A B movie, or B film, is a type of low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second half of a double feature, somewhat similar to B-sides in the world of recorded music. However, the production of such films as "second features" in the United States largely declined by the end of the 1950s. This shift was due to the rise of commercial television, which prompted film studio B movie production departments to transition into television film production divisions. These divisions continued to create content similar to B movies, albeit in the form of low-budget films and series.
Blood Feast is a 1963 American splatter film. It was composed, shot, and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, written by Allison Louise Downe from an idea by Lewis and David F. Freidman, and stars Mal Arnold, William Kerwin, Connie Mason, and Lyn Bolton. The plot focuses on a psychopathic food caterer named Fuad Ramses (Arnold) who kills women so that he can include their body parts in his meals and perform sacrifices to his "Egyptian goddess" Ishtar.
The Immoral Mr. Teas is the first commercially successful film of director Russ Meyer, released in 1959. The film was described as a nudist comedy, and was noted for exhibiting extensive female nudity. The film cost $24,000 to produce, and eventually grossed more than $1.5 million on the independent/exploitation circuit.
A sexploitation film is a class of independently produced, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films. The term "sexploitation" has been used since the 1940s.
Virginia Bell was a topless model and actress.
In film, nudity may be either graphic or suggestive, such as when a person appears to be naked but is covered by a sheet. Since the birth of film, depictions of any form of sexuality have been controversial, and in the case of most nude scenes, had to be justified as part of the story.
David Frank Friedman was an American filmmaker and film producer best known for his B movies, exploitation films, nudie cuties, and sexploitation films.
Something Weird Video is an American film distributor company based in Seattle, Washington. They specialize in exploitation B to Z films, particularly the works of Harry Novak, Doris Wishman, David F. Friedman and Herschell Gordon Lewis.
Herschell Gordon Lewis was an American filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter" subgenre of horror films. He is often called the "Godfather of Gore", though his film career included works in a range of exploitation film genres including juvenile delinquent films, nudie-cuties, two children's films and at least one rural comedy. On Lewis' career, AllMovie wrote, "With his better-known gore films, Herschell Gordon Lewis was a pioneer, going further than anyone else dared, probing the depths of disgust and discomfort onscreen with more bad taste and imagination than anyone of his era."
Howard W. "Kroger" Babb was an American film producer and showman. His marketing techniques were similar to a travelling salesman's, with roots in the medicine show tradition. Self-described as "America's Fearless Young Showman", he is best known for his presentation of the 1945 exploitation film Mom and Dad, which was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2005.
Goldilocks and The Three Bares is a 1963 nudie-cutie film from the legendary exploitation team of Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman. The plot of the film has nothing to do with the famous fable which inspired the title. it was billed as the "first nudist musical".
Horrors of Spider Island is a 1960 West German horror film written and directed by Fritz Böttger, and produced by Gaston Hakim and Wolf C. Hartwig for Rapid-Film/Intercontinental Filmgesellschaft. The film stars Alexander D'Arcy as Gary Webster, a talent agent who invites several women to a club in Singapore. Their plane ride ends abruptly when they crash-land into the ocean. Webster and the women make their way to an island where they find a large spider web. A giant spider sinks its teeth into Webster, turning him into a mutant.
She Shoulda Said 'No'! is a 1949 exploitation film that follows in the spirit of morality tales such as the 1936 films Reefer Madness and Marihuana. Directed by Sam Newfield and starring Lila Leeds, it was originally produced to capitalize on the arrest of Leeds and Robert Mitchum on a charge of marijuana conspiracy.
Sam S. Millard was a filmmaker of the 1920s through the 1950s and 1960s. Nicknamed "Steamship", he was one of the Forty Thieves of exploiters. Considered an early father of the roadshow-style exploitation film circuit, his film productions and presentations laid the groundwork for a number of later exploitation films.
Is Your Daughter Safe?, also known as The Octopus, was an early American silent exploitation film produced and directed by S. S. Millard. Written by Max Abramson, it was originally released in 1927 and presented around the United States in the following years.
Revenge of the Virgins is a 1959 American nudie cutie film directed by Peter Perry Jr with a screenplay by Ed Wood.
The Adventures of Lucky Pierre: Director's Cut is a novel by Robert Coover, published in 2002. The title is the same as a 1961 nudie cutie film, and like the film, the novel is divided into multiple vignettes, starring the title character Pierre.
Molester's Train is a Japanese pink film series. Academy Award–winning director Yōjirō Takita started the series in 1982. By 1997, there had been 25 films made in the series. In their pioneering English-language work on Japanese erotic cinema, the Weissers write that "most of the episodes are reminiscent of early American nudie-cuties, especially the voyeuristic titty-flicks like Russ Meyer's Eve and the Handyman and Immoral Mr Teas, or Herschell Gordon Lewis' Adventures Of Lucky Pierre." The 1993 installment Nasty Behavior, which was directed by Hisayasu Satō and featured Yumika Hayashi, had an austere tone that was in direct contrast to the light, comic tone of the previous films in the series.
Daughter of the Sun is a 1962 sexploitation comedy film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis and produced by David F. Friedman. The film follows a young teacher who may lose her job after she is discovered to be a nudist. Lewis and Friedman produced the film after the success of the 1961 nudie cutie The Adventures of Lucky Pierre.
Living Venus is a 1961 exploitation film loosely based on the life of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Marking the directorial debut of Herschell Gordon Lewis, the film stars frequent Lewis collaborators William Kerwin as unscrupulous magazine editor John V. Norwall and Harvey Korman as photographer Ken Carter.
