DVD

Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies

Average customer rating:

A Good Film About Bad Films
A documentary on the rise and fall of the Exploitation films
Bad Girls Go To Hell Indeed
Worlds of Revelation for the Unititated
Not what it seems

Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies
Starring: Forrest J Ackerman , Samuel Z. Arkoff , Peter Bogdanovich , Roger Corman , and David F. Friedman
Director: Ray Greene
Manufacturer: Pathfinder Home Ent.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0000DC13D
Release Date: 2003-12-02

Description

The wild no-holds barred independent American filmmakers of the `50s and `60s tell their own story in this critically acclaimed survey of exploitation and sexploitation filmmaking. Features the last major interviews conducted with legendary producer Sam Arkhoff, and "Queen of thew Nudies" Doris Wishman plus Peter Bogdanovich, Roger Corman, Vampira, and many more

Customer Reviews:

A Good Film About Bad Films.......2005-09-12

This movie should be sold in that mail order catalogue: "Things You Never Knew Existed." Where the heck did they find all these wacko pictures, and even wackier filmmakers. Doris Wishman is like if your jewish grandma was a hell's angel. David Friedman is like if Abbott and Costello were the same guy -- sharpie and baggy pants comedian in one. A few vomitous images (including actual birth footage by -- yecch -- Caesarean section) I could do without though. But I felt like this movie was a passport to a whole world of movies I probably wouldn't want to visit in any other way. And that's a compliment.

A documentary on the rise and fall of the Exploitation films.......2005-07-19

This documentary written, directed and edited by Ray Greene features clips of independent movies made in the 1950s and 1960s at the height (relatively speaking) of exploitation movies in the United States. Along with the clips, "Schlock! The Secret History of the American Movies" has interviews with the people who made these movies. You should recognize at least some of what whizzes by here (e.g., "Nude on the Moon," "Carnival of Soul"") and if you have any familiarity with the genre you will recognize lots of names. Just be disappointed when one of these movies catches your fancy and then you discover it is not available on video or DVD.

This 2001 documentary begins by asking, "What is an exploitation movie?" An easy answer is not forthcoming, but you certainly will understand the evolution of the genre over the quarter-century in which it thrived. Greene finds the genesis of exploitation in the discovery that teenagers comprised an economic market distinct from the rather broad category of "children." I am not sure if I would privilege the arrival of Vampira on the scene as highly as Greene does, but you have to admit she makes a pretty good poster girl for the movies under discussion. Actually, the youth oriented films (e.g., "I Was a Teenage Werewolf") get rather short shift in "Part I: The Fast and the Furious," although it does introduce Roger Corman's work at A.I.P. and explores the idea that there are examples of exploitation films that might actually be meaningful (not that their creators are aware of such depth). There is also an emphasis on the idea that with exploitation movies it is how you sell these things that matters more than whether or not they are any good (because they usually are not).

Court rulings on obscenity set up "Part II: Sinema," which is the most interesting part of the documentary because Greene shows how the industry got from sex films dealing with the miracle of birth and "hygiene" issues, to the nudist camp films of Doris Wishman, to the Nudie Cuties and the films of Harry Novak. Once exploitation films go "Across the Great Divide" in Part III, and we get to the emphasis on blood and gore that has an impact on the sexploitation films and we get to what are called the Roughies. So if you are not interested in sexploitation you are going to be disappointed with "Schlock!" because this is where Greene is able to make his best academic arguments. Really. You can only look at so many naked women and Greene's analysis and the interview clips with Wishman and Novak are a lot more interesting.

The final section returns Corman to see what he was up to in the 1960s and looks at how what was happening at the end of the decade with the ratings system and "Midnight Cowboy" ended up sounding the death knell for exploitation flicks. The concluding argument is that today ALL movies are examples of exploitation, and during the end credits while we watch people walk by a poster for "Godzilla" ("Size does matter"), which reinforces the idea that today all movies are "exploitation" by definition. It is interesting to see these filmmakers point out that today movies have their best days and weeks when they open, which was the trademark of exploitation films in their heyday, versus the way movies from major studios would build momentum over time.

In terms of DVD extra we begin with behind the scenes footage with sexploiters Harry Novak (takes us on a tour of his office), Dorish Wishman (interview outtakes), and David F. Friedman (demonstrating a typical "sex hygiene" book pitch). Then Greene talks about "Sci-Fi: Science and Symbols" in a short clip for a television documentary and we have the short, "The Atom and Eve," a surreal industrial film from the early 1960s produced by the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company, which uses buxom dancer Leslie Franzos to sell nuclear power (as Greene wryly notes in the card introducing this one, "Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder").

For Audio extras there is a KPCC Radio interview with Greene, the songs "Your One and Only Original Lizard Brain" and "Under the Rug," the latter by Johnny English, who wrote the soundtrack music and liked it enough to add lyrics and make it a song. For that matter, you can listen to the entire soundtrack. There is a exploitation art gallery (most of which pops up in the documentary), credits for the filmmakers and also credits for the talking heads from Forrest J. Ackerman to Doris Wishman (which Samuel Z. Arkoff, Peter Bogdanovich, Roger Corman and Maila Nurmi a.k.a. Vampira in between). You will also find an audio commentary track with Greene, co-producer Wade Major and special guests that really does continue to explore the topics broached in the documentary.

Bad Girls Go To Hell Indeed.......2005-04-16

Do they let us contradict people on this site? Because I'm looking down the comments and I see one guy who is saying this movie misspells the word "SCHLOCK" (I'm Jewish, it's a yiddishism, and they spelled it correctly, "SCHLOCK," not "shlock" as this incorrect spellchecker viewer says it should be) and another guy who says that sexploitation movies aren't part of the "schlock" genre (this despite the fact that the most articulate interview subject in this movie -- an honest to God theoretician of the exploitation realm -- is David F. Friedman, a key figure in sexploitation).

I mean, c'mon, ask yourself, is Russ Meyer an exploitation moviemaker, is he a "schlock" auteur? Answer: Of course. So why wouldn't his sexploitation competitors, who are a part AND ONLY A PART of this movie also be considered "schlock" filmmakers? They should be, and in this movie they are.

Sam Arkoff and Roger Corman get half this movie's running time, which seemed like plenty to me, since so much more has been written and said about them than the Doris Wishmans of this world. Speaking of Doris: as an aspiring "bad girl" filmmaker, I gotta say, I found her absolutely inspirational. "Bad Girls Go To Hell" indeed!

I think the guy who was unwilling to admit that sexploitation movies are exploitation movies needs to watch this thing again, and more closely. He'll have a good time if he does to, and so will you, dear and gentle reader.

Wishman forever!

Worlds of Revelation for the Unititated.......2005-03-27

It's amusing to read down the reviews and see the usual angels on the head of a pin discussions about inclusion and exclusion that seem to always occur between schlock devotees, along with the justifiable praise this wickedly amusing documentary deserves. This stuff is all subjective, so I'll just state my opinion, which is that this movie is splendid and that the filmmakers got it pretty much exactly right in the balance they strike between teenage exploitation and the "adults only" variety -- I clocked it, and it works out to pretty much a 50/50 split, which is how it ought to be if you're focusing on the actual exploitation production and distribution patterns of the 60s and not the films like Corman's "Bucket of Blood" which have gone on to individual fame through constant TV airings.

There was a lot of crossover between the teen exploitation and sex exploitation worlds, and it could be argued that "SCHLOCK!" could do a better job of demonstrating this; for example, there is no discussion of the fact that Sam Arkoff's teenage-themed AIP handled films by sexploiteers Harry Novak and Doris Wishman, in Wishman's case under the "Hallmark" bannerhead, which was created for movies too offensive to run under the schlock AIP monniker! But by blending these two worlds, this documentary makes a point that needs to be made, which is that the teen exploitation filmmakers and the sex exploitation filmmakers were two sides of the same outsider coin, and sometimes their relationship was even closer than that shopworn analogy makes it seem.

Many latter day schlock fans get their opinion about the nature of this bizarre movie world from television, which celebrates the goopy monster pics of the Roger Cormans and Ed Woods on a regular basis but which has refused to show the equally public and popular adults only fare that packed in theatregoers back in the 60s, and so a lot of the hardcore fans don't realize that sexploitation was a parallell universe in a similar orbit on the other side of the generation gap, a point this film makes elegantly and persuasively. How many "Plan 9 From Outer Space Fans" realize that Ed Wood ended his career making "monster nudie" exploitation movies for cult sexploitation producer A.C. Stephens, for example? Without realizing it, the "official" schlock history neglects more than half the movies the exploitation filmmakers created. This documentary corrects for this problem, and so has a thing or two to tell even some of the more devoted schlock afficianados about what was what back in the day. The eyewitness testimonials of the actual filmmakers are priceless, and should settle the question as much as it's possible to do so.

The fact that these people nailed down what to my knowledge is the only serious interview cult icon Doris Wishman ever sat for would be reason enough to buy this pic -- the terrific interviews with David Friedman and Sam Arkoff among others make this a must have too. I wished this movie was longer, and was going to give it four stars as a result, but I decided that if that's your worst criticism, maybe that's not a criticism after all.

Not what it seems.......2005-03-08

Man, I hate giving a lousy review to a movie that's gotten a lot of good ones, because now everyone's gonna write in to argue it with me.

But here's the thing: "Schlock!" begins promising, with brief scenes of movies like "Teenagers from Outer Space" and "The Fast and the Furious," and an interview with '50s TV horror movie host Vampira, but then takes an abrupt right-hand turn into nudism movies and burlesque, where it spends most of its time.

Now, I agree that the nudie film circuit has a fascinating history, and I'm all for watching clips of naked young women playing volleyball, even though they're all as old as my Grandma now. But my argument is they aren't really "schlock" movies -- at least not in the same sense that the teen exploitation and monster movies of the '50s and early '60s were. And even though the movie makes a strong argument that they're related, skin flicks and cheesy teen movies really are separate genres altogether.

In that regard, the movie doesn't live up to the promise of its title, and that's a shame. The filmmakers scored great interviews with industry giants like Roger Corman and monster mag publisher Forrest J. Ackerman, as well as "schlock" stars like Dick Miller and Vampira, but they only serve to make you wish there was much more of them. In fact, while the film shows several scenes of Vampira's appearance in "Plan 9 From Outer Space," it never even mentions the movie at all. And "Plan 9" is perhaps the king of all "schlock" movies!

Where was "Robot Monster," "Teenage Zombies" or "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla"? I could name a million "schlock" movies that "Schlock!" ignores altogether, in favor of its odd concentration on nudism movies, which, while titillating (heh-heh), don't really belong here.

Two stars from me, with the hope that the next filmmaker to make a "schlock" movie documentary knows what "schlock" really is.

Average customer rating:

"I feel more like I do now than I did when I got here."
Astonishingly Unfunny
Horribly brilliant ....
Schlocktastic!
Schlock schucks!

Schlock
Starring: Forrest J Ackerman , Eric Allison , Tom Alvich , Ralph Baker , and John Chambers
Manufacturer: Anchor Bay
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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All Monsters Attack

ASIN: B00004Y6BE
Release Date: 2001-10-02

Customer Reviews:

"I feel more like I do now than I did when I got here.".......2005-05-17

In the continuing series of `everyone has to start somewhere', here we are presented with Schlock (1973)...no, I'm not saying this film is schlock (okay, it is), but, in fact, that is the actual title of the movie (it was once known as The Banana Monster when Troma own the rights, but has since reverted back to its original name). But in terms of starting out in the biz, this was the first film written and directed by John Landis, the man behind such movies as Animal House (1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), and Trading Places (1983). Also, while not his first film, this does mark one of the first collaborations between legendary make-up artist Rick Baker and Landis, which would be followed up with great success in the popular movie An American Werewolf in London (1981).

The movie opens on a playground strewn with bodies...and banana peels. The police arrive in time to speak to one survivor, but he offers little in the way of assistance, uttering one word before he passes..."Bananas!" Not much to go on, but we do learn in the last three weeks the Banana Killer (as he's been dubbed by the media) has been the cause for 789 deaths, and Detective/Sergeant Wino (who's in charge of the investigation) sees no end in sight to the carnage stating the only reason he even ventures outside anymore is because it's his job. Also, he thinks the deaths will continue unabated...not exactly the reassurances the general public is looking for, but then that's part of the comedy here. After a group of teenagers stumble across a hidden lair in the California hills and give the police an actual lead, it's determined by the scientific community that the killer is a Schlockthropus, or Schlock, for short (played by Landis himself in a Rick Baker created monkey suit), a prehistoric apeman and missing link in the human evolutionary chain, frozen for the last 20 million years, recently revived somehow in an unfamiliar world. There's a confrontation as the authorities try to apprehend the beast, but it escapes and finds its way to the home of a blind girl named Mindy Binderman, who mistakes Schlock for a dog she names `Willie'. Anyway, the two develop a relationship of sorts, but once Mindy gets her eyesight back, she freaks. Eventually, after a series of seemingly unrelated semi-comic episodes (Schlock in a bakery, Schlock in the movie theater, etc.), all roads lead to the big high school dance where Schlock crashes the party in an attempt to profess his monkey love to Mindy (as only a primate can), but his monkey woo woo is interrupted as the national guard show up and a standoff begins...

First off this isn't going to be a film everyone will enjoy. Diehard fans of Landis and especially Baker will want to check this out, not only to get a glimpse at this early pairing, but also to catch the really funny and worthwhile commentary track featuring the two. The comedy is staggered throughout (mainly consisting of silly sight gags and predictable parodies), as this sort of reminded me of how SNL began turning a lot their skits into feature length films after Wayne's World (1992) hit it big. Problem is, while most of those bits were funny as 10 minute skits, there's just nowhere near the amount of material (or interest) to sustain a hour and a half film...a prime example being the 1994 film It's Pat...ugh, talk about a career killer...anyway, I got the sense Schlock would have been a great ten minute piece for one of Landis' later films in The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), but stretched out over a 79 minute run time it drags a little. The film started out strong (the scenes with the news reporter are among my favorites), wears thin in the middle, and then picks up again at the end. The drag in the middle is highlighted by there being about five to ten minutes of Steve McQueen's The Blob shown as Schlock goes to the movies. Given this was Landis' first film, I thought the direction was really good as he shows a great deal of knowledge in terms of setting up shots and maintaining a sense of continuity...that's not to say he had any great visuals or settings to shoot, but he seemed to make the most of what he had...speaking of making the most of what one has, the ape suit actually looks kinda decent considering Baker created it on a scant $500 budget (sure he's done better, but then he's also had much larger budgets). As far as the acting, well, it's suitable for the film, which is to say it's really bad, but then I think that was the intent. It's interesting that the best performance should come from Landis himself buried inside an ape suit, as he makes the most out of small gestures and other nuances. All in all Schlock reminded me of a really well done home movie (one that cost $60,000) featuring some humorous moments, and provided an indication of things to come (The Kentucky Fried Movie is one of my favorite comedies).

Anchor Bay Entertainment provides a sharp and clear anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer on this DVD. The Dolby Digital Mono audio isn't as good, but good enough given the source material (I doubt anyone will rush out to re-master the audio). There are a few extras including a theatrical trailer, radio spots, still gallery, and fairly extensive and informative talent bios on both Landis and Baker. There is also a commentary track, as I mentioned earlier, featuring Landis and Baker, as they relate all kinds of fun and interesting facts and tidbits, and generally come off as two friends just hanging out and having a good time. Oh, one more thing, there is also a reproduction of an original promotional poster on the small card in the DVD case, with the flipside featuring the chapter stops.

Cookieman108

Astonishingly Unfunny.......2004-09-15

"Schlock" represents John Landis' directorial debut. After this clunker he is fortunate indeed that he ever got another chance. The premise is that a race of beings (the Schlocks) were preserved in time and have now come back to commit the horrible "banana murders", killing hundreds of people but horrifying nobody. What actually is seen is one guy (Landis, in fact) in an average ape costume (Rick Baker has done better) "terrorizing" a small California town by doing things like taking down crepe paper decorations at a high school dance, pouring a drink on a theatre patron's head, and eating a cake with his hands (twice). Schlock also gets mistaken for a dog by a very stupid blind girl (in an utterly pointless subplot), and demonstrates a working knowledge of automobile demolition in another utterly pointless scene. Needless to say, there are "2001" and "King Kong" references, and the conclusion is amazingly formulaic. You will no doubt be swayed by the "hilarity" of Detective Sergeant Wino in disguise as an ape. Oh, my ribs.

Seriously, I firmly grasp that this is trying to be a parody, and I really tried to cut Landis some slack for being young, but there really is no excuse for this tripe. I did not laugh once, and found the humor to be not only terribly derivative, but also very repetitive. I love comedies, and I love camp, but I hate "Schlock." I think it tries too hard to be funny with virtually no material. Unless you are legally required to watch this film (and if so, I would sue for cruel and unusual punishment), please do yourself a favor and skip it.

Horribly brilliant ...........2003-04-25

What can I say about this movie? You have to see it to believe it! After seeing it a couple of times you still will be asking yourself if this is the worst movie you have ever seen or is this a touch of genius, a masterpiece of bad taste. The storyline is horrible, the monster himself is absolutely ridiculous, the quality of acting in the picture is fantasticly poor...The jury is out: this movie is so bad it's brilliant!

Schlocktastic!.......2003-02-05

I had never seen this movie before I bought it on DVD. Being a big fan of both Landis and the wonderful Baker "monster maker", I just had to see this "schlock classic," and it does not disappoint! The movie itself is fairly entertaining with many movie references for the film buff and some genuinely insane moments: the title character, The Schlockthropolus, is great fun. The BEST feature of this disc, however, is the feature length commentary by John Landis and Rick Baker. For cult film fans this commentary is a must, providing fun insight and inspiration to future filmmakers and schlock fans everywhere. Great fun, the four stars are for the pure enjoyment of this DVD. A lost classic and another gem from Anchor Bay.

Schlock schucks!.......2002-12-24

This has undoubedly entered my memory as the absolute worst film of all time. The acting, the premise, the unfolding story etc, all make it incredibly dumb, idiotic and insipid. So much in fact, that I would actually recommend you to see it, just so you have an idea exactly how BAD a movie can be.... truly.

I would rather sit through a marathon of Pokemon than this schlock!

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