Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Analytical Table of Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Case Studies
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Introduction: Problems of Definition and the Discourse of American Independent Cinema
- Part I American Independent Cinema in the Studio Years (mid-1920s–late 1940s)
- Part II The Transitional Years (late 1940s–late 1960s)
- 3 Independence by Force: The Effects of the Paramount Decree on Independent Film Production
- 4 An Audience for the Independents: Exploitation Films for the Nation's Youth
- Part III Contemporary American Independent Cinema (late 1960s–present)
- Epilogue: From Independent to ‘Specialty’ Cinema
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - An Audience for the Independents: Exploitation Films for the Nation's Youth
from Part II - The Transitional Years (late 1940s–late 1960s)
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Analytical Table of Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Case Studies
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Introduction: Problems of Definition and the Discourse of American Independent Cinema
- Part I American Independent Cinema in the Studio Years (mid-1920s–late 1940s)
- Part II The Transitional Years (late 1940s–late 1960s)
- 3 Independence by Force: The Effects of the Paramount Decree on Independent Film Production
- 4 An Audience for the Independents: Exploitation Films for the Nation's Youth
- Part III Contemporary American Independent Cinema (late 1960s–present)
- Epilogue: From Independent to ‘Specialty’ Cinema
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The independent filmmaker [in the 1960s] was a little bit like a guerrilla fighter – he could move fast and flexibly and react immediately to the change in circumstances – whereas a large army was like a large studio that had to have a bureaucracy to keep it all together and that would slow down its response time.
Roger Corman, filmmakerProducers have always wanted to make ‘dignified’ pictures. That's not a good word for it. They wanted to make ‘nice’ pictures. They wanted to make pictures for their mothers and their wives, and their friends. And, damn it, their mothers and their friends don't go to pictures anymore!
Samuel Z. Arkoff, producer and distributorINTRODUCTION
While the major studios were trying to cope with the effects of the Paramount Decree, but mostly with the impact of the economic recession, the Poverty Row studios had to deal only with the latter. The US Justice Department had concentrated its efforts strictly on the Big Five and the Little Three, leaving all other companies out of the lawsuit as their position in the industry was marginal and their collusion with the Big Five minimal. The recession, however, hit companies like Allied Artists (former Monogram Pictures), Republic Pictures and other smaller outfits in a more forceful manner than the studios. Not only did the Poverty Row studios not possess adequate resources to cope with dwindling audiences, declining profits and the rise of the big-budget film, they also had to deal with the end of the double bill as a dominant exhibition practice and the closure of hundreds of small, neighbourhood theatres that traditionally were the Poverty Row firms' best customers.
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- Information
- American Independent CinemaAn Introduction, pp. 135 - 166Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2006