Penny Lane’s New Movie is NUTS!

“Nothing to see here. Just a medical miracle!“
 

That headline is a statement of fact, not opinion, although…

The new film NUTS!, directed by Penny Lane, will be screening at the AFS Cinema on Thursday, August 18. The director will take part in a Skype Q&A after the movie.

Lane, whose last film, OUR NIXON, was a 100% archival portrait of the disgraced President using only home movies shot by his worshipful aides, tells a very different story this time, about another charlatan, in another era. It’s one of the most bizarre, but true, stories you will ever hear.

In her words:

NUTS! is a feature length documentary [directed by Penny Lane] about Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric genius who built an empire in Depression-era America with a goat testicle impotence cure and a million watt radio station.

Using animated reenactments, interviews, archival footage, and a hilariously unreliable narrator, NUTS! traces Brinkley’s rise from poverty and obscurity to the heights of celebrity, wealth and influence in Depression-era America.

Along the way, he transplants tens of thousands of goat testicles; amasses an enormous fortune; is (sort of) elected Governor of Kansas; builds the world’s most powerful radio station; invents junk mail, the infomercial, the sound-truck and Border Radio; hosts some epic parties; and annoys the heck out of the establishment, until finally his audacious actions force the federal government to create regulations to stop him.

How he does it, and what happens when it all comes crashing down, is the story of NUTS!

And here is Lane discussing the film and showing some clips:

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