Exploitation films in a nutshell ( Part 2 ). The 1960's Uncensored and Unleashed.

 Grindhouse theatres;
An American term for a theatre that mainly showed exploitation films. These inner-city theatres formally featured burlesque shows which included "bump and grind" dancing, leading to the term "grindhouse".
Grindhouses were known for non-stop programs of B movies, usually consisting of double features played back to back.

The original grindhouse theatres were located on 42nd street, New York.

Early 1960's Sexploitation.

The early pioneers of the nudie cutie movies were Russ Meyer (known as the king of the nudies) and Doris Wishman, a self-taught filmaker described as the "female Ed Wood" and one of the most prolific female film directors of all time.

By the end of the 1950's there was a move away from the nudist camp type of film. The first non-naturalist feature film to openly exhibit nudity was The immoral mr Teas (1959) directed by Russ Meyer and considered to be the first pornographic feature.

Other notable nudie-cutie directors of this period were Herchell Gordon Lewis  who went on to create a new genre in horror film and Ed Wood considered the worst director in movie history.

An early sexploitation film with considerable influence was the British psychological thriller Peeping Tom (1960) directed by Michael Powell. The film is about a voyeuristic serial killer who murders women while using a portable movie camera to record their dying expressions of terror. It's controversial subject was panned by critics at the time and like Tod Browning after he made Freaks (1932) effectively ended Powells career as a director. Martin Scorsese re-released the film in 1979 and is now regarded as a masterpiece and cult classic. The films use of a hand held camera was a ground breaking technique of the time and has influenced many films since.

Still taken from Peeping Tom (1960) Directed by Michael Powell.

Another notable sexploitation film of the early 1960's  was Promises! Promises! (1963) Directed by King Donovan and starring Jayne Mansfield who appeared nude and became the first mainstream American actress to appear nude in a starring role. Photographs of a naked Mansfield on the set were later published in Playboy magazine.

By the mid 1960's  a different kind of sexploitation film emerged which was more harder edged than previous nudie-cutie films. Also known as "Roughies" for their explicite subject matter usually consisting of rape,violence, abduction and sadism. These films were designed to be the opposite of the colourful "nudie-cuties". Russ Meyers Lorna (1964) is an early example of  a "Roughie" film. Shot in black and white ( a trademark for the roughie films of this period ) and starring the voluptuous  Lorna Maitland who starred in 3 Meyer movies including his next film MudHoney (1965).

 Over the next decade Meyer made nearly 20 movies with his odd blend of humer, Large-breasted women and sleaze, including the cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) about 3 wild strippers with lots of attitude and plenty of cleavage who go on a turbo-charged murderous rampage driving across the dessert in fast cars.  The exploitation director John Waters later described Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! as "beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made. It is possibly better than any film that will be made in the future".  I certainly wouldn't agree with Waters  proclamations about the film although it has been a big influence on movie making and is reported to be considered for a remake by no other than Quinten Tarrantino...watch this space!!.

Stills from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). 

Another Roughie style film to come out in 1964 was White slaves of Chinatown, directed by Joseph P. Mawra  and the first installment of a trilogy of Olga films to come out that year. Influenced by the infamous photographer of bondage and erotica Irving Klaw. Klaw had also made a series of burlesque films in the 1950's after being influenced by Striporama (1953) and starring the burlesque pin up queen of the 50's Betty Page.

The story centers around Olga (Audrey Campbell) a ruthless butcher who gets pleasure out of torturing young girls in her Chinatown den of prostitutes and drug dealers. Some of Olga's torture methods include blowtorches, chastity belts and electric shock's.

Pink Films in Japan.
Around the same time as the nudie-cutie boom in America sexploitation films in Japan were starting to become more popular. The Pink films of this period were largely the product of small, independent studio's. By the 1970's and due to a loss in revenue from television and American imported films the major studio's in Japan were to take over the Pink film genre and evolved into what is termed "Pinky Violence" which i shall endeavour to mention in later episodes. 
The first film to exploit nudity and sex was Satoru Kobayashi's Flesh Market (1962) and is considered the first Pink film. Due to strict Japanese censorship laws genitals were not allowed to be shown which meant directors had to use elaborate means of hiding certain areas of the body, usually by means of a strategically placed prop in front of the camera. This approach to film making gave the pink films a particular style different to the American films of this period.
By 1964 the theatre and film director Tetsuji Takechi was directing Pink films. His first film Day Dream (1964) is considered the fist big-budget pink film. His next film Black Snow(1965) resulted in his  arrest on obsenity charges. Takechi eventually won the lawsuit and the publicity helped boom the production of Pink films.

Stills from Day Dream (1964). Dir. Tetsuji Takechi. 

The birth of "Splatter" and "Gore" films.
A hugely influential Exploitation writer and director in the 1960's was Herschell Gordon Lewis. He started his film making career making nudie-cuties but by 1963 with co collaborator and exploitation producer David F. Friedman started to make a new kind of horror film which came to be known as the "splatter film". The first of these films was Blood Feast (1963) about an insane Egyptian caterer who murders and cooks people as part of a human sacrifice to an egyptian godess. Blood feast immediately became notorious for it's blood, gore and violence. 

Still Taken from Blood Feast (1963) Dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis.

H.G.L followed Blood feast with 2 more films using the same formula, called Two thousand maniacs (1964) and Colour me blood red (1965). These three films came to be known as "The blood trilogy". The full colour gore in these films caused a massive sensation and was dubbed  a "totally inept shocker", "incredibly crude and unprofessional from start to finish" and "an insult even to the most puerile and salacious of audiences" in a Variety review of 1964. In a response to this criticism Freidman wrote "Herschell and i have often wondered who told the Variety  scribe we were taking ourselves seriously".

Colour me blood red was to be be the last collaboration between the pair though H.G.L did carry on making "splatter" films throughout the 60's and  early 70's with films such as The gruesome twosome (1967),  The wizard of gore (1970) and The Gore Gore Girls (1972) . He stopped making films after 1972 to become a major authority in advertising, copywriting and direct marketing. Lewis and Freidman did eventually reunite in 2002 to make Blood feast 2: All u can eat.

Splatter films were defined by film critic of the time Micheal Arnzen  as that which  "self-consciously revel in the special effects of gore as an art form". Where typical horror films of the past deal with fear of the unknown and supernatural, splatter films revelled in the physical destruction of the body. Arnzen also said " The spectacle of violence replaces any pretentions to narrative structure, because gore is the only part of the film that is reliably consistant". These films also feature fragmented narratives and direction, including "manic montages full of subject camera movement...cross cuttings from hunted to hunter, and ominous juxtapositions and contrasts".
Although Blood feast (1963) is considered the first splatter film the genre had its roots in earlier times. The first appearance of gore can be traced way back to D.W Griffith's Intolerance (1916). But it was in the late 1950's and early 1960's with groundbreaking films like Alfred Hitchcock's Psyhco (1960) and with the output of the Hammer studios in the U.K (from the mid fifties) when splatter themes were introduced. Other notable directors at this time who had an impact on the Splatter genre were the Italian Mario Bava, Black sunday (1960)  and Japan's Nobuo Nakagawa, Jigoku (1960).

The infamous shower scene in Psycho (1960) in which Janet Leigh's character is killed. The scene runs for 3 minutes  and includes 50 cuts and features 77 different camera angles. The combination of mainly close up and medium shots are meant to make the sequence feel more   subjective. Hitchcock described this technique as " transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience".

Still from Mario Bava's Black Sunday(1960) featuring English actress Barbara Steele. By the social standards of the early 1960's Black Sunday was considered too gruesome and was banned in the U.K until 1968. Working on a low budget, Italian movie meistro Mario Bava turned Black Sunday into a gothic nightmare of vampires and witches. This black and white film is drenched in ominous shadow, sexually charged and graphically violent for it's time.

Jigoku (1960) Dir. Nobuo Nakagawa. Literally means Hell. A beautifully shot  and harrowing vision of the depths of hell using colour and composition in a unique and surreal way. At the time of its release in Japan Jigoku was recieved with shock and outrage for it's graphic images of punished sinners. Bodies are dissected, flayed and cast into lakes of fire among other things. 

Rise of the Zombies
 The next big film to popularize the splatter subgenre was George A. Romero's 1968 classic Night of the living dead. Which in turn started the craze for Zombie films still prevalent today. Although zombies had been in earlier films, White Zombie 1932 (and considered the first zombie film), I walked with a zombie (1943) and Hammer film productions The Plague of the zombies 1966 ( which bears the closest resemblance to the zombies in Night of the living dead) it was Romero's seminal 1968 film that became the biggest influence on future zombie films.

Stills from Night of the living dead (1968) Dir. George A. Romero

Other important horror B-movies of the 1960's.

I've devised a short list of some other important horror movies made in the 1960's which were to become hugely influential to later film makers.

Eyes without a face (1960) Dir. Georges Franju.

Adapted from Jean Redon's novel about A brilliant surgen  who's beloved daughter Christiane's  face is badly mutilated after a car accident so sets out to kidnap young girls  and transplant there faces onto hers. An early French chiller that set a benchmark for future horror films.

Carnival of Souls (1962) Dir. Herk Harvey.

This independent film made for an estimated $33,000 did not get widespread attention when first released but is now regarded as a cult classic. Set to an eerie organ score and moody atmosphere which became a big influence for George A. Romero when making Night of the living Dead. David Lynch is also cited as being influenced by this film.

Watch online free. Click here

Dementia 13 (1963) Dir. Francis Ford Coppola (and writer).
Released by American international Pictures and produced by Roger Corman. This was to be Francis Ford Coppola's first proper directorial debut after having been involved in some minor nudie-cutie films beforehand. Corman offered the chance for Coppola to make this film set in a rural castle in Ireland with funds left over from his last film.

Spider Baby (1968) Dir. Jack Hill (and writer).
Black comedy horror film. Starring Lon (original werewolf) Chaney jr and a young upstart called Sid Haig who went on to become a horror icon in the 00's as the notorious serial killer clown Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombies House of a thousand corpses and The devils rejects.












Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) Dir. Teruo Ishii (and writer).
Banned for decades in it's native Japan and considered a landmark in japanese horror. based on literary works by Edogawa Rampo which attempts to combine horror with bizarre sexuality, a sub-genre known as  "Erotic-Grotesque".
This film is considered a precursor to Toei's ventures into "Pinky Violence" in the early 1970's.