The Archivist in Austin

"For Time or Eternity"

In a world increasingly riven by uncertainty, disillusion, and abject folderol, it's heartening to know that Dennis Nyback exists to clarify the genuinely important aspects of daily life and bring fresh meaning to the otherwise trivial banalities of our workaday existence.

To that end, the noted film archivist is returning to Austin bearing a pair of his most popular and, it must be said, topical film anthologies: Smoking, Drinking, Sex and The Mormon Church Explains It All to You.

Speaking from Portland, Ore., and backed by the baying of what sounds like a chorus of Cerberi ("It's 'Bring Your Doggy to the Movies Day,'" he says, "One of my more wacky ideas."), Nyback's upcoming double bill includes a wealth of never-before-seen-in-Austin short films, golden-age advertisements, and audiovisual proselytizing all but guaranteed to expunge doubt from audiences' minds.

Speaking of proselytizing, "the Mormon Church has been making films since the fifties," notes Nyback, "and the genius of the Mormon film industry was a man name Wetzel Whitaker. He was a Mormon who worked with Disney in the Thirties and Forties and then in the Fifties went off to Salt Lake City and began producing these other films.

"The first film I show is called 'Man's Search for Happiness,' which was made for the Mormon pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Like a lot of these Mormon films, I think it's more of an attempt to put out their ideas before the public instead of truly proselytizing. I think my favorite in the program is called 'How Do I Love Thee?,' which features two girls in college, one of whom puts out for her boyfriend and one who is saving herself for marriage, and it's just a wonderful film."

That's all fine and good for the chosen elect among us, but what of suckers of X-tra long unfiltered goodness, the swillers of Mi-T-Fine barley and hops, and the lascivious girls, gone wild or otherwise?

Enter Smoking, Drinking, Sex:

"One of the truly interesting ones out of the whole program is a home movie that I found, which was labeled on the can Uncle Harold's Party," enthuses Nyback. "It's obviously from the late Twenties, a time when not a lot of people were making home movies, so it was some people with money that made this particular film. They just have this wild party where they're smoking cigarettes, they're drinking, there's men dancing with each other. And then they bring this guy out in his bathrobe, which he drops and then proceeds to dance naked. So, right there in that one we've got the smoking, the drinking, and the sex. And I have the only print in the world of it!"

Dennis Nyback Live plays at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown on Thursday, July 21, 7 and 9:45pm. More information on these films and all things Nybackian can be found at www.dennisnybackfilms.com.