Insomniacs of the world, chill out.
Starting on 10 October, the B-Movie Channel - a satellite and cable channel wholly devoted to the pleasures of such milestones of cinema as Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Bikini Squad, T-Men, Surf Party, and The Beast with a Million Eyes - goes on the air 24 hours a day.
By beefing up the cheesecake, horse operas, and noir with the work of contemporary indie filmmakers, genre TV series like Route 66 and The Rifleman, and even works by up-and-coming student directors, the B-Movie Channel is aiming to capitalize on the upsurge of interest in films made while the Hollywood glitzmeisters were looking the other way.
"If I had to choose between two channels, one that showed A-movies and one that showed B-movies," film critic and author Roger Ebert said, "at the end of the week, I'd say I would have seen more good movies on the B-movie channel."
Because the starlet-studded A-list extravaganzas were made "more tightly under the control of a studio head's thumb," actors and directors "got away with more" in low-budget productions, Ebert observes. "Economic constraints could result in "improvisation ... that led to stylistic originality," he said.
Ebert, who wrote the screenplay to Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, disputed the notion that "B" means second-rate. "Many of the B-movies were leaner and more realistic than the A-movies. With their settings - often urban - and their subjects - crime, westerns - the best of the Bs play in a more modern way."
In the era of low-res chic, Ed Wood as neglected auteur, and DIY multimedia, the channel may be a natural for contemporary audiences.
"B-movies have been a huge influence on American culture, because they show you can do more with less," said B-Movie Channel executive vice-president Kristene Smith. Admitting that the channel's bread and butter will be "not absolutely blockbuster quality," Smith said the company is planning to round up familiar faces for special packages like a blaxploitation tribute hosted by Pam Greer and Jim Brown, and a week of sci-fi piloted by - you guessed it - William Shatner.
The B-Movie Channel will also make it its business to unearth reels that certain big-name stars might rather forget, like freshman efforts by Jack Nicholson and Sylvester Stallone. Obtaining the rights to show obscure films from private collections can be a legal thicket, channel executives admit. "I should have gone to law school," said programming director Harvey Kubernik.
Kubernik, a journalist, music producer, and lifelong B buff, pointed out that films like the Roger Corman oeuvre were "an open door - not just a crack in the door - that employed people in an entry-level industry."
"I shudder to think how many films would never have been made if Corman had been trapped in the traditional studio system," he observes.
The channel first launched in February, with two to three hours of programming on Fridays only. A press release announcing the change to a 24-hour schedule says the channel is locking down contracts with "advertising giants" like infomercial specialists Guthyrenker (think Anthony Robbins' Personal Power), and K-TEL.
