The 1960s and 1970s marked the rise of exploitation-style independent B movies; films which were mostly made without the support of Hollywood's major film studios. As censorship pressures lifted in the early 1960s, the low-budget end of the American motion picture industry increasingly incorporated the sort of sexual and violent elements long associated with so-called ‘exploitation’ films. The demise of the

Motion Picture Production Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the Cinema of the United States, United States from 1934 to 1968. It ...

in 1968New Hollywood: Movies, Directors, and Influences of the Era, Backstage
/ref> and coupled with the success of the film '' Easy Rider'' the following year fueled the trend throughout the subsequent decade. The success of the B-studio exploitation movement had a significant effect on the strategies of the major studios during the 1970s.

1960s

Despite many transformations in the industry, the average production cost of an American feature film remained mostly stable over the course of the 1950s. In 1950, the figure had been $1 million; in 1961, it reached $2 million—after adjusting for inflation, the increase in real terms was less than 10 percent. The traditional twin bill of B film preceding and balancing a subsequent-run A film had largely disappeared from American theaters. The dual genre-movie package, popularized by American International Pictures (AIP) in the previous decade, was the new face of the double feature. In July 1960, the latest Joseph E. Levine sword-and-sandals import, '' Hercules Unchained'', opened at neighborhood theaters in New York. An 82-minute-long suspense film, '' Terror Is a Man'', ran as a "co-feature", and is notable for including a now-common exploitation gimmick, asking sensitive viewers to close their eyes during the dénouement. That year,

Roger Corman Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema", "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood", and "The King of Cult", he w ...

took American International down a new road: "When they asked me to make two ten-day black-and-white horror films to play as a double feature, I convinced them instead to finance one horror film in color." A period piece in the vein of Britain's Hammer Films, '' House of Usher'' was a success, launching a series of Poe-based movies Corman would direct for AIP. MotorpsychoPoster

With the loosening of industry censorship constraints, the 1960s and 1970s saw a major expansion in the production and commercial viability of a variety of B-movie subgenres that have come to be known collectively as exploitation films. Exploitation-style promotional practices had become standard practice at the lower-budget end of the industry. With major studios having exited traditional B-movie production, ''exploitation'' became a way to refer to the entire field of low-budget genre films. In the early 1960s, exploitation movies in the original sense continued to appear: 1961's ''Damaged Goods'', a

cautionary tale A cautionary tale or moral tale is a tale told in folklore to warn its listener of a Risk, danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is ...

about a young lady whose boyfriend's promiscuity leads to

venereal disease A sexually transmitted infection (STI), also referred to as a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and the older term venereal disease (VD), is an infection that is spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, or ...

, comes complete with enormous, grotesque closeups of VD's physical manifestations. At the same time, the concept of fringe exploitation was merging with a closely related and similarly venerable tradition: “ nudie" films featuring nudist-camp footage or striptease artists like

Bettie Page Bettie Mae Page (April 22, 1923 – December 11, 2008) was an American model who gained notoriety in the 1950s for her pin-up model, pin-up photos.softcore pornography of previous decades. As far back as 1933, ''This Nude World'', which promised an "Authentic Trip Through an American Nudist Colony!", was "Guaranteed the Most Educational Film Ever Produced!"Halperin (2006), p. 201. In the late 1950s, as more of the old grindhouse theaters specifically devoted themselves to "adult" product, a few filmmakers began making nudies with some greater semblance of plots. Best known was Russ Meyer, who released his first successful narrative nudie, '' The Immoral Mr. Teas'', in 1959. Five years later, on a sub-$100,000 budget, Meyer came out with '' Lorna'', "a harder-edged film that combined sex with gritty realism and violence." Meyer would build an underground reputation as a talented director with movies such as '' Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!'' (1965) and '' Vixen!'' (1968), the sort of films, virtually ignored by the mainstream press, that had become known as

sexploitation A sexploitation film (or sex-exploitation film) is a class of independently produced, Low-budget film, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition o ...

pictures. Many films, while not sexually explicit, were nevertheless relegated to adult theaters due to their sexual content. One of the most influential films of the era, on B's and beyond, was

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. **Paramount Picture ...

's '' Psycho''. Its $8.5 million in earnings against a production cost of $800,000 made it the most profitable movie of 1960. Its mainstream distribution without the Production Code seal of approval helped weaken U.S. film censorship. And, as William Paul notes, this move into the horror genre by respected director

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

was made, "significantly, with the lowest-budgeted film of his American career and the least glamorous stars. tsgreatest initial impact... was on schlock horror movies (notably those from second-tier director William Castle), each of which tried to bill itself as scarier than ''Psycho''." Castle's first film in the ''Psycho'' vein was '' Homicidal'' (1961), an early step in the development of the slasher subgenre that would flourish in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In order to make up for low budgets, many studios resorted to extreme violence and gore. One of these films, '' Blood Feast'' (1963) laid the foundation of the splatter film genre. Despite ''Psychos impact and the growing popularity of horror, major Hollywood studios largely continued to disdain the genre, at least for their own production lines. Along with the output of "off-Hollywood" U.S. concerns similar to Lewis and Friedman's, distributors brought in more foreign movies to fill the demands of rural drive-ins, lower-end urban theaters, and outright grindhouses. Hammer Films' success with '' The Curse of Frankenstein'' (1957) and its remake of ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...

'' (1958) had established the studio as an important supplier of horror movies to the American B market, a positioned it maintained throughout the 1960s. In 1961, American International released a movie clearly influenced by Hammer's characteristically bold visual style and moody pace—'' Black Sunday'' was a dubbed horror import from Italy, where it had premiered the previous year as ''La maschera del demonio''. It became the highest grossing film in AIP history. The movie's director was

Mario Bava Mario Bava (; 31 July 1914 – 27 April 1980) was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter. His low-budget genre films, known for their distinctive visual flair and stylish ...

, who would launch the horror subgenre known as giallo with '' La ragazza che sapeva troppo'' (''The Girl Who Knew Too Much''; 1963) and '' Sei Donne per l’assassino'' (''Blood and Black Lace''; 1964). Many gialli, highly stylized films mixing sexploitation and ultraviolence, were picked up for U.S. B-market distribution and would prove influential on American horror films in turn, especially of the slasher type. While in the past, the term ''B movie'' had been applied, both in the United States and abroad, almost exclusively to low- and modest-budget American films, the growing Italian exploitation film industry now also became associated with the label (usually styled in Italy as ''B-movie'').

Decline of the Code

The Production Code was officially repealed in 1968 and replaced by the first version of the present-day MPA. That same year, two particularly relevant horror films were released. One was a high-budget Paramount production, directed by

Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański (; born 18 August 1933) is a Polish and French filmmaker and actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Roman Polanski, numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Britis ...

and based on a bestselling novel by Ira Levin. Produced by B-horror veteran William Castle, '' Rosemary's Baby'' "took the genre up-market for the first time since the 1930s." It was a critical success and the seventh-biggest box office hit of the year. The other was George A. Romero's now classic '' Night of the Living Dead'', produced on weekends in and around Pittsburgh for $114,000. It built on the achievement of B-genre predecessors like '' Invasion of the Body Snatchers'' in its subtextual exploration of social and political issues, and was a critical and financial success. With the Production Code gone and the

X rating An X rating is a film rating that indicates that the film contains content that is considered to be suitable only for adults. Films with an X rating may have scenes of graphic violence or explicit sexual acts that may be disturbing or offensive ...

established, major studio A films like '' Midnight Cowboy'' could now show adult imagery, while the market for increasingly hardcore pornography exploded. In this transformed commercial context, work like Russ Meyer's gained a new legitimacy. In 1969, for the first time a Meyer film, '' Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!'', was reviewed in ''The New York Times''. Soon, Corman would be putting out nudity-filled

pictures such as ''The Student Nurses'' (1970) and '' Women in Cages'' (1971). With '' The Vampire Lovers'' (1970), Hammer similarly launched "a cycle of lesbian vampire movies that bordered on soft porn." In May 1969, the most important of all exploitation movies premiered at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

. Much of '' Easy Riders significance owes to the fact that it was produced for a respectable, if still modest, budget and released by a major studio. The project was first taken by one of its co-creators, Peter Fonda, to American International. Fonda had become AIP's top star in the Corman–directed '' The Wild Angels'' (1966), a biker movie, and ''The Trip'', as in LSD. The idea Fonda pitched would combine those two proven themes. AIP was intrigued but balked at giving his collaborator, Dennis Hopper—who had appeared in ''The Trip'' and several other AIP opuses—free directorial rein. The duo then took their concept, for which they had projected a $60,000 budget, to producer Bert Schneider. Suggesting that they would have an easier time raising $600,000, Schneider helped arrange a financing and distribution deal with

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

, where his brother was president. Two more graduates of the Corman/AIP exploitation mill joined the project: Jack Nicholson and cinematographer László Kovács. The film (which managed to incorporate another favorite exploitation theme, the redneck menace, as well as a fair amount of nudity) was brought in at a cost of $501,000. ''Easy Rider'' would earn $19.1 million in rentals, becoming, as one history puts it, "the seminal film that provided the bridge between all the repressed tendencies represented by schlock/kitsch/hack since the dawn of Hollywood and the mainstream cinema of the seventies."

1970s

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a new generation of low-budget film companies emerged that drew from all the different lines of exploitation as well as the sci-fi and teen themes that had been a mainstay since the 1950s. Operations such as Roger Corman's New World Pictures, Cannon Films,

New Line Cinema New Line Productions, Inc., Trade name, doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production, film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, a division of the Major film studios, ...

, Film Ventures International, Fanfare Films, and Independent-International Pictures brought exploitation films to mainstream theaters around the country. The major studios' top product was continuing to inflate in running time—in 1970, the ten biggest earners averaged 140.1 minutes. The B's were keeping pace: In 1955, Corman had a produced five movies averaging 74.8 minutes, with a range between 69 and 79. He played a similar part in five films originally released in 1970, two for AIP and three for his own New World, including an Italian horror film that he purchased for around $25,000: the average length was 89.8 minutes, with a range between 86 and 94. These films could turn a tidy profit. The first New World release, the biker movie ''Angels Die Hard'', cost $117,000 to produce. It was no ''Easy Rider'', but its box-office take of $2 million–plus meant a 46 percent return for New World's investors. In addition to the start-ups, the growth of exploitation in the 1970s also involved the leading studio in the low-budget field. In 1973, American International gave a shot to director Brian De Palma, whose previous movie, a Warner Bros. comedy, performed poorly. Reviewing ''

Sisters A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

'', De Palma's first horror film, '' New Yorker'' critic Pauline Kael observed that its "limp technique doesn't seem to matter to the people who want their gratuitous gore. The movie supplies it, but why is there so much gratuitous dumbness too?... can't get two people talking in order to make a simple expository point without its sounding like the drabbest

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

picture of 1938." Many examples of the so-called blaxploitation genre of the early and middle part of the decade, featuring stereotype-filled stories revolving around drugs, violent crime, and prostitution, were the product of AIP. One of blaxploitation's biggest stars was Pam Grier, who began her film career with a bit part in Russ Meyer's '' Beyond the Valley of the Dolls'' (1970) and who had appeared in several New World pictures, including ''The Big Doll House'' (1971) and ''The Big Bird Cage'' (1972), both directed by Jack Hill. Hill also directed her best-known performances, in two AIP blaxploitation films: '' Coffy'' (1973) and ''Foxy Brown'' (1974). Sweet sweetback poster

Blaxploitation was the first exploitation genre to picked up by the major studios in a substantial way. Indeed, the United Artists release ''Cotton Comes to Harlem'' (1970), directed by Ossie Davis, is seen as the first significant film of the type. Crossing over before the genre had even gotten established, Laurence Merrick's micro-budget independent ''The Black Angels'' (a.k.a. ''Black Bikers from Hell''; 1970) followed by a few months. But the movie regarded as truly igniting the blaxploitation phenomenon, again completely independent, came the following year: '' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song''. Melvin Van Peebles wrote, co-produced, directed, starred in, edited, and composed the music for the film, which was completed with the last-minute help of a $50,000 loan from

Bill Cosby William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American retired comedian, actor, and media personality. Often cited as a trailblazer for African Americans in the entertainment industry, Cosby was a film, television, and stand-up comedy ...

. In 1970, a low-budget crime drama shot in 16 mm by a first-time American director won the international critics' prize at the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

. '' Wanda'', written and directed by Barbara Loden, is both a seminal event in the independent film movement and a classic B picture. The plot—involving a disaffected divorcée who drifts away from her coal-town life and aimlessly falls in with a small-time, would-be hardboiled crook, resembling the setting of an old noir film. Loden, who spent six years raising money for the sub-$200,000 production, created a film that

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' praised for "the absolute accuracy of its effects, the decency of its point of view and the kind of purity of technique that can only be the result of conscious discipline." While ''Wanda'' would be the only movie Loden ever made, she "left us with a film that anticipated the independent spirit that would reinvigorate the industry." Like Romero and Van Peebles, other filmmakers of the era made pictures that combined the gut-level entertainment of exploitation with biting social commentary. The first three features directed by

Larry Cohen Lawrence George Cohen (July 15, 1936 – March 23, 2019) was an American filmmaker. He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as ''Black Caesar (film), Black Caesar'' and ''Hell Up in Harlem'' (both 1973), before becomin ...

, ''Bone'' (a.k.a. ''Beverly Hills Nightmare''; 1972), '' Black Caesar'' (1973), and '' Hell Up in Harlem'' (1973), were all nominally blaxploitation movies, but Cohen—also the screenwriter on each film—used them as vehicles for a satirical examination of race relations and the wages of dog-eat-dog capitalism. Cohen's ''The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover'' (1977), for AIP, might have "the look of tabloid sleaze," but one leading critic found it "perhaps the most intelligent film about American politics ever to come out of Hollywood." The gory horror film ''Deathdream'' (a.k.a. ''Dead of Night''; 1974), directed by Bob Clark and written by Alan Orsmby, is also a protest of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

. Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg made many low-budget horror films which, while not ideological, still take a deep focus on existential and psychological problems, such as '' Shivers'' (1975), '' Rabid'' (1977), and '' The Brood'' (1979) The horror field continued to attract young, independent American directors whose work would prove especially influential. As critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

explained in one 1974 movie review, "Horror and exploitation films almost always turn a profit if they're brought in at the right price. So they provide a good starting place for ambitious would-be filmmakers who can't get more conventional projects off the ground." The particular movie under consideration was '' The Texas Chain Saw Massacre''. Written and directed by Tobe Hooper, it was made on a budget of somewhere between $93,000 and $250,000. It would earn $14.4 million in domestic rentals and become one of the most influential horror films of the decade.

John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror film, horror, action film, action, and science fiction film, science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s, he is ...

, whose debut feature, the $60,000

Science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

comedy '' Dark Star'' (1974) became a

cult classic A cult following is a group of Fan (person), fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some List of art media, medium. The latter is often cal ...

. ''

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

'' (1978), produced for $320,000, grossed over $80 million at the box-office worldwide, making it "the most successful 'indie' movie ever released." The film effectively established the slasher mode as the primary expression of the horror genre for the next decade. Just as Hooper had learned from Romero's landmark ''Night of the Living Dead'', ''Halloween'', in turn, largely followed the model of '' Black Christmas'', directed by ''Deathdreams Bob Clark. The impact of these films still echoes through such movies as the ''

Saw A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, Wire saw, wire, or Chainsaw, chain with a hard toothed edge used to cut through material. Various terms are used to describe toothed and abrasive saws. Saws began as serrated materials, and when man ...

'' series, including 2006's '' Saw III'', a mainstream, $10 million production—far below the current Hollywood average, but more than a hundred times Hooper's budget and well out of any true independent's league. In various ways, the B movies of the era have inspired later filmmakers blessed with much better financial backing. Almost all the works of Quentin Tarantino—in particular, '' Jackie Brown'' (1997), the '' Kill Bill'' movies (2003–04), and his ''Death Proof'' segment of '' Grindhouse'' (2007)—pay explicit tribute to classic exploitation cinema. Blaxploitation is a direct homage by the former, while the ''Kill Bill'' pictures reference a wide variety of Asian martial arts films, which appeared as imports in U.S. theaters regularly during the 1970s. These "

kung fu Chinese martial arts, commonly referred to with umbrella terms Kung fu (term), kung fu (; ), kuoshu () or wushu (sport), wushu (), are Styles of Chinese martial arts, multiple fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in Greater Ch ...

" films as they were often called, whatever specific martial art was featured, were popularized in the United States by the Hong Kong–produced movies of

Bruce Lee Bruce Lee (born Lee Jun-fan; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was an American-born Hong Kong martial artist, actor, filmmaker, and philosopher. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy which was formed from ...

. His films, and later ones with such stars as Hong Kong's Jackie Chan and Japan's Sonny Chiba, were marketed to the same genre/exploitation audience targeted by AIP and New World. ''Death Proof'' is inspired by a range of exploitation styles, particularly giallo/slasher pictures and car-chase movies like 20th Century-Fox's ''

Vanishing Point A vanishing point is a point (geometry), point on the projection plane, image plane of a graphical perspective, perspective rendering where the two-dimensional perspective projections of parallel (geometry), parallel lines in three-dimensional ...

'' (1971) and '' Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry'' (1974) and New World's '' Cannonball'' (1976) and ''

Grand Theft Auto ''Grand Theft Auto'' (''GTA'') is an action-adventure video game series created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is prima ...

'' (1977).

New markets for the B

In the early 1970s, the growing practice of screening non-mainstream motion pictures as late shows, with the goal of building a

cult film A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase, which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage in repeated ...

audience, made the midnight movie a significant new mode of cinematic exhibition, with transgressive connotations. Socializing in a countercultural milieu was part of the original attraction of the midnight filmgoing experience, something like a drive-in movie for the hip. One of the first films adopted by the new midnight movie circuit in 1971 was the three-year-old ''Night of the Living Dead''. The midnight movie success of low-budget pictures made entirely outside of the studio system, like John Waters' '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972), with its campy spin on exploitation, spurred the development of the independent film movement. '' The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' (1975), an inexpensive film from 20th Century-Fox that spoofed all manner of classic B-picture clichés, became an unparalleled hit when it was relaunched as a late show feature the year after its initial, unprofitable release. Even as ''Rocky Horror'' generated its own subcultural phenomenon, it contributed to the mainstreaming of the theatrical midnight movie. On television, the parallels between the weekly series that became the mainstay of prime-time programming and the Hollywood series films of an earlier day had long been clear. In the 1970s, original feature-length programming increasingly began to echo the B movie as well. While there had been dramatic feature presentations made especially for TV since the beginning of the medium's mass commercialization in the late 1940s, they had by and large not crossed over with the realm of the B movie. In the 1950s, the live television drama—a unique amalgam of cinematic and theatrical elements exemplified by ''

Playhouse 90 ''Playhouse 90'' is an American television anthology drama series that aired on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 134 episodes. The show was produced at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California. Since live anthology drama series of t ...

'' (1956–1961)—had predominated. Over the course of the 1960s, there was a transition to prerecorded features; most of those produced by the major networks either aspired to the prestige of major motion pictures (e.g., CBS's 1965 ''

Cinderella "Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a Folklore, folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The protagonist is a you ...

'') or were intended as pilots for projected series. During this period, AIP produced a number of low-grade genre pictures such as '' Zontar, the Thing from Venus'' (1966) intended for the first-run TV syndication market. As production of TV movies expanded with the introduction of the '' ABC Movie of the Week'' in 1969, soon followed by the dedication of other network slots to original feature presentations, time and financial factors shifted the medium progressively into B-picture territory. In a 1974 ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' article, "The New B Movies," Richard Schickel begins by discussing a few recent high-priced TV features, only to argue that

"as with the old films, so with TV movies: the quick, deft westerns, mysteries and action melodramas that depend on well-established conventions may in the end exert a larger claim on our attention than their more pretentiously publicized rivals...Convenient to turn on, easy to flick off, movies made for TV approximate the conditions under which all movies used to be chanced by audiences years ago...when at least half the pleasure of movie-going derived precisely from the fact that no sense of cultural occasion was attached to that simple, inexpensive act."

While many TV films of the 1970s were action-oriented genre pictures of a type familiar from contemporary cinematic B production, the small screen also saw a revival of the B melodrama. Television films inspired by recent scandals—such as ABC's ''The Ordeal of Patty Hearst'', which premiered a month after her release from prison in 1979—harkened all the way back to the 1920s and such movies as ''Human Wreckage'' and ''When Love Grows Cold'', pictures from low-budget studio FBO made swiftly in the wake of celebrity misfortunes. Some TV movies, such as '' Nightmare in Badham County'' (ABC; 1976), headed straight into the realm of road-tripping-girls-in-redneck-bondage exploitation. The reverberations of ''Easy Rider'' could be felt in ''Nightmare in Badham County'', as well as in a host of big-screen exploitation films of the era. But perhaps its greatest influence on the fate of the B movie was less direct. By 1973, the major studios were clearly catching on to the commercial potential of genres that had once been consigned to the bargain basement. ''Rosemary's Baby'' had shown that a well-packaged horror "special" could be a box-office hit, but it had little in common with the exploitation style. Warner Bros.' ''

The Exorcist ''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on The Exorcist (novel), his 1971 novel. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller (play ...

'', directed by

William Friedkin William David Friedkin (; August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023) was an American film, television and opera director, producer, and screenwriter who was closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in doc ...

, was a different story. It showed that a heavily promoted and distributed film in the genre could be an absolute blockbuster. And more: In William Paul's description, "it is the film that really established gross-out as a mode of expression for mainstream cinema.... Past exploitation films managed to exploit their cruelties by virtue of their marginality. ''The Exorcist'' made cruelty respectable. By the end of the decade, the exploitation booking strategy of opening films simultaneously in hundreds to thousands of theaters became standard industry practice." It was the biggest movie of the year and by far the highest-earning horror movie yet made. On behalf of its genre, Universal's '' American Graffiti'' did something similar. Released when writer-director George Lucas was twenty-nine years old, it is described by Paul as "essentially an American-International teenybopper pic with a lot more spit and polish"—a combination that made it the third biggest movie of 1973 and, likewise, by far the highest-earning teen-themed movie yet made.Paul (1994), p. 92. A-budgeted B-themed movies of even greater historical import would follow in their wake.

Notes

References

* Archer, Eugene (1960). "'House of Usher': Poe Story on Bill With 'Why Must I Die?'" ''The New York Times'', September 15 (availabl
online
. * Biskind, Peter (1998). ''Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock'n'Roll Generation Saved Hollywood''. New York: Simon & Schuster. * Cagin, Seth, and Philip Dray (1984). ''Hollywood Films of the Seventies''. New York: Harper & Row. * Canby, Vincent (1969). "By Russ Meyer," ''The New York Times'', September 6 (availabl

. * Cook, David A. (2000). ''Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, 1970–1979'' (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press). * Corliss, Richard (1981). "This Is the Way the World Ends," ''Time'', January 26 (availabl

. * Corman, Roger, with Jim Jerome (1998). ''How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime'', new ed. New York: Da Capo. * Di Franco, J. Philip, ed. (1979). ''The Movie World of Roger Corman''. New York and London: Chelsea House. * Ebert, Roger (1974). "''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,''" ''Chicago Sun-Times'', January 1 (availabl
online
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. * Grimes, William (2010). "Joseph Sarno, Sexploitation Film Director, Dies at 89," ''The New York Times'', May 2 (availabl

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External links

B-movie A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...

Italian-language Wikipedia entry covering the term's use in the Italian film industry
"What Exactly Is a B-Movie?"
essay by B-Movie Central's Duane L. Martin, focusing on 1960s and 1970s exploitation styles {{Independent production 1960s in American cinema 1970s in American cinema History of film Midnight movie