Sleazoid Express: A Mind-Twisting Tour Through the Grindhouse Cinema of Times Square (Paperback)

~ Bill Landis (Author), Michelle Clifford (Author) "Located on 8th Avenue between 44th and 45th Streets, the Cameo Theater had an enormous marquee that dwarfed the many nearby shoebox theaters, which had..." (more)
Key Phrases: blood horror genre, exploitation distributors, sexploitation movies, Times Square, New York, Michelle Clifford (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

New York City's grindhouses (burlesque theaters gone to seed) are long gone, but sin-ema fans can relive the experience with this definitive study. Landis, founder of the eponymously titled cult classic periodical, and Clifford, his partner in grime, take readers on a tour of the Deuce, the psychosexual netherland on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. Between the 1960s and 1980s, the area was home to numerous theaters before being razed and overlaid with family theme restaurants and chain stores in the 1990s. Organized by film genre ("Blood Horror," "Eurosleaze," etc.), the book covers the venues themselves as well as industry personnel, 42nd Street habitu s, and, of course, the deliciously offbeat and perverse films-Black Mama, White Mama; Women in Cages; and, this reviewer's personal favorite, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. Like Jimmy McDonough's The Ghastly One, an excellent biography on sexploitation auteur Andy Milligan, this book moves the chains down the field in grindhouse cinema's march for respectability. Great fetish film fun for all popular culture and film collections.
Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Drawing upon their "full-scale magazine with a website" (gol-lee!) Sleazoid Express, which is dedicated to exploitation cinema, Landis and Clifford revel in old Times Square and the porno shops, dirty-movie theaters, and titty bars it hosted before Disney and its ilk made it safe for squeaky-clean consumerism. Yet they eschew the square's typical denizens for a whole chapter on the Rialto, which featured "the American blood horror genre" more than nudie-cutie flicks; Herschell Gordon Lewis and his magnum opus, Blood Feast, put in honored appearances here. A lesser name of no lesser glory that also pops up is Larry Buchanan, whose Mondo Exotica (aka Naughty Dallas) was a documentary about Jack Ruby's Carousel Club; it and other movies with mondo in the title were loosely patterned after the 1962 hit Italian "shockumentary" Mondo Cane, and, besides being surefire Times Square attractions, constitute a distinctive, often icky genre all of their own. Though not for every film buff, this book will draw vintage-sleaze fans from both sides of the culture-wars skirmish line. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Fireside (November 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743215834
• ISBN-13: 978-0743215831
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #560,636 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Perfectly captures what it was like to be there but...., November 22, 2003

By	Stephen M. Kopian (GLEN HEAD, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a description of the experience of going to the movies in Times Square before Disney made it safe for everyone this book can't be beat. This is the way it was, unsafe and fun in a sick twisted sort of way. Having been there, its dead on target. A trip into the theatres was an eye opening experience and one which could get you robbed or worse. However as an accurate description of the actual films shown the book is flawed, so much that it makes me wonder if the authors have ever watched the films in the years since they played Times Square. The first half of the book is fine with its description of what it was like to be in the theatres and how some of the films were made. However as the book goes on it becomes a recounting of what film played where, and in many cases I'm left to wonder if they ever really saw what they are describing. Their descriptions of the Mondo movies is mostly wrong, especially in light of the recent release of the 8 DVD Mondo Cane Boxset. They knock Zombie as having bad sound, a remark which is no doubt based on viewing it in a theatre with bad sound. I won't even go into their brief description of Shogun Assassin. There are others questionable descriptions, but these are the first to popped into my head. That said if you want a book that describes what it was like to see movies in a specific time and place this book is for you, just don't be looking for film reference guide to the actual films.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where Do I Buy A Ticket?, March 21, 2003

By	Clark Paull "(Sleepin' with the TV on)" (Murder City) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Luckily for those of us not fortunate enough to have lived anywhere within shouting distance of New York's notorious 42nd Street grindhouses, we can live vicariously through the single-minded devotion paid to the subject by authors Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford. "Sleazoid Express," named after the magazine founded by Landis in 1980, takes an unflinching, disturbing, and downright fascinating look at the mildewed, downtrodden, and often filthy theaters in Times Square whose stock in trade was screening sub-B films, the pond scum yin to Hollywood's yang. Demonstrating an encyclopedic expertise on the subject as well as an unbelievably rich prose style, the authors manage to accomplish the seemingly impossible - make gore epics, women-in-prison films, shockumentaries, race-hate movies, roughies, rough trade, Orientalia, and Eurosleaze seem almost savory. Although sections of this book may make you feel unclean and, like the films it so joyously celebrates, is probably best enjoyed with a bongful of dope and a quart of warm, stale beer, it may also send you on a quest for viewing material for your next church social. All of this is a fancy way of saying "I love it!" Best thing I've read in ages...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic guidebook to exploitation, August 31, 2004

By	Daymon Kiliman (Springfield, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is fantastic for anyone who is into exploitation, eurosleaze, blood horror, and mondo movies. I had recently become more interested in such movies before reading the book, and now I'm certainly glad I have it handy for my explorations into the bizarre. The short biographies of the actors and directors give an additional layer of insight into how, and why, these movies were made. There are extensive descriptions of movies peppered with factoids of the directors and actors that really make the movies come alive when you see them before or after reading the passage.

My only criticism of the book is that there is not as much emphasis on the "story" of the author seeing these movies and the grindhouses he frequented. Although there, this book does not read like a nonfictional narrative of the author's explorations, which I was expecting from some of the book's descriptions. It is very much a guidebook, with the chapters organized by genre, director, series, and/or time period rather than according to the author's experiences or a novel-like structure.

Although the book wasn't written or structured in the way I expected, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and am loaning it to some of my friends who are also interested in these movies. And I know I will continue to refer to it whenever I have an urge to search out a whacky and uniquely offensive movie gem.