Posts tagged with Prison Girls

3-D Movies are mounting a comeback. Again. Be still, my bleeding eyes. Again.

At age 7, I stumbled upon the famous photograph of a movie theater audience staring up, enraptured, at Bwana Devil (1953) through paper eyeglasses with colored lenses.

Some nearby authority figure explained to me that those people were watching a 3-D movie, and those glasses enabled the images to jump right off the screen.

The immediate, flawlessly logical question I blurted out then was: “So why isn’t every movie in 3-D?” Nobody could explain it to me.

Seven was also the age when I happened up Pops McBeardo’s Playboy stashed in the bathroom hamper, so my unspoken query was: “And why isn’t Playboy in 3-D? And what about dirty movies?” The answers would come. As would I.

Today marks the birthday of legendary B-movie producer and distributor Samuel Z. Arkoff, who is responsible for such master strokes of skinema as Coffy (1973), Thriller: A Cruel Picture, and (1974) Prison Girls (1972). Arkoff attributed his success to his insistence that all his movies should adhere to a formula, which he revealed during an interview in the 1980s.

1. Action

2. Revolutionary Ideas

3. Killing or Violence

4. Notable Dialogue

5. Fantasy

6. Fornication

While I would never presume to question the master's wisdom, I have to admit that, even if it leaves out the first five, I'll watch any movie that has number six. Or at least fast forward to the good parts.