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Copyright by Daniel Curran Metz 2010 Copyright by Daniel Curran Metz 2010 The Thesis Committee for Daniel Curran Metz Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Prestige and Prurience: The Decline of the American Art House and the Emergence of Sexploitation, 1957-1972 APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Thomas G. Schatz Charles Ramirez Berg Prestige and Prurience: The Decline of the American Art House and the Emergence of Sexploitation, 1957-1972 by Daniel Curran Metz, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2010 Dedication I dedicate this thesis, and the rest of my life, to Corinna. Acknowledgements I have been fortunate enough to have a number of wonderful film and history professors who have helped inform my conception of the field and create this work. Of particular assistance on this project was Tom Schatz, who served as my advisor and whose frequent advice has been invaluable. Thank you to my present and former readers Charles Ramirez Berg and Caroline Frick. I’d also like to acknowledge Robert Sklar from NYU, who helped me when I first started this project back in 2007 with a small paper on censorship, and who taught me a lot about what scholarship is. I am grateful also to my first film professor, Lawrence Burke, who showed me that cinephilia was okay, and who inspired me to first view the art films that I try to destroy later in this thesis. Thank you as well to Dana Polan, who shared with me some wonderful and very unique materials. This project definitely could not have happened without the aid of my colleagues and friends. Michael Bowen mentored me when I was a fresh-faced eighteen year-old and his guidance and friendship is one of the most important to my development as a student. Thank you also to Stephen Jannise, Laura Dixon, Stephanie Appell, Will McDonald, Lars Nilsen and Zack Carlson; your academic, professional and personal insights and assistance have been more important to me than any education I gleaned from those old people listed above. And thanks to my mother and father, who are great, and who will probably never read this. May 7, 2010 v Abstract Prestige and Prurience: The Decline of the American Art House and the Emergence of Sexploitation, 1957-1972 by Daniel Curran Metz, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: Thomas G. Schatz “Prestige and Prurience: The Decline of the American Art House and the Emergence of Sexploitation, 1957-1972” presents a historical narrative of the art house theatre during the 1960s and its surrounding years, examining the ways in which art theatres transformed into adult theatres during the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning in earnest in the immediate post-war period, art houses in America experienced a short period of growth before stagnating in the middle 1950s. With the release in 1957 of the erotically charged Brigitte Bardot film …And God Created Woman, a new era of art houses followed, one that is characterized by the emergence of sexualized advertising, content and stars. As the 1960s came, sex films like The Immoral Mr. Teas played on art film marketing strategies and even screened in many art houses. Gradually, sexploitation films began to dominate art house programs and replace European art films and Hollywood revivals. In this transitional period, however, sexploitation films used key strategies to emulate many art film characteristics, and likewise art films used vi sexploitation techniques in order to maintain marketability for American distribution and exhibition. By studying the promotion and programming used by art house theatres during this period, this thesis identifies and announces a number of key trends within the dynamic period for art houses. The period is distinguished by its convergence of practices related to prestigious and prurient signs, merging art and sex in ways unique to the era and to the circumstances by which sex films infiltrated art houses and art films pandered to salacious interests. It presents a new perspective on the history of art houses, art cinema, American exhibition, sexploitation films, hardcore pornography and censorship. vii Table of Contents List of Figures................................................................................................................ xi List of Illustrations........................................................................................................ xii Introduction......................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: The Rise of the Art House and its Golden Age ...........................................27 The 1920s: Little Cinemas.........................................................................................30 The 1930s: Ethnic Theatres, MoMA and Newsreel Houses......................................35 The 1940s: WWII and Postwar Era, the Paramount Decree and Sure Seaters .........42 The 1950s: the “Lost Audience,” The Miracle Case and the Golden Age................52 Chapter 2: The Art House Transitions to Adult Theatre, 1957-1972............................59 Brigitte Bardot and the European Sex Kittens...........................................................63 The Immoral Mr. Teas, Lorna and Sexploitation Films ............................................72 I, A Woman, Therese and Isabelle and Sexy European Imports ...............................78 I Am Curious (Yellow): European Challenges to American Censorship ...................89 Chapter 3: A Case Study of the Stanton Art Theatre, 1956-1969 .................................97 Chapter 4: Ambiguous Art Films: A Case Study of Blow-Up.....................................124 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................154 Appendix: Filmography...............................................................................................167 Bibliography ................................................................................................................175 Vita ..............................................................................................................................181 viii List of Figures Figure 1: Films Advertised with Prestige, Prurience and Foreignness, 1956-1969 ........104! Figure 2: Films Advertised with Prestige, 1956-1969.....................................................105! Figure 3: Films Advertised with Prurience, 1956-1969 ..................................................106! xi List of Illustrations Illustration 0.1: Advertisement for Breathless.....................................................................2! Illustration 0.2: “A Mad Guide to the Art Film” ...............................................................24! Illustration 2.1: Advertisement for …And God Created Woman ......................................63! Illustration 2.2: Screenshot of Brigitte Bardot from …And God Created Woman............65! Illustration 2.3: Advertisement for Bitter Rice ..................................................................69! Illustration 2.4: Advertisement for The Immoral Mr. Teas ...............................................72! Illustration 2.5: Advertisement for Lorna..........................................................................77! Illustration 2.6: Advertisement for I, a Woman.................................................................78! Illustration 2.7: Advertising materials for Monika ............................................................82! Illustration 2.8: Screenshot of the girl’s dormitory from Les Collegiennes ......................85! Illustration 2.9: Screenshot of insert of the girl’s dormitory from The Twilight Girls......85! Illustration 2.11: Advertisement for I Am Curious (Yellow) .............................................89! Illustration 3.1: The Washington Post’s Neighborhood Movie Guide ..............................98! Illustration 3.2: Advertisement from the Capitol Hill theatre............................................99! Illustration 3.3: Advertisement for The Bicycle Thief .....................................................108! Illustration 3.4: Advertisement for Make Out..................................................................110! Illustration 3.5: Advertisement for Scylla........................................................................111! Illustration 3.6: Advertisement for Children of Paradise................................................113! Illustration 3.7: Advertisement for Sex Circus ................................................................115! Illustration 3.8: Advertisement for French White Cargo and Fruits of Summer.............119! xii Illustration 3.9: Advertisement for European versions of Hollywood films ...................120! Illustration 4.1: A multi-day advertisement for The Twilight Girls.................................124! Illustration 4.2: Advertisement for Belle de Jour ............................................................130! Illustration 4.3: Thomas photographs a group of models in Blow-Up ............................141! Illustration 4.4: The mime tennis match in Blow-Up ......................................................141! Illustration 4.5: Thomas intimately photographs a model in Blow-Up ...........................142! Illustration 4.6: Jane stands, offering herself to Thomas in Blow-Up .............................143!
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