''Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers'' is a 1980

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

about

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

directed by Les Blank. Its official premiere was at the 1980

Berlin Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

Production

It was filmed at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, as well as in other locations in

Northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...

. The director recommends that, when the film is shown, a toaster oven containing several heads of

be turned on in the rear of the theater, unbeknownst to the audience, with the intended result that approximately halfway through the showing the entire theater will be filled with the smell of garlic. The title is a shortened form of the saying "Garlic is as good as ten mothers... for keeping the girls away."

Reception and legacy

Robert Taylor for the ''

Oakland Tribune The ''Oakland Tribune'' was a daily newspaper published in Oakland, California, and a predecessor of the '' East Bay Times''. It was published by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group. Founded in 1874, the ''Tribune'' ...

'' called the film "an intoxicating mixture of food and music, serious and comic styles." In 2004, the film was selected for preservation in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The Academy Film Archive preserved ''Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers'' in 1999. In Blank's

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. ...

film ''

Burden of Dreams ''Burden of Dreams'' is a 1982 documentary film directed and produced by Les Blank. Synopsis The film is a making-of documentary about the chaotic production of Werner Herzog's 1982 film '' Fitzcarraldo''. It was filmed on location in the jun ...

'', a documentary chronicling the filming of ''

Fitzcarraldo ''Fitzcarraldo'' () is a 1982 epic film, epic Adventure film, adventure-Drama (film and television), drama film written, produced, and directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Klaus Kinski as would-be Rubber boom, rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzg ...

'', director

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; né Stipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusu ...

and other crew members can be seen wearing "Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers" T-shirts.

References

External links

* *
''Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers'' page
from Les Blank site *''Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 763-76

{{Allium 1980 films American documentary films United States National Film Registry films Films directed by Les Blank Garlic 1980 documentary films Documentary films about food and drink 1980s American films

Production

Reception and legacy

See also

References

External links