SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: How Exploitation Films Work

25:33Yeah. So it was pretty cool. Yeah, and Russ Meyer also, little known fact, another movie that's mentioned in this article, there's an article on the site, by the way, called 10 Noteworthy Exploitation Films that this is based on. Yeah. Written by you? Yeah. Which I strongly recommend going to read because it has a lot of extra stuff we're not going to cover in this one. Yeah. Or at least extra movies. but Russ Meyer directed a movie called Beyond the Valley of the Dolls 2. Right. Which was the bastard son of the legitimate film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. It was a jiggle fest written by none other than Roger Ebert.

26:09That's right. Yeah. Only movie Roger Ebert ever wrote. Yeah, and he had a, yeah, it was a very brief career, but that's an illustrious one, really. Yeah, so if you're gonna talk about the plot of Faster Pussycat, kill, kill! Kill. And I say that because there's three exclamation points. And a comma. Exclamation point. Kill. Oh, no. Is it three exclamation points? Yeah. Okay. I thought it was a comma. Then two. All right. Either way, that's a lot of punctuation for a film title. Right. And it was about three bisexual go-go dancers. They go on a crime spree out in the desert. And what do they do?

26:41They end up killing a man. Or no, they kill the man and a couple. Keep the woman. They basically empower her. Yeah. Say, come on with us. By murdering her boyfriend. and she ends up on the crime spree with them. And they basically end up going to an isolated house with a wheelchair-bound old man and his sons. Who's a lech, they're all leches, they want these women. Yeah, but they don't know that these women are tough. No. Tough ladies. And the men and his sons, the man and his sons apparently, or allegedly have a large amount of cash stashed in this house, so it's kind of like a standoff of gall to see who will come out on top.

27:18Well, and you know who comes out on top. And this film was noteworthy for one big reason was that there was a lot of dualism toward gender. So on one hand, he's exploiting these women and apparently got women in their first trimester of pregnancy so they were more voluptuous. Yeah, not in this film, but in his other films, he would hire, I can't remember the lady's name, but the star of Faster Pussycat Kill Kill was in other Russ Myers films. Gotcha. And he made sure that she was well into her first trimester to enhance her natural bustiness. That's right, her bosom, if you will. But the script, like I said, it was dualism because while he did that, it also empowered women because the women in his films bowed to no man.

28:01No. They were the champs. They were heroines, really, for the first time. They were objectified very clearly, but at the same time, if you follow the script and really look at their characters, then, yeah, they're powerful women. And this kind of kicked off a big slew of women exploitation films, sexploitation films, women in prison movies. Yes, which played sisters. Very big at the time. Women were lead actors for the first time. They were aggressors for the first time. Still nude often while they were doing this stuff. Spawn the television show The Facts of Life.

28:40But the interesting thing is they found that these movies appealed to men and women. because men would go see it for obvious reasons. Women would go see it because it was empowering and they didn't mind looking at the naked ladies because women are much more grown up than men are. But, Josh, the 70s also got a little schlocky, which in a sense was true to the exploitation model. They really went over the top. No more political statements, no more advancing of women's gender or African Americans. Americans, it just got really schlocky and outrageous at that point. Well what happened, starting in the 60s, it really took hold in the 70s, and then from that point on, was exploitation cinema, early on, showing a live birth, nudist camps, these were all geared toward adults.

29:26Yeah. In the 60s, and then later on, big time in the 70s, the audience became almost exclusively teenagers. Right. Like those drive-in teenagers, or, well, teenagers anywhere, who cares. but the audience was teenagers and the cast started to become teenagers so it had a little more of a bent on what teenagers were having to deal with like bullying like the kid in this next clip right which is I have to say one of my favorite movies from way way back here we go with Toxic Avenger meet little Melvin he's a 90 pound weakling everyone hated Melvin I'm gonna take this mop and shove it down your throat They teased him.

30:09I want to do it with you. Okay. They taunted him. They tormented him until he had a horrifying accident and fell into a vat of nuclear waste. Transforming little Melvin into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength. Melvin became the Toxic Avenger.

30:37So Josh, the Toxic Avenger movie was unique in that its film production company, Troma, is very popular in their own right. Have you ever seen Surf Nazis Must Die? I haven't, but I know about Troma. They are master self promoters and marketeers. They were one of the first production companies to have a website. Oh really? Like a really comprehensive website. You should go on their website. I like that. Their whole catalog, it's really just well done. It's schlocky, but it's well done. Right, and Toxic Avenger follows the story of a 98 pound weakling who was picked on, released the same year as Ghostbusters.

31:14Did you notice that? 1984, right? Yeah, so it occurred at zero year. At year zero? Yeah. We'll just put the null set to represent that. And this kid gets pushed out of a window into a vat of toxic sludge. Which, that's beyond bullying, really. Yeah, I mean, basically it's a more twisted version of Modern Problems, the Chevy Chase film from a couple years earlier. Okay, I haven't seen that one. Oh, you never saw Modern Problems? No, it's very silly. But he got toxic sludge dumped on him and had special powers. From years earlier or prior, or after? When was the movie? Yeah. It was two years before Toxic Avenger.

31:54Huh. But Toxic Avenger took it into a gore special effects way that Modern Problems never did. So the janitor, Melvin, I believe his name is, becomes toxified. He becomes Toxie, the Toxic Avenger, who beats the tar out of people at the health club where he was abused and mutated and has tons of sex as the Toxic Avenger because his newfound manhood is just irresistible to women. And one of the things that's noteworthy about the Toxic Avenger is that they actually tried to make decent effects. Yeah. It wasn't horrible, I guess you could say. Well, for the time, it wasn't bad. No. They remain bad, and they probably were kind of bad even back then, but for Grindhouse films, they were great.

32:48Right. And it was also noteworthy because it came out of Troma Productions or Troma Studios, and it led to a whole line of Toxic Avenger movies and schlock in general, which is basically like some crazy, horrible thing has happened, but we're not gonna dwell too much on that. Let's see where the action takes us. Yeah, exactly. So like Bad Taste, Peter Jackson's first film, is a great example of schlock that came out of Toxic Avenger. And he had the film that followed Peter Jackson, Dead Alive, which was at one point supposedly the goriest film ever made. Really? Although it sounds like your new Korean movie has surpassed that.

33:27Yeah, I think it probably has. I haven't seen Dead Alive, I've seen Bad Taste, and Bad Taste was horribly gory, but I think this has a beat. Yeah, but I bet you if anything, I mean I haven't seen the one you're talking about, but is it more realistic gore? Yeah, with Bad Taste it's like these are aliens that are having their heads blown off, so that definitely takes you at least a degree away from caring. This is happening to human beings in I Saw the Devil. So it definitely has driven home a little more. Well, and the violence, even the gore back then, it was so over the top, right out of Fangora Magazine.

34:01It's like, you know. Dude, Fangora is still around. Is it? Yeah. I figured it was. I'm glad it is. We follow it on our Twitter feed. Oh, we do? Yeah. Like a head'll explode in scanners, and you know, it's not disturbing, because it's so clearly over the top, but these new movies are much more disturbing, if you ask me. I agree wholeheartedly, because they're more realistic. Yeah. So carrying on with Chuck's and my Siskel and Eber act, this is the second to last movie in our little list today. And this one's from way back from the 30s. So let's talk about Reefer Madness. These high school boys and girls are having a hop at the local soda fountain.

34:42Innocently they dance. Innocent of a new and deadly menace lurking behind closed doors. Marijuana, the burning weed with its roots in hell. Or watch case. If you want a good smoke, try one of these. You will meet Bill, who once took pride in his strong will as he takes the first step toward enslavement. Of course, if you're afraid. So that was the excellent Reefer Madness, which was an exploitation, a drug-sploitation film. And very much a cautionary tale. It even shaped the drug culture and how people looked at drugs as, you know, marijuana at the time is this really evil thing that can make you crazy and kill people.

35:31Yeah, and actually in very much the vein of early exploitation films, it was produced and distributed as a public service. Was it? The alternate title for it was Tell Your Children. and the whole thing's set in a PTA meeting where this guy is relating this story and it's a story about lost lives, about murder, about guilt and paranoia and all of it is fed and based on rampant drug use which is really just a lot of pot smoking which can turn you into a fiend and it's apparently the director, his name is Dwayne Esper, he did other exploitation films from the 30s like Sex Madness, Psychotic Connections.

36:19And he made a name for himself basically taking these things that may have originally been written as a public service and making them so outlandish that he exploited the people who were making these movies. And created this legacy of just insanely over the top exploitation films from the 30s. Well and ironically Reefer Madness years later would become not so much an anti-drug propaganda film, how should I say this, but a film that college students would sit around and watch while partaking and laughing at this whole thing. Yeah. And a cult film. Yeah, because it puts drugs so far out there that if you, despite all the warnings, take drugs anyway, and you realize that you don't turn into a fiend and murder somebody, you, Reefer Madness basically dares you to go further.

37:13So it's kind of an, it's the opposite, it has the opposite effect of what I think its original intent was before Dwayne Esper got his hands on it. And as a side note, I had trouble deciding between Reefer Madness and another 1930s film by a guy named Todd Browning called Freaks. Oh yeah, well that was huge because it was the the first big exploitation film pre-Hays Code, and last, first and last. It was an MGM film. It's widely considered a masterpiece. It looks great, it was well done. It's a revenge movie, which is a very common theme in exploitation films, especially violent ones. But it featured, Browning dared to have real freaks.

38:00I guess if you'll... Circus sideshow freaks. Yeah, star in this. And they basically exact their revenge on people who've mistreated them. And I have not seen it. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I want to. I hear it's just awesome. I can't wait. It ended his career, though, unfortunately. Did it really? Yeah. And he was a popular filmmaker at the time. Well, hats off to him for staying true to his art. Chuck just took his hat off. Don the old cap. All right, Chuck, here's the last one that we've got a clip for, which I think everybody will notice. or recognize without even a word. There's not even a word in this clip, and you will understand what's going on.

38:39So here we go.

39:09So Josh, those are the unmistakable sounds of Fist of Fury of one Mr. Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee, Kicking Bottom. His first movie. Yeah, which was originally titled, well, it's still titled, I think, in Asia, The Big Boss. And in America, it's titled Fist of Fury. Yeah, it was on the other night on cable. I saw part of it. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I didn't realize it was his first one, though. I would have tuned in. Yeah, and it was first of what, five? Five major films. Right. And basically it's the story of a martial arts student who's investigating the murder of his teacher, and it began the martial arts exploitation subgenre.

39:49Which later would become just martial arts films, right? Or was it still considered exploitation? It's all the same. They're one and the same. Anything that even remotely resembles a Bruce Lee movie, specifically The Big Boss, or any of them, is martial arts exploitation technically because, again, we arrive at that one definition. It's over the top. Like Bruce Lee's taking on scores of anonymous thugs. For two hours. One after the other for two hours, just beating the tar out of all these people without tiring really. Everybody's kind of waiting their turn politely in a circle around him, and he has to beat everybody.

40:25Right. And then he works his way up, and it's over the top. So it is exploitation, but it led to other films like Samurai Exploitation. Remember American Ninja? Remember the whole ninja film thing that came out in the mid 80s? That's from Bruce Lee's, that's Bruce Lee's doing. Well yeah, and you go to these, the time when I was first going to New York many years ago, there would be, you go to Times Square, and this was still when Times Square was kind of gross, and there would be just the martial arts movie store, where it was all that stuff, man, like thousands of movies about ninjas and samurais and martial artists and very big.

40:59Yeah. I was inspired by American Ninja to become a ninja. Remember I entered a ninja training with Tommy Roper who had more throwing stars than any kid I've ever known. What, did you have one throwing star? I borrowed his. Okay. I was not allowed to have throwing stars of my own. Oh, I wasn't either. Baptist, no. No. That was very violent. No nunchucks. I think that transcends religious background. It's like if you're a good parent, you shouldn't let your kid have throwing stars. That's a good point. And as you pointed in the article, this actually led to another subgenre, which was Bruce Lee lookalike movies.

41:34Yeah, so he made five movies. Died young. And then died at age 32. Yeah. In 1973. So Big Boss released in 1971. He dies two years later. Everybody's like, no! So let's find some guys that look like him, which is really kind of stereotypical and racist for the West. The West's name of Bruce Lee, L-I, instead of L-E-E. Or L-E. Or just L-E. Well, Bruce L-I or Bruce L-E. Right. I don't think there was ever like Bruce L-E-I-G-H. I don't think it ever got that far. But, I mean, they released dozens of Bruce Lee, and I just made air quote, films. Yeah, yeah. So, Bruce Lee created the martial arts exploitation genre and subgenre, and he inadvertently created the Bruce Lee exploitation subgenre of the martial arts exploitation subgenre.

42:24By dying young. and being very popular. Which one was the one he had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in? Was that Enter the Dragon? Enter the Dragon, yeah. If you've never seen a seven foot plus guy do martial arts, you should check that out. And if you can't get enough Bruce Lee and you have a good sense of humor, check out Kentucky Fried Movie. Made by one Jerry Zucker, who we met in Los Angeles recently. And who used an expletive to me. He did. It was one of the high points of my life. It is. But yeah, Kentucky Fried movie, awesome Actually when we met Jerry Zucker We told him that our little speech we were giving that night Was one of the highlights of our career thus far And he says, well that doesn't say much about your career Does it?

43:06Like the first thing the dude did is say something funny And we just kind of fawned over him after that We should mention briefly And it's in the article, but just as a teaser The late 70s We got Nazi exploitation movies Nazi exploitation As a sub-genre And one of the major players there, movie-wise Was Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS Yeah, which led to Ilsa Siberian Tigress and Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks. Really? There's a whole sex violence franchise, dominatrix franchise, that was based out of the Nazi exploitation film. You know, one could argue that QT, Mr. Tarantino, has made nothing but exploitation films since Pulp Fiction.

43:49Because the Kill Bills were definitely martial arts exploitation. Definitely. Jackie Brown was a riff on Black Exploitation Death Proof obviously that was what they were trying to do there Death Proof is Carsploitation which follows in the tradition of Vanishing Point which was released the same year as basically its rival to the founder, the founding movie of Carsploitation Tulane Blacktop if you want to start an argument with an exploitation film buff tell them Vanishing Point was the the beginning of car exploitation. They'll get mad at you. And then finally, Tarantino with the Inglourious Bastards, which was clearly a riff on the Nazi exploitation films.

44:31Yeah. Beaten Nazis to death with a baseball bat. Yeah. That's about as over the top and lured as it gets. It's awesome. Yeah. So, and then Machete. I hated it, but Robert Rodriguez. I didn't see that. It was terrible. And of course, he was the other half of the, Rodriguez was the other half with his Planet Terror of the Grindhouse double feature. Yeah. Okay. And Machete was born from one of the little fake trailers they made in that movie. Oh, is that right? Yeah, it was one of the fake movie previews. It is, even as far as like a purposefully B movie. Not good. No. Well, Death Proof was okay, but I didn't like Planetary that much.

45:03Yeah. And then Chuck, well, first of all, before we get to today, we also have to give a shout out to pornos. Porno came out of the exploitation film genre. And it arguably had a lot to do with killing the ex, or pushing it into the mainstream, because once you had the movie Deep Throat, and all of a sudden pornography was on the screen, it's like you can't do an exploitation film about it anymore. If there's the real deal going on, it loses all its power. And then a little movie called Jaws came along, and all of a sudden a quote-unquote B-movie style movie made gobs and gobs of money, and that put a little bit of mainstream respectability on the map all of a sudden.

45:46So one might argue, Josh, that movies like Jaws and pornography kind of shoved exploitation films, even though they still exist. They're sort of mainstream movies now. Well, yeah, I guess another word for grindhouse these days is blockbuster. Jaws was the first blockbuster movie, summer blockbuster. And now you have to have summer blockbusters and they're always over the top. Right. and exploitive of viewers' tastes. And not only Tarantino, there's other filmmakers out that are trying to capture that 70s vibe with overt exploitation films again. Shot that way, shot on 35, or I'm sorry, 16 millimeter film, stuff like that.

46:25Yeah. So Chuck, I say our message to everybody is, number one, go onto the site, read 10 noteworthy exploitation films. Number two, if that interests you, even the 10 noteworthy exploitation films I chose don't cover even, I think, a third of the exploitation sub-genres. So there'll probably be another article forthcoming at some point. If there is, we'll let you know. And then go watch some exploitation movies and enjoy them. Yeah, watch the documentary American Grindhouse, too, if you're into that. Yeah, it's a great one. It's free on Hulu, actually. There's ads, but Hulu.com has American Grindhouse for free.

47:05It is not safe for work. No. In no way, shape, or form. I was watching it at work, and I was like, whoa, okay. Oh, really? Yeah. If you are watching it at work, tab browsing is what you want to be doing. Right. And keep your finger over the mouse and keep the cursor over the other tab. Right. And stay sharp. Or in our case, you can just say, it's research. But you can't do that if you're an accountant at J.P. Morgan. You're just a sicko, a weirdo. That's right. That weird guy in accounting. So look up 10 noteworthy exploitation films. You can type that into the handy search bar at howstuffworks.com.

47:42And now, at long last, it's time for listener mail. Joshers, I'm going to call this. It's a small world after all. Dear guys, I'm a longtime fan from Minnesota and enjoy spreading stuff you should know goodness wherever I go. My coworkers at a local coffee shop know me for the trivia and information I abound in. Wait, what? He says he abounds in. I guess he's proficient in. Did he misuse that? No? I don't know. It sounds hilarious. It does. After giving credit where credit is due, which means us, several of them decided to subscribe to your podcast. Listening to the podcast has also given me an advantage at work for thinking of the coffee shop's daily trivia question, which saves people 10 cents on their drink if they know it.

48:28That is awesome. After re-listening to How Legos Work, I set the trivia question for which company produces the most tires on a yearly basis? A. Bridgestone, B. Goodyear, C. Lego Bricks. You know the answer, Josh. Most people were surprised and pleased to find out it was Lego Bricks, reminding them about the little play sets that their kids enjoy. This is where it gets weird. One of the customers read the trivia question, looked at me and said, it's a Ponzi scheme. Nice. That's awesome. In the best Italian accent he could muster. Everyone else gave him an odd look. I started laughing. He apologized and said he just heard it on a podcast.

49:07He had just listened to Legos followed by Ponzi schemes. Long story short, we were both pleased to find out that we were both fans. We are now on a first name basis, eager to discuss the most recent episodes. So these dudes in Minneapolis, Daniel. That's awesome. Thanks, Daniel. And his friend now, his new friend. his unnamed friend. Yeah, he didn't name him. You wouldn't know him. He met him at camp. That's right. Band camp. Thanks, Daniel. That's really awesome. Wow. That's really cool. Let us know if you tweet those daily facts for your coffee house, because we will start following you. Indeed.

49:42That'd be very cool. If you want to follow us, we have our own Twitter feed. Seriously. It's called S Y S K podcast. One word. 10 ,000 strong. Plus. Yeah. we're on no we're up to like 11 and change that's plus 10 we're also on Facebook facebook.com we have a Kiva team we're trying to get to half a million dollars that's kiva.org slash team slash stuff you should know and then you can always send us a good old fashioned email we want to know what your favorite exploitation film of all time is you can send that in an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com.

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