Exploitation Films in a nutshell ( Part 1 ). The early years.

Exploitation Film;
1. A film that relies on lurid subject matter for it's appeal.
2. Exploitation films may feature suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, freaks, gore, the bizarre, destruction, rebellion, and mayhem.
3. A type of film that eschews the expense of "quality" productions in favor of making films on the cheap, attracting the public by exciting their more prurient interests. "Exploitation" is the show business term for promotion, and an exploitation film is one which relies heavily on the lurid advertising of it's contents, rather than it's intrinsic quality of the film.

The early years.

Exploitation film is said to be as old as the invention of the moving picture camera itself. In fact almost any film that has ever been made could be regarded as an exploitation movie to some extent, so with that in mind writing a piece on the history of the exploitation movie is not going to be easy.
Exploitation film making is usually regarded as the period after The motion picture production code was finally enforced by the major film studio's in 1934 (introduced in 1930) after a series of scandals and a vicious campaign beginning in 1933 of the immorality of cinema by the American catholics. It is usually known as the  Hays code  after the chief censor of the time Will H. Hays. Before the code there were no strict regulations so film makers  often used  lurid subject matter in there films. An early example of an exploitation movie is Traffic in souls (1913) directed by George Loane Tucker which is a social commentary on the thriving  New York sex trade of the time. This notorious melodrama was a tremendous box office success yet banned in many American cities due to it's subject matter, although it will probably be remembered  more for the fact that it was the first American produced feature film.

                           Pre-code era.
The pre-code era is usually dated to the start of the sound era in film and up to it's implementation in 1934. Many other films of the pre-code era contained  sexual innuendo, drug use and violence. This was after all the era of the mobster (real life and fictional) and the sexy dominant screen siren.

One film that stands out for it's notoriety more than any other from this period is Tod Brownings Freaks (1932).  Before freaks a  hugely successful director  having directed Bela Lugosi in his iconic film Dracula (1931). Tod Browning was at the time regarded as one of hollywoods finest directors so it came as a big shock when he chose to make freaks. Based on a 1923 novel by Tod Robbins which centers around a circus sideshow of freaks but rather than using costumes and make up decided to cast real life people with deformities. 

Despite massive cuts, the film wasn't received well by the audiences and effectively ended Brownings career in the film industry.

"And for my next trick i shall try and cut my
own head off with a cut-throat razor".
(still taken from Freaks (1932).

Post- code era.

It is from this period onwards that forced many film makers away from the strict laws governed by the studio system and into independent film making so as to avoid restricted subject matter imposed by the Hays code.
I must briefly mention that during the post-code era the large studios were still making mobster films and using content with lurid or violent subject matter, but were severely restricted by the production code after 1933. One early example of a mobster movie that came under the censors of the production code was Scarface (1932) directed by Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson. 
Another significant change to happen to the studio system was to occur again in 1948 with what is known as The Paramount decision.  The supreme court was to rule against the monopolization from block-booking of the  'big 5' studios of the time ( Paramount pictures, RKO, Fox, Loew's incorporated and Warner Brothers). Block-booking involved the major studio's selling only A movies with a pool of other films which included B movies that were likely to be less successful. Many of the films were unseen by audiences and caused independent studios to purchase films by blind-buying. As the major studios owned there own theatres they held the exclusive rights as to what films would be shown. The case was challenged and won by the independent film producers and distributers. Consequences of the decision included more independent producers and studios to make their film product free of major studio interference and also saw the weakening of the (Hays) Production code from the rise of independent "art house" theatres which showed foreign or independent films made outside of it's jurisdiction.

Cautionary tales from the 1930's and 1940's.

Dwain Esper is considered the godfather of the exploitation flick. A producer and director who dubbed himself "The king of the celluloid gypsies" from having a carnival background. Esper went from town to town on roadshows, pitching tents and preaching moralistic warnings against subjects like the misuse of drugs and sexual promiscuity, eventually moving on to the next town before the state censorships board turned up. His films were meant to be educational and intended to shock his audience. He ended up buying the rights to Tod Brownings Freaks and showed it as an exploitation film in the 1940's. 

His first exploitation film as director was Narcotic (1933) which tells the story of a heroin addicted doctor who ends up killing himself. Other titles include Maniac (1934), Marijuana (spelt Marihuana) The devils weed (1936) and sex madness (1938).

Esper also worked as an uncredited producer on the unintentionally funny cult classic Reefer madness aka Tell your children (1936) Directed by Louis j. Gasnier. This hilarious romp tells the story of a couple who manage to  turn a bunch of clean cut teenagers  into jazz listening homicidal maniacs after one puff of the deadly 'erb.

Terry has a sudden epiphany about his own existence after breathing in the
ominous cloud of smoke that was gathering around him.
(still taken from Reefer madness 1936).

Probably the most shocking and licentious film of the early post code era is child bride (1938), an educational illustration of the illicit ills of child marriage in the deep south. Inbred, uneducated girls between the ages of ten and fifteen are swapped among middle aged men and groomed into marriage. They are usually eventually discarded and sometimes even killed in order for a younger bride to take there place.

The movie is best known for a scene where the twelve year old actress Shirley Mills is skinny dipping naked. more gratuitous than educational.

B movies of the 1950's.

The 1950's saw a transformation for the exploitation film into what is known as the B movie (although the term had it's roots since the 20's). With the advent of television and the demise of the theatres double feature show which was the staple of hollywoods golden age of the 1930's and 1940's, and changes in the film industry brought about by court rulings and increased production costs for the major studio's a new kind of audience emerged. This was now the golden age of the drive-in-theatres.
Another phenomenon to take place in the late forties and early Fifties was the teenage revolution. It was teenagers that were filling the  drive in theatres  and the exploiters of the time knew exactly how to capitalise on this, and have subsequently done this ever since.

The wild one (1953) directed by Laslo Benedek is an early fifties example of what is termed a "biker Flick" and "social problem film". Marlon Brando's  portrayal of Johnny Strabler the leader of a motor cycle gang has become an iconic image in cinema history.  Stanley Kramer was the producer of the film and had previously given Brando his debut in the film The Men (1950) had been an independent film maker but was now working for Columbia pictures. Due to the subject matter, Kramer had numerous problems with the studio over unacceptable scenes and dialogue  and a bizarre message which was demanded by the production code at the start of the film say's  " This is a shocking story. It could never take place in most American towns but it did in this one. It is a public challenge to not let it happen again". Ohhh scary stuff, teenagers on motorcycles, whatever next??? perhaps werewolves on motorcycles? or even better how about blood thirsty, crack smoking nazi women werewolves on motorcycles?.
So the teenage exploitation market was now in progress and it wasn't long later that James Dean was being created into another rebellious teenage icon in The rebel without a cause (1955). Many more biker films flourished afterwards and subsequently had resurgences in the decades to follow which i shall endeavor to mention when arrived at.

American International
            Pictures.
AIP was a film production company formed in 1956 by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff. It produced low-budgeted independent films packaged as double features to a mainly teenage audience. They were the firsts to use focus groups to find out what teenagers actually want to watch and even came up with a formula to making movies (the Arkoff formula). They also employed an artist called Albert Kallis to work on there unique eye catching poster designs.

Artwork by Albert Kallis.


So AIP went about in exploiting the lucrative teenage market by producing low-budget movies that catered to the emerging juvenile delinquent's taste, including genres such as Science fiction (alien invasion, disaster, monster and space exploration), horror, war, prison drama,westerns, rock and roll, cars, drag racing and of course motorcycles.

Roger Corman

Roger Corman.

While Nicholson and Arkoff were the executive producers at AIP the main film producers/directors were Alex Gordon and Roger Corman.

With one of the longest list of movie titles to his credit in the history of film making  (after Jess Franco) Roger Corman is without doubt the king of the early B movie. A producer first and then a director his influence on film making is astounding. In his long career he has mostly worked on low-budget films but gained critical acclaim in the 1960's with his larger-budget  series of Edger Allen Poe adaptations starring such names as Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff. And too a young and aspiring actor by the name of Jack Nicholson.

He worked on a variety of genres and styles and his vision was raw and unpolished, moody and atmospheric. Corman churned out movies at an incredible rate, making feature length films in two or three days and sometimes even two at a time.
AIP (still distributing under there former company ARC) and Cormans first film  as a producer and writer was The fast and the furious (1955) featuring fast cars and girls in danger. And it wasn't long after he was producing and directing, his first films at the helm were westerns, Five guns west (1955) and Apache woman (1955) followed by his first brush with science fiction, The day the world ended (1955). Although versatile in all genres it was to be in the sci-fi genre that Corman would be most associated with in the 50's, and the genre he would also return to in the decades to follow. With such crazy titles such as The beast with a million eyes (1955), The brain eaters (1958) and Attack of the giant leeches (1959) to name but a few.
By the end of the 1950's Corman turned his attention more to the cross genre of sci-fi/horror mixed with comedy. This was also the start of Corman's spoofing of the subjects that he took so seriously at the start of the decade. The first of these type of films was A bucket of blood (1959) starring Dick Miller (that bloke out of gremlins), a film about a sculpter who accidently kills his landlady's cat and covers the body in plaster to hide the evidence. discovering this new method of making sculpter's sets out to create works of art with dead humans. He followed A bucket of blood with another dark comedy The little shop of horrors (1960) also featuring Dick Miller and a very young Jack Nicholson. Allegedly the film was made in two days and one night after a bet which is still a world record for a feature film.

Corman prefered to work quickly, he usually worked on six day shoots and pushed his cast and crew to as many as 50 setups a day, and hated the amount of time wasted at the big studio's. 
When it came to making popular films, Roger Corman was a rare genius. While the old hollywood system was collapsing in the 1950's he knew exactly how to get the teenage audience into the local drive-ins, he knew that they wanted movies that spoke there language and gave them cheap thrills with easy to follow plots that related to current topics of the day including science gone wrong, nuclear scaremongering and rock and roll, and he knew how to make these movies on a tight budget.
Roger Corman is also well known for starting the careers of many A list directors and actors including directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich and James Cameron. Actors who got there career breaks working with Corman include Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Robert De Niro.

Still taken from The little shop of horrors. Directed by Roger Corman
and featuring a young Jack Nicholson (1960).

Nudity in films.

Nudist films are usually associated with the 1950's and 1960's although roots back to the educational films of the 1930's with directers like Dwain Esper. The first Non pornographic American film to feature a naked woman went back to as early as 1915 in Inspiration starring Audrey Munson.

Nudist films were meant to depict the lifestyle of people in the naturalist movement but were really made for the commercial exploitation of the female nude. An early example of this type of film is Garden of Eden (1954) by writer and directer Max Nosseck. The most productive producer/director of the nudist camp films was actually a women called Doris Wishman who in the early 1960's made a series of nudist films, she even crossed genres with sci-fi sexploitation in the hilariously bad film Nude on the moon (1961). Wishman went on to pioneer what was known as "roughie" sexploitation. The first non-naturist type of film to feature nudity was The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959) by Russ Meyer and widely considered the first pornographic feature film.

The early 60's films of Wishman and directors like Meyer were known as "Nudie-cuties" and were specifically made for the new type of Grindhouse theatres that were theatres previously used for burlesque shows where 'bump and grind' dancing and striptease were featured. The original Grindhouse theatres are located on 42nd street in New York city. It was the introduction of television and the closure of many of the single screen movie theatres built in the cinema boom of the 1930's that brought about the introduction of the grindhouse theatre. It was in the 1970's that these types of theatres were generally known for there showing of exploitation movies.
Another director to start his movie making career making "Nudie-cutie" films was Herschell Gordon Lewis. Along with exploitation producer David F. Friedman he would eventually go on to  create a new sub-genre of horror film known as the "splatter film" and along with Russ Meyer change the face of independent movie making for ever, which will be the starting topic of my next episode on Exploitation movies in a nutshell.