Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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...

I found this a fascinating book. However, I felt that it was missing a final chapter where they described the fate of "The Duece" as it transitioned to a kid-safe disneyland. It just kind of ends abruptly with no conclusion.

The descriptions of many of the flicks are not only rather long and unnecessary (I skipped most of them as I hadn't seen the movie and didn't want to read spoilers), but sometimes flat-out wrong. Doleimte was gay? Could have fooled me. And they bag on Fulci's Zombi as being ridiuclous trash, yet constantly praise hastily made S&M nazi women in prison fare as if they are Oscar-worthy. Well, hey, to each his own I guess.

I especially like the adjectives used in the book. My personal favorite is the description of Ronni Howard--who was a fellow inmate with Mason adherent Susan Atkins--as "Ronni Howard, the hard-bitten, pill-addicted, ex-con B-girl whore cell mate" It doesn't get much better than this folks!

Anyway--Sleazoid is an important document of an entire generation of sleaze cinema that is now available to everyone via DVD and various other video outlets (listed in a handy index at the end of the book).

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.

This is an excellent, fun, amazing book. It describes in details life inside all the grindhouse cinemas in Times Square and it describes the type of movies shown in each theater. The descriptions of the kinds of shady things going on inside the movie theaters is truly surreal, and the movies the authors describe in detail are not far behind.
If you miss the era of "Ilsa", Pam Grier movies and Mondo flicks, you will love this book.

I was out to find a book on the "where" of where the great B and sleaze films were shown. As a diehard fan, I knew alot already about synopses and had heard enough in audio commentaries to know as much about that... but I wanted to know what the 'viewing experiences' of these films would be like, especially with a historical perspective throughout. Well, along comes a DVD of "Cannibal Holocaust" aka "Dr. Butcher MD" and inside are some of the most erudite descriptions of a typical day at a "grindhouse" looked like. I'm hooked. So between that and the liner notes from "Cannibal Ferox" I could tell this was a must read. The formula is to take each theatre and describe the genre it best typifies along with a history of the behind the scenes of the theatre along with a couple plot synopses that best typify the genre. Along, the way you will find yourself racing to the imdb to see more about some of the more hideous films described therein. Also, it will allow you to develop a new respect for these films when you hear what they were limited by and then their budgetary restraints. And hey, anything that makes you wind up having a new respect for the cinema of Andy Milligan (yep, ya heard me right) is nothing short of miraculous. Here's to praying that Sinister Cinema's Oct. release of "The Ghastly Ones" will have an extra of "Vapors" in it IhopeIhopeIhope!! The writing style of Clifford and Landis shows that they are longtime grindhouse denizens themselves, especially in the number of instances they cite that audiences could relate to some of the more lurid onscreen happenings and be affected by it. For picaresque, this book is in a class by itself, especially in the descriptions of the Apollo after the video age. Unless someone's already done it, let's hope that someone out there does something like this for drive-ins (For the European perspective check out "Immoral Tales". Me, I'm off to go read parts of this book again. P.S.-With all the retitlings going on, it also showed me why Weldon hated giallo so much in "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia"!

Landis and Cifford have written an abosrbing reference guide that brings every aspect of the now-forgotten Times Square sleaze factory to life, and the authors' recollections, reviews, and photos are nothing short of fascinating. Some of the films listed are hard to find, if not lost, but the authors' reverence and wit make this journey one for both previous fans, along with those who wonder what the hell was going on in the Deuce during the Sixties and Seventies. One of the best books ever written about exploitation cinema, further benefitted by the author's priceless insight into the (sometimes terrifying) environment in which these masterworks were shown.

I enjoyed this book a great deal, however there were some problems. View some of the films listed in this book, then read the reviews. It is apparent the writer(s) did most of this from memory, and a few holes are glaring. (Check out the sections on Dolemite and Fight for Your Life for examples).

However, not all is lost. This book gives its reader a great sense of what these horrible, dangerous, wonderful theaters were like. The atmosphere, the denizens, the smells and sounds and the drugs and the sex.

I reccommend this book for that reason alone. For good info on these types of movies, check out Michael J. Weldon's Psychotronic books.

...get out and stay out! Sleazoid Express is one of the best chronicles of films they don't teach or even talk about in regular film discussion. What Clifford and Landis do over 300-odd pages is two fold: provide a ground-eye view of the chaotic horror of the old Times Square and realistically discuss a film culture that remains ignored in refined film history. Although they provide an artificial classification for each theater (one theater seemed only to play one kind of film while another was faithful to another genre- most histories of the Deuce never ascribe such fidelity beyond films which "got butts in seats"), their classification works as a prelude to the descriptions of the most graphic and unusual pictures you'll come across outside a college town video shop.
Can't find info on Wes Craven's early efforts or the beginnings of New Line Cinema? You've got it here. And you get it all without the false nostalgia and hubris infused by ditzy "respectable" critics hired to write liner notes on the latest DVD. This book is the grime under the fingernails of film history. You'll read about people you've never heard of (Andy Milligan and Roger Watkins) and get an honest (not written by studio interns) portrait of your favorite hacks. Sleazoid Express is the perfect antidote to sanitized film history- it's alive and lives for a time and place, long since dead.

This book is a fun read for those of us who are discovering the grindhouse era via the uncut DVD revolution, with a style that truely captures the atmosphere of Times Square's infamous sticky seat theaters. The writing is descriptive and imaginative, and the book is organized by genre (euro sleaze, blood horror, ect.) and easily navigated.

However a lot of the actor and plot details for the actual films are just plain innaccurate, which is a grating trait that could have been easily remedied by the authors giving the films another view before writing this book. Especially since the synopses where I noticed major errors ("Dolomite","The Candy Snatchers", "Cannibal Ferox", just to name a few)were not the "lost" obscurities, but films all now commercially available on DVD releases. The whole package ends abruptly, with no real resolution, and after reading a ton of Clifford And Landis' writing in other publications, I expected a bit better.

A fantastic love letter to a forgotten era, but by no means a definitive guide to grindhouse films.

4 stars