Grindhouse

Austin Fisher is Associate Professor of Popular Culture at Bournemouth University, author of Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western (2011), founding co-editor of the “Global Exploitation Cinemas” book series and editor of Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads (2015). He serves on the Editorial Board of the Transnational Cinemas journal, is Co-Chair of the SCMS “Transnational Cinemas” Scholarly Interest Group, and founder of the “Spaghetti Cinema” festival.Johnny Walker is Associate Professor in the Department of Arts at Northumbria University, UK. His writing on horror and exploitation cinema can be read in journals such as Horror Studies, the Journal of British Cinema and Television, and in his forthcoming books Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and Society (2015) and Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media (Bloomsbury, 2015).

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: 42nd Street, and BeyondAustin Fisher and Johnny WalkerChapter 1Grinding out the Grindhouse: Exploitation, Myth and MemoryGlenn WardChapter 2Where Did We Come In?: The Economics of Unruly Audiences, Their Cinemas and Tastes, From Serial Houses to Grind Houses.Phyll SmithChapter 3Temporary Fleapits and Scabs’ Alley:The Theatrical Dissemination of Italian Cannibal Films in Melbourne, AustraliaDean BrandumChapter 4Run, Angel, Run: Serial Production and the Biker Movie, 1966-72Peter StanfieldChapter 5“The Smashing, Crashing, Pileup of the Century”: The Carsploitation FilmRobert J ReadChapter 6Cars and Girls (and Burgers and Weed): Branding, Mainstreaming, and Crown International Pictures’ SoCal Drive-in MoviesRichard NowellChapter 7From “Sex Entertainment for the Whole Family” to Mature Pictures: I Jomfruens Tegn and Transnational Erotic CinemaKevin HeffernanChapter 8‘Bigger Than A Payphone, Smaller Than A Cadillac’: Porn Stardom in Exhausted: John C Holmes The Real StoryNeil JacksonChapter 9From Opera House to Grindhouse (And Back Again): Ozploitation In and Beyond AustraliaAlexandra Heller-NicholasChapter 10Go West, Brother: the Politics of Landscape in the Blaxploitation WesternAustin FisherChapter 11Red Power, White Movies: Billy Jack, Johnny Firecloud, and the Cultural Politics of the “Indiansploitation” CycleDavid ChurchChapter 12Sleazy Strip-Joints and Perverse Porn Circuses: The Remediation of Grindhouse in the Porn Productions of Jack the ZipperClarissa SmithSelect BibliographyContributors

The Grindhouse is a fascinating phenomenon but it is too often seen as a wild and eclectic one, something that is praised for being chaotic and anarchic. The current collection goes beyond this celebratory rhetoric to examine the multiple forms and histories that converge in the Grindhouse. It unpicks and unpacks the phenomenon in ways that demonstrate its richness and variety, but also make sense of that richness and variety. Most significantly, it does so without destroying the pleasures of the Grindhouse. On the contrary it manages to question the experience while preserving its sense of fascination. And that is a very rare thing.