan Kell
31 minutes, 16mm English

One of Les Blank's quirkiest and most delightful movies. As a lad, a sexy, gap-toothed lass dazzled Blank. Still turned on by those bewitching teeth, the grown up Blank dedicated a film to this dental wonder. Included are interviews with Sandra Day O'Connor, Lauren Hutton, a belly dancer, a heavy metal singer and a spiritual Indian woman. Blank is honoring woman who have come to terms with a light physical imperfection that, in various societies, has been looked upon as the essence of beauty, as a sign of sexual appetite and more recently as being Howdy Doody!