Pie Fight '69: street theatrical as a soft bomb tossed in protest

March 12, 2015 10:39 AM

"There are several ideas of what happened here this evening. It could have been a fantastic promotion stunt, or a demonstration against the film establishment, but a lot of people think it was actually a motion picture being produced here at the film festival. The only thing sure is that the 13th annual San Francisco Film Festival got off to a smashing start." That's a bit of reporter humor, which accurately captures the diverse goals and ideas behind Pie Fight '69, a most memorable yet virtually forgotten piece of San Francisco's cinema history. The film from a half dozen cameras, run by members of Grand Central Station independent film collective, was lost until 1999. The rediscovered film was cut into a short documentary, which you can see on Archive.org, YouTube, and Vimeo.
posted by filthy light thief (2 comments total)

The title is an excerpt from the message included on leaflets that were attached to towels and handed out to the victims of the pie attack. The full message was

Grand Central Station leaves you with this souvenir of the already legendary event in which you have participated. Grand Central Station has staged this street theatrical as a soft bomb tossed in protest of everything that restricts energy, spunk, originality and wit in American cinema.

posted by filthy light thief at 10:42 AM on March 12, 2015

...almost magically, the oddest assortment of characters descended—a nun, a football player, and a go-go dancer among them.

This, to me, is the touch that made the thing really work. Watching it, it's like "WTF? Was that a random football player? Sure. Why not?"

Mmmm. Pie. Anita, let's pray.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:31 AM on March 12, 2015