Bret Wood talks about his Film Forum series on expolitation cinema entitled Forbidden Fruit.(3/4/19)
In the years when Hollywood was under the tight control of the Production Code Authority, a new breed of movie mercenary-impresario brazenly broke every rule on depicting taboo subjects (primarily sex, drugs and childbirth) in films produced under the auspices of being morally uplifting. More carny showmen than movie moguls, wily entrepreneurs like Kroger Babb and Dwain Esper exhibited these films “roadshow” style, with garish lobby displays, live lectures and souvenirs. In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Bret Wood, vice of the film distribution company Kino Lorber talks about curating a new series at Film Forum celebrating this absurd movement in film history entitled “Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture.”