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Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies (2001) More at IMDbPro »

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America the sleazy, 25 June 2008

Author: Count_Elvis from the castle of freaks, Tryansalabamia

As a massive fan of the exploitation films of the 50's to the 80's I thoroughly enjoyed "Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies". The documentary focuses on the first half of the exploitation era, looking at the events that made the climate possible to these kinds of movie to thrive to the release of "Easy Rider" and "Midnight Cowboy" in the late 60's, marking the beginning of Hollywood's acceptance of the subjects once only the exploitation makers would touch. Many of those that were there are interviewed including Doris Wishman, David F. Friedman, Harry Novack, Roger Corman, Vampira and many others. Mostly this looks at sexploitation movies with the Herschell Gordon Lewis gore films touched on a little bit. Anyway, this is a very entertaining and informative documentary. All of the interviewees come across are really being interested in the films they made instead of treating this like they are being drug back to talk about a film they'd rather forget. Being that the films are from the 50's and 60's, they are light stuff (personally I'm a fan of the more violent and sexual films of the 70's and 80's) but are still quite cool. It's also fascinating to see just how much both Hollywood and art films stole from these misfit movies. "Schlock!" also has the power to transport the audience to a time when these movies came out, a time of banned comic books, late night horror hosts, drive-ins, grindhouses (and for the people of my generation) mom and pop video stores. It is a sad at the end when they show footage of a drive-in being torn down, showing an American creation being destroyed. What happened to these films? Was it Hollywood's movie to more exploitive films? Hollywood's hold on the theaters? The rise of video and cable? Changing audience interest? A combination of all those things? Who knows. But what is refreshing to know is that that these films still live on and are gaining more fans each year. Will it ever get back to the way it used to be? Probably not, but that time can always be revisited.

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