American Grindhouse

Elijah Drenner's documentary about American exploitation movies is less a critical analysis than a simple but enjoyable nostalgia trip, following the history of productions that appealed to audience's baser instincts (and at midcentury were often shown in theaters that ran them around-the-clock—so-called “grindhouses”), from the earliest examples in Thomas Edison's day up through the present. Reams of clips are interspersed with commentary by a raft of directors, writers, actors, and buffs (among them Joe Dante, John Landis, Larry Cohen, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and Fred Williamson), tied together by Robert Forster's narration. The coverage is quite thorough, touching on numerous genres—from soft-core porn and gore-filled splatter-fests to biker flicks, drug melodramas, blaxploitation titles, and women-in-prison pictures. And while the tone is affectionate, most of the interviewees readily admit that the quality of the films they made, or fondly remember, were of pretty low quality. But some also point out that it was the censorious Hays Code adopted by Hollywood in the 1930s that drove these kinds of movies underground, where they were made fast and cheap, although some irony lies in the fact that since the ‘70s studios have been producing what are essentially big-budget versions of the same thing (rendering the real stuff irrelevant). American Grindhouse is an energetic and fun tribute to the crassest sort of cinematic schlock. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)