Coffee House Rendezvous (USA,1966) 28 min color DIR-SCR: Ted Steeg. MUSIC: Jordy Ramin, Ted Steeg, The Niteliters. (Ted Steeg Productions)
Here is an irresistible effort from the “Education Films” vault. It has lately become trendy to look back at these cheesy shorts, with their naive social conditioning and horrendously old-fashioned values which were out of place even at the time in which they were created. But this picture is something else! This documentary addresses the efforts to solve the day’s problems of misspent youth, with the resurgence of coffee houses to keep kids off the streets. So on Friday nights throughout the land, teenagers are staying out of trouble by attending these functions in church basements or social clubs, listening to kids read their own juvenile beat poetry, and play lots of bad music. This film treats you with probably the worst version of “Satisfaction” you will ever hear. Other musical highlights include the young lady who uncannily resembles Joan Baez, in voice and appearance! Intercut with talking head shots of horned-rimmed glassed officials who haven’t got a patch on what the youth movement is about, and you have got a winner from the days of the generation gap. But seriously, Coffee House Rendezvous is 28 minutes of pure joy- a terrifically fun snapshot of its era. It even has a great theme song, sung by The Niteliters, that you’ll be singing for days. If you have a 45 RPM for sale, let’s get in touch! (Trivia note: the film’s editor was Mark Rappaport, who would later direct the independent film The Scenic Route, as well as the found-footage documentaries, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies and From the Journals of Jean Seberg.
Originally presented in Vol. #1, Issue #7.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.