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117-524: Walk the Angry Beach (also known as Hollywood After Dark and The Unholy Choice ) is a 1961 American exploitation drama film written, produced and directed by John Hayes . It stars Rue McClanahan as Sandy, a stripper who aspires to become an actress but ends up being taken advantage of by the industry. In 2006, the film was released as a double feature DVD with another McClanahan film, The Rotten Apple by Something Weird Video . In 2007, it

234-410: A cult following . Exploitation films often include themes such as suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, gore, destruction, rebellion, mayhem, and the bizarre. Such films were first seen in their modern form in the early 1920s, but they were popularized in the 60s and 70s with the general relaxing of censorship and cinematic taboos in the U.S. and Europe. An early example,

351-436: A "major studio" until 1984, when it joined 20th Century Fox, Columbia, Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. to comprise the "Big Seven." The decay of MGM in 1986 lead the studio to become a mini-major upon its sale in 1986, reducing the majors to the "Big Six". In 1989, Sony acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment, which became Sony Pictures Entertainment in 1991. In 2019, Disney acquired Fox , reducing

468-465: A 1935 merger), Warner Bros., and RKO. The remaining majors were sometimes referred to as the "Little Three" or "major minor" studios. Two—Universal and Columbia (founded in 1924)—were organized similarly to the Big Five, except for the fact that they never owned more than small theater circuits (a consistently reliable source of profits). The third of the lesser majors, United Artists (founded in 1919), owned

585-513: A 1967 merger with the Seven Arts company preceded a 1969 purchase by Kinney National , under Stephen J. Ross . MGM, in the process of a slow decline, changed ownership twice in the same span as well, winding up in the hands of financier Kirk Kerkorian also in 1969. The majors almost entirely abandoned low-budget production during this era, bringing the annual average of features released down to 160. The decade also saw Disney/Buena Vista commanding

702-504: A Few Dollars More ; The Big Gundown ; Day of Anger ; Face to Face ; Duck, You Sucker! ; A Fistful of Dollars and Once Upon a Time in the West . Quentin Tarantino directed two tributes to the genre, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight . A splatter film, or gore film, is a horror film that focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and violence. It began as a distinct genre in

819-458: A component of more complex plots set in elaborately constructed civilizations (such as the Frank Herbert ’s Dune series and the works of Isaac Asimov ), for much of the 20th century space travel has been mostly featured in cheap "B films" that often had in their core a simplistic plot typical of another exploitation subgenre, such as slasher or zombie films . Spacesploration films feature

936-453: A distribution company for several independent producers, later began producing its own films, and was eventually acquired by MGM in 1981. Columbia Pictures eventually merged in 1987 with Tri-Star Pictures to form Columbia Pictures Entertainment, now known as Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. During the Golden Age, Walt Disney Productions was an independent production company and not considered

1053-426: A few theaters and had access to production facilities owned by its principals, but it functioned primarily as a backer-distributor, loaning money to independent producers and releasing their films. During the 1930s, the eight majors averaged a total of 358 feature film releases a year; in the 1940s, the four largest companies shifted more of their resources toward high-budget productions and away from B movies , bringing

1170-534: A large enough market share to arguably qualify it as a seventh major. In 2006, DreamWorks was acquired by Viacom , Paramount's then-corporate parent (Viacom, after other mergers and acquisitions and rebrandings, included its movie studio's well-known name when the parent company rebranded as Paramount Global in 2022). In late 2008, DreamWorks once again became an independent production company; its films were distributed by Disney's Touchstone Pictures until 2016, at which point distribution switched to Universal. Today,

1287-424: A lead role. Laconic characters and desert scenes feature in many Ozploitation films, but the term has been used for a variety of Australian films of the era that relied on shocking or titillating their audiences. A documentary about the genre was Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! . Such films deal with themes concerning Australian society, particularly in respect of masculinity (especially

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1404-444: A leading position thereafter. The two emerging contenders were both newly formed companies. In 1978, Krim, Benjamin, and three other studio executives departed UA to found Orion Pictures as a joint venture with Warner Bros. It was announced optimistically as the "first major new film company in 50 years". Tri-Star Pictures was created in 1982 as a joint venture of future corporate sibling Columbia Pictures (at that time acquired by

1521-513: A lifestyle unbound by the restrictions of clothing, yet this depiction was restricted by the requirement that genitals should not be shown. Still, there was a subversive element to them, as the nudist camps inherently rejected modern society and its values regarding the human body. These films frequently involve a criticism of the class system, equating body shame with the upper class, and nudism with social equality. One scene in The Unashamed makes

1638-426: A long decline during the mid-1980s with the advent of home video. As the drive-in movie theater began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, theater owners began to look for ways to bring in patrons. One solution was to book lower cost exploitation films. Some producers from the 1950s to the 1980s made films directly for the drive-in market, and the commodity product needed for a weekly change led to another theory about

1755-505: A person is raped, left for dead, recovers and then exacts a graphic, gory revenge against the rapists. The most famous example is I Spit on Your Grave (also called Day of the Woman ). It is not unusual for the main character in these films to be a successful, independent city woman, who is attacked by a man from the country. The genre has drawn praise from feminists such as Carol J. Clover , whose 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in

1872-550: A point about the artificiality of clothing and its related values through a mocking portrayal of a group of nude artists who paint fully clothed subjects. The term "Ozploitation" refers broadly to Australian horror, erotic or crime films of the 1970s and 1980s. Changes to Australia's film classification system in 1971 led to the production of a number of such low-budget, privately funded films, assisted by tax exemptions and targeting export markets. Often an internationally recognised actor (but of waning notability) would be hired to play

1989-485: A producer, the first question he asks is not "what is your film like?" but "what film is your film like?" That's the way it is, we can only make Zombie 2 , never Zombie 1 . Luigi Cozzi Mockbusters, sometimes called "remakesploitation films", are copycat movies that try to cash in on the advertising of heavily promoted films from major studios. Production company the Asylum , which prefers to call them "tie-ins",

2106-461: A prominent position in the market. Buoyed by the success of Mary Poppins , Disney achieved a 9% market share in 1964, more than Warner and its eventual subsidiary Fox. Though over the next two decades Disney/Buena Vista's share of the box-office would continue to reach this level, the studio was still not considered a major as it did not release many films, and those it did release were exclusively G-rated. The early 1970s were difficult years for all

2223-780: A scientifically inaccurate and inconsistent depiction of space travel and are usually set in traversing spaceships and deserted planets, partially due to the films’ limited resources. Such films include From the Earth to the Moon , Robinson Crusoe on Mars , Planet of the Vampires , The Black Hole and Saturn 3 . During one of the peaks of space travel films, the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker featured outlandishly unrealistic scenes of space warfare , despite otherwise focusing on real contemporary (i.e. Cold War) intelligence agencies . Spaghetti Westerns are Italian-made westerns that emerged in

2340-519: A second powerful Hollywood studio was established when Adolph Zukor merged his Famous Players Film Company movie production house with the Jesse L. Lasky Company to form Famous Players–Lasky . The combined studio acquired Paramount Pictures as a distribution arm and eventually adopted its name. That same year, William Fox relocated his Fox Film Corporation from Fort Lee, New Jersey to Hollywood and began expanding. In 1923, Walt Disney had founded

2457-423: A serial killer stalking and violently killing a sequence of victims. Victims are often teenagers or young adults. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) is often credited with creating the basic premise of the genre, though Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974) is usually considered to have started the genre while John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) was responsible for cementing the genre in the public eye. Halloween

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2574-408: A small scale in 1981, it was eventually spun off and now operates as a minor independent company.) In contrast, there was United Artists, which had long operated under the financing-distribution model the other majors were now progressively shifting toward. Under Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin , who began managing the company in 1951, UA became consistently profitable. By 1956—when it released one of

2691-462: A special Academy Award for Technical Achievement . Fox, in the forefront of sound film technology along with Warner Bros., was also acquiring a sizable circuit of movie theaters to exhibit its product. The development of sound films like The Jazz Singer near the end of the Roaring Twenties resulted in a massive rush of Americans to movie theaters to watch the astonishing new "talkies". At

2808-652: A stereotypically black American urban milieu. A prominent theme was black Americans overcoming hostile authority (" The Man ") through cunning and violence. The first examples of this subgenre were Shaft and Melvin Van Peebles ' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song . Others are Black Caesar , Black Devil Doll , Blacula , Black Shampoo , Boss Nigger , Coffy , Coonskin , Cotton Comes to Harlem , Dolemite , Foxy Brown , Hell Up in Harlem , The Mack , Disco Godfather , Mandingo , The Spook Who Sat by

2925-461: A strong first-mover advantage in that they were the first to industrialize filmmaking and master the art of mass-producing and distributing high-quality films with broad cross-cultural appeal. Today, the Big Five majors – Universal Pictures , Paramount Pictures , Warner Bros. , Walt Disney Studios , and Sony Pictures – routinely distribute hundreds of films every year into all significant international markets (that is, where discretionary income

3042-408: A topic of discourse for feminist film critics . Some critics have said that lesbian sex on screen is an expression of chauvinism and male power as the images are portrayed for male pleasure.   The casting of pornstars and hardcore actresses in sexploitation films is not uncommon. The films sometimes contain sex shows intended to shock or arouse their audiences. Slasher films focus on

3159-628: Is a modern homage to the genre. "Canuxploitation" is a neologism that was coined in 1999 by the magazine Broken Pencil , in the article "Canuxploitation! Goin' Down the Road with the Cannibal Girls that Ate Black Christmas. Your Complete Guide to the Canadian B-Movie", to refer to Canadian-made B-movies . Most mainstream critical analysis of this period in Canadian film history, however, refers to it as

3276-504: Is a prominent producer of these films. Such films have often come from Italy, which has been quick to latch on to trends like Westerns, James Bond movies, and zombie films. They have long been a staple of directors such as Jim Wynorski ( The Bare Wench Project , and the Cliffhanger imitation Sub Zero ), who make movies for the direct-to-video market. Such films are beginning to attract attention from major Hollywood studios, who served

3393-500: Is also responsible for establishing additional tropes which would go on to define the genre in years to come. The masked villain, a central group of weak teenagers with one strong hero or heroine, the protagonists being isolated or stranded in precarious locations or situations, and either the protagonists or antagonists (or possibly both) experiencing warped family lives or values were all tropes largely founded in Halloween . John Carpenter

3510-408: Is high enough for consumers to afford to watch films). The majors enjoy "significant internal economies of scale " from their "extensive and efficient [distribution] infrastructure," while it is "nearly impossible" for a film to reach a broad international theatrical audience without being first picked up by one of the majors for distribution. Today, all the Big Five major studios are also members of

3627-778: Is now believed lost. In 1953, The Wild One , starring Marlon Brando, was the first film about a motorcycle gang. A string of low-budget juvenile delinquent films featuring hot-rods and motorcycles followed in the 1950s. The success of American International Pictures' The Wild Angels in 1966 ignited a more robust trend that continued into the early 1970s. Other biker films include Motorpsycho (1965), Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), The Born Losers (1967), Wild Rebels (1967), Angels from Hell (1968), Easy Rider (1969), Satan's Sadists (1969), Naked Angels (1969), Nam's Angels (1970), and C.C. and Company (1970). Stone (1974) , Mad Max (1979) and 1% (2017) combine elements of this subgenre with Ozploitation. In

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3744-456: Is sometimes called paracinema . "Exploitation" is loosely defined and arguably has as much to do with the viewer's perception of the film as with the film's actual content. Titillating material and artistic content often co-exist, as demonstrated by the fact that art films that failed to pass the Hays Code were often shown in the same grindhouses as exploitation films. Exploitation films share

3861-578: Is the controversial 1980 Cannibal Holocaust , in which six real animals were killed on screen. Others include Cannibal Ferox , Eaten Alive! , Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death , The Mountain of the Cannibal God , Last Cannibal World and the first film of the genre, The Man From Deep River . Famous directors in this genre include Umberto Lenzi , Ruggero Deodato , Jesús Franco and Joe D'Amato . The Green Inferno (2013)

3978-494: Is to shock the audience by dealing with taboo subject matter. The first mondo film is Mondo Cane ( A Dog's World ). Others include Shocking Asia , Africa Addio (aka Africa Blood and Guts and Farewell Africa ), Goodbye Uncle Tom and Faces of Death . These "nature-run-amok" films focus on an animal or group of animals, far larger and more aggressive than usual for their species, terrorizing humans while another group of humans tries to fight back. This genre began in

4095-560: The Thunder Warrior trilogy, Johnny Firecloud , Angry Joe Bass , The Manitou , Prophecy , Avenged (aka Savaged ), Scalps , Clearcut and The Ghost Dance . Sexploitation films resemble softcore pornography and often include scenes involving nude or semi-nude women. They typically have sex scenes that are more graphic sex than mainstream films. The plots of sexploitation films include pulp fiction elements such as killers, slavery, female domination , martial arts,

4212-518: The Coca-Cola Company ), HBO (then owned by Warner Bros. Discovery's predecessor Time Inc. ), and CBS . In 1985, Rupert Murdoch 's News Corporation acquired 20th Century-Fox (thus dropping that name's hyphen), the last of both the classic Hollywood majors to be taken over by an outside corporation and five relatively healthy Golden Age majors to remain independent throughout that era and after until its eventual sale to Disney in 2019 brought back

4329-603: The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Summary of the 2023 North American market share of each studio. The current "Big Five" majors (Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, and Sony) all originate from film studios that were active during Hollywood's "Golden Age." Four of these were among that original era's " Eight Majors ," being that era's original "Big Five" plus its "Little Three," collectively

4446-1213: The Winter War in Finland, the Korean War and the Vietnam War before the major studios showed interest. When Orson Welles ' radio production of The War of the Worlds from The Mercury Theatre on the Air for Halloween in 1938 shocked many Americans and made news, Universal Pictures edited their serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars into a short feature called Mars Attacks the World for release in November of that year. Some Poverty Row low-budget B movies often exploit major studio projects. Their rapid production schedule allows them to take advantage of publicity attached to major studio films. For example, Edward L. Alperson produced William Cameron Menzies ' film Invaders from Mars to beat Paramount Pictures ' production of director George Pal 's The War of

4563-689: The first Warner Bros. Studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. On April 4, 1923, the Warner Bros. incorporated their fledgling movie company as " Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. ". Though their first film was My Four Years in Germany , Warner Bros. released their full-fledged movie The Jazz Singer in 1927. Warner Bros. were the pioneers of the sound film era as they established Vitaphone . Because of The Jazz Singer' s success (along with Lights of New York , The Singing Fool and The Terror ), Warner Bros.

4680-669: The ocker male), male attitudes towards women, attitudes towards and treatment of Indigenous Australians , violence, alcohol and environmental exploitation and destruction. The films typically have rural or outback settings, depicting the Australian landscape and environment as an almost spiritually malign force that alienates white Australians, frustrating their personal ambitions and activities, and their attempts to subdue it. Notable examples include Mad Max , Alvin Purple , Patrick and Turkey Shoot . This genre contains films in which

4797-464: The runaway production phenomenon means that most films are now mostly or completely shot on location at places outside Los Angeles. The Big Five major studios are also members of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Secondary studio New Line Cinema June 18, 1967 20th Century Studios May 31, 1935 TriStar Pictures March 2, 1982 Other major film studios of

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4914-415: The "nudie-cutie", which featured nudity but no touching, and the "roughie", which included nudity and violent, antisocial behavior. Nudist films were marked by self-contradictory qualities. They presented themselves as educational films, but exploited their subject matter by focusing mainly on the nudist camps ' most beautiful female residents, while denying the existence of such exploitation. They depicted

5031-488: The "tax shelter" era emerged as among Canada's most important and influential filmmakers of the era, including David Cronenberg , William Fruet , Ivan Reitman and Bob Clark , the new regulations also had an entirely unforeseen side effect: a sudden rush of low-budget horror and genre films, intended as pure tax shelters since they were designed not to turn a conventional profit. Many of the films, in fact, were made by American filmmakers, whose projects had been rejected by

5148-530: The "tax-shelter era". The phenomenon emerged in 1974, when the government of Canada introduced new regulations to jumpstart the then-underdeveloped Canadian film industry, increasing the Capital Cost Allowance tax credit from 60 per cent to 100 per cent. While some important and noteworthy films were made under the program, including The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Lies My Father Told Me , and some film directors who cut their teeth in

5265-767: The 1933 film Ecstasy , included nude scenes featuring the Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr . The film proved popular at the box office but caused concern for the American cinema trade association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The organisation, which applied the Hays Code for film censorship, also disapproved of the work of Dwain Esper , the director responsible for exploitation movies such as Marihuana (1936) and Maniac (1934). The Motion Picture Association of America (and its predecessor,

5382-434: The 1950s, when concern over nuclear weapons testing made movies about giant monsters popular. These were typically either giant prehistoric creatures awakened by atomic explosions or ordinary animals mutated by radiation. Among them were Godzilla , Them! and Tarantula . The trend was revived in the 1970s as awareness of pollution increased and corporate greed and military irresponsibility were blamed for destruction of

5499-461: The 1960s with the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman , whose most famous films include Blood Feast (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), Color Me Blood Red (1965), The Gruesome Twosome (1967) and The Wizard of Gore (1970). Major film studio Since the dawn of filmmaking , the major U.S. film studios have dominated both American cinema and the global film industry . U.S. studios have benefited from

5616-409: The 1960s, Roger Corman directed Edgar Allan Poe B horror movies with well-known horror veteran movie actors with Boris Karloff , Peter Lorre , Vincent Price and a young, unknown Jack Nicholson . He turned down directing Easy Rider , which was directed by Dennis Hopper . Black exploitation films, or "blaxploitation" films, are made with black actors, ostensibly for black audiences, often in

5733-491: The 1970s, with Starcrash and the Turkish Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam and Süpermen dönüyor . The latter two used scenes from Star Wars and unauthorized excerpts from John Williams ' score. Mondo films, often called shockumentaries, are quasi-documentary films about sensationalized topics like exotic customs from around the world or gruesome death footage. The goal of mondo films, as of shock exploitation,

5850-429: The 20th century included: "Instant major" is a 1960s coined term for a film company that seemingly overnight had approached the status of major." In 1967, three "instant major" studios popped up, two of which were partnered with a television network theatrical film unit, with the most lasting until 1973: Mini-major studios (or "mini-majors") are the larger, independent film production companies that are smaller than

5967-517: The Asylum with a cease and desist order to try to prevent them from releasing The Day the Earth Stopped to video stores in advance of the release of The Day the Earth Stood Still to theaters. The term mockbuster was used as early as the 1950s (when The Monster of Piedras Blancas was a clear derivative of Creature From The Black Lagoon ). The term did not become popular until

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6084-441: The Big Five for the first time since then. By 1986, the combined share of the six classic majors — Paramount, MGM/UA, Fox, Warner Bros., Columbia and Universal — fell to 64%, the lowest since the beginning of the Golden Age. Fox's future parent company Disney was in third place, behind only Paramount and Warner. Even including Disney/Buena Vista as a seventh major and adding its 10% share (only for them to acquire Fox 33 years later),

6201-432: The Big Five major studios are primarily financial backers and distributors of films whose actual production is largely handled by independent companies – either long-running entities or ones created for and dedicated to the making of a specific film. For example, Disney and Sony Pictures distribute their films through affiliated divisions ( Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and Sony Pictures Releasing , respectively), while

6318-661: The Big Five still based in Hollywood and located entirely within the official city limits of the City of Los Angeles. Warner Bros. and Disney are both located in Burbank , while Universal is in the nearby unincorporated area of Universal City , and Sony is in Culver City . Disney is the only studio that has been owned by the same conglomerate since its founding. The offices of that parent entity are still located on Disney's studio lot and in

6435-481: The Big Five, there are several smaller U.S. production and distribution companies, known as independents or "indies." The leading independent producers and distributors such as Lionsgate Studios , the aforementioned Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (now owned by Amazon ), A24 , and STX Entertainment , are sometimes referred to as "mini-majors." From 1998 through 2005, during a portion of the Big Six period, DreamWorks SKG commanded

6552-487: The Capital Cost Allowance was reduced to 50 per cent, although films that had entered production under the program continued to be released for another few years afterward. However, at least one Canadian film blog extends the "Canuxploitation" term to refer to any Canadian horror, thriller or science fiction film made up to the present day. Carsploitation films feature scenes of cars racing and crashing, featuring

6669-628: The Devil (1975), Cannonball (1976), Mad Max (1979), Safari 3000 (1982), Dead End Drive-In (1986) and Black Moon Rising (1986). Quentin Tarantino directed a tribute to the genre, Death Proof (2007). In the 1970s, a revisionist, non-traditional style of samurai film achieved some popularity in Japan. It became known as chambara , an onomatopoeia describing the clash of swords. Its origins can be traced as far back as Akira Kurosawa , whose films feature moral grayness and exaggerated violence, but

6786-698: The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio and The Disney Brothers Features Company with his brother Roy and animator Ub Iwerks . Renamed as Walt Disney Productions , Disney became a powerful independent over the next three decades focusing on animation with its shorts and films being distributed over the years by various majors; primarily Leslie B. Mace, Winkler Pictures, Universal Pictures, Celebrity Productions, Cinephone, Columbia Pictures, United Artists, United Artists Pictures and finally RKO. In its first year in 1928, Celebrity Productions and Cinephone had released its first blockbuster Steamboat Willie . In

6903-454: The Door , Sugar Hill , Super Fly , T.N.T. Jackson , The Thing with Two Heads , Truck Turner , Willie Dynamite and Cleopatra Jones . In blaxploitation horror movies back in the 1970s, despite the leading stars in those movies being black, some of these movies were either produced, edited, or directed by white filmmakers.  Blacula , a well-known blaxploitation horror movie,

7020-939: The Hollywood studio system as not commercially viable, giving rise to the Hollywood North phenomenon. Variety dubbed the genre "maple syrup porno". Notable examples of the genre include Cannibal Girls , Deathdream , Deranged , The Corpse Eaters , Black Christmas , Shivers , Death Weekend , The Clown Murders , Rituals , Cathy's Curse , Deadly Harvest , Starship Invasions , Rabid , I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses , The Brood , Funeral Home , Terror Train , The Changeling , Death Ship , My Bloody Valentine , Prom Night , Happy Birthday to Me , Scanners , Ghostkeeper , Visiting Hours , Highpoint , Humongous , Deadly Eyes , Class of 1984 , Videodrome , Curtains , American Nightmare , Self Defense , Spasms and Def-Con 4 . The period officially ended in 1982, when

7137-485: The MPPDA) cooperated with censorship boards and grassroots organizations in the hope of preserving the image of a "clean" Hollywood, but the distributors of exploitation film operated outside of this system and often welcomed controversy as a form of free promotion. Their producers used sensational elements to attract audiences lost to television. Since the 1990s, this genre has also received attention in academic circles, where it

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7254-628: The Modern Horror Film examines the implications of its reversals of cinema's traditional gender roles. This type of film can be seen as an offshoot of the vigilante film, with the victim's transformation into avenger as the key scene. Author Jacinda Read and others believe that rape–revenge should be categorized as a narrative structure rather than a true subgenre, because its plot can be found in films of many different genres, such as thrillers ( Ms. 45 ), dramas ( Lipstick ), westerns ( Hannie Caulder ) and art films ( Memento ). One instance of

7371-689: The New York–based Trust was arguably the first major North American movie conglomerate. The independents' fight against the Trust was led by Carl Laemmle , whose Chicago-based Laemmle Film Service, serving the Midwest and Canada, was the largest distribution exchange in North America. Laemmle's efforts were rewarded in 1912 when the U.S. government ruled that the Trust was a "corrupt and unlawful association" and must be dissolved. On June 8, 1912, Laemmle organized

7488-458: The S.S. Last Days ), Gestapo's Last Orgy , or Last Orgy of The Third Reich , or Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler , Salon Kitty and SS Experiment Camp . Many Nazisploitation films were influenced by art films such as Pier Paolo Pasolini 's infamous Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and Liliana Cavani's Il portiere di notte ( The Night Porter ). Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Devil's Rock (2011) are modern homages to

7605-508: The Scorpion's Tail , A Lizard in a Woman's Skin , Black Belly of the Tarantula , The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh , Blood and Black Lace , Phenomena , Opera and Tenebrae . Dario Argento , Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava are the best-known directors of this genre. The 2013 Argentinian film Sonno Profondo is a modern tribute to the genre. In Italy, when you bring a script to

7722-569: The Worlds to the cinemas, and Pal's The Time Machine was beaten to the cinemas by Edgar G. Ulmer 's film Beyond the Time Barrier . As a result, many major studios, producers, and stars keep their projects secret. Grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly showed exploitation films. These theatres were most popular throughout the 1970s and early 1980s in New York City and other urban centers, mainly in North America, but began

7839-549: The aforementioned Universal under Lew Wasserman in 1962, the later half of the 1960s were marked by four others — Paramount, United Artists, Warner Bros., and MGM — involved in a spate of corporate takeovers that left Columbia, Fox, and its eventual parent company Disney under original ownership. Gulf+Western took over Paramount in 1966; and the Transamerica Corporation purchased United Artists in 1967. Warner Bros. underwent large-scale reorganization twice in two years:

7956-407: The biggest blockbusters of the decade, Around the World in 80 Days —it commanded a 10% market share. By the middle of the next decade, it had reached 16% and was the second-most profitable studio in Hollywood. Despite RKO's collapse, the remaining seven majors still averaged a total yearly release slate of 253 feature films during the decade. Following MCA Inc. 's acquisition of Decca Records and

8073-401: The classic majors. Movie attendance, which had been declining steadily since the end of the Golden Age, hit an all-time low by 1971. In 1973, MGM president James T. Aubrey drastically downsized the studio, slashing its production schedule and eliminating its distribution arm (UA would distribute the studio's films for the remainder of the decade). From fifteen releases in 1973, the next year MGM

8190-548: The club of major studios and two significant contenders emerged. With the combined output of Walt Disney Pictures , the establishment of the Touchstone Pictures brand in 1984, and increasing attention to the adult live-action market during the early 1980s, Disney/Buena Vista secured acknowledgment as a full-fledged major. Film historian Joel Finler identifies 1986 as the breakthrough year, when Disney rose to third place in market share and remained consistently competitive for

8307-466: The companies outside of the then-seven majors and Disney had combined for a grand total of 1%. In the first edition of Finler's The Hollywood Story (1988), he wrote, "It will be interesting to see whether the old-established studios will be able to bounce back in the future, as they have done so many times before, or whether the newest developments really do reflect a fundamental change in the US movie industry for

8424-532: The courts for years for control of fundamental motion picture patents, won a major decision. This led to the creation of the Motion Picture Patents Company , widely known as the Trust. Comprising the eight largest U.S. film companies, it was "designed to eliminate not only independent film producers but also the country's 10,000 independent [distribution] exchanges and exhibitors." Though its many members did not consolidate their filmmaking operations,

8541-516: The dangers of venereal disease from premarital sex. Mom and Dad , a 1945 film about pregnancy and childbirth, was promoted in lurid terms. She Shoulda Said No! (1949) combined the themes of drug use and promiscuous sex. In the early days of film, when exploitation films relied on such sensational subjects as these, they had to present a very conservative moral viewpoint to avoid censorship, as movies then were not considered to enjoy First Amendment protection. Several war films were made about

8658-562: The decades that followed, Disney and its associated distributors were able to achieve occasional successes, but its relatively small output and exclusive focus on G-rated films meant that it was not generally considered to be one of the majors. The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America and the Independent Producers' Association declared war in 1925 on what they termed a common enemy — the "film trust" of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , Paramount, and First National , which they claimed dominated

8775-402: The distinctions between genres by containing elements of two or more genres at a time. Their subgenres are identifiable by the characteristics they use. For example, Doris Wishman's Let Me Die A Woman contains elements of both shock documentary and sexploitation. Although they featured lurid subject matter, exploitation films of the 1930s and 1940s evaded the strict censorship and scrutiny of

8892-485: The early 1970s to the late 1980s, primarily made by Italian and Spanish moviemakers. They focus on cannibalism by tribes deep in the South American or Asian rainforests. This cannibalism is usually perpetrated against Westerners that the tribes held prisoner. As with mondo films , the main draw of cannibal films was the promise of exotic locales and graphic gore involving living creatures. The best-known film of this genre

9009-500: The eight film studios that controlled as much as 96% of the market during the 1930s and 1940s. In addition to being members of today's "Big Five," Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. were also part of the original "Big Five," along with RKO Pictures , Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , and 20th Century Fox . Universal Pictures was, during that early era, considered one of the "Little Three," along with United Artists and Columbia Pictures . RKO went defunct in 1959. United Artists began as

9126-613: The eight majors' box-office domination, it somewhat leveled the playing field between the Big Five and the Little Three. In November 1951, Decca Records purchased 28% of Universal; early the following year, the studio became the first of the classic Hollywood majors to be taken over by an outside corporation, as Decca acquired majority ownership. In 1953, Disney established its own distribution division, Buena Vista Film Distribution , to handle its own product which had been largely distributed by RKO. The 1950s also saw two substantial shifts in

9243-472: The end of 1949, when Paramount divested its theater chain—roughly the period considered Hollywood's Golden Age—there were eight Hollywood studios commonly regarded as the "majors". Of these eight, the so-called Big Five were integrated conglomerates, combining ownership of a production studio, distribution division, and substantial theater chain, and contracting with performers and filmmaking personnel: Loews/MGM, Paramount, Fox (which became 20th Century-Fox after

9360-685: The environment. Night of the Lepus , Frogs , and Godzilla vs. Hedorah are examples. After Steven Spielberg 's 1975 film Jaws , a number of very similar films (sometimes regarded as outright rip-offs) were produced in the hope of cashing in on its success. Examples are Alligator , Cujo , Day of the Animals , Great White , Grizzly , Humanoids from the Deep , Monster Shark , Orca , The Pack , Piranha , Prophecy , Razorback , Blood Feast , Tentacles and Tintorera . Roger Corman

9477-420: The era by claiming to be educational. They were generally cautionary tales about the alleged dangers of premarital sexual intercourse and the use of recreational drugs. Examples include Marihuana (1936), Reefer Madness (1936), Sex Madness (1938), Child Bride (1938), Mom and Dad (1945) and She Shoulda Said No! (1949). An exploitation film about homosexuality, Children of Loneliness (1937),

9594-456: The fearlessness of acclaimed transgressive European directors such as Derek Jarman , Luis Buñuel and Jean-Luc Godard in handling "disreputable" content. Many films recognized as classics contain levels of sex, violence and shock typically associated with exploitation films. Examples include Stanley Kubrick 's A Clockwork Orange , Tod Browning's Freaks and Roman Polanski 's Repulsion . Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou contains elements of

9711-422: The first film to place its exploitation elements unapologetically at the forefront instead of pretending to carry a moral or educational message. This development paved the way for the more explicit exploitation films of the 1960s and 1970s and made the nudist genre obsolete—ironically, since the nudist film Garden of Eden was the subject of the court case. After this, the nudist genre split into subgenres such as

9828-530: The first times since the 20s." With the exception of MGM/UA—whose position was effectively supplanted by Disney—the old-established studios did bounce back. The aforementioned purchase of 20th Century Fox by Rupert Murdoch 's News Corporation left its future parent company Disney under original ownership and presaged a new round of corporate acquisitions not long afterward. As part of that series, Columbia, Paramount and Warner Bros. received new owners once and for all while Universal changed corporate hands until

9945-399: The genre is mostly associated with 1970s samurai manga by Kazuo Koike , on whose work many later films would be based. Chambara features few of the stoic, formal sensibilities of earlier jidaigeki films – the new chambara featured revenge-driven antihero protagonists, nudity, sex scenes, swordplay and blood. Giallo films are Italian-made slasher films that focus on cruel murders and

10062-553: The genre, the original version of The Last House on the Left , was an uncredited remake of Ingmar Bergman 's The Virgin Spring , recast as a horror film featuring extreme violence. Deliverance , in which the rape is perpetrated on a man, has been credited as the originator of the genre. Clover, who restricts her definition of the genre to movies in which a woman is raped and gains her own revenge, praises rape–revenge exploitation films for

10179-484: The hierarchy of the majors: RKO, perennially the weakest of the Big Five, declined rapidly under the mismanagement of Howard Hughes , who had purchased a controlling interest in the studio in 1948. By the time Hughes sold it to the General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955, the studio was a major by outdated reputation alone. In 1957, virtually all RKO movie operations ceased and the studio was dissolved in 1959. (Revived on

10296-400: The industry by not only producing and distributing motion pictures, but by entering into exhibition as well. On October 6, 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer , starring Al Jolson , and a whole new era began, with "pictures that talked", bringing the studio to the forefront of the film industry. The Jazz Singer played to standing-room-only crowds throughout the country and earned

10413-429: The major studios and attempt to compete directly with them. Secondary studio Orion Pictures January 1978 Summit Entertainment July 26, 1991 Past mini-majors include: Semi-major studios (or "semi-majors") are significant studios that are sisters to or had a stake held by a major film studio. Secondary studio DreamWorks Pictures October 12, 1994 In 1909, Thomas Edison , who had been fighting in

10530-405: The majors to a new "Big Five" for the first time since Hollywood's Golden Age. Thus, Paramount and Warner are the only Golden Age Big Five members to remain as majors today with the same names, while 20th Century Studios continues to be a major under the ownership of Disney. While the Big Five's main studio lots are located within 15 miles (24 km) of each other, Paramount is the only member of

10647-515: The majors' control of the North American market was at a historic ebb. Orion (now completely independent of Warner) and Tri-Star were well positioned as mini-majors, each with North American market shares of around 6% and regarded by industry observers as "fully competitive with the majors", much like MGM and Lionsgate by the turn of the century. Smaller independents garnered 13%—more than any studio aside from Paramount. In 1964, by comparison, all of

10764-471: The market. Ten years later, the picture was largely the same: the Big Five had market shares ranging from 22% (MGM) to 9% (RKO); the Little Three had shares ranging from 8% (Columbia) to 4% (United Artists). In sum, the eight majors controlled 96% of the market. The end of the Golden Age had been signaled by the majors' loss of a federal antitrust case that led to the divestiture of the Big Five's theater chains. Though this had virtually no immediate effect on

10881-666: The merger of his production division, IMP (Independent Motion Picture Company), with several other filmmaking companies, creating the Universal Film Manufacturing Company in New York City . By the end of the year, Universal was making movies at two Los Angeles facilities: the former Nestor Film studio in Hollywood, and another studio in Edendale . The first Hollywood major studio was in business. In 1918, four brothers— Harry , Albert , Sam , and Jack Warner —founded

10998-507: The mid-1960s. They were more violent and amoral than typical Hollywood westerns. These films also often eschewed the conventions of Hollywood studio Westerns, which were primarily for consumption by conservative, mainstream American audiences. Examples of the genre include Death Rides a Horse ; Django ; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ; Navajo Joe ; The Grand Duel ; The Great Silence ; For

11115-399: The mid-1970s, the industry had rebounded and a significant philosophical shift was in progress. As the majors focused increasingly on the development of the next hoped-for blockbuster and began routinely opening each new movie in many hundreds of theaters (an approach called "saturation booking"), their collective yearly release average fell to 81 films during 1975–84. The classic set of majors

11232-464: The mid-2000s. Paramount's parent company Gulf+Western was renamed Paramount Communications and Coca-Cola sold Columbia to Japanese electronics firm Sony in 1989, creating Sony Pictures . The following year, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc. to birth Time Warner and Universal's parent company MCA was purchased by fellow Japanese electronics conglomerate Matsushita . At this time, both Tri-Star and Orion were essentially out of business:

11349-492: The modern splatter film. It has been suggested that if Carnival of Souls had been made in Europe, it would be considered an art film, while if Eyes Without a Face had been made in the U.S., it would have been categorized as a low-budget horror film. The audiences of art and exploitation film are both considered to have tastes that reject the mainstream Hollywood offerings. Exploitation films have often exploited news events in

11466-399: The origin of the word: that the producers would "grind"-out films. Many of them were violent action films that some called "drive-in" films. Exploitation films may adopt the subject matter and styling of regular film genres, particularly horror films and documentary films, and their themes are sometimes influenced by other so-called exploitative media, such as pulp magazines . They often blur

11583-507: The others function as both production and distribution companies. The specialty divisions (such as Disney's Searchlight Pictures and Universal's Focus Features ) often acquire distribution rights to films in which the studio has had no prior involvement. While the majors still do a modicum of true production, their activities are focused more in the areas of development, financing, marketing, and merchandising. Those business functions are still usually performed in or near Los Angeles, even though

11700-516: The peak of the fad, every person in the United States over the age of six was watching a motion picture in a theater at least once a week. The box office revenue from the first sound films is what enabled the Hollywood majors to achieve their lasting domination of the global film industry. Between late 1928, when RCA 's David Sarnoff engineered the creation of the RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) studio, and

11817-681: The prisoners, who are often female, are nude. The progenitor of this subgenre was Love Camp 7 (1969). The archetype of the genre, which established its popularity and its typical themes, was Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974), about the buxom, nymphomaniacal dominatrix Ilsa torturing prisoners in a Stalag . Others include Fräulein Devil ( Captive Women 4 , or Elsa: Fraulein SS , or Fraulein Kitty ), La Bestia in calore ( SS Hell Camp , or SS Experiment Part 2 , or The Beast in Heat , or Horrifying Experiments of

11934-756: The same building . Meanwhile, Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is owned by Tokyo-based Sony Group Corporation and is the only US film studio owned by a foreign conglomerate, while Universal is owned by Philadelphia-based Comcast (via NBCUniversal ), and the other two report to corporations headquartered in New York City — Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery . Most of today's Big Five also control subsidiaries with their own distribution networks that concentrate on arthouse pictures (e.g., Universal's Focus Features ) or genre films (e.g., Sony's Screen Gems ); several other specialty units were shut down or sold off between 2008 and 2010. Outside of

12051-673: The short-term public consciousness that a major film studio may avoid because of the time required to produce a major film. Child Bride (1938), for example, tackled the issue of older men marrying young girls in the Ozarks . Other issues, such as drug use in films like Reefer Madness (1936), attracted audiences that major film studios would usually avoid to keep their respectable, mainstream reputations. With enough incentive, however, major studios might become involved, as Warner Bros. did in their 1969 anti- LSD , anti- counterculture film The Big Cube . The film Sex Madness (1938) portrayed

12168-407: The sports cars, muscle cars , and car wrecks that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. They were produced mainly in the United States and Australia. The quintessential film of this genre is Vanishing Point (1971). Others include Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), Gone in 60 Seconds (1974), Death Race 2000 (1975), Race with

12285-603: The subgenre. Nudist films originated in the 1930s as films that skirted the Hays Code restrictions on nudity by purportedly depicting the naturist lifestyle. They existed through the late 1950s, when the New York State Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Excelsior Pictures vs. New York Board of Regents that onscreen nudity is not obscene. This opened the door to more open depictions of nudity, starting with Russ Meyer's 1959 The Immoral Mr. Teas , which has been credited as

12402-535: The subsequent search for the killers. They are named for the Italian word for yellow, giallo , the background color featured on the covers of the pulp novels by which these movies were inspired. The progenitor of this genre was The Girl Who Knew Too Much . Other examples of Giallo films include Four Flies on Grey Velvet , Deep Red , The Cat o' Nine Tails , The Bird with the Crystal Plumage , The Case of

12519-482: The use of stylistic devices and dialogue associated with screwball comedies, love interests and flirtation akin to romance films , over-the-top direction, cheeky homages, fan-pleasing content and caricatures, and performances that contain sleazy teasing alluding to foreplay or kink. The use of extended scenes and the showing of full frontal nudity are typical genre techniques. Sexploitation films include Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens by Russ Meyer ,

12636-486: The way in which their protagonists fight their abuse directly, rather than preserve the status quo by depending on an unresponsive legal system, as in rape–revenge movies from major studios such as The Accused . The redsploitation genre concerns Native American characters almost always played by white actors, usually exacting their revenge on their white tormentors. Examples are the Billy Jack tetralogy, The Ransom ,

12753-508: The work of Armando Bó with Isabel Sarli , the Emmanuelle series, Showgirls and Caligula . Caligula is unusual among exploitation films in that it was made with a large budget and well-known actors ( Malcolm McDowell , John Gielgud , Peter O'Toole and Helen Mirren ). Lesbian sex scenes of the 1970s have been studied in the context of the political and social implications of lesbianism and women's sexuality, something that remains

12870-418: The yearly average down to 288 for the decade. Among the significant characteristics of the Golden Age was the stability of the Hollywood majors, their hierarchy, and their near-complete domination of the box office. At the midpoint of the Golden Age, 1939, the Big Five had market shares ranging from 22% (MGM) to 9% (RKO); each of the Little Three had around a 7% share. In sum, the eight majors controlled 95% of

12987-676: Was a major producer of these films in both decades. The genre has experienced a revival in recent years, as films like Mulberry Street and Larry Fessenden's The Last Winter reflected concerns about global warming and overpopulation. The Sci-Fi Channel (now known as SyFy ) has produced several films about giant or hybrid mutations whose titles are sensationalized portmanteaus of the two species; examples include Sharktopus and Dinoshark . Nazi exploitation films, also called "Nazisploitation" films, or "il sadiconazista", focus on Nazis torturing prisoners in death camps and brothels during World War II . The tortures are often sexual, and

13104-594: Was able to acquire a much larger studio in Burbank, which it began to use starting in 1928 (and which is famous for its signature water tower ). Warner Bros. eventually expanded its studio operations to Leavesden in London. Warner Bros. Studio Leavesden is the main studio in production of hit movies like the Harry Potter film series , The Dark Knight and the recent ones like The Batman and Ready Player One . In 1916,

13221-744: Was directed by an African American filmmaker named William Crain .  Blacula was one of the first early successful blaxploitation horror movies. Ganja & Hess stars Duane Jones , who played Ben in Night of the Living Dead . This movie has political and social commentary in which the vampires are a metaphor for capitalism , according to Harry M. Benshoff . Modern homages of this genre include Jackie Brown , Pootie Tang , Undercover Brother , Black Dynamite , Proud Mary and BlacKkKlansman . The 1973 Bond film Live and Let Die uses blaxploitation themes. Cannibal films are graphic movies from

13338-438: Was down to five; its average for the rest of the 1970s would be even lower. Like RKO in its last days under Hughes, MGM remained a major in terms of brand reputation, but little more. Disney by contrast began to ascend towards major status through a resurgence in its animated movies, beginning with The Rescuers (1977), and the studio began to enter the adult market with The Black Hole (1979), its first non-G rated film. By

13455-439: Was featured as part of the short-lived Mystery Science Theater 3000 spin-off direct-to-DVD series The Film Crew . Exploitation film An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content . Exploitation films are generally low-quality " B movies ", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become historically important, and even gain

13572-615: Was inspired by Bob Clark 's Black Christmas . The genre continued into and peaked in the 1980s with well-known films like Friday the 13th (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Many 1980s slasher films used the basic format of Halloween , for example My Bloody Valentine (1981), Prom Night (1980), The Funhouse (1981), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and Sleepaway Camp (1983), many of which also used elements from Black Christmas . A subtype featuring space , science fiction and horror in film . Despite ambitious literary works that depicted space travel as

13689-400: Was shaken further in late 1980, when the disastrously expensive flop of Heaven's Gate effectively ruined United Artists. The studio was sold the following year to Kerkorian, who merged it with MGM. After a brief resurgence, the combined studio continued to decline. From 1986, MGM/UA has been at best a "mini-major", to use the present-day term. Meanwhile, a new member was finally admitted to

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