Classical exploitation

Classical exploitation is the American independent film business of roughly 1919 to 1959: pictures about sex, drugs and disease, sold as education and roadshowed outside the studio system and the Hays Code. Before exploitation meant gore or sex on a drive-in screen, it meant this business model, and the word on this site's masthead comes from here.

The dodge

The Hays Code governed films distributed through the major studios. Independent operators sidestepped it by not using that system at all. They four-walled: rented a cinema outright for a week, ran their own advertising, took the door, and moved on before anybody organised a complaint.

The films needed a defence, so every one of them arrived as education. A picture about venereal disease was a public health warning. A picture about childbirth was instruction for young wives. A picture about marijuana was a caution to parents. The warning was the wrapper. The footage was the product.

The square-up

Many prints carried a "square-up": a title card at the front, sometimes a lecturer in person, explaining the film's serious social purpose. Roadshow operators often sold a companion booklet in the lobby at intermission, which is where a good share of the profit actually came from.

The names

Kroger Babb toured Mom and Dad (1945) for two decades with segregated men's and women's screenings and a fake nurse in the foyer. Dwain Esper made Maniac (1934) and Marihuana. Reefer Madness (1936) was a church-financed cautionary film that went nowhere until it was rediscovered in the 1970s and became a comedy.

Why it ended

Censorship collapsed. Once the Code broke down in the late 1950s, there was nothing left to sneak past, and the nudie-cutie made the pretence of education unnecessary.