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SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: How Exploitation Films Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Chuck here. If you're wondering why you have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: suddenly ten new episodes in your feed, this is because
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: we thought we might group things together and try a
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: little playlist here for the summer and see how it went.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: And in this case, we're covering some of our movies
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: or movies in general. And I am setting up our
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: semi recent episode from Oh, I guess it's not that recent.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It's from April twenty eleven on exploitation films and how
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: they work. It was a really fun one to do.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And if you love cinema and you love movies, and
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  Speaker 1: if you love exploitation movies especially, you're gonna love this episode.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you should know from
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Hang on there, fella, Oh yes, I know what we're doing.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, get us going here.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, the other night you may have noticed. I
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: know you did, because I watched you watch this just
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  Speaker 2: kind of creepy but not really. You and I were
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: on TV, Yeah, on the Science Channel.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we did the little shorts and we're actually proud
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of how these turned out, which is a rarity for
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  Speaker 1: us when there's a camera.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: It is, so we have more shorts coming up on
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Science Channel. They're running Saturdays and Sundays until I think
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: the first week of May or something, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and now that they're all running between ten and
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: ten thirty now supposedly during the shows I think on Saturdays,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: this is Oddities, which is an awesome and weird show
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: it is, and then Sundays, which is Firefly, which is
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: everyone loves Firefly.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I actually consider it an honor to
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: be played during Firefly. Yeah, me too, even though the
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: cast of Firefly has no idea that this is going
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: on because it's pre recorded.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, Josh, So this what'sa day Thursday obviously, yeah, Saturday
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and Sunday night this weekend. Yeah, on the Science Channel.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: That is the Science Channel, it's part of the Discovery
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Networks between ten and ten already, set your little DVR
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and then look, they run during the commercial breaks, or.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: If you're not so fancy that you have a DVR,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: you can actually watch it as it happens.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: That's right. And we are able to run a few
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: of these online. Now I'm not the ones that are
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: on TV, but there are three funny ones if you
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  Speaker 1: it'll bring up that in a couple of other little
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  Speaker 1: funny things we've done.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's it. We just take like ten minutes
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: onto this episode.
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  Speaker 1: I know. We appreciate your support. Who mine, No, oh,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: everyone that wants to watch these okay.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, so are you ready? Okay, hey, and welcome to
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: This is Stuff you should know the podcast and kind
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: of a special edition. Frankly, I am a little excited, Chuck,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I'm a little giddy.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Shut your mouth.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: That's yeah, okay, sure, all right, this is this is
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  Speaker 2: our first ever movie centric podcast, right.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Movie centric for sure. Yeah, we've mentioned movies of course
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: all the time, but this one is like, this.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Is all about movies. So this is by popular request
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  Speaker 2: to an extent. People want to see, like, they want
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  Speaker 2: to hear us talk about movies and just do a
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: movie podcast. So we decided to focus on exploitation films. Right.
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  Speaker 2: This is also probably the first podcast that we're going
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  Speaker 2: to say, if you are a teacher of children in
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  Speaker 2: eighth grade or younger, and you're using this as a
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: teaching tool, you might want to go to the one
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  Speaker 2: before this or the one after. We don't generally try
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  Speaker 2: to alienate audiences. We're not attempting to now. It's just
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  Speaker 2: a natural byproduct of the exploitation film.
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  Speaker 1: Can't talk about exploitation films without talking about some lurid
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  Speaker 1: subject matter.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't say exploitation without ploit.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they weren't exploiting, just people being nice, right, niceploitation.
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  Speaker 2: So, Chuck, I went and saw a movie the other
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  Speaker 2: day called I Saw the Devil. It's a Korean movie.
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  Speaker 2: It's by the guy who did the Tale of Two Sisters.
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  Speaker 1: I think Oh, he said more violent than Old Boy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the guy old Boy is one of the main characters.
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  Speaker 2: And I've seen old Boy. I've seen what's the other
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  Speaker 2: one he did, the vampire movie, Yeah, Thirst, So I
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  Speaker 2: think it's pretty good. It was okay, this one is
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  Speaker 2: it's the most violent thing I've ever seen in my life.
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  Speaker 2: It's the most graphically violent movie I've ever seen in
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  Speaker 2: my life. The only the only reason, like I was
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  Speaker 2: able to complete is because I'm like, this is it's
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  Speaker 2: a movie, I know, but I walked out of it
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  Speaker 2: like it's so over the top, it's so gory. It's
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  Speaker 2: clearly an exploitation film.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the problem is is, like, really, if you
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: start to look around, John Hughes, films technically are exploitation films.
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  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club is technically an exploitation film.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a big wave of teen exploitation films, and
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  Speaker 1: we'll get to that, but yeah, you're right.
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  Speaker 2: So one of the broader definitions of exploitation films is
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  Speaker 2: basically anything that's really like over the top, that is
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  Speaker 2: beyond reality, or that maybe focuses on people's fears, their
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  Speaker 2: sexuality and basically just kind of serves it up in
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: a larger than life manner. That's one way of looking
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  Speaker 2: at exploitation films.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're basically they're exploiting some of the seedier aspects
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  Speaker 1: of humanity most times.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, like murder or sex, like weird sex, that kind
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  Speaker 2: of thing, sexed.
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  Speaker 1: Sex, teenagers rebelling against parents.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, like a weird science. Have you ever been to
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  Speaker 2: a party where a couch shot out of the chimney
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  Speaker 2: and into the pond? I mean, it's a pretty nice party.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think it's ever really happened, you know. So
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  Speaker 2: that's the vast definition of exploitation. But you and I
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  Speaker 2: are kind of qualified to teach a cinema class at
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  Speaker 2: like maybe a low level community college at this point
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  Speaker 2: after the amount of research we've done in this sure,
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  Speaker 2: and we found that academically there's a there's a much
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  Speaker 2: more distinct definition for exploitation, and it's seemingly interchangeable term grindhouse.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, what's the Is there a definition definition?
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  Speaker 2: It's more like a timeframe. Okay, So from like nineteen
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  Speaker 2: nineteen when they really first started making movies to I
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  Speaker 2: think nineteen sixty nineteen fifty nine when the Hayes Act
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  Speaker 2: went away, that was exploitation, and then after that it
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  Speaker 2: became Grindhouse. Okay, gotcha, it's my understanding. Okay, so let's
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: do this all right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that's the old joke. Was that in the awesome
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  Speaker 1: documentary American Grindhouse, which documents this this era of filmmaking. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the old joke, one of the guys says, is that
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  Speaker 1: exploitation films began five minutes after the camera was invented,
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  Speaker 1: the motion picture camera.
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  Speaker 2: Because the guy was like the directors like to his girlfriend, hey,
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  Speaker 2: would you mind taking your clothes off or the camera exactly?
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  Speaker 1: So it says something about the human condition that you
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  Speaker 1: invent the film camera, and the first moving images were
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  Speaker 1: often lurid Edison's film. It showed clips of like decapitations
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  Speaker 1: and violence and guys fighting, yeah, and knit naked women
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  Speaker 1: as film tests. So it's just that says a lot
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  Speaker 1: about people, like, all right, now we know how to
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  Speaker 1: capture things, so let's capture sex and violence right first.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And although that really kind of jibed with public tastes,
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  Speaker 2: or at least public fascination, it didn't jibe with the
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  Speaker 2: prevailing standards. They agreed upon standards, right.
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  Speaker 1: Right, I think he said nineteen nineteen. But the first
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  Speaker 1: exploitation film was nineteen thirteen. Oh, okay, Trafficking Souls or
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  Speaker 1: While New York Sleeps, right, and that, like you said,
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  Speaker 1: exploitation often plays into fears. That played into the fear
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  Speaker 1: at the time of the white slave trade. Budget of
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven grand and gross four hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
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  Speaker 1: which nineteen thirteen. It's a lot of dough.
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  Speaker 2: That is a ton of though, And.
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  Speaker 1: That was Universal Pictures and they went, hey, going on
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  Speaker 1: to something here.
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  Speaker 2: Right after that was released the Hayes Code. Will Hayes
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  Speaker 2: was the Postmaster General and Presbyterian elder and he was
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  Speaker 2: making one hundred grand a year during the depression.
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  Speaker 1: Unbelievable, right.
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  Speaker 2: He basically said, like, look, we need we need to
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  Speaker 2: apply some moral standards to filmmaking. There's decapitation, there's naked breast,
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  Speaker 2: there's white slavery, Like we need to pure this up, right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, actually, there wasn't nudity yet like those early test films.
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  Speaker 1: There were, but nudity. We'll get to that later, okay,
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  Speaker 1: But yes, that's what Hayes tried to do. And like
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  Speaker 1: prohibition didn't exactly quell drinking, the Hayes Code actually sort
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  Speaker 1: of gave rise to the exploitation movement.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like just like prohibition, just like marijuana prohibition,
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  Speaker 2: just like well any drug prohibition. Anytime you say you
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  Speaker 2: can't do this, you can't have something that you want,
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  Speaker 2: the somebody else is going to operate in a black market.
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  Speaker 2: A black market's going to bring up simple economics. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and that's exactly what happened, and that's where exploitation cinema
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  Speaker 2: came up. It's like, you can't get this from Hollywood
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  Speaker 2: because Hollywood has to play by the rules. But my
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: production studio is my model t and let's go make
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  Speaker 2: this movie. Give me some money. I'm going to film
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  Speaker 2: a child being born close up and put it in
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  Speaker 2: the movies.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, you can do that. You can make your movies
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  Speaker 1: all day long, but if they're never exhibited, then what
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  Speaker 1: good are you doing or not? Like they were trying
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  Speaker 1: to do some good, but you're not making any scratch.
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  Speaker 1: So the forty thieves they talk about in the documentary
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  Speaker 1: were these filmmakers and exhibitors basically that traveled around like carnies,
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  Speaker 1: setting up these sort of gorilla film screenings and some
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  Speaker 1: places sort of out of the way where they can't
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  Speaker 1: get caught. And that was for the first time, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they were taking films outside of the main stream.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Different. Sometimes they weren't even theaters. They would show them
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  Speaker 1: like VFW halls if you want to go see Birth
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: of a Baby films. Apparently they were popular.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a whole genre, early genre of exploitation.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Well, and so was early on a lot of the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: film centered around like how to wear a condom in
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  Speaker 1: these sex hygiene films.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because there was no information about that out there,
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  Speaker 2: and so exploitation filmmakers, whether disingenuously or genuinely, were ending
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: their stuff like this is a public service. People need
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: to know this, right and making movies about it. But
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  Speaker 2: also and people were going on that excuse as well,
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  Speaker 2: like well, I need to know about this, But at
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  Speaker 2: the same time, it's like I want to see this
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  Speaker 2: the craziest thing I'll ever see in my life exactly,
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  Speaker 2: you know, on screen.
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  Speaker 1: Or they argued a lot of times that they were
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  Speaker 1: cautionary tales. If they were about drugs or violence, they
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  Speaker 1: would say, hey, this could happen to you. Yeah, so
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  Speaker 1: you should educate yourself. But what they really want to
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  Speaker 1: do is get.
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  Speaker 2: Their movie scene and make some money exactly.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Paramount decision of nineteen forty eight. This is pretty big.
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  Speaker 1: This Supreme Court voted that movie studios could no longer
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: own their own movie theaters. At the time, you know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: there would be like the Paramount Theater in Hollywood from
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the Paramount Film production Company. They would show their movies.
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Court said no more, and all of a sudden,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: exploitation films became a little bit more legit because the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Hayes Code kind of fell apart. Yeah, and this is
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: post World War two, so.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: People had seen a lot of death recently, well a lot.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Of death, and then they thought ladies in suggestive roles
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: were good for morale. And there was a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of loosening on the sex thing a little bit post
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: World War two.
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  Speaker 2: Enough that led to another subgenre of exploitation film, the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: nwdest colony film, which were pawned off as documentaries. A
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: lot well most of these were pawned off as document documentaries,
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  Speaker 2: which legitimized them, but really it was maybe it actually
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: was film that a news camp. Probably not. Mostly there
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  Speaker 2: were actors and actresses just engaged in archery naked or
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  Speaker 2: long walks naked.
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  Speaker 1: There could be no sex.
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  Speaker 2: Still that was still no taboo, but it was just
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: like naked pretty people right at a newdist colony, which
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: is interesting because you're not a nudist, so come learn
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: about them exactly. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: After that, through the history we had things like the
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: teen like you said, the teen Rebellion of the fifties
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: with the rebel thought of Cause and Blackboard Jungle and
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: movies like that all of a sudden were targeted specifically
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: at teens, which was new, and then drive in theaters
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: were built so teenagers could see movies where their parents
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: weren't going to be. Apparently the adults didn't go to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: drive ins a lot at first. Oh yeah, it's all kids.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So they showed exploitation films and then later the beach films,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: which were marketed as it's silly, it's Frankie avalon, but
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  Speaker 1: they were decidedly weird and overtly sexual sometimes.
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  Speaker 2: And then chuck, if you'll notice, we're kind of progressing
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  Speaker 2: along in this chronological order, and each thing is kind
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  Speaker 2: of being built on the last.
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  Speaker 1: It was very much a step process, right.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: And apparently that was kind of the form that exploitation
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: filmmaking followed until nineteen sixty it was just it was
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: centered around drugs, violence, sex, and in a lot of
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: ways they were presented as documentaries. They might not have
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: a plot, and basically it was one person would make
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: some film and it would just break all the rules,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and then a bunch of other people would make similar films,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: right and the same. That was the way it went.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And then in the nineteen sixties things just started to
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: go every which way, all sorts of directions. Right, So
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: nudity nudy films were a long standing thread of exploitation
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: films and then they probably reached their pinnacle with Russ Myers, right,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: King of the Nudies is what he's called.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was the first guy to He's significant because
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: he was the first director to have films featuring nudity
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: that actually were dramatic narratives and had plots and characters,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and they weren't classified as documentaries anymore. And then the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Roughies came along and they offered up violence for the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: not first time, but big time for the first time. Right,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And that has a lot to do with the fact
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: that there was the sixties and Kennedy was shot and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the United States was just becoming increasingly violent.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: America lost its innocence. Yeah, and the other thing that
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: really happened in the nineteen sixties was the Hayes Coote
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: officially won away, was replaced by the MPAA and the
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: I guess the long standing prohibition on Hollywood producing exploitation
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: films was it was lessened decreased, and so studios were like, oh,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: we can make money over here too, Well, let's start
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: making exploitation films right, And this is where grindhouse was born.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: So my cinema professor definition of grindhouse is big budget,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: studio backed exploitation films. Okay, okay, yeah, that's that's mine.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I like it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: That's gonna be a quiz question later.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll go with that. Actually, back up one second.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: We got to mention Herschel Gordon Lewis. He was a
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: director who had a Codre. I can't remember the other
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: guys named you. Anyway, he was a co director and
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: he was one of these exploitation guys that was getting
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: frustrated because there weren't a lot of places to show
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: your movie. So it was a pretty crowded marketplace. So
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: he said, what's the one taboo that like people will
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: pay to see that you're allowed to show in theaters,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: but that studios won't make. And it was Gore. Oh yeah,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: he was the first guy to start showing really disgusting
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: bloody scenes in his movie uh, blood Feast, Blood Feast, Yeah,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: which actually was three years after Psycho, and Psycho also
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: did a lot for the mainstream ushering in of sure,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit of Gore in that, but well there's
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: like a.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Shot of blood following Janet Lee's murder, you know, which
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: is I imagine it's pretty graphic for Hollywood, and that's what
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: you think of You're like, oh, those stupid sixties, but
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: that's you know, there were so naive like that was controversial,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: not really though, Like if you stepped just slightly outside
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: of Hollywood, you ran into things like Blood Feast, right,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: or you know Last House on the Left. Yes, well
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: that's nineteen seventy two, I think.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Wes Craven. So that was important because all of
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: a sudden, a drugs started, well three things. Political themes
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: started popping up, right, sexual freedom, the youth generation. Drugs
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: started popping up in movies for the first time, drug use,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: well not for the first time, we'll talk about reefer madness. Yeah,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: but teenagers were depicted as victims of violence for the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: first time, like Last House on the Left I believe
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: is kind of regarded as the first teen slasher film.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Wes Craven, it was almost a snuff film. It
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: was almost regarded like that.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: It's pretty hardcore.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it definitely blood Feasts definitely allowed Last House
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: on the Left to come around, but it also probably
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: more directly formed the foundation for slasher exploitation like Friday
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the Thirteenth or Nightmare on Elm Street. Absolutely, My Bloody
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Valentine's another big one. Crazy great, yeah, crazy. Oh yeah,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: that was an original, right, there's a remake now.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, yeah, remakes. So that brings us We're
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: in the seventies, politically charged movies brought race into the
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: to the mix, and all of a sudden, we had
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: black exploitation or black exploitation movement starting exploiting the civil
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: rights movement basically. But the cool thing about black exploitation
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: films is for the first time you had African Americans
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: as heroes.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and not heroes in a typical sense, not even
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: anti heroes, but heroes that were like They didn't ride
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: into town on a white horse or wearing a white hat.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: They very clearly wore black hats. If need be, like
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: they would engage in crime, they would murder people, if
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: nimbi they were. They were basically like the face of
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: black America coming out of the Civil Rights are like,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: we're ticked off.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and we're gonna stick it to the
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: white man to get to the man, and we're gonna
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: do it in these movies.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Chuck, I know the movie you're about to mention. Let's
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: this is it.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: You keep the faith in me, You my man, You're
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: my favorite man.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Can so Yes. That was a landmark film for a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: lot of reasons. One because it grows four million bucks
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: and it made the major studio say, hey, you know
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: what the black hero is marketable?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well you haven't said the title yet.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, you gotta say it right too.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Melvin Van Peebles film Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Nice, That was well done. That was nineteen seventy one.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Men Van Peebles, whose last name may sound familiar. He's
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: the father of Mario van Peebles. For your younger cats
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: listening to this one.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Cats all right, age actually younger cats because he's kind
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: of like, okay, so cats A, yeah, that's Mario Van
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Peebles's dad, you know, New Jack City. Yeah, exactly.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: So Melvin Van Peebles made this movie. He produced it,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: he raised the money for it, he wrote it, he
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: directed it, he starred in it. And it was the
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: beginning of the blaxploitation subgenre, which is one of the
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: most important genres of any American cinema absolutely ever, absolutely,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: and so considering how important that subgenre is, this quote
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: from Time Magazine's film critic Richard Corliss should really hit home.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Sweet Sweet Back is quote, without question or competition, the
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: most influential movie by a black filmmaker. So this is
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: a really big deal, right, yeah.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: And it was. It was just quickly on the plot.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: It was about a black man who was a jiggielow.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Who, which is a male prostitute for you younger cats.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: And he had a deal worked out with the cops
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: where he was he said, you know, you can arrest
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: me as much as you want, release me right after
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: fill your quota. It's all good. And then one day,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: while the arrest is going down, the cops attack a
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: black panther, and Sweet Sweet Back kills one of the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: cops and then just says he just goes on a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: rampage against the white man after that.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: So you've got prostitution, tons and tons of nudity and sex,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: lots of violence, and other crimes all wrapped up into
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: a black power theme.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: And then to top it all off, you have what
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: is arguably a child sex scene starring Mario van People's
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: melvivv People's son at I think age six, having sex
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: as Sweet Sweetback. It's his first sexual encounter with an
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: older person. And in the cult podcast, if he became
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: a cult leader, he would have taken a younger bride. Remember,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right. So if you're interested in that
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: movie and you can't get enough of Sweet sweetbacks bad
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Ass song, you could also check out bad Ass exclamation Point,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: which is Mario van Peebles's biopic about his father making
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: that movie. That's right.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: And I have not seen that, but I wanted to
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: at the time, and it just sort of subp at
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the cracks.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: There's always Netflix, baby, that's right.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: And what happened with Sweet Sweetback was that, like I said,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: that told the studios, hey, that we can market this,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and so they got a little more mainstream with movies
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: like Superfly, which were a little safer shaft shaft movies
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: at wide audiences would enjoy as well.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the ones that didn't scare the man exactly like
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Scheft's a good guy. He doesn't take any guff from
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: the man, but the people he's not taking guff from,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: or the cops, who he's really on the same side.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Ass that's right. So chuck exploitation obviously huge. It affected
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: everything from you know, Menace to Society to Black Ela.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: All of that came from Sweet Sweet Back. And we
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: mentioned the guy who directed this next movie, Russ Myers.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: This is pro probably a seminole work. Let's listen to
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: this clip from the trailer.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: You walk, Ladies and gentlemen, Gold Gold for a wild,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: wild ride with the Watusi cats. But beware, the sweetest
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: kittens have the sharpest claw. By your own safety.
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: See faster pussy.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Cats kill, kill, wild women, wild wheels. Race the fastest
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: pussy cats and they'll be Jill to sober woman Fulton,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: wild and cooked.
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: You're placing yourself on this kid, then hanging itself for
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: nothing by.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Nothing, got nothing to do with the money.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Jis the money.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Jack and Jill. They make a mafia look like Brownie.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: They make the mafia look like Brownie.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: That's right. That says quite a bit about them. So
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: this that was faster pussy Cat Kill Kill in nineteen
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: sixty five Russ Meers basically women exploitation film NUDI film.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Remember Russ Meyers was King of the nudies. He made
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: twenty six movies. But this is probably at the very
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: least is his best known, if not like his masterpiece.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he hatched a slew of I mean not
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: that he wasn't legit, he was, but what mainstream people
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: would call legit filmmakers were came up through the russ
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Meyer film camp basically. Yeah, so it's pretty cool.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and russ Meyer also a little known fact. Another
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: movie that's mentioned in this article. There's an article on
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: the site, by the way, called ten Noteworthy exploitation Films
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that this is based on, Yeah, written by you, Yeah,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: which I showly recommend going to read because it has
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of extra stuff we're not going to cover
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: in this one, Yeah, or at least extra movies. But
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: russ Meyer directed a movie called Beyond the Valley of
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the Dolls two right, which was the bastard son of
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: the legitimate film that Beyond Valley of Dolls is a
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: jiggle fest written by none other than Roger Ebert's right, yeah,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the movie Roger Ebert ever wrote, Yeah, he had a Yeah,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: it was a very brief career. But that's it. That's
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: an illustrious one. Really.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you're going to talk about the plot,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: a faster pussy cat kill kill, And I say that
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: because there's three exclamation.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Points and a comma exclamation point kill.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Is it three exclamation points?
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, I thought it was a common then too. All right,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: either way, that's a lot of punctuation for a film title, right,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: And it was about three bisexual go go dancers. They
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: go on a crime spree out in the desert, and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: what do they do? They end up killing a man
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and or no, they kill the man and a couple
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: keep the girl.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: They basically empower herme on with it by murdering her boyfriend,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: and she ends up on the crime spree with them.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And they basically end up going to an isolated house
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: with a wheelchair bound old man and his son's.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Who's a lech? They're all leches, these women.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they don't know that these women are tough,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: no tough ladies.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: And the men and his son. The man and his
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: sons apparently or allegedly have a large amount of cash
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: stashed in this house. So it's kind of like a
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: standoff of gall to see who will come out on top.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Well, and you know who comes out on top. Yeah,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: And this film was noteworthy for one big reason was
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: that there's a lot of dualism towards gender. So on
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: one hand, he's exploiting these women and apparently got women
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: in their first trimester of pregnancy, so they were more voluptuous.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not in this film, but in his other folks
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: he would hire. I can't remember the lady's name, but
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: the star of Festor pussy Cat Kill Kill was in
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: other Russ Meyers films, gotcha, and he made sure that
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: she was like well into her third first trimester to
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: enhance her natural bustiness.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, her bosom if you will. But the script,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: like I said, it was dualism because while he did that,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: it also empowered women because the women in his films
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: bowed to no man. No, they were the champs. They
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: were they were heroines really for the first time.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: They were objectified very clearly. But at the same time,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: if you follow the script and really look at their characters,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: then yeah, they're powerful women.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And this kind of kicked off a big slew of
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: women exploitation films, exploitation films, the women in prison.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Movies, yes, which we lads sisters very.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Big at the time. Women were lead actors for the
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: first time, they were aggressors for the first time, still
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: nude often while they were doing this stuff.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Spawned the television show The Facts of Life.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is they found that these movies
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: appealed to men and women because men would go see
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: it for obvious reasons. Women would go see it because
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: it was empowering and they didn't mind, you know, looking
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: at the naked ladies because women are much more grown up,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: sure than men are. Yeah, but josh, the seventies also
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: got a little schlocky, which in a sense was true
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to the exploitation model, Like they really went over the top.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: No more political statements, no more advancing of women's gender
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: or African marins Americans. It just got really shlocky and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: outrageous at that point.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Well, what happened starting in the sixth really took hold
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: in the seventies, and then from that point on was
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: exploitation cinema, early on showing a live birth, nudest camps.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: These are all geared toward adults in the sixties, and
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: then later on big time in the seventies, the audience
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: became almost exclusively teenagers, like those driving teenagers or well
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: teenagers anywhere, who cares, but the audience was teenagers, and
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: the cast started to become teenagers, so it had a
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: little more of a bent on what teenagers were having
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: to deal with, like bullying, like the kid in this
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: next clip right, which is I have to say, one
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: of my favorite movies from way way back.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Here we go with Toxic Avenger.
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, meet little Melvin. He's a ninety pound weekly. Everyone
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: hated Melvin. Yeah, I'm gonna take this mop and shove
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: it down your throat, me teased him.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: I want to do it with you, podkay.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: They taunted him. They tormented him until he had a
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: horrifying accident and fell into a bat of nuclear waste,
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: transforming little Melting into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: size and strength. The movement became the Toxic Avenger.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: So Josh. The Toxic Avenger movie was unique in that
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: its film production company, Trauma, is very popular in their
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: own right.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Have you ever seen surf Nazis Must Die?
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I haven't, but I know about you Trauma. I mean,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: they are master self promoters and marketeers.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: They were one of the first production companies to have
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: a website, like a really comprehensive website. You should go
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: on their website, their whole catalog. It's really just well done.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: It's schlocky, but it's well done, right.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: And Toxic Avenger follows a story of a ninety eight
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: pound weekling who was picked on released the same year's Ghostbusters.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Do you notice that nineteen eighty four?
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was it occurred at zero year.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: It's the year zero. Yeah, we'll just put the null
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: set represent that. And this kid gets pushed out of
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: a window into a vat of toxic sludge.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Which that's beyond bullying.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Really, yeah, I mean, this is basically it's a more
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: twisted version of modern problems. The Chevy Chase film from
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: a couple of years earlier.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, I haven't seen that one.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Oh you never saw a modern problem. No, it's very silly,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: but he got toxic sledge dumped on him and had
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: special powers.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: From years earlier, prior after.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: What Win was the movie? Yeah, it was two years
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: before Toxic Avenger, But Toxic Avenger took it into a
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: gore special effects way that modern Problems never did.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: So the janitor Melvin I believe his name is, becomes toxified,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: it becomes toxic, the tox Avenger who beats the tar
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: out of people at the health club where he was
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: abused and mutated and has tons of sex as the
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Toxic Avenger because his newfound manhood is just irresistible to women.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: And one of the things that's noteworthy about the Toxic
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Avenger is that they actually tried to make decent effects. Yeah,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: it wasn't just it wasn't horrible. I guess you could say.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Well for the time, you know, it wasn't bad.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: No, there, they remained bad, and they probably were kind
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: of bad even back then. But for for for Grindhouse films,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: yeah they were, they were great, right, And uh, it's
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: also noteworthy because it came out of Trauma Productions or
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Trouma Studios, and it led to a whole line of
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Toxic Avenger movies and schlock in general, which is basically
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: like some crazy, horrible thing has happened, but we're not
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: going to dwell too much on that. Let's see what
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: let's let's see where the action takes us exactly. So
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: like Bad Taste, Peter Jackson's first film Right is a
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: great example of schlock that came out of Toxic Avenger.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: And he had the film that followed, Peter Jackson Dead Alive,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: which was at one point supposedly the gorrist film ever made. Really,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: although it sounds like your new Korean movie has surpassed that, Yeah,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I think it probably has.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen that Alive's seen Bad Taste and Bad
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Taste it was horribly gory, but I think this has
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: it beat.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I bet you if anything. I mean, I
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: haven't seen the one you're talking about. But is it
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: more realistic gore?
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, with bad it's like these are aliens that are
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: having their heads blown off. So it definitely takes you
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: at least a degree away from caring this is happening
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: to human beings. In I saw The Devil, so it
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: definitely is driven home a little more well.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: And the violence that even the gore back then, it
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: was so over the top, right out of Fangor magazine.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: It's like, you know, dude, Fangory is still around, is it? Yeah?
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I figured it was.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: I'm glad it is. We follow it on our Twitter feed.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Oh we do. Yep, like a head'll explode in scanners
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's not disturbing because it's so clearly
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: over the top. But these new movies are much more disturbing.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: If you ask me, I agree wholeheartedly because they're more realistic. Yeah. So,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: carrying on with Chucks and my Cisco and eber Act.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: This is the second to last movie in our little
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: list today, and this one's from way back from the thirties.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about reefer madness.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: These high school boys and girls are having a hop
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: at the local soda fountain. Innocently they dance, innocent of
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: a new and deadly menace lurking behind closed doors. Matrijuana
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: the Burning Weed when it's roots in Hell or watchcase
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: if you want to be you will meet Bill, who
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: wants to pride and his strong will as he takes
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: the first step toward and slave undre.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: So that was the excellent reafer Madness, which was an
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: exploitation drug exploitation film and very much a cautionary tale.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: It even shaped the drug culture and how people looked
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: at drugs. Is you know marijuana at the time, Is
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: this really evil thing that can make you crazy and
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: kill people?
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And actually, in very much the vein of early
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: exploitation films, it was produced and distributed as a public service,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: like the alternate title for it was Tell Your Children,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: And the whole thing set in a pta meeting where
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: this guy is relating the story, and it's a story
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: about lost lives, about murder, about guilt and paranoia, and
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: all of it is fed and based on rampant drug use,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: which is really just a lot of pot smoking which
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: can turn you into a fiend. And it's apparently the
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: director his name is Dwayne Esper. He did other exploitation
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: films from the thirties like Sex Madness, Psychotic Connections, and
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: he made a name for himself basically taking these things
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: that may have originally been written as a public service
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: and making them so outlandish that he exploited the people
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: who were making these movies and created this legacy of
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: like just insanely over the top exploitation films from the thirties.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Well, and ironically, Reefer Madness years later, would become not
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: so much an anti drug propaganda film how should I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: say this, but a film that college students would sit
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: around and watch while partaking and laughing at this whole thing. Yeah,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: and a cult film.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it puts drugs so far out there that
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: if you, despite all the warnings, take drugs anyway and
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: you realize that you don't turn into a fiend and
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: murder somebody, you uh, refer Madness basically dares you to
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: go further. So it's kind of an it's the opposite.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: It has the opposite effect of what I think its
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: original intent was before Duanne Osberg got its hands on it.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: And as a side note, I had trouble deciding between
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Reefer Madness and another nineteen thirties film by a guy
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: named Todd Browning called Freaks.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well that was that was huge because it
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: was the first big exploitation film pre Hayes Code and.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Last, Yeah and last, and it was it was an
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: MGM film. Yeah, and it's widely considered a masterpiece.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it looks great. It's it's not it
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: was well done.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: It's a huge it's a it's a revenge movie, which
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: is a very common theme in exploitation films. Yeah, especially
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: violent ones. But it's it featured Browning dared to have
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: real freaks. I guess if you're yes, circus side show freaks,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: yeah star in this. Uh, and they basically exact their
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: revenge on people who've misstreat them. And I have not
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: seen it really Yeah, yeah, I want to. I hear
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: it's just awesome. I can't wait.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: It ended his career though, unfortunately. Yeah, and he was
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: a popular filmmaker at the time.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Well, hats off to him for staying true to his art.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Chuck just took his hat off.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Don the old cap.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: All right, Chuck, here's the last one that we've got
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: a clip for which I think everybody will notice or
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: recognize without even a word. There's not even a word
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: in this clip, and you will understand what's going on.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: So here we go.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: So, Josh, those are the unmistakable sounds of fist of
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: fury of mister one, mister Bruce.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Lee, Bruce Lee kicking bottom. This first movie, Yeah, which
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: was originally titled, well, it's still title I think in
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Asia The Big Boss, and in America it is it's
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: titled Fists of Fury.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was on the other night. Okay, Well I
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: saw part of it. Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't realize
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: it was his first one, though I would have tuned in.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was first of what five five major films, right,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: And basically it's the story of a martial arts student
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: who's investigating the murder of his teacher, and it began
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: the martial arts exploitation sub genre, which.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Later would become just martial arts films. Right or was
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: it still considered exploitation.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: It's all the same, Okay, they're one and the same.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Anything that even remotely resembles a Bruce Lee movie, specifically
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: The Big Boss or any of them, is martial arts
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: exploitation technically, because again we arrive at that one definition.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: It's over the top. Bruce Lee's taking on scores of
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: anonymous thugs for two hours, one after the other, for
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: two hours, just beating the tar out of all these
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: people without tiring. Really, everybody's kind of waiting their turn
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: politely in a circle around him, and he has to
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: beat everybody right, and then he works his way up
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: and it's over the top. So it is exploitation. But
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: it led to other films like Samurai exploitation. Remember American Ninja.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Remember the whole ninja film thing that came out in
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: the mid eighties. Uh uh, that's from Bruce Lee's that's
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Bruce Lee's doing well.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you go to these at the time when
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I was first going to New York many years ago,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: that would be you know, you got a Times Square
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and this is still when Time Square was kind of gross,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: and that would be just the martial Arts movie store
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: where it was all that stuff, mane, like thousands of
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: movies about ninja's and samuraiz and martial artists and very big. Yeah.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: I was inspired by American Ninja to become a ninja.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Remember I entered a ninja training with Tommy Roper, who
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: had like more throwing stars than any kid I've ever known.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: What did you have? Like one throwing star?
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I borrowed his. Okay, I was not allowed to have
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: throwing stars on my own.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Oh I wasn't either, Yeah, Baptist, No, No, that was
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: very violent.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: No numb chuck, not even thought that transcends like religious background.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: It's like, you're a good parent, you shouldn't let your
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: kid have a throwing star.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: It's a good point. And as you point in the article,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: this actually led to another subgenre, which was Bruce Lee
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: lookalike movies. Yeah.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: So he made five movies and then died at age
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: thirty two. Yeah, and nineteen seventy three. So Big Boss
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: released in nineteen seventy one, he dies two years later.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Everybody's like, no, so let's find some guys that look
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: like him, which is really kind of stereotypical and racist
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: for the West. But Bruce Leeve l I or le
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: ee or l E or just l E. Well, Bruce
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: l I or Bruce el E. I don't think there
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: was ever like Bruce l e I.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: G H.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I don't think it ever got that far. But I
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: mean they released dozens of Bruce Lee and I just
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: made air quote films.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: So Bruce Lee created the martial arts exploitation genre and subgenre,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: and he inadvertently created the Bruce Lee exploitation subgenre of
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: the martial arts exploitation subgenre.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: By dying young, Yeah and being very popular. Yeah, And
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: which one was the one he had Kareem Mental Jabbarian
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Enter the Dragon. Yeah. Yeah, if you've never seen a
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: like seven foot plus guy to martial arts, you should
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: check that out.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: And if you can't get enough Bruce Lee and you
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: have a good sense of humor, check out Kentucky Fried
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: movie made by one Jerry's Rucker, who we met in
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles recently and who used an exploitive to me.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: He did it was one of the high points of
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: my life, it is. But yeah, Kentucky Fry movie awesome.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Actually, when we met Jerry Zucker, we told him that
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: our little speech we were given that night was one
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: of the highlights of our career thus far. And he says, well,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: it doesn't say much about your career, does it? Like
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the first thing to do does?
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Something funny and we just like kind of fawned
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: over the man.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: We should mention briefly and it's in the article, but
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: just as a teaser. The late seventies we got Nazi
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: exploitation movies, Nazi exploitation as a subgenre, yeah, And one
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: of the major players there movie wise was Ilsa she
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Wolf of the SS.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which led to Ilsa Siberian Tigris and Ilsa harm
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: keeper of the oil sheeks. Really, there's a whole sex
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: violence franchise, Dominatrix franchise, that was based out of the
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Nazi exploitation film.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: You know, one could argue that qt mister Tarantino has
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: made nothing but exploitation films. Yeah, since pulp fiction, because
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: the kill bills were definitely martial arts exploitation. The Jackie
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Brown was a riff on black exploitation. Sure, death Proof
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: obviously that was what they were trying to do there.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Death Proof is Carsploitation, which follows in the tradition of
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Vanishing Point, which was released the same year, is basically
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: it's rival to the the founder, the founding movie of carsploitation,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Two Lane Black Top, right, which movie. Yeah, if you
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: want to start an argument with an exploitation film, buff
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: tell him Vanishing Point was the beginning of carsploitation. They'll
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: get mad at you.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: And then finally Tarantina with The Inglorious Bastards, which is
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: clearly a riff on the Nazi exploitation films.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Beaten nazis the Death of the Baseball Bat.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, about as over the top and lurt as it's awesome. Yeah. So,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: and then Machete. I hated it. But Robert Rodriguez it's terrible.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: And of course he was the other half of the
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Rodriguez was the other half with his Planet Terra of
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: the Grindhouse double feature.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Machete was born from one of the little fake trailers
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: they made in that movie.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Oh is that right?
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was one of the fake movie previews.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: It is even as far as like a purposefully B
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: movie not good. No, well, Death Proof was okay, but
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't like Planetear that much. Yeah, and then Chuck. Well,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: first of all, before we get to today, we also
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: have to give a shout out to Porno's Porno came
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: out of the exploitation film genre.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: And it arguably had a lot to do with killing
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: the X or pushing it into the mainstream, because once
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: you had the movie Deep Throat and all of a sudden,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: pornography was on the screen, it's like, you can't do
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: an exploitation film about it anymore. If there's the real
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: deal going on, it loses all its power. And then
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: a little movie called Jaws came along, and all of
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: a sudden, a quote unquote B movie style movie made
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: gobs and gobs of money, and that put a little
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: bit of mainstream respectability on the map all of a sudden,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: And so one might argue, Josh that movies like Jaws
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: and Pornography kind of shoved exploitation films even though they
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: still exist. They're sort of mainstream movies now.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, I guess another word for grindhouse these
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: days is blockbuster. Jaws was the first blockbuster movie, summer blockbuster,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: and now you have to have summer blockbusters, and they're
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: always over the top and exploitive of viewers tastes.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: And not only Tarantino, those other filmmakers out that are
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: trying to capture that seventies vibe with overt exploitation films again,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: shot that way, shot on thirty five or I'm sorry, yeah,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: sixteen millimeter film, stuff like that.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, Chuck, I say, our message to everybody is
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: number one, go on to the site, read ten noteworthy
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: exploitation films. Number two if that interests you. Like, even
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: the ten noteworthy exploitation films they chose don't cover even
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: I think a third of the exploitation subgenres. So there'll
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: probably be another article forthcoming at some point if there is.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: We'll let you know and then go watch some exploitation
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: movies and enjoy them.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, watch the documentary American Grindhouse too, if you're into that.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great one. It's free on Hulu. Actually
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: there's ads, but Hulu dot com has American Grindhouse for free.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: It is not safe for work now, in no way,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: shape or form. I was watching it at work and
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: I was like, WHOA, Okay, really, yeah, if you are
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: watching it at work, tab browsing is what you want
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: to be doing, right, and keep your your finger over
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: the mouse and keep the cursor over the other tab
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: right and stay sharp.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Or in our case, you can just say it's research.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: But you can't do that. If you're an accountant in
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: JP Morgan.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: You're just a cicico, a weirdo, that weird guy in accounting.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: So look up ten noteworthy exploitation films. You can type
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: that into the handy search bar at HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: And now, at long last, it's time for listener mail.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Joshua's I'm gonna call this It's a small world after all.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Dear guys, I'm a longtime fan from Minnesota and enjoy
• 46:45
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• 46:47
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• 46:50
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• 46:56
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• 47:01
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• 47:03
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• 47:06
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• 47:10
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• 47:19
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• 47:27
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• 47:31
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• 47:34
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• 47:42
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• 47:48
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• 47:49
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• 47:51
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• 47:55
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• 47:57
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• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Daniel, that's awesome, thanks Daniel.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: And his friend now his new friend.
• 48:15
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• 48:17
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• 48:18
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• 48:19
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• 48:21
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• 48:27
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• 48:32
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• 48:48
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• 48:49
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• 49:03
  Speaker 2: And then you can always send us a good old
• 49:05
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• 49:10
  Speaker 2: film of all time is. You can send that in
• 49:13
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• 49:22
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• 49:34
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