'Quality cult films' is pretty much a contradiction in terms. These films were made for any number of reasons, but 'quality' was usually not one of them (spoiler: to make money, was their usual raison d'être.) They were not considered quality by film reviewers and historians, nor were there much that could be described as quality when it came to how these films were originally enjoyed. If you had a quality experience watching them it was probably because the popcorn was fresh, rather than re-sold stale floor sweepings from last night's Movie Madness Midnight Matinee, or you got lucky with your date.
That said, we still want to give you a good experience enjoying these films here on Cultpix, which are films that we love. So let us take a little closer look at the whole issue of what is and isn't 'quality'.
How They Got Made
The first thing to note that most of these films were made quickly and cheaply. They typically did not have big budgets, the actors did not have vanity trailers, lavish amounts were not spent on costumes and some of the sets were constructed of cardboard. They were genre films aimed at audiences that went to see a film because it was a horror/science fiction/gangster/nudie/thriller, not because of who the director was (usually a hack whose greatest skill was the number of setups in a given shooting day).
The films might have had a name star, whether Bela Lugosi or Christina Lindberg, that the ticket-buying public would recognise, but they would not be the A-lister or often even B. The driving force was the producer, the Roger Corman or Inge Ivarson, who knew what audiences wanted and how to give it to them at the lowest possible budget.
That is not to say that these films were not good or did not have artistic intent. Remember, nobody sets out to deliberately make a terrible film, not even Uwe Boll. Some of the films you will find on Cultpix are rightly considered classics, not just of the cult variety, but films like Cat People (1942) or Detour (1945), that have been selected by the US Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry, the ultimate accolade for a film in terms of being recognised for historical cinematic significance. So just because they were made cheaply, does not mean that they were bad.
Cat People (1941) is rightly recognised as a classic.
How They Were Shown
Secondly is how these films were shown. Because these were never going to be films that opened with a big red carpet premiere at London's Odeon Leicester Square. They were often not even the main feature, in the times when most films were double bill, often consisting of an A-feature (big budget and big stars) preceded by a B-feature (what you will find here), with shorts, trailers, news and cartoons between. Anything to keep the audience at the cinema long enough to become hungry enough to buy more popcorn, which cinema operators did not have to split the revenue from with the film distributors. So having an extended evening programme was in their interest.
These films were also often shown in less salubrious types of cinemas, in the age before multiplexes. These were everything from grindhouse cinemas (defined by Collin's Dictionary as "a cinema specializing in violent or exploitative films such as martial arts movies from Japan and Hong Kong"), a drive-in cinema, a discount cinemas (from Wikipedia: "also known as dollar theaters, dollar movies, second-run theaters, and sub-run theaters") or just a sleazy 'adult' porn cinemas, where the floors are sticky for a very bad reason. Yes, kids, that is how your grandparents watched films other than Gone With the Wind and It's a Wonderful Life.
As such, there was not much money that was spent on the 35mm copy either in the making or the maintenance. The same film would be shipped around and shown until it was falling apart, including less scrupulous projectionists who might cut out the naughty bits and sell them off, meaning that cinema goers missed the best bits not due to censorship but lust and greed. Watch Wim Wender's Kings of the Road (1976) to get an idea of what it was like to be a sleazy travelling projectionist.
Peeking projectionist in Wim Wender's Kings of the Roads (1976)
How They Survived
The third reason that what you are watching is not quality is how there were preserved and rescued. Once these films had finished their main theatrical run and any secondary showings, they were usually thrown out. There was no point keeping big reels that took up space and cost money to store, let alone preserve properly. The producer was pouring whatever money he (it was always a 'he' when it came to exploitation film smut peddlers) had made from his previous film into the next title. If he was feeling sentimental, he might keep a poster in his office. But a print of a film that was not going to earn any more money? Out with it!
This is why so many films have been lost forever, while many others only exist in poor quality formats. When VHS appeared in the late 1970s and Hollywood studios refused to release their top titles on the new format (Jack Valenti, head honcho for Hollywood trade body MPAA, compared video tapes to the Boston Strangler in terms of what they would do for film producers) the producers of sex, schlock and violence for the big screen saw an opportunity to milk their old films for a few more dollars yet, while also making new films that would appear to the watch-it-at-home audience. VHS, midnight screening and late night cable television is what saved and introduced many of these films to a new audience. But it did not ensure the quality of the copies that survived.
While restoration has come to the rescue of some of these films, you will not get a 4K UHD version of most of these films for two reasons. The first is that many are still not considered 'worthy' of a prestige restoration, though there are notable exceptions. We have been working with the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) to create HD masters of films such as Terror in the Midnight Sun (1959) and Kärlekens språk (1969). The same goes for AGFA and BFI. The French have restored many cult classics, while commercial operators such as Kino Lorber and Criterion have lavished post-production love on many deserving films. Our colleagues at Something Weird Video, Synapse Films and others are also constantly doing their best to find the highest quality copy out there.
Carter Stevens' Wicked Schoolgirls (1979) getting restored. Photo: Michael Raso
However, the fact that many of these films have fallen into the public domain means that even if you spend a lot of money restoring a film, you will not have exclusive right to exploit that new version. Unless you create a new score for a silent film, or add colorization (Get thee behind me Satan!) to a black and white film, that film can be copied and showed by anyone, so unless you have a collector's BluRay that people want to buy for the luxury velvet lining, don't expect others not to swoop in and offer it too. We are as guilty of this as anyone else, but we also aim to partner with distributors that put in the effort to make new quality copies and spend considerable time and money ourselves to source the best available 35mm print or negative and scan and restore it.
What You See Is What You Get
So don't expect a Daughter of the Sun, Mondo Cane or The Bellboy and the Playgirls to have the kind of quality you would expect from Lawrence of Arabia, even though they were all released the same year (1962 - but you knew that already). We provide the best quality copy that is available to us and we are constantly upgrading films to a better quality when we find a higher quality source. If you know of a film that is available elsewhere in a better format let us know and we will upgrade it. Saving film history is a team effort and you never know where a better print might turn up.
So if you are upset about the quality of the film you are watching not being the best, particularly if you are outputting it on your 55-inch Samsung OLED TV, take comfort from knowing that the quality you see is probably not much different from how the film was viewed when it first came out in cinemas. And, hey, at least we didn't slice out the sexiest bits to sell them to a streamer down the road. These films might not be 'quality', but we love them all the same. - Django Nudo
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