Looning in decades gone by

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  • craggy2012
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2012
    • 824

    #16
    Re: Looning in decades gone by

    Camille 2000 from 60’s Europe has a nice artsy scene with a big round inflatable bed in it, and there was another film from Italy also from the sixties that had a love scene filmed in a room full of inflatable furniture. Sadly though so far I’ve not been able to identify the film’s actual title despite a lot of these 60’s era art house films being remastered and released on DVD for the first time over the past decade or so.

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    • craggy2012
      Senior Member
      • Jan 2012
      • 824

      #17
      Re: Looning in decades gone by

      Thinking about it there was also a scene in a Lucille Ball film also from the sixties where she was in a sinking yellow Inflatable dinghy too. Can’t remember the full details of the clip but somehow the dinghy got caught up on some thick, thorny branches and ends up popping and sinking down into the water.

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      • BusterBill
        Founder, Balloon Buddies
        • Nov 2016
        • 251

        #18
        Re: Looning in decades gone by

        Originally posted by Orzel
        Ever seen the movie L'uomo dei cinque palloni? (Break Up)
        Yes, I saw the movie when it was in the foreign art film theater in NYC back in the late 60's. I think it was produced sometime in 1968. I'll have to check my files because somewhere i have a copy of the movie on DVD. My DVD is a very poor quality copy that was made from an old VHS tape. I also have the original movie house poster (the big 3m X 4m poster, not the lobby card) amongst my looner memorabilia files. I was able to get this huge poster from the theater when the movie ended its showing (the same day that I saw it). The film received universally negative reviews so it ran for only a few days in New York.

        After he became financially successful and famous, Marcello Mastroianni bought up the rights to the film so that he could destroy it. I read an article at the time that reported that Mastroianni was so embarrassed by the terrible quality of the movie and its horrible reviews that not only did it want it destroyed, he even purged the title from his official filmography.

        Some copies of the film survived in 16mm format in libraries and distribution company archives. Apparently someone made a VHS from one the 16mm prints using an old kinescope machine, and then the VHS was eventually copied onto a DVD using a first generation Phillips DVD burner. The resulting quality is almost unwatchable but nonetheless it's an interesting bit of memorabilia to have.

        The full film is available in reasonably watchable quality for free on YouTube at this link: https://youtu.be/a1WiTtzOqrs

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        • BalloonBoyUK
          Banned
          • Dec 2018
          • 500

          #19
          Re: Looning in decades gone by

          Here's the link about the film's recent 4K restoration and premiere in Italy...



          Note the following...

          "Restored in 4K in 2016 by Cineteca di Bologna and Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino, in collaboration with Warner Bros., with the support of Massimo Sordella and Nuovo Imaie, at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from the 4K scan of a vintage interpositive and a sound positive preserved by Warner Bros. Thanks to CSC – Cineteca Nazionale for providing as reference for the restoration the 35mm copy struck from the original negative at Turner International, Los Angeles"

          I would happily kill to get this on Blu-Ray or DVD in a decent print, with English Subtitles, even if it were bare-bones with nothing else on it. I just want to own a good version of it. Someone must know when this is coming out in the USA or Italy?
          Last edited by BalloonBoyUK; 20-07-2019, 16:59.

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          • Bubblyzzz
            Senior Member
            • Jul 2017
            • 266

            #20
            Re: Looning in decades gone by

            What is the premise of this movie? I don't speak Italian, so I don't know.

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            • BalloonBoyUK
              Banned
              • Dec 2018
              • 500

              #21
              Re: Looning in decades gone by

              Originally posted by Bubblyzzz
              What is the premise of this movie? I don't speak Italian, so I don't know.
              Marcello Mastroianni plays a man who works at a toy manufacturers, who is obsessed with trying to work out how much air a balloon can be inflated by, unti it pops.

              The obsession controls his life, to the detriment of his relationships at work, at home, and everything else. That's the basic gist. The film follows his trials and tribulations, as he tries to deal with his balloon obsession.

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              • Bubblyzzz
                Senior Member
                • Jul 2017
                • 266

                #22
                Re: Looning in decades gone by

                I think that would be disturbing! Thank you for your explanation!!

                Comment

                • frankfrank
                  Empathetic Harmonizer
                  • Feb 2018
                  • 262

                  #23
                  Re: Looning in decades gone by

                  Originally posted by craggy2012
                  there was a mail correspondence group from the seventies if you were in the US which is still going today known as Balloonbuddies but other than that unless you knew another looner in person it was pretty much a solo endeavour.
                  Yes, it's a "dot com" and there are two sub-sites within balloonbuddies, the "straight" side and the "gay" side. It's not uncommon for members to be in both groups, because different posts about balloons are made in the two groups (and, sometimes, the same).


                  You're right, it was tremendously a solo pursuit. I never encountered "balloon-fetish ANYTHING" in the wild until the early 2000s...as soon as I learned how to turn on a computer I found a site called balloonfetish(dot)ws, but it unceremoniously disappeared in 2004 without warning. THIS SITE is the first website I've seen since that website was lost, which is similarly set up in organized Forums (vBulletin software). There are probably others involving women-and-balloons which I didn't explore, being "Kinsey 6" gay, but no I never knew about Balloonbuddies until I found it on the internet. I wonder how different my fetish would have been, had I found the site in 1972 which I believe was their start.


                  Until 2003, I thought I was entirely alone. I think that was extremely common in pre-internet days, AND for some people like me whose pre-internet days were "artificially" later because I didn't feel tech-comfortable with computers for a long time before I finally tried.


                  I only remember very inferior balloons in my youth. I'm talking about 1960 and onward into the 1970s. Maybe I just didn't know HOW to find good balloons, but I always thought that if I actually rode a balloon AT ALL and it didn't pop right away, it was A REALLY BIG DEAL. I finally started finding nice balloons around 1980 or so. I never paid much attention to brands, because I never really bought enough to notice any pattern - and I always thought that "balloons were balloons"...that ALL balloons of a given size were equivalent. It was in the 80s and late 70s that I started finding out otherwise. Now it's not a big deal to find a balloon that I can ride as rough as I want, and bouncing up and down INTENSELY. In the past few years I'm finding some of the best balloons I've ever found. (Inflatables and pool toys are generally much better than the old days, too - I remember that beach balls would often fail with full weight on them.)


                  And, as for those awful punchballs which were very heavy rubber and the valve had no lip...and, yes, I mean awful...I could only use them three or seven times at the most and they would eventually just POP, even before being close to fully inflated. They did feel very nice, I liked how the rubber feel on my hands which wasn't like anything I can think of now. It was frustrating that they didn't last long, though. That may be due to not knowing that balloons should always be washed off after use, to get rid of the body oils that infiltrate the latex and destroy it.


                  But, yeah, this is a good time to be a looner...


                  Originally posted by BusterBill
                  Yes, I saw the movie when it was in the foreign art film theater in NYC back in the late 60's.

                  The full film is available in reasonably watchable quality for free on YouTube at this link: https://youtu.be/a1WiTtzOqrs
                  I sampled it all the way through, and it looks VERY interesting - though mostly not useful because I don't speak Italian. I'd enjoy seeing it with English subtitles. Balloons or not, I enjoy those types of movies, though so often they're so hopelessly obscure that I don't know about them. My awareness of these types of movies has happened only in recent years, as I've also been introduced to Luis Bunuel, etc.
                  Last edited by frankfrank; 28-08-2019, 03:28.
                  People who don't know the difference between BURRO and BURROW, can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground.


                  There's been a lot of thefts of helium-filled balloons recently. More so than in the past, so they're going up. I think inflation is to blame.

                  "Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking." - The Scarecrow, WIZARD OF OZ, 1939

                  Comment

                  • numpty1
                    Junior Member
                    • Apr 2020
                    • 9

                    #24
                    Re: Looning in decades gone by

                    Hi all, Im a newbie here so have only just come across this article. It is interesting to think that I have been into balloons since I was 6ish years old. I thought I was unique, weird or had some kind of a brain disorder, I knew of no others who felt about balloons as I did. My first recollection of when rubbing against a balloon gave me a feeling I had never experienced before was after getting home from a fair/carnival. I had a yellow balloon, at the time it seemed massive but was probably only a 12" or so. I can remember taking it to my bedroom and just staring at it and smelling it, wow, did that have an affect on me. My mum came into my room and asked why the balloon was on my bed, she took it out and said I was to leave it downstairs. A few days later when, I got home from school, my mum was in the garden so I sneaked that balloon to my bedroom and hid it in my toy cupboard. That evening when mum and dad were downstairs I became a looner, an overwhelming sensation that was like a drug and I wanted more. Each night for 4 nights I slept with that balloon until on the fifth night it burst as I got on top of it. I felt so sad, my dad came to my room to see what the noise was, by then the three pieces were on the floor and I made out I was asleep. I heard him tell mum that a balloon popped in my room and nothing more was said. Close call. All this happened 58 years ago, from that point to this was a long and confusing storey, made so much easier with the advent of the internet and for me the realisation that I was not the only one who felt that way about balloons. Believe me when I say it was such a relief. Sorry to ramble on but it felt very cathartic and it must be an age thing.

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                    • Heliumpongo
                      Banned
                      • Dec 2014
                      • 72

                      #25
                      Re: Looning in decades gone by

                      Originally posted by BalloonBoyUK
                      Marcello Mastroianni plays a man who works at a toy manufacturers, who is obsessed with trying to work out how much air a balloon can be inflated by, unti it pops.

                      The obsession controls his life, to the detriment of his relationships at work, at home, and everything else. That's the basic gist. The film follows his trials and tribulations, as he tries to deal with his balloon obsession.
                      My synopsis: a looner comes into some money and finds a weak story premise on which to hang a huge project by which to satisfy his kinky desires. Awesomeness ensues.

                      Comment

                      • BusterBill
                        Founder, Balloon Buddies
                        • Nov 2016
                        • 251

                        #26
                        Re: Looning in decades gone by

                        Originally posted by Heliumpongo
                        My synopsis: a looner comes into some money and finds a weak story premise on which to hang a huge project by which to satisfy his kinky desires. Awesomeness ensues.
                        .
                        I think your synopsis is spot on. The writer/producer/director of the film was a guy by the name of Marco Ferreri. There was never any question in my mind, after watching grainy black and white TV interviews with Ferreri from the late 60's, that he was indeed a full fledged looner. There was a sparkle in his eyes and a joyfulness in his speech as he discussed his balloon film projects. He did not attempt to hide his obsession for balloons at all, which was perfectly normal given that at that time in history the general population was sexually naive. He had no reason to feel guilty or to fear ridicule. The sexual awakening of the very late sixties had yet to occur.
                        .
                        For some background, in 1965, Ferreri wrote and produced a short version of the film which was included as one part of a triptych of 3 short films called "Oggi, Domani, Dopodomani" ("Today, Tomorrow, The Day After Tomorrow"). Then in 1968 he went on to release a full length version of the movie titled "L'uomo Dei Cinque Palloni" ("The Man With the Balloons") featuring Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Spaak. The full length film is available on YouTube to view for free as mentioned in a previous thread.

                        Comment

                        • bfinch2000
                          Senior Member
                          • Feb 2020
                          • 118

                          #27
                          Re: Looning in decades gone by

                          it's kind of interesting to wonder how long balloon/inflatable fetishes have existed. apparently balloons as we know them have been sold since the early 20th century, but they sort of existed even before that, the first rubber ones made in 1824.

                          did victorian people have balloon fetishes? or perhaps did people have them even before that, but no easy outlet for it?

                          Comment

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