With Oscar season upon us it can be difficult for those wanting something a little different from their cinema trips to escape the glare of Hollywood.
However, Manchester’s Cornerhouse is offering movie buffs an alternative to the mainstream with a night of raw 1970s exploitation movies.
The all-night ‘Sleazathon’ will include a selection of films showing the alternative to the high budget films produced by tinsel town.
The six-film run has been selected by Dr Andy Willis, reader in Film Studies at Salford University, who told MM why these movies deserve attention.
“I wouldn’t celebrate these films simply because they are sleazy – my take on it is that the sleazy surface and low budgets often create a sense of urgency to these films,” he said.
“They are nearly always under the magic 90 minutes and are shot quickly – something that the shine and polish and bloated production values of Hollywood can’t do,” he said.
“Celebrating them also reminds people of an era when there were clear alternatives to Hollywood. Particularly in the popular genre cinema of Europe.”
Exploitation movies try to capitalise on a current cultural niche for financial success and the movies produced in the seventies were dominated by two themes: slashers and sleazeballs.
While these kinds of films may be considered the poorer brother of the high budget glossy pictures that are churned out Dr Willis believes that the freedom afforded to the directors of such movies have artistic merit.
“I continue to be fascinated by the fact that low-budget (often labelled exploitation) filmmaking offers writers and directors the space to ‘say something’ as long as the exploitable elements are there,” he continued.
“This often makes for contradictory films but that can also make them very interesting. For me, the 1970s is the high point of this type of exploitation cinema.”
Dr Willis acknowledges that not all the exploitation films produced in this era are worth re-visiting but he maintains there are hidden gems to be found.
“You have to search for the nuggets – many of them are objectionable and sexist but what they do show is that it is dangerous to dismiss them all as trash without watching them,” he added.
“Many of them are well made when one takes into account the budget and the time available for shooting and post-production.”
After becoming bored with what was on offer from Hollywood and the highbrow serious art cinema in the 1980s Dr Willis took to the films available on video with their occasional left-leaning politics a bonus.
Though these films may not have achieved mass appeal they have given names like Martin Scorsese a start in the film industry.
“There are lots of other examples of mainstream Hollywood being influenced by the success of exploitation films – all-star, big budget films such as The Cannonball Run seem to be attempts by larger production companies to follow the success of films such as Grand Theft Auto and Eat My Dust,” he explained.
“Directors who started out in exploitation movies have also gone on to make very influential mainstream films.
“The most well-known names are the likes of Martin Scorsese, John Milius and Francis Coppola – but later, key mainstream directors such as Jonathan Demme, Jonathan Kaplan and Ron Howard also got their break in the exploitation sector.”
For those that decided to brave the night of sleaze there is a breakfast with cultural commentator CP Lee on offer who will discuss Manchester’s very own exploitation figure Cliff Twemlow.
Twemlow wrote a memoir of his varied career which was turned into the 1982 film Tuxedo Warrior before writing and acting in the exploitation movie GBH as well as a string of other pictures.
The event starts Saturday at 9pm, for more information visit the Cornerhouse website.
Image courtesy of Pit-Yacker, with thanks
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