42nd Street Smut Theaters and Today
I'm in a really weird mood from reading this Andy Milligan book (The Ghastly One). For one thing, the author describes the sexploitation movie racket on 42nd Street in New York in the 60's and 70's. All those smutty theaters, all of that sex product being ground out for pennies. Andy Milligan would make these films for like $10,000, and do everything himself, the way I do. He would use a horrible actor just to get to use his house for free, and cast him as a deaf-mute. Or he would set people on fire because presumably he didn't have the budget to fake it. And they'd be screaming, burning, and he'd keep on filming. Then after torturing the actors and doing everything for nothing, ingenioously, he'd get screwed by the distributors, who would pay him off, maybe $3,000 for a picture, and then they'd be too cheap to give him a pass to his own screening.
The point of all this is, reading this made me realize that basically nothing in the low-budget film world has changed. People are scrambling for a buck however they can get it, and they're turning out product as cheaply as they can so they can make a dollar. It's not about art-- never was. I don't know why I never thought of that before. But it all makes sense: the terrible dreadful movies they turn out. And why? They've got a market for "youth" movies, the way they used to have one for sex movies. So they make these stupid road movies, movies about dopey guys, music about kids doing whatever, with no production values and rotten acting, but they have a niche audience so they SELL.
So I finally see after all these years that spending so much effort trying to make a great movie doesn't necessarily make it easier to sell. But maybe my film is SO WEIRD that it will sell anyway.
I was looking at these vintage pressbooks on ebay last night, and I bought a few. They are so amazing. I bought a Pete Walker one, a Hammer one with Horror of Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein, Cleopatra, a lot of sexploitation pressbooks including Metzger's Little Mother. Priceless! I'm going to use them to inspire my own pressbook. Nobody will have as cool a pressbook as mine if I use these as a model! And a friend sent me this amazing book cover from the '50's, MADBALL, to inspire me for the carnival movie. I must buy it and read it at once!
The point of all this is, reading this made me realize that basically nothing in the low-budget film world has changed. People are scrambling for a buck however they can get it, and they're turning out product as cheaply as they can so they can make a dollar. It's not about art-- never was. I don't know why I never thought of that before. But it all makes sense: the terrible dreadful movies they turn out. And why? They've got a market for "youth" movies, the way they used to have one for sex movies. So they make these stupid road movies, movies about dopey guys, music about kids doing whatever, with no production values and rotten acting, but they have a niche audience so they SELL.
So I finally see after all these years that spending so much effort trying to make a great movie doesn't necessarily make it easier to sell. But maybe my film is SO WEIRD that it will sell anyway.
I was looking at these vintage pressbooks on ebay last night, and I bought a few. They are so amazing. I bought a Pete Walker one, a Hammer one with Horror of Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein, Cleopatra, a lot of sexploitation pressbooks including Metzger's Little Mother. Priceless! I'm going to use them to inspire my own pressbook. Nobody will have as cool a pressbook as mine if I use these as a model! And a friend sent me this amazing book cover from the '50's, MADBALL, to inspire me for the carnival movie. I must buy it and read it at once!
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