August 19, 2017 • 48 mins
In today's SYSK Select episode, we learn about exploitation films. During the 1930s-80s, the work of directors operating in the shadows of Hollywood led to explorations in sexuality and violence that mainstream cinema wouldn't touch. Join Chuck and Josh as they explore the seedy underbelly of grindhouse flicks.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, everybody, This is Chuck and welcome to this week's
edition of the Stuff You Should Know Saturday Curated selects. Uh.
This week I decided to go with how Exploitation Films
Work from April four, two thousand eleven. And Uh, this
one was an easy pick because I like all of
our movie episodes and I think Josh might have put
(00:22):
this one together way back in the day when we
recorded it, and it was just really cool, and um,
not only do we get to talk a lot about
just some of the great exploitation films, but just a
little bit about the history and how they came about.
So I just remember really enjoying recording this one and
got great feedback on it. So give it a shot,
and if you've already listened to it, give it another shot,
(00:43):
is what I suggest. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you Should
Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
(01:06):
This is Stuff you Should Know the podcast and kind
of a special edition. Frankly, I am a little excited, Chuck,
I'm a little giddy. Shut your mouth. That's yeah, okay, sure, Um,
this is Uh, this is our first ever movie centric podcast, right,
movie centric for sure. Yeah, we've mentioned movies of course
(01:28):
all the time, but this one is like, this is
all about movies. Um So this is by by popular
request to an extent, people want to see like, um
I want they want to hear us talk about movies
and just do a movie podcast. So we decided to
focus on exploitation films. This is also probably the first
podcast that we're gonna say if you are a teacher
of children in eighth grade or younger, and you're using
(01:52):
this as a teaching tool, you might want to go
to the one before this or the one after. Yeah,
we don't generally try to alienate on it says we're
not attempting to now. It's just a natural byproduct of
the exploitation film. I can't talk about exploitation films without
talking about some lurid subject matter. You can't say exploitation
without they weren't exploiting, just people being nice, right, nice exploitation. So, Chuck,
(02:20):
I went and saw a movie the other day called
I Saw the Devil. It's a Korean movie. It's by
the guy who did um The Tale of Two Sisters.
I think he said, more violent than Old Boy. Yeah,
they got old Boy is one of the main characters.
And I've seen Old Boy. I've seen um uh, what's
(02:40):
the other one? He did the Vampire movie first. I
think it's pretty good. It was okay, um this one
is it's the most violent thing I've ever seen in
my life. It's the most graphically violent movie I've ever
seen in my life. Um. The only the only reason it, like,
I was able to complete because I'm like, this is
it's a movie, but I walked out of it like
(03:02):
it's so over the top, it's so gory. It's clearly
an exploitation film. Yeah. Yeah, but the problem is is, like, really,
if you start to look around John Hughes, films technically
are exploitation films. The Breakfast Club is technically an exploitation film. Yeah,
there's a big wave of teen exploitation films and we'll
(03:22):
get to that. But yeah, you're right. So one of
the broader definitions of exploitation films is basically anything that's
really like over the top, that is beyond reality, um
or that maybe focuses on people's fears, um uh, their
their sexuality, um and basically just kind of serves it
up in a larger than life manner. That's one way
(03:44):
of looking at exploitation films. Yeah, you're basically they're exploiting, um,
some of the seedier aspects of humanity most times, sure,
like murder or sex, like weird sex, that kind of
thing sex, weird sex, teenage is rebelling against parents, sure,
like weird science. Have you ever been to a party
(04:04):
where a couch shot out of the chimney and into
the pond? I mean it's a pretty nice party. I
don't think it's ever really happened, you know. Um, So
that's the vast definition of exploitation. But you and I
are um kind of qualified to teach a cinema cinema
class at like maybe a low level community college at
(04:25):
this point after the amount of research we've done in this,
and we found that academically there's a there's a much
more distinct um definition for exploitation, and it's seemingly interchangeable
term grindhouse. Right, Yeah, what's the Is there a definition definition?
It's it's more like a time frame, so from like
nineteen nineteen when they really first started making movies to
(04:48):
I think nineteen sixty nineteen fifty nine when the Haze
act went away, that was exploitation, and then after that
it became grindhouse. It's my understanding. Okay, so let's do
this all right, Well, that's the old joke, was that? Uh?
In In the awesome documentary American Grindhouse, which documents this
(05:10):
this era of filmmaking, the old joke, one of the
guy says is that um exploitation films began five minutes
after the camera was invented, the motion picture camera, because
the guy was like the directors like to his girlfriend, Hey,
would you mind taking your clothes off to the camera exactly,
So it's it says something about the human condition that
you invent the film camera, and the first moving images
were often lurid um Edison's film that showed clips of
(05:32):
like decapitations and violence and guys fighting and naked women
um as film tests. So it's just that says a
lot about people, like, all right, now we know how
to capture things, so let's capture sex and violence first,
right and um although that really kind of jibed with
(05:53):
public taste, or at least public fascination, Uh, it didn't
jibe with the prevailing standards, the agreed upon standards, right right? Uh,
I thin Heast in nineteen nineteen. But the first exploitation
film was Trafficking Souls or Wild New York Sleeps and that,
(06:13):
like you said, exploitation often plays into fear. Is that
played into the fear at the time of the White
slave trade? Uh. Budget of fifty seven grand and gross
four and fifty thousand dollars, which is a lot of doubt.
That is a ton of though. And that was Universal
Pictures and they went, hey, come onto something here. Right
after that was released the Hayes Code. Um. Will Hayes
(06:35):
was the Postmaster General and Presbyterian elder um and he
was making a hundred grand a year during the depression. Unbelievable,
right he Uh. He basically said, like, look, we need um,
we need to apply some moral standards to filmmaking. There's decapitation,
there's naked breast, there's there's white white slavery, Like we
(06:57):
need to we need to pure this up. Right. Well,
actually there wasn't nudity yet like those early test films.
There were, but nudity. We'll get to that later. But yes,
that's what Hayes trying to do. And like um prohibition
didn't exactly quell drinking um. The Hayze Code actually sort
of gave rise to the exploitation movement. Yeah, it's just
(07:18):
like just like prohibition, just like marijuana prohibition, just like
well any drug prohibition. Any time you say you can't
do this, you can't have something that you want, the
somebody else is going to operate in a black market.
A black market's going to spring up, simple economics, and
that's exactly what happened, and that's where exploitation cinema came up.
It's like, you can't get this from Hollywood because Hollywood
(07:41):
has to play by the rules. But my production studio
is my model t and let's go make this movie.
Give me some money. I'm going to film a child
being born close up and put it in the movies. Yes,
and you can do that. You can make your movies
all day long. But if they're never exhibited, then what
(08:01):
good are you doing or not? Like they were trying
to do some good, but you're not making any scratch.
So the forty Thieves they talked about in the in
the documentary, where these filmmakers and exhibitors basically that traveled
around like Carney's setting up these sort of guerrilla film
screenings and some places sort of out of the way
where they can't get caught. And that was, uh, for
(08:24):
the first time, you know, they were taking films outside
of the main stream different Sometimes they weren't even theaters.
They would show themen like VFW halls if you want
to go see Birth of the Baby films. Apparently they
were popular. Yeah, that was a whole genre, early genre
of well and so was early on a lot of
the film centered around like how to wear a condom
(08:45):
and sex hygiene films. Yeah, because there was no information
about that out there, and so exploitation filmmakers, whether um,
disingenuously or genuinely, um, we're presenting their stuff like this
is a public service. People need to know this and
and making movies about it. But also and people were
going on that excuse as well, like well, I needed
(09:07):
I need to know about this. But at the same time,
it's like I want to see this the craziest thing
I'll ever see in my life, you know, on screen
or they argued a lot of times that they were
cautionary tales. If they were about drugs or violence, they
would say, hey, this could happen to you, so you
should educate yourself. But what they really want to do
is get the movie scene and make some money. Exactly
(09:28):
um paramount decision of this is pretty big. The Supreme
Court voted that movie studios could no longer own their
own movie theaters. At the time, you know, there would
be like the Paramount Theater in Hollywood from the paramount
film production company they would show their movies. Supreme Court
said no more. And all of a sudden, exploitation films
(09:50):
became a little bit more legit because the Hayes coat
kind of fell apart. And this is post World War two,
so people have seen a lot of death recently, well
out of death, and then are they thought ladies in
a suggestive roles were good for morale And there was
a little bit of loosening on the sex thing a
(10:11):
little bit post World War two. And that led to
another sub genre um of exploitation film, the nudist colony film,
which were which were pawned off as documentaries. A lot
of well most of these were pawned off as documentaries
which legitimized them. But really it was maybe maybe it
actually was filmed that a news can't probably not. Mostly
(10:33):
they were actors and actresses just engaged in archery naked
or um long walks naked. There could be no sex
still that was still taboo, but it was just like
naked pretty people at a nudist colony, which is interesting
because you're not a nudist, will come learn about them exactly? Yeah.
After that, through the history we had things like, um,
(10:55):
the teen like you said, the teen Rebellion of the
fifties with that rebels out of Call as in Black
Boar Jungle, and movies like that. All of a sudden,
we're targeted specifically at teens, which was new, and then
drive in theaters were built so teenagers could see movies
where their parents weren't going to be. Apparently the adults
didn't go to drive ins a lot at first. It's
(11:15):
all kids. I didn't know that, so they showed exploitation
films and then later the beach films, which were marketed
as It's silly, It's Frankie avalon, but they were decidedly
weird and overtly sexual sometimes and then chuck if you
if if you'll notice, Um, we're kind of progressing along
in this um um chronological order, and each thing is
(11:37):
kind of being built on the last. It was very
much a step process, right, and um, apparently that that
was kind of the form that exploitation filmmaking followed until
nineteen sixty. It was just it was centered around drugs, violence, sex,
and in a lot of ways they were presented as documentaries.
They might not have a plot, um, And basically it
(12:01):
was one person would make some film and it would
just break all the rules, and then then a bunch
of other people would make similar films and the same
that that was the way it went. And then um,
in the nineties sixties, things just started to go every
which way, all sorts of directions. Right, So nudity nudity
films were a long standing thread of exploitation films and
(12:26):
then they probably reached their pinnacle with Russ Meyers, right,
King of the Nudies is what he's called. Yeah, he
was the first guy too. He's significant because he was
the first director to have films featuring nudity that actually
we're uh dramatic narratives and had plots and characters, and
they weren't classified as documentaries anymore. And then the Roughies
(12:49):
came along and they offered up violence for the not
first time, but uh big time for the first time.
And uh that has a lot to do with the
fact that it was the sixties and Kennedy was shot
in the United States was just becoming increasingly violent. America
lost its innocence. Yeah. Um. And the other thing that
really happened in the nineteen sixties was the Hayes Code
(13:10):
officially won away, was replaced by the m p a
A and the the I guess the longstanding UM prohibition
on Hollywood producing exploitation films was it was lessened decreased,
and so studios were like, oh, we can make money
over here too, Well, let's start making exploitation films. And
(13:32):
this is where grindhouse was born. So my uh cinema
professor definition of grindhouse is big budget, studio backed exploitation films. Okay, yeah,
that's that's mine. I like it. That's gonna be a
quiz question later. I'll go with that. Um. Actually, back
up one second. We got to mention Herschel Gordon Lewis.
(13:54):
He was a director, um, who had a co director.
I can't remember the other guy's named you. Anyway, he
was he was a co director and he was one
of these exploitation guys that was getting frustrated because there
weren't a lot of places to show your movies, so
it was pretty crowded marketplace. So he said, what's the
one taboo that like, people will pay to see that
you you're allowed to show in theaters, but that uh,
(14:18):
studios won't make And it was Gore. Oh yeah. He
was the first guy to start showing really disgusting bloody
scenes in his movie Blood Feast. Blood Feast, which actually
was three years after Psycho, and Psycho also did a
lot for the mainstream, ushering in of a little bit
of Gore in that. But there's like a shot of
blood following Janet Lee's murder, you know, which is I
(14:41):
imagine it's pretty graphic for Hollywood, and that's what you
think of. You're like, oh, those stupid sixties, but that's
you know, they're they're so naive. Like that was controversial,
not really though, Like if you stepped just slightly outside
of Hollywood, you ran into things like Blood Feast or
you know, Last House on the Left, Yes, that's nineteen
seventy two, I think, yeah, Wes Craven. So that was
(15:03):
important because Um, all of a sudden, a drugs started. Uh,
well three things. Political uh themes started popping up, sexual freedom,
the youth generation. Drugs started popping up in movies for
the first time, drug use. Well not for the first time,
we'll talk about reefer madness, um, but teenagers were depicted
as victims of violence for the first time. Like Last
(15:26):
House on the Left, I believe is kind of regarded
as the first teen slasher film. Yeah, Wes Craven, It's
it was almost a snuff film. It was almost regarded
like that. It's pretty hardcore, but yeah, it definitely blood
Feast definitely allowed Last House on the Left to come around.
But it also probably more directly UM formed the foundation
(15:48):
for UM slasher exploitation, like Friday the Thirteenth, Nightmare on
Elm Street. Absolutely, um My Bloody Valentine's another big one.
Yeah the Crazy Oh yeah that was in a original right,
there's a remake now, I think, yeah, yeah remakes. Uh
(16:30):
so that brings us we're in the seventies. UM. Politically
charged movies brought race into the to the mix, and
all of a sudden, we had black exploitation or black
exploitation UH movement starting exploiting the civil rights movement basically.
But the cool thing about black exploitation films is for
the first time you had African Americans as heroes. Yeah,
(16:52):
and not heroes in a typical sense, not even anti heroes,
but heroes that were like, they didn't ride into town
on on a white horse or wearing a white hat.
They very clearly wore black hats if need be, Like
they would engage in crime, they would murder people if
need be. They were um. They were basically like the
(17:14):
um face of Black America coming out of the Civil
rights are like, we're ticked off, you know, and we're
gonna stick it to the white man, stick it to
the man, and we're gonna do it in these movies. Chuck,
I know the movie. You're about to um to mention.
Let's this is it? You keep the fathing me. You
my man, you're my favorite man. Can take it, baby.
(17:49):
So yes, that was a landmark film for a lot
of reasons. One because it grows four million bucks and
it made the major studio say, hey, you know what
the black hero is marketable? Yeah, well you haven't said
the title yet. Oh I didn't know. You gotta say it, right,
to Melvin Van People's film Sweet Sweet Backs, badass song
(18:11):
that was well done. That was Melvin Van Van Peebles,
whose last name may sound familiar. He's the father of
Mario Van Peebles. For your younger cats listening to this one, Um,
cats are age, actually younger cats, because he's kind of like, okay,
so cats are Yeah, that's Mario Van People's dad, you know,
New Jack City. Yeah, exactly. Um. So Melvin Van Peoples
(18:33):
made this movie. He produced it, he raised the money
for it, he wrote it, he directed it, he starred
in it. And it was the beginning of the black
exploitation sub genre, which is one of the most important
genres of any American cinema absolutely ever, absolutely, and so
considering how important that subgenre is, this quote from Time
(18:54):
Magazine's film critic Richard corless Um should really hit home.
Sweet Sweet Back uh is quote, without question or competition,
the most influential movie by a black filmmaker. So this
is a really big deal, right, yeah, And it was.
It was just quickly on the plot. It was about
a black man who was a jiggielow who had as
(19:14):
a male prostitute for you younger cant and he had
a deal worked out with the cops where he was.
He said, you know, you can arrest me as much
as you want, release me right afterward. Fill your quota.
It's all good. And then one day while the arrest
is going down, they the cops attack a black panther
and Sweet Sweet Back kills one of the cops and
then just said, he just goes on a rampage against
(19:36):
the white man after that. Ye. So you've got um prostitution, um,
tons and tons of nudity, insects um, lots of violence um,
and uh other crimes all wrapped up into a black
power theme. That's right. Uh. And then to top it
all off, you have what is arguably a child sex
(19:58):
scene starring Mario van People's Melvivan People's son I think
age six, having sex as Sweet Sweet Back. It's his
first sexual encounter with an older person. Um. And in
the cold podcast, if he became a cult leader, he
would have taken a younger bride, remember I am. That's right.
So if you're interested in in that movie and you
(20:20):
can't get enough of Sweet Sweet Backs bad ass song, um,
you could also check out bad Ass exclamation Point, which
is Mario van People's biopic about his father making that movie.
That's right, And I have not seen that, but I
wanted to at the time, and it just sort of
slipped at the cracks. There's always Netflix, baby, that's right.
Uh and uh what happened with um, Sweet Sweet Back
(20:43):
was that, like I said, that told the studios, hey,
that we can market this, and so they got a
little more mainstream with movies like super Fly, which were
a little safer shaft shaft movies at wide audiences would
enjoy as well. Yeah, the ones that didn't scare the
man exactly like Cheft's a good guy. He doesn't take
any guff from them, and but the people he's not
taking guff from or the cops, who's really on the
(21:03):
same side as That's right. So chuck um blaxploitation obviously
huge affected everything from um, you know, Menace to Society
to Blackula. All of that came from Sweet Sweet Back.
And um we mentioned the guy who directed this next movie,
Russ Myers. Um, this is probably a seminal work. Let's
(21:24):
listen to this clip from the trailer. You ladies and
gentlemen go go for a wild, wild ride with the
White Cats, but be aware the sweetest kittens, have the
sharpest claud for your own safety. See Faster pussy Cats
Kill Kill wild when wild whales race the fastest pussy
(21:46):
cats and they'll be jilling your stuff on this kid
then hanging it up. Nothing. He's got nothing to do
with the money. The money, jack and chill. They make
(22:06):
a maffia look like brownies. They make the mafia look
like brownies. That's right. That says quite a bit about them. Um.
So this that was faster Pussycat Kill Kill Um. In
the nineteen sixty five Rust Myers UM basically women exploitation
film NUDI film. Remember Russ Myers was King of the Nuties.
(22:29):
He made twenty six movies. But this is probably at
the very least is his best known, uh, if not
like his masterpiece. Yeah, and he hatched a slew of
I mean not that he wasn't legit. He was, but
what mainstream people would callegit. Filmmakers were came up through
the Russ Meyer film camp. Basically Yeah, so it's pretty cool. Yeah,
(22:49):
UM and rust Me are also little known fact. Another
movie that's mentioned in this article. There's an article on
the site, by the way called ten Noteworthy exploitation films
that this is based on written by you yeah, um,
which I shall only recommend going to read because it
has a lot of extra stuff we're not going to
cover in this one, or at least extra movies. But
um russ Meyer directed a movie called Beyond the Valley
(23:13):
of the Dolls too, right, which was the bastard son
of the legitimate film. But Beyond Valley and Dolls is
a jiggle fest written by none other than Roger Ebert's right, yeah,
the movie Roger Ebert ever wrote, Yeah, he had aum. Yeah,
it was a very brief career. But that's a that's
an illustrious one really. Uh yeah, So if you're going
to talk about the plot, a faster pussycat kill kill um.
(23:36):
And I say that because there's three exclamation points. Exclamation
point kill three exclamation points. Okay, I thought it was
a comment then too. All right, either way, that's a
lot of punctuation for a film title. And uh, it
was about three bisexual go go dancers. They go on
a crime spree out in the desert and what do
they do? They end up killing a man or no,
(23:58):
they kill the man in a couple keep a girl.
They basically empower her, yes, come on with her by
murdering her boyfriend, and she ends up on the crimes
for you with them, and they basically end up going
to an isolated house with a wheelchair bound old man
and his son's who's allege they're all leeches. They have
these women, Yeah, but they don't know that these women
are tough ladies. And the men and his son, the
(24:21):
man and his sons apparently um are allegedly have a
large amount of cash statched in this house. So it's
kind of like a standoff of of m gall who
will come out on top? Well, and you know who
comes out on top? Uh. And this film was noteworthy
for one big reason was that, Uh, there's a lot
of dualism towards gender. So on one hand, he's exploiting
(24:43):
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 he would
hire um. I can't remember the lady's name, but the
star of Fester pussy Kill Kill is in other Russ
Meyers films, and um he made sure that she was
like well to her third first trimester to to enhance
(25:04):
her natural bustinus. 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. No, they
were the champs, they were the they were heroines really
for the first time. But they were they were objectified
very clearly. But at the same time, if you follow
the script and really look at their characters, then yeah,
(25:27):
they're they're powerful women. And this uh kind of kicked
off a big slew of women exploitation films, exploitation films,
the women in Prison movies, yes, which relead sisters very
big at the time. Uh, women were lead actors for
the first time, they were aggressors for the first time.
Uh still nude often while they were doing this stuff
(25:49):
spawned the television show The Facts of Life. But 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 uh, they didn't mind, you know, looking at
the naked ladies because women are much more grown up
than men are. But Josh, the seventies also got a
(26:11):
little schlocky, which in a sense was true to the
exploitation model. They like, they really went over the top.
No more political statements, no more advancing of women's gender
or or African marins Americans. It just got really shlocky
and outrageous at that point. Well what happened and starting
in the sixth but really took hold in the seventies,
(26:33):
and then from that point on was exploitation cinema, early
on showing a live birth, nudist camps. These were all
geared toward adults in the sixties, and then later on
big time in the seventies, the audience became almost exclusively
teenagers like those driving teenagers or um uh well teenagers
anywhere who cares um, but they the the audience was teenagers,
(26:57):
and the cast started to become teenage, so it had
a little more of a bent on what teenagers are
having to deal with, like bullying, like the 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. Yah, meet little Melvine.
He's a ninety pound weekly Everyone hated Melvine. I'm gonna
(27:20):
take this mop and shop it down your throat, they
teased him. I'm gonna 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 Melbourne into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman signs
(27:43):
and strength move and became the Toxic Avenger. So Josh.
The Toxic Avenger movie was unique in that it's film
production company, Trauma, is very popular in their own right.
Have you ever seen Surf Nazis Must Die? I haven't,
(28:03):
but I know about Trauma. I mean they are master
self promoters and market tiers. They have. They were one
of the first production companies to have a website, like
a really comprehensive website. You should go on their website,
their whole catalog. It's um really just well done and
it's schlocky, but it's well done right in. Toxic Avenger
follows the story of a ninety eight pound weakling who
(28:26):
has picked on released the same years Ghostbusters. Do you
notice that right, Yeah, so it was it occurred at
zero year years zero. Uh, we'll just put the null
set represent that and um, this kid gets pushed out
of a window into a vat of toxic sludge, which
that's beyond bullying. Really yeah, I mean this is basically
(28:48):
it's a more twisted version of Modern Problems, the Chevy
Chase film from a couple of years earlier. That one. Oh,
you never saw Modern Problems. It's very silly, but he
got toxic sludge dumped on him and had special powers
from years earlier, prior or after what win was the movie?
It was two years before Toxic Avenger, but Toxic Avenger
(29:10):
took it into a gore special effects way that that
Modern Problems never did. So the janitor Melvin I believe
his name is Um, becomes toxified, It becomes toxic. The
Toxic Avenger, who um beats the tar out of people
at the health club where he was abused and mutated
(29:31):
UM and Uh has tons of sex as the Toxic
Avenger because his um newfound manhood is just irresistible to
women and UM. One of one of the things that's
noteworthy about the Toxic Avenger is that they actually tried
to make decent effects. It wasn't just it wasn't horrible.
I guess you could say, well, for the time. You know,
(29:52):
it wasn't bad. No, they they remained bad and they
probably were kind of bad even back then. But for
for for Grindhouse films, yeah they were, they were great.
Um and uh. It was also noteworthy because it came
out of Trauma Productions or Trauma Studios um. And it
led to a whole line of Toxic Avenger movies and
(30:14):
schlock in general, which is basically like some crazy, horrible
thing has happened. But we're not going to dwell too
much on that. Let's see what let's let's see where
the action takes us. So like Bad Taste that Peter
Peter Jackson's first film, right 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
(30:35):
at one point supposedly the gorrious film ever made. Although
it sounds like your new Korean MOVIEUS surpassed that. Yeah,
I think it probably has. I haven't seen That Alive.
It's seen Bad Taste and Bad Taste. It was horribly gory,
but I think this has it beat. Yeah, but I
bet you if anything, I mean, I haven't seen them.
When you're talking about but is it more realistic gore? Yeah,
with bad like these are aliens that are having their
(30:55):
heads blown off, So it definitely takes you, at least,
um a a degree away from caring this is happening
to human beings in in um I saw the Devil,
so it definitely has driven home a little more well.
And and the violence, even the gore back then, it
was so over the top, right out of Fangora magazine.
It's like, you know, dude, Fangoria is still around, is it? Yeah?
(31:18):
I figured it was. I'm glad it is. We follow
it on our Twitter feed. Ye, like a head will
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 he asked me, I agree
wholeheartedly because they're more realistic. Um. So, carrying on with
Chucks and my Cisco and eber act. Uh, this is
(31:40):
the second to last movie in our little list today
and um this one's from way back from the thirties.
So let's talk about reefor madness. These high school boys
and girls are having a hop at the local soda
fountain innocently they innocent of a wo and deadly menace
(32:01):
lurking behind closed doors. Marijuana, the burning weed with its
roots in hell. Or watch case if you want, I
want to bet you will meet Bill or once too
broad in his strong will as he takes the first
(32:21):
step toward enslavement. Hey. So that was the excellent reefer Madness,
(32:53):
which was an exploitation drug exploitation film and very much
a cautionary tale. It even shaped the drug culture and
how uh people looked at drugs. Is is you know
marijuana at the time. It's this really evil thing that
can make you crazy to kill people. Yeah, and actually
in in very much the vein of early exploitation films.
It was produced and distributed UM as a public service.
(33:19):
Like the alternate title for it was UM Tell Your Children.
And the whole thing set in a PTA meeting where
this guy is relating this story and it's a story
about lost lives, about murder, about um, guilt and paranoia
and all of it is fed and based on rampant
(33:39):
drug use, which is really just a lot of pot
smoking um which can turn you into a fiend. And
um it's apparently the director his name is Dwayne Esper
he did other exploitation films from the thirties like Sex, Madness,
Psychotic Connections, um, and he made a name for himself
basically taking of these things that may have originally been
(34:02):
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 like just insanely over the
top exploitation films from the thirties. Well, and ironically, refor
Madness years later would become, um, not so much an
(34:22):
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, and a
cult film. Yeah, because it puts drugs so far out
there that, um, if you, despite all the warnings, take
drugs anyway and you realize that you don't turn into
(34:43):
a fiend and murder somebody, um, you uh. Refor Madness
basically dares you to go further. So it's kind of
in it's the opposite has the opposite effect of what
I think it's original intent was before Dwayne Nesperg got
his hands on it. And as a side note, I
had troubled deciding between Reefer Madness, and another nineteen thirties
(35:03):
film by a guy named Todd Browning called Freaks. Oh yeah,
well that was um, that was huge because it was
the first big exploitation film pre Hayes Code or and Last. Yeah,
first and last, and it was it was an MGM film. Yeah,
and it's widely considered a masterpiece. I mean, it looks great.
It's it's not it was well done. It's a huge. Um,
(35:25):
it's a it's a revenge movie, which is a very
common theme in UM exploitation films, especially violent ones. But
it's it featured Browning dared to um have real freaks.
I guess if you circus sideshow freaks, Yeah, um star
in this. Uh and they basically exact their revenge on
people who have mistreated them. And uh, I have not
(35:47):
seen it really Yeah, yeah, I wanted to. I hear
it's just awesome. I can't want it ended his career though, unfortunately. Yeah,
and he was a popular filmmaker at the time. Well,
hats off to him for first staying true to his art.
Chuck just took his hat off. Donnel cap. All right, Chuck,
here's the last one that we've got a clip for um,
which I think everybody will notice um or recognize without
(36:11):
even a word. There's not even a word in this clip,
and you will understand what's going on. So here we go.
(36:46):
So Josh, those are the unmistakable sounds of fist of
fury of Mr One, Mr Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee kicking bottom.
This first movie, Yeah, which was originally titled well, it's
still title, I think in Asia The Big Boss, um
and uh, in America it is. It's it's titled Fists
of Fury. It was on the Other nine on cable.
(37:06):
I saw part of it. Yeah, Yeah, I didn't realize
it was the first one, though I would have tuned in. Yeah.
And it was first of what, um five five major films. Uh.
And basically it's the story of a martial arts student
who's investigating the murder of his teacher. And um, it began,
uh the martial arts exploitation sub genre, which later would
(37:27):
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 in a Bruce Lee movie,
specifically The Big Boss or any of them, is martial
arts exploitation technically, um, because again we arrive at that
one definition. It's over the top, Like Bruce Lee is
taking on scores of anonymous thugs, um for two one
(37:51):
after the other for two hours, just beating the tar
out of all these people without tiring. Really. Um. Everybody's
kind of waiting their turn politely in a circle around him,
and he has to beat everybody and then he works
his way up and it's over the top. So it
is exploitation. But um. It led to other films like
Samurai exploitation. Remember American Ninja. Remember the whole ninja film
(38:12):
thing that came in the mid eighties. That's from Bruce
Lee's Um, that's Bruce Lee's doing. Well. Yeah, and you
go to these at the time when I was first
going to New York many years ago, that would be uh,
you know, you go to Times Square and this is
still one Time Square was kind of gross, and that
would be just the martial arts movie store where it
was all that stuff, man, like thousands of movies about
(38:32):
ninja's and samurai's martial artists and very big. I was
inspired by American Ninja to become a ninja memember. I
entered ninja training with Tommy Rooper, who had like more
throwing stars than any kid I've ever known. What did
you have? Like one throwing star I borrowed? Okay, I
was not allowed to have throwing stars in my own
Oh I wasn't either. Baptist. No, that was very violent. Nunchucks.
(38:58):
That transcends like religious back ground. It's like, good parents,
you shouldn't let your kid have throwing star. It's a
good point. Uh. And as you point in the article,
this actually led to another sub genre, which was Bruce
Lee look alike movies. Yeah. So he made five movies
and he died at age thirty two in nineteen seventy three.
So Big Boss released in nineteen seventy one. He dies
(39:19):
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. But Bruce Lee l
I or l E or l E or just Eli there, well,
Bruce l I or Bruce Ellie. Um, I don't think
there was ever like uh Bruce l E I g H.
(39:43):
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 there. So Bruce Lee created the martial
arts exploitation genre and sub genre, and he inadvertently created
the Bruce Lee exploitation subgenre of the martial arts exploitation
sub genre by dying young and being very popular. And
(40:05):
which one was the one he had Kareem until Jabbaran
the Dragon. Yeah. Yeah, if you've never seen a like
seven foot plus guy to 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 who we met
in Los Angeles recently, um and who used an expletive
(40:28):
to me. He did it was one of the high
points of my life. It is, um, But yeah, Kentucky
Fried movie awesome. Actually, when we met Jerry Zucker, we
told him that our little speech we were given that
night was one of the highlights of our career thus far.
And he says, well, it doesn't say much about your career,
does it. Like the first thing to dud does something
funny and we just like kind of fond over imagine
we should mention briefly and it's in the article, but
(40:51):
just as a teaser. Uh. The late seventies we got
Nazi exploitation movies, not exploitation as a sub genre. Yeah.
And one of the major players there movie was Ilsa
she Wolf of the s S Yeah, which led to
elsa Um Siberian Tigress and Ilsa Harem Keeper of the
Oil Sheets. Really, there's a whole sex violence franchise, Dominatrix franchise,
(41:14):
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 because the kill bills
were definitely martial arts exploitation. Really, the Jackie Brown was
a riff on on black exploitation death Proof Obviously that
(41:38):
was what they were trying to do. Their death Proof
is Carsploitation, which follows in the tradition of Vanishing Point Um,
which was released the same year as basically its rival
to the Um, the founder, the founding movie of carsploitation,
Two Lane Blacktop, which movie. Yeah, if you want to
start an argument with an exploitation film, buff tell him.
Vanishing Point was the beginning of cars Floitation. They'll get
(42:01):
mad at you and then finally Tarantino with The Inglorious Bastards,
which was clearly a riff on the Nazi exploitation films.
Beaten Nazis the Death of the Baseball Bat. It's about
as over the top and lard as it's awesome. Yeah,
um so uh. And then Machete. I hated it, but
Robert she is, Um, it's terrible, and of course he
was the other half of the Rodriguez was the other
(42:23):
half with his Planet Terror of the Grindhouse double feature. Yeah,
and Machete was born from one of the little fake
trailers they made in that movie. Oh was that right? Yeah,
it was one of the fake movie previews. It is
even as far as like a purposefully be movie. Not good. No, well,
Death Proof was okay, but I didn't like Planet Taring
that much. Um and then Chuck. Well, first of all,
(42:43):
before we get to today, we also have to give
a shout out to Porno's Porno came out of the
exploitation film genre, and it arguably had a lot to
do with killing um the X 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.
(43:05):
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. And so one might argue, Josh
(43:25):
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 and exploitative of viewers tastes.
(43:48):
And not only Tarantino, there's other filmmakers out that are
trying to capture that seventies vibe with overt exploitation films. Again,
shot that way, shot him thirty five, I'm sorry, sixteen
millimeter films, stuff like that. So, um, Chuck, I say,
our message to everybody is number one, go on to
(44:08):
the site read ten noteworthy exploitation films, um number two
if that interests to you. Like even the ten noteworthy
exploitation films I chose, um don't cover even I think
a third of the exploitation subgenres. So they'll probably be
another article forthcoming at some point. If there is, we'll
let you know and then go watch some exploitation movies
(44:31):
and enjoy them. Yeah, watch the documentary American Grindhouse too,
if you're into that. Yeah, that's a great one. It's
free on Hulu. Actually, um, there's ads, but Hulu dot
com has American Grindhouse for free. It is not safe
for work in no way shape or for him. I
was watching it at work and I was like, WHOA, Okay, Yeah,
if you are watching it at work, tab browsing is
(44:52):
what you want to be doing. And keep your your
finger over the mouse and keep the cursor over the
other tab right and say for in our case, you
can just say it's research. But you can't do that
if you if you're an accountant at uh JP Morgan,
you're just a sick o, a weirdo, that weird guy
in accounting. Um, so look up ten noteworthy exploitation films
(45:15):
you can type that into the handy search bar how
stuff Works dot com. And now, at long last, it's
time for a listener mail Josh or Is I'm gonna
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 co workers
at a local coffee shop know me for the trivia
(45:36):
and information I abound in. But after giving that, he
he says he abounds in. I guess he's proficient in. Okay,
did he misuse that? Yeah? I don't know. It sounds hilarious.
It does um after giving credit where credit is due,
which means us several of them decided to subscribe your podcast.
Listening to the podcast is also give me an advantage
(45:58):
at work for thinking of the coffee shops daily trivia question,
which saves people ten cents on their drink. After re
listening to How Legos Work, I set the trivia question
for which company produces the most tires on the yearly
basis abridge stone be good year see Lego Bricks. You
know the answer, John. Most people were surprised and pleased
(46:21):
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 puncy
scheme in the best Italian accent he could muster. Everyone
else gave him an odd look. I started laughing. He
apologized and then say and said he just heard it
(46:43):
on a podcast. Um, he had just listened to Legos
followed by Poncy 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. He didn't name him. You wouldn't know.
(47:04):
I mean med him at camp. Let's write band camp.
Thanks Daniel, that's really awesome. Um, wow, that's really cool.
Let me let us know if you tweet um those
daily facts for your coffeehouse, because we will start following you. Indeed,
that'd be very cool. Um, if you want to follow us,
we have our own Twitter feed and seriously, it's called
(47:25):
s y s K podcast one word strong plus. Um,
we're on No, we're up to like eleven and change.
That's plus ten. That's true. Um, we're also on Facebook, Facebook,
dot com. Slash stuff. You should know. We have a
Kiva team. Right, we're trying to get to half a
million dollars. Right. That's k i v A dot org
slash team slash stuff you should know. Uh, And then
(47:49):
you can always send us a good old fashioned email. Um,
we want to know what your favorite um exploitation film
of all time is. You can send that in an
email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(48:13):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. H
Hey, everybody, This is Chuck and welcome to this week's
edition of the Stuff You Should Know Saturday Curated selects. Uh.
This week I decided to go with how Exploitation Films
Work from April four, two thousand eleven. And Uh, this
one was an easy pick because I like all of
our movie episodes and I think Josh might have put
(00:22):
this one together way back in the day when we
recorded it, and it was just really cool, and um,
not only do we get to talk a lot about
just some of the great exploitation films, but just a
little bit about the history and how they came about.
So I just remember really enjoying recording this one and
got great feedback on it. So give it a shot,
and if you've already listened to it, give it another shot,
(00:43):
is what I suggest. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you Should
Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
(01:06):
This is Stuff you Should Know the podcast and kind
of a special edition. Frankly, I am a little excited, Chuck,
I'm a little giddy. Shut your mouth. That's yeah, okay, sure, Um,
this is Uh, this is our first ever movie centric podcast, right,
movie centric for sure. Yeah, we've mentioned movies of course
(01:28):
all the time, but this one is like, this is
all about movies. Um So this is by by popular
request to an extent, people want to see like, um
I want they want to hear us talk about movies
and just do a movie podcast. So we decided to
focus on exploitation films. This is also probably the first
podcast that we're gonna say if you are a teacher
of children in eighth grade or younger, and you're using
(01:52):
this as a teaching tool, you might want to go
to the one before this or the one after. Yeah,
we don't generally try to alienate on it says we're
not attempting to now. It's just a natural byproduct of
the exploitation film. I can't talk about exploitation films without
talking about some lurid subject matter. You can't say exploitation
without they weren't exploiting, just people being nice, right, nice exploitation. So, Chuck,
(02:20):
I went and saw a movie the other day called
I Saw the Devil. It's a Korean movie. It's by
the guy who did um The Tale of Two Sisters.
I think he said, more violent than Old Boy. Yeah,
they got old Boy is one of the main characters.
And I've seen Old Boy. I've seen um uh, what's
(02:40):
the other one? He did the Vampire movie first. I
think it's pretty good. It was okay, um this one
is it's the most violent thing I've ever seen in
my life. It's the most graphically violent movie I've ever
seen in my life. Um. The only the only reason it, like,
I was able to complete because I'm like, this is
it's a movie, but I walked out of it like
(03:02):
it's so over the top, it's so gory. It's clearly
an exploitation film. Yeah. Yeah, but the problem is is, like, really,
if you start to look around John Hughes, films technically
are exploitation films. The Breakfast Club is technically an exploitation film. Yeah,
there's a big wave of teen exploitation films and we'll
(03:22):
get to that. But yeah, you're right. So one of
the broader definitions of exploitation films is basically anything that's
really like over the top, that is beyond reality, um
or that maybe focuses on people's fears, um uh, their
their sexuality, um and basically just kind of serves it
up in a larger than life manner. That's one way
(03:44):
of looking at exploitation films. Yeah, you're basically they're exploiting, um,
some of the seedier aspects of humanity most times, sure,
like murder or sex, like weird sex, that kind of
thing sex, weird sex, teenage is rebelling against parents, sure,
like weird science. Have you ever been to a party
(04:04):
where a couch shot out of the chimney and into
the pond? I mean it's a pretty nice party. I
don't think it's ever really happened, you know. Um, So
that's the vast definition of exploitation. But you and I
are um kind of qualified to teach a cinema cinema
class at like maybe a low level community college at
(04:25):
this point after the amount of research we've done in this,
and we found that academically there's a there's a much
more distinct um definition for exploitation, and it's seemingly interchangeable
term grindhouse. Right, Yeah, what's the Is there a definition definition?
It's it's more like a time frame, so from like
nineteen nineteen when they really first started making movies to
(04:48):
I think nineteen sixty nineteen fifty nine when the Haze
act went away, that was exploitation, and then after that
it became grindhouse. It's my understanding. Okay, so let's do
this all right, Well, that's the old joke, was that? Uh?
In In the awesome documentary American Grindhouse, which documents this
(05:10):
this era of filmmaking, the old joke, one of the
guy says is that um exploitation films began five minutes
after the camera was invented, the motion picture camera, because
the guy was like the directors like to his girlfriend, Hey,
would you mind taking your clothes off to the camera exactly,
So it's it says something about the human condition that
you invent the film camera, and the first moving images
were often lurid um Edison's film that showed clips of
(05:32):
like decapitations and violence and guys fighting and naked women
um as film tests. So it's just that says a
lot about people, like, all right, now we know how
to capture things, so let's capture sex and violence first,
right and um although that really kind of jibed with
(05:53):
public taste, or at least public fascination, Uh, it didn't
jibe with the prevailing standards, the agreed upon standards, right right? Uh,
I thin Heast in nineteen nineteen. But the first exploitation
film was Trafficking Souls or Wild New York Sleeps and that,
(06:13):
like you said, exploitation often plays into fear. Is that
played into the fear at the time of the White
slave trade? Uh. Budget of fifty seven grand and gross
four and fifty thousand dollars, which is a lot of doubt.
That is a ton of though. And that was Universal
Pictures and they went, hey, come onto something here. Right
after that was released the Hayes Code. Um. Will Hayes
(06:35):
was the Postmaster General and Presbyterian elder um and he
was making a hundred grand a year during the depression. Unbelievable,
right he Uh. He basically said, like, look, we need um,
we need to apply some moral standards to filmmaking. There's decapitation,
there's naked breast, there's there's white white slavery, Like we
(06:57):
need to we need to pure this up. Right. Well,
actually there wasn't nudity yet like those early test films.
There were, but nudity. We'll get to that later. But yes,
that's what Hayes trying to do. And like um prohibition
didn't exactly quell drinking um. The Hayze Code actually sort
of gave rise to the exploitation movement. Yeah, it's just
(07:18):
like just like prohibition, just like marijuana prohibition, just like
well any drug prohibition. Any time you say you can't
do this, you can't have something that you want, the
somebody else is going to operate in a black market.
A black market's going to spring up, simple economics, and
that's exactly what happened, and that's where exploitation cinema came up.
It's like, you can't get this from Hollywood because Hollywood
(07:41):
has to play by the rules. But my production studio
is my model t and let's go make this movie.
Give me some money. I'm going to film a child
being born close up and put it in the movies. Yes,
and you can do that. You can make your movies
all day long. But if they're never exhibited, then what
(08:01):
good are you doing or not? Like they were trying
to do some good, but you're not making any scratch.
So the forty Thieves they talked about in the in
the documentary, where these filmmakers and exhibitors basically that traveled
around like Carney's setting up these sort of guerrilla film
screenings and some places sort of out of the way
where they can't get caught. And that was, uh, for
(08:24):
the first time, you know, they were taking films outside
of the main stream different Sometimes they weren't even theaters.
They would show themen like VFW halls if you want
to go see Birth of the Baby films. Apparently they
were popular. Yeah, that was a whole genre, early genre
of well and so was early on a lot of
the film centered around like how to wear a condom
(08:45):
and sex hygiene films. Yeah, because there was no information
about that out there, and so exploitation filmmakers, whether um,
disingenuously or genuinely, um, we're presenting their stuff like this
is a public service. People need to know this and
and making movies about it. But also and people were
going on that excuse as well, like well, I needed
(09:07):
I need to know about this. But at the same time,
it's like I want to see this the craziest thing
I'll ever see in my life, you know, on screen
or they argued a lot of times that they were
cautionary tales. If they were about drugs or violence, they
would say, hey, this could happen to you, so you
should educate yourself. But what they really want to do
is get the movie scene and make some money. Exactly
(09:28):
um paramount decision of this is pretty big. The Supreme
Court voted that movie studios could no longer own their
own movie theaters. At the time, you know, there would
be like the Paramount Theater in Hollywood from the paramount
film production company they would show their movies. Supreme Court
said no more. And all of a sudden, exploitation films
(09:50):
became a little bit more legit because the Hayes coat
kind of fell apart. And this is post World War two,
so people have seen a lot of death recently, well
out of death, and then are they thought ladies in
a suggestive roles were good for morale And there was
a little bit of loosening on the sex thing a
(10:11):
little bit post World War two. And that led to
another sub genre um of exploitation film, the nudist colony film,
which were which were pawned off as documentaries. A lot
of well most of these were pawned off as documentaries
which legitimized them. But really it was maybe maybe it
actually was filmed that a news can't probably not. Mostly
(10:33):
they were actors and actresses just engaged in archery naked
or um long walks naked. There could be no sex
still that was still taboo, but it was just like
naked pretty people at a nudist colony, which is interesting
because you're not a nudist, will come learn about them exactly? Yeah.
After that, through the history we had things like, um,
(10:55):
the teen like you said, the teen Rebellion of the
fifties with that rebels out of Call as in Black
Boar Jungle, and movies like that. All of a sudden,
we're targeted specifically at teens, which was new, and then
drive in theaters were built so teenagers could see movies
where their parents weren't going to be. Apparently the adults
didn't go to drive ins a lot at first. It's
(11:15):
all kids. I didn't know that, so they showed exploitation
films and then later the beach films, which were marketed
as It's silly, It's Frankie avalon, but they were decidedly
weird and overtly sexual sometimes and then chuck if you
if if you'll notice, Um, we're kind of progressing along
in this um um chronological order, and each thing is
(11:37):
kind of being built on the last. It was very
much a step process, right, and um, apparently that that
was kind of the form that exploitation filmmaking followed until
nineteen sixty. It was just it was centered around drugs, violence, sex,
and in a lot of ways they were presented as documentaries.
They might not have a plot, um, And basically it
(12:01):
was one person would make some film and it would
just break all the rules, and then then a bunch
of other people would make similar films and the same
that that was the way it went. And then um,
in the nineties sixties, things just started to go every
which way, all sorts of directions. Right, So nudity nudity
films were a long standing thread of exploitation films and
(12:26):
then they probably reached their pinnacle with Russ Meyers, right,
King of the Nudies is what he's called. Yeah, he
was the first guy too. He's significant because he was
the first director to have films featuring nudity that actually
we're uh dramatic narratives and had plots and characters, and
they weren't classified as documentaries anymore. And then the Roughies
(12:49):
came along and they offered up violence for the not
first time, but uh big time for the first time.
And uh that has a lot to do with the
fact that it was the sixties and Kennedy was shot
in the United States was just becoming increasingly violent. America
lost its innocence. Yeah. Um. And the other thing that
really happened in the nineteen sixties was the Hayes Code
(13:10):
officially won away, was replaced by the m p a
A and the the I guess the longstanding UM prohibition
on Hollywood producing exploitation films was it was lessened decreased,
and so studios were like, oh, we can make money
over here too, Well, let's start making exploitation films. And
(13:32):
this is where grindhouse was born. So my uh cinema
professor definition of grindhouse is big budget, studio backed exploitation films. Okay, yeah,
that's that's mine. I like it. That's gonna be a
quiz question later. I'll go with that. Um. Actually, back
up one second. We got to mention Herschel Gordon Lewis.
(13:54):
He was a director, um, who had a co director.
I can't remember the other guy's named you. Anyway, he
was he was a co director and he was one
of these exploitation guys that was getting frustrated because there
weren't a lot of places to show your movies, so
it was pretty crowded marketplace. So he said, what's the
one taboo that like, people will pay to see that
you you're allowed to show in theaters, but that uh,
(14:18):
studios won't make And it was Gore. Oh yeah. He
was the first guy to start showing really disgusting bloody
scenes in his movie Blood Feast. Blood Feast, which actually
was three years after Psycho, and Psycho also did a
lot for the mainstream, ushering in of a little bit
of Gore in that. But there's like a shot of
blood following Janet Lee's murder, you know, which is I
(14:41):
imagine it's pretty graphic for Hollywood, and that's what you
think of. You're like, oh, those stupid sixties, but that's
you know, they're they're so naive. Like that was controversial,
not really though, Like if you stepped just slightly outside
of Hollywood, you ran into things like Blood Feast or
you know, Last House on the Left, Yes, that's nineteen
seventy two, I think, yeah, Wes Craven. So that was
(15:03):
important because Um, all of a sudden, a drugs started. Uh,
well three things. Political uh themes started popping up, sexual freedom,
the youth generation. Drugs started popping up in movies for
the first time, drug use. Well not for the first time,
we'll talk about reefer madness, um, but teenagers were depicted
as victims of violence for the first time. Like Last
(15:26):
House on the Left, I believe is kind of regarded
as the first teen slasher film. Yeah, Wes Craven, It's
it was almost a snuff film. It was almost regarded
like that. It's pretty hardcore, but yeah, it definitely blood
Feast definitely allowed Last House on the Left to come around.
But it also probably more directly UM formed the foundation
(15:48):
for UM slasher exploitation, like Friday the Thirteenth, Nightmare on
Elm Street. Absolutely, um My Bloody Valentine's another big one.
Yeah the Crazy Oh yeah that was in a original right,
there's a remake now, I think, yeah, yeah remakes. Uh
(16:30):
so that brings us we're in the seventies. UM. Politically
charged movies brought race into the to the mix, and
all of a sudden, we had black exploitation or black
exploitation UH movement starting exploiting the civil rights movement basically.
But the cool thing about black exploitation films is for
the first time you had African Americans as heroes. Yeah,
(16:52):
and not heroes in a typical sense, not even anti heroes,
but heroes that were like, they didn't ride into town
on on a white horse or wearing a white hat.
They very clearly wore black hats if need be, Like
they would engage in crime, they would murder people if
need be. They were um. They were basically like the
(17:14):
um face of Black America coming out of the Civil
rights are like, we're ticked off, you know, and we're
gonna stick it to the white man, stick it to
the man, and we're gonna do it in these movies. Chuck,
I know the movie. You're about to um to mention.
Let's this is it? You keep the fathing me. You
my man, you're my favorite man. Can take it, baby.
(17:49):
So yes, that was a landmark film for a lot
of reasons. One because it grows four million bucks and
it made the major studio say, hey, you know what
the black hero is marketable? Yeah, well you haven't said
the title yet. Oh I didn't know. You gotta say it, right,
to Melvin Van People's film Sweet Sweet Backs, badass song
(18:11):
that was well done. That was Melvin Van Van Peebles,
whose last name may sound familiar. He's the father of
Mario Van Peebles. For your younger cats listening to this one, Um,
cats are age, actually younger cats, because he's kind of like, okay,
so cats are Yeah, that's Mario Van People's dad, you know,
New Jack City. Yeah, exactly. Um. So Melvin Van Peoples
(18:33):
made this movie. He produced it, he raised the money
for it, he wrote it, he directed it, he starred
in it. And it was the beginning of the black
exploitation sub genre, which is one of the most important
genres of any American cinema absolutely ever, absolutely, and so
considering how important that subgenre is, this quote from Time
(18:54):
Magazine's film critic Richard corless Um should really hit home.
Sweet Sweet Back uh is quote, without question or competition,
the most influential movie by a black filmmaker. So this
is a really big deal, right, yeah, And it was.
It was just quickly on the plot. It was about
a black man who was a jiggielow who had as
(19:14):
a male prostitute for you younger cant and he had
a deal worked out with the cops where he was.
He said, you know, you can arrest me as much
as you want, release me right afterward. Fill your quota.
It's all good. And then one day while the arrest
is going down, they the cops attack a black panther
and Sweet Sweet Back kills one of the cops and
then just said, he just goes on a rampage against
(19:36):
the white man after that. Ye. So you've got um prostitution, um,
tons and tons of nudity, insects um, lots of violence um,
and uh other crimes all wrapped up into a black
power theme. That's right. Uh. And then to top it
all off, you have what is arguably a child sex
(19:58):
scene starring Mario van People's Melvivan People's son I think
age six, having sex as Sweet Sweet Back. It's his
first sexual encounter with an older person. Um. And in
the cold podcast, if he became a cult leader, he
would have taken a younger bride, remember I am. That's right.
So if you're interested in in that movie and you
(20:20):
can't get enough of Sweet Sweet Backs bad ass song, um,
you could also check out bad Ass exclamation Point, which
is Mario van People's biopic about his father making that movie.
That's right, And I have not seen that, but I
wanted to at the time, and it just sort of
slipped at the cracks. There's always Netflix, baby, that's right.
Uh and uh what happened with um, Sweet Sweet Back
(20:43):
was that, like I said, that told the studios, hey,
that we can market this, and so they got a
little more mainstream with movies like super Fly, which were
a little safer shaft shaft movies at wide audiences would
enjoy as well. Yeah, the ones that didn't scare the
man exactly like Cheft's a good guy. He doesn't take
any guff from them, and but the people he's not
taking guff from or the cops, who's really on the
(21:03):
same side as That's right. So chuck um blaxploitation obviously
huge affected everything from um, you know, Menace to Society
to Blackula. All of that came from Sweet Sweet Back.
And um we mentioned the guy who directed this next movie,
Russ Myers. Um, this is probably a seminal work. Let's
(21:24):
listen to this clip from the trailer. You ladies and
gentlemen go go for a wild, wild ride with the
White Cats, but be aware the sweetest kittens, have the
sharpest claud for your own safety. See Faster pussy Cats
Kill Kill wild when wild whales race the fastest pussy
(21:46):
cats and they'll be jilling your stuff on this kid
then hanging it up. Nothing. He's got nothing to do
with the money. The money, jack and chill. They make
(22:06):
a maffia look like brownies. They make the mafia look
like brownies. That's right. That says quite a bit about them. Um.
So this that was faster Pussycat Kill Kill Um. In
the nineteen sixty five Rust Myers UM basically women exploitation
film NUDI film. Remember Russ Myers was King of the Nuties.
(22:29):
He made twenty six movies. But this is probably at
the very least is his best known, uh, if not
like his masterpiece. Yeah, and he hatched a slew of
I mean not that he wasn't legit. He was, but
what mainstream people would callegit. Filmmakers were came up through
the Russ Meyer film camp. Basically Yeah, so it's pretty cool. Yeah,
(22:49):
UM and rust Me are also little known fact. Another
movie that's mentioned in this article. There's an article on
the site, by the way called ten Noteworthy exploitation films
that this is based on written by you yeah, um,
which I shall only recommend going to read because it
has a lot of extra stuff we're not going to
cover in this one, or at least extra movies. But
um russ Meyer directed a movie called Beyond the Valley
(23:13):
of the Dolls too, right, which was the bastard son
of the legitimate film. But Beyond Valley and Dolls is
a jiggle fest written by none other than Roger Ebert's right, yeah,
the movie Roger Ebert ever wrote, Yeah, he had aum. Yeah,
it was a very brief career. But that's a that's
an illustrious one really. Uh yeah, So if you're going
to talk about the plot, a faster pussycat kill kill um.
(23:36):
And I say that because there's three exclamation points. Exclamation
point kill three exclamation points. Okay, I thought it was
a comment then too. All right, either way, that's a
lot of punctuation for a film title. And uh, it
was about three bisexual go go dancers. They go on
a crime spree out in the desert and what do
they do? They end up killing a man or no,
(23:58):
they kill the man in a couple keep a girl.
They basically empower her, yes, come on with her by
murdering her boyfriend, and she ends up on the crimes
for you with them, and they basically end up going
to an isolated house with a wheelchair bound old man
and his son's who's allege they're all leeches. They have
these women, Yeah, but they don't know that these women
are tough ladies. And the men and his son, the
(24:21):
man and his sons apparently um are allegedly have a
large amount of cash statched in this house. So it's
kind of like a standoff of of m gall who
will come out on top? Well, and you know who
comes out on top? Uh. And this film was noteworthy
for one big reason was that, Uh, there's a lot
of dualism towards gender. So on one hand, he's exploiting
(24:43):
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 he would
hire um. I can't remember the lady's name, but the
star of Fester pussy Kill Kill is in other Russ
Meyers films, and um he made sure that she was
like well to her third first trimester to to enhance
(25:04):
her natural bustinus. 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. No, they
were the champs, they were the they were heroines really
for the first time. But they were they were objectified
very clearly. But at the same time, if you follow
the script and really look at their characters, then yeah,
(25:27):
they're they're powerful women. And this uh kind of kicked
off a big slew of women exploitation films, exploitation films,
the women in Prison movies, yes, which relead sisters very
big at the time. Uh, women were lead actors for
the first time, they were aggressors for the first time.
Uh still nude often while they were doing this stuff
(25:49):
spawned the television show The Facts of Life. But 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 uh, they didn't mind, you know, looking at
the naked ladies because women are much more grown up
than men are. But Josh, the seventies also got a
(26:11):
little schlocky, which in a sense was true to the
exploitation model. They like, they really went over the top.
No more political statements, no more advancing of women's gender
or or African marins Americans. It just got really shlocky
and outrageous at that point. Well what happened and starting
in the sixth but really took hold in the seventies,
(26:33):
and then from that point on was exploitation cinema, early
on showing a live birth, nudist camps. These were all
geared toward adults in the sixties, and then later on
big time in the seventies, the audience became almost exclusively
teenagers like those driving teenagers or um uh well teenagers
anywhere who cares um, but they the the audience was teenagers,
(26:57):
and the cast started to become teenage, so it had
a little more of a bent on what teenagers are
having to deal with, like bullying, like the 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. Yah, meet little Melvine.
He's a ninety pound weekly Everyone hated Melvine. I'm gonna
(27:20):
take this mop and shop it down your throat, they
teased him. I'm gonna 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 Melbourne into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman signs
(27:43):
and strength move and became the Toxic Avenger. So Josh.
The Toxic Avenger movie was unique in that it's film
production company, Trauma, is very popular in their own right.
Have you ever seen Surf Nazis Must Die? I haven't,
(28:03):
but I know about Trauma. I mean they are master
self promoters and market tiers. They have. They were one
of the first production companies to have a website, like
a really comprehensive website. You should go on their website,
their whole catalog. It's um really just well done and
it's schlocky, but it's well done right in. Toxic Avenger
follows the story of a ninety eight pound weakling who
(28:26):
has picked on released the same years Ghostbusters. Do you
notice that right, Yeah, so it was it occurred at
zero year years zero. Uh, we'll just put the null
set represent that and um, this kid gets pushed out
of a window into a vat of toxic sludge, which
that's beyond bullying. Really yeah, I mean this is basically
(28:48):
it's a more twisted version of Modern Problems, the Chevy
Chase film from a couple of years earlier. That one. Oh,
you never saw Modern Problems. It's very silly, but he
got toxic sludge dumped on him and had special powers
from years earlier, prior or after what win was the movie?
It was two years before Toxic Avenger, but Toxic Avenger
(29:10):
took it into a gore special effects way that that
Modern Problems never did. So the janitor Melvin I believe
his name is Um, becomes toxified, It becomes toxic. The
Toxic Avenger, who um beats the tar out of people
at the health club where he was abused and mutated
(29:31):
UM and Uh has tons of sex as the Toxic
Avenger because his um newfound manhood is just irresistible to
women and UM. One of one of the things that's
noteworthy about the Toxic Avenger is that they actually tried
to make decent effects. It wasn't just it wasn't horrible.
I guess you could say, well, for the time. You know,
(29:52):
it wasn't bad. No, they they remained bad and they
probably were kind of bad even back then. But for
for for Grindhouse films, yeah they were, they were great.
Um and uh. It was also noteworthy because it came
out of Trauma Productions or Trauma Studios um. And it
led to a whole line of Toxic Avenger movies and
(30:14):
schlock in general, which is basically like some crazy, horrible
thing has happened. But we're not going to dwell too
much on that. Let's see what let's let's see where
the action takes us. So like Bad Taste that Peter
Peter Jackson's first film, right 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
(30:35):
at one point supposedly the gorrious film ever made. Although
it sounds like your new Korean MOVIEUS surpassed that. Yeah,
I think it probably has. I haven't seen That Alive.
It's seen Bad Taste and Bad Taste. It was horribly gory,
but I think this has it beat. Yeah, but I
bet you if anything, I mean, I haven't seen them.
When you're talking about but is it more realistic gore? Yeah,
with bad like these are aliens that are having their
(30:55):
heads blown off, So it definitely takes you, at least,
um a a degree away from caring this is happening
to human beings in in um I saw the Devil,
so it definitely has driven home a little more well.
And and the violence, even the gore back then, it
was so over the top, right out of Fangora magazine.
It's like, you know, dude, Fangoria is still around, is it? Yeah?
(31:18):
I figured it was. I'm glad it is. We follow
it on our Twitter feed. Ye, like a head will
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 he asked me, I agree
wholeheartedly because they're more realistic. Um. So, carrying on with
Chucks and my Cisco and eber act. Uh, this is
(31:40):
the second to last movie in our little list today
and um this one's from way back from the thirties.
So let's talk about reefor madness. These high school boys
and girls are having a hop at the local soda
fountain innocently they innocent of a wo and deadly menace
(32:01):
lurking behind closed doors. Marijuana, the burning weed with its
roots in hell. Or watch case if you want, I
want to bet you will meet Bill or once too
broad in his strong will as he takes the first
(32:21):
step toward enslavement. Hey. So that was the excellent reefer Madness,
(32:53):
which was an exploitation drug exploitation film and very much
a cautionary tale. It even shaped the drug culture and
how uh people looked at drugs. Is is you know
marijuana at the time. It's this really evil thing that
can make you crazy to kill people. Yeah, and actually
in in very much the vein of early exploitation films.
It was produced and distributed UM as a public service.
(33:19):
Like the alternate title for it was UM Tell Your Children.
And the whole thing set in a PTA meeting where
this guy is relating this story and it's a story
about lost lives, about murder, about um, guilt and paranoia
and all of it is fed and based on rampant
(33:39):
drug use, which is really just a lot of pot
smoking um which can turn you into a fiend. And
um it's apparently the director his name is Dwayne Esper
he did other exploitation films from the thirties like Sex, Madness,
Psychotic Connections, um, and he made a name for himself
basically taking of these things that may have originally been
(34:02):
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 like just insanely over the
top exploitation films from the thirties. Well, and ironically, refor
Madness years later would become, um, not so much an
(34:22):
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, and a
cult film. Yeah, because it puts drugs so far out
there that, um, if you, despite all the warnings, take
drugs anyway and you realize that you don't turn into
(34:43):
a fiend and murder somebody, um, you uh. Refor Madness
basically dares you to go further. So it's kind of
in it's the opposite has the opposite effect of what
I think it's original intent was before Dwayne Nesperg got
his hands on it. And as a side note, I
had troubled deciding between Reefer Madness, and another nineteen thirties
(35:03):
film by a guy named Todd Browning called Freaks. Oh yeah,
well that was um, that was huge because it was
the first big exploitation film pre Hayes Code or and Last. Yeah,
first and last, and it was it was an MGM film. Yeah,
and it's widely considered a masterpiece. I mean, it looks great.
It's it's not it was well done. It's a huge. Um,
(35:25):
it's a it's a revenge movie, which is a very
common theme in UM exploitation films, especially violent ones. But
it's it featured Browning dared to um have real freaks.
I guess if you circus sideshow freaks, Yeah, um star
in this. Uh and they basically exact their revenge on
people who have mistreated them. And uh, I have not
(35:47):
seen it really Yeah, yeah, I wanted to. I hear
it's just awesome. I can't want it ended his career though, unfortunately. Yeah,
and he was a popular filmmaker at the time. Well,
hats off to him for first staying true to his art.
Chuck just took his hat off. Donnel cap. All right, Chuck,
here's the last one that we've got a clip for um,
which I think everybody will notice um or recognize without
(36:11):
even a word. There's not even a word in this clip,
and you will understand what's going on. So here we go.
(36:46):
So Josh, those are the unmistakable sounds of fist of
fury of Mr One, Mr Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee kicking bottom.
This first movie, Yeah, which was originally titled well, it's
still title, I think in Asia The Big Boss, um
and uh, in America it is. It's it's titled Fists
of Fury. It was on the Other nine on cable.
(37:06):
I saw part of it. Yeah, Yeah, I didn't realize
it was the first one, though I would have tuned in. Yeah.
And it was first of what, um five five major films. Uh.
And basically it's the story of a martial arts student
who's investigating the murder of his teacher. And um, it began,
uh the martial arts exploitation sub genre, which later would
(37:27):
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 in a Bruce Lee movie,
specifically The Big Boss or any of them, is martial
arts exploitation technically, um, because again we arrive at that
one definition. It's over the top, Like Bruce Lee is
taking on scores of anonymous thugs, um for two one
(37:51):
after the other for two hours, just beating the tar
out of all these people without tiring. Really. Um. Everybody's
kind of waiting their turn politely in a circle around him,
and he has to beat everybody and then he works
his way up and it's over the top. So it
is exploitation. But um. It led to other films like
Samurai exploitation. Remember American Ninja. Remember the whole ninja film
(38:12):
thing that came in the mid eighties. That's from Bruce
Lee's Um, that's Bruce Lee's doing. Well. Yeah, and you
go to these at the time when I was first
going to New York many years ago, that would be uh,
you know, you go to Times Square and this is
still one Time Square was kind of gross, and that
would be just the martial arts movie store where it
was all that stuff, man, like thousands of movies about
(38:32):
ninja's and samurai's martial artists and very big. I was
inspired by American Ninja to become a ninja memember. I
entered ninja training with Tommy Rooper, who had like more
throwing stars than any kid I've ever known. What did
you have? Like one throwing star I borrowed? Okay, I
was not allowed to have throwing stars in my own
Oh I wasn't either. Baptist. No, that was very violent. Nunchucks.
(38:58):
That transcends like religious back ground. It's like, good parents,
you shouldn't let your kid have throwing star. It's a
good point. Uh. And as you point in the article,
this actually led to another sub genre, which was Bruce
Lee look alike movies. Yeah. So he made five movies
and he died at age thirty two in nineteen seventy three.
So Big Boss released in nineteen seventy one. He dies
(39:19):
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. But Bruce Lee l
I or l E or l E or just Eli there, well,
Bruce l I or Bruce Ellie. Um, I don't think
there was ever like uh Bruce l E I g H.
(39:43):
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 there. So Bruce Lee created the martial
arts exploitation genre and sub genre, and he inadvertently created
the Bruce Lee exploitation subgenre of the martial arts exploitation
sub genre by dying young and being very popular. And
(40:05):
which one was the one he had Kareem until Jabbaran
the Dragon. Yeah. Yeah, if you've never seen a like
seven foot plus guy to 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 who we met
in Los Angeles recently, um and who used an expletive
(40:28):
to me. He did it was one of the high
points of my life. It is, um, But yeah, Kentucky
Fried movie awesome. Actually, when we met Jerry Zucker, we
told him that our little speech we were given that
night was one of the highlights of our career thus far.
And he says, well, it doesn't say much about your career,
does it. Like the first thing to dud does something
funny and we just like kind of fond over imagine
we should mention briefly and it's in the article, but
(40:51):
just as a teaser. Uh. The late seventies we got
Nazi exploitation movies, not exploitation as a sub genre. Yeah.
And one of the major players there movie was Ilsa
she Wolf of the s S Yeah, which led to
elsa Um Siberian Tigress and Ilsa Harem Keeper of the
Oil Sheets. Really, there's a whole sex violence franchise, Dominatrix franchise,
(41:14):
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 because the kill bills
were definitely martial arts exploitation. Really, the Jackie Brown was
a riff on on black exploitation death Proof Obviously that
(41:38):
was what they were trying to do. Their death Proof
is Carsploitation, which follows in the tradition of Vanishing Point Um,
which was released the same year as basically its rival
to the Um, the founder, the founding movie of carsploitation,
Two Lane Blacktop, which movie. Yeah, if you want to
start an argument with an exploitation film, buff tell him.
Vanishing Point was the beginning of cars Floitation. They'll get
(42:01):
mad at you and then finally Tarantino with The Inglorious Bastards,
which was clearly a riff on the Nazi exploitation films.
Beaten Nazis the Death of the Baseball Bat. It's about
as over the top and lard as it's awesome. Yeah,
um so uh. And then Machete. I hated it, but
Robert she is, Um, it's terrible, and of course he
was the other half of the Rodriguez was the other
(42:23):
half with his Planet Terror of the Grindhouse double feature. Yeah,
and Machete was born from one of the little fake
trailers they made in that movie. Oh was that right? Yeah,
it was one of the fake movie previews. It is
even as far as like a purposefully be movie. Not good. No, well,
Death Proof was okay, but I didn't like Planet Taring
that much. Um and then Chuck. Well, first of all,
(42:43):
before we get to today, we also have to give
a shout out to Porno's Porno came out of the
exploitation film genre, and it arguably had a lot to
do with killing um the X 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.
(43:05):
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. And so one might argue, Josh
(43:25):
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 and exploitative of viewers tastes.
(43:48):
And not only Tarantino, there's other filmmakers out that are
trying to capture that seventies vibe with overt exploitation films. Again,
shot that way, shot him thirty five, I'm sorry, sixteen
millimeter films, stuff like that. So, um, Chuck, I say,
our message to everybody is number one, go on to
(44:08):
the site read ten noteworthy exploitation films, um number two
if that interests to you. Like even the ten noteworthy
exploitation films I chose, um don't cover even I think
a third of the exploitation subgenres. So they'll probably be
another article forthcoming at some point. If there is, we'll
let you know and then go watch some exploitation movies
(44:31):
and enjoy them. Yeah, watch the documentary American Grindhouse too,
if you're into that. Yeah, that's a great one. It's
free on Hulu. Actually, um, there's ads, but Hulu dot
com has American Grindhouse for free. It is not safe
for work in no way shape or for him. I
was watching it at work and I was like, WHOA, Okay, Yeah,
if you are watching it at work, tab browsing is
(44:52):
what you want to be doing. And keep your your
finger over the mouse and keep the cursor over the
other tab right and say for in our case, you
can just say it's research. But you can't do that
if you if you're an accountant at uh JP Morgan,
you're just a sick o, a weirdo, that weird guy
in accounting. Um, so look up ten noteworthy exploitation films
(45:15):
you can type that into the handy search bar how
stuff Works dot com. And now, at long last, it's
time for a listener mail Josh or Is I'm gonna
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 co workers
at a local coffee shop know me for the trivia
(45:36):
and information I abound in. But after giving that, he
he says he abounds in. I guess he's proficient in. Okay,
did he misuse that? Yeah? I don't know. It sounds hilarious.
It does um after giving credit where credit is due,
which means us several of them decided to subscribe your podcast.
Listening to the podcast is also give me an advantage
(45:58):
at work for thinking of the coffee shops daily trivia question,
which saves people ten cents on their drink. After re
listening to How Legos Work, I set the trivia question
for which company produces the most tires on the yearly
basis abridge stone be good year see Lego Bricks. You
know the answer, John. Most people were surprised and pleased
(46:21):
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 puncy
scheme in the best Italian accent he could muster. Everyone
else gave him an odd look. I started laughing. He
apologized and then say and said he just heard it
(46:43):
on a podcast. Um, he had just listened to Legos
followed by Poncy 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. He didn't name him. You wouldn't know.
(47:04):
I mean med him at camp. Let's write band camp.
Thanks Daniel, that's really awesome. Um, wow, that's really cool.
Let me let us know if you tweet um those
daily facts for your coffeehouse, because we will start following you. Indeed,
that'd be very cool. Um, if you want to follow us,
we have our own Twitter feed and seriously, it's called
(47:25):
s y s K podcast one word strong plus. Um,
we're on No, we're up to like eleven and change.
That's plus ten. That's true. Um, we're also on Facebook, Facebook,
dot com. Slash stuff. You should know. We have a
Kiva team. Right, we're trying to get to half a
million dollars. Right. That's k i v A dot org
slash team slash stuff you should know. Uh, And then
(47:49):
you can always send us a good old fashioned email. Um,
we want to know what your favorite um exploitation film
of all time is. You can send that in an
email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(48:13):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. H
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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