Teenagers and Teenpics

TEENAGERS AND TEENPICS TEENAGERS TEENPICSAND THE JUVENILIZATION OF AMERICAN MOVIES IN THE 1950S Revised and Expanded Edition Thomas Doherty Temple University Press PHILADELPHIA Temple University Press, Philadelphia 19122 Copyright © 2002 by Temple University All rights reserved Published 2002 Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Teenagers and teenpics : the juvenilization of American movies in the 1950s / Thomas Doherty. p. cm. Revised and expanded edition. Filmography: p. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 1-56639-945-9 (cl. : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-56639-946-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—United States—History. 2. Motion pictures and youth— United States. 3. Teenagers in motion pictures—United States. I. Title. PN1993.5.U6 D53 2002 302.23′43′0973—dc21 20011052514 To Sandra Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 American Movies as a Less-than-Mass Medium 1 2 A Commercial History 13 3 The Teenage Marketplace 32 4 Rock ’n’ Roll Teenpics 54 5 Dangerous Youth 83 6 The Horror Teenpics 115 7 The Clean Teenpics 145 8 Generation after Generation of Teenpics 187 Notes 213 Selected Filmography 237 Index to Film Titles 251 General Index 259 vii Acknowledgments In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin smugly attests that he would be happy to live the same life over again, “only asking the advantage authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first.” In this spirit, I have exploited what Franklin might call the present felic- ity to polish and expand the first edition of Teenagers and Teenpics, published in 1988 by the now-defunct Unwin and Hyman, by correcting typos, purging mistakes, repairing syntax, and blue-penciling a few boneheaded comments. In addition, the last chapter, which as before tracks the permutations of the teenpic since the 1950s, has been up- dated with ruminations on some recent trends, notably the grim legacy of the AIDS epidemic on the teenpic genre. Otherwise, for better or worse, the original text remains intact. The first edition owed a great deal to a good many people, in whose debt I remain. John Raeburn was unfailingly generous with his time and incisive with his criticism. William Paul shared his enthusiasm and considerable expertise. At the University of Iowa, back during the age between punk rock and the hairspray bands, an exceptionally sharp and humane group of teachers and friends offered encouragement: Rick Altman, James Carey, Wayne Franklin, Rich Horwitz, Brooks Landon, Cindy Larson, Richard Dyer MacCann, Albert Stone, Sherman Paul, Paul Soucek, Bruce Sternfield, Michael Wall, Robin Wood, and every- one clustered around the Bijou Theater and University Film Board, whose repertory programming served as the informal film studies curriculum on campus. Bruce A. Austin, Ernest Callenbach, and the late Fred C. Clarke lent emotional and editorial support. Roger Cor- man was kind enough to interrupt an editing session and answer ques- tions from a flustered scholar-fan. The National Endowment for the ix x Acknowledgments Humanities financed my attendance at a provocative seminar with James Gilbert at the University of Maryland. A platoon of librarians and archivists provided helpful guidance through their research collections, in particular George Barringer of Special Collections at George- town University Library, Patrick Sheehan at the Motion Picture Re- search Division of the Library of Congress, and Mary Corliss and Terry Geesken at the Museum of Modern Arts Film Still Archives. My sincere thanks also go to David Thorburn and Lisa Freeman, who worked on the book during its first life, to Micah Kleit at Temple Uni- versity Press for midwifing the rebirth, and to Naren Gupte of P. M. Gordon Associates for guiding the project through production. In reading the manuscript for gaffs, Michael Anderegg, Andrew Hudgins, and Sandra Doherty each displayed an annoying thoroughness in de- tecting authorial lapses. Finally, and not least, the new edition has ben- efited mightily from the keen eye and kind suggestions of Jeffrey Miller. TEENAGERS AND TEENPICS 1 American Movies as a Less-than-Mass Medium Like all great arts the motion picture has grown up by appeal to the interests of childhood and youth. Terry Ramsaye, 1926 Films have to be made for the majority and the majority in the United States are teenagers. It’s different in France and Italy where the majority are adults. Joan Collins, 1957 trictly speaking, American motion pictures today are not a mass medium. As any multiplex marquee attests, theatrical movies cater primarily to one segment of the entertainment audience: teenagers. Without the support of the teenage au- Sdience, few theatrical movies break even, fewer still become hits, and none become blockbusters. In America, movies re- flect teenage, not mass—and definitely not adult—tastes. This was not always so. Prior to the mid-1950s, movies were the mass medium of choice for a vast, multigenera- tional audience that motion picture industry officials invari- ably envisaged as “the public.” Movies may have “sprung from minds essentially juvenile and adolescent,” as Terry Ramsaye wrote in his landmark motion picture history, A Million and One Nights (1926), but their images captivated all kinds. Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture 1 2 Chapter 1 Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945, always insisted that movies were “art for the millions ...speaking the language of all men of all ages.” Unlike high opera or classical music, they sought no “specialty audience” but aspired to be a truly popular art, a “universal entertainment” for the entire family. “The commercial success of the screen,” declared Hays, “is based on its appeal to the general public—men, women, and children.” In the 1930s and 1940s, that all-embracing ideal mirrored Hollywood’s pluralistic audience. By and large moviegoing was a familial, almost ritualistic activity, with children, adolescents, young couples, housewives, breadwinners, and the elderly partaking together of the liveliest of the arts. The rise of television and the collapse of the old studio system de- stroyed that kind of universality. Since the 1950s, moviemakers have been forced to narrow their focus and attract the one group with the requisite income, leisure, and gregariousness to sustain a theatrical business. The courtship of the teenage audience began in earnest in 1955; by 1960, the romance was in full bloom. That shift in marketing strategy and production initiated a progressive “juvenilization” of film content and the film audience that is today the operative reality of the American motion picture business. The process whereby “movies for the millions” became a less-than-mass medium is best revealed in the genesis and development of what has become the industry’s flagship enterprise, the teenpic. The Exploitation Film The teenpic is a version of the exploitation film, a loose though not wide-open category for motion pictures. Lingua franca in the regions of the motion picture industry and academic film studies alike, “exploitation” has three distinct and sometimes overlapping meanings. In its two broadest senses, “exploitation” refers both to the advertising and promotion that entice an audience into a theater and to the way the movie then endears itself to that audience. As the object of exploitation, the movie is passive, a product to be advertised and mar- keted; as the subject doing the exploitation, the movie is active, an agent that caters to its target audience by serving up appetizing or ex- otic subject matter. In its third, categorical sense, “exploitation” signi- fies a particular kind of movie. In early industry parlance, “exploitation” meant only the process of advertising and publicity that accompanied a movie’s theatrical release. American Movies as a Less-than-Mass Medium 3 Hollywood’s platonic ideal: three generations of American moviegoers exit a theater in Dixon, Illinois, 1947. (National Archives) Motion pictures reached maturity during the “ballyhoo years” of the 1920s, and studio executives well recognized their medium’s depend- ence on effective advertising. “The better the picture, the greater must be the exploitation campaign,” declared Columbia Pictures vice president Jack Cohn in 1933. “Good pictures do not sell themselves. We will never have phenomenal box office successes without the combina- tion of a great picture and adequate exploitation.” To help exhibitors attract an audience, the major studios maintained permanent full-scale “exploitation departments” or used the services of special agencies skilled in public relations. “Exploitation men” were responsible for devising eye-catching advertisements and concocting newsworthy stunts linked to the movie in question. During the 1930s, 4 Chapter 1 the Film Daily included an “Exploitation Digest” in its yearbook that listed “a comprehensive summary of stunts for exploiting any type of picture” and encouraged studios to submit their favorite exploitation scheme of the past year. Hal Horne, director of advertising and public relations for United Artists, described a publicity stunt for White Zom- bie (1932) that defines this most basic meaning of “exploitation”: When White Zombie was ushered into the Rivoli Theater in New York, all Broadway was startled by the sudden appearance of nine Zombies on a boardwalk erected above the marquee of the theater. Thousands packed the sidewalks and gasped with amazement as the nine figures, faithfully garbed and made up to simulate actual members of the White Zombie cast, went through a series of thrilling dramatic sequences. The doll-like figures of the girls were dressed in white flowing robes and the men looked just as if they had been dug up from the ground with wooden splints on their legs and battered facial expressions.

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