The New Poverty Row

Since cinema’s earliest beginnings, there has been friction between producers and directors. Shady accounting practices, which favored the distributors at the expense of the filmmakers, were all too common, causing many filmmakers to form independent companies to make and distribute their own product. This book examines six such low-budget exploitation companies—Associated Distributors Productions, Filmgroup, Hemisphere Pictures, American General Pictures, Independent-International Pictures, Dimension Pictures, and the author’s own American-Independent Productions. A brief history of each company, laced with quotes from the company’s principals, is presented, followed by a filmography that lists all known credits for that company.

Fred Olen Ray lives in Porter Ranch, California.

Fred Olen Ray

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 240
Bibliographic Info: 89 photos, filmographies, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2012 [1991]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6755-6
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1043-6
Imprint: McFarland

• “adds to the lore about exploitation films…with this labor of love”—Weekly Variety
• “a handy and highly readable account…thorough”—Fangoria
• “Ray’s research was deep and personal and a treasure trove of information and funny anecdotes fill this book. The overall tone of the book is what you might expect from Fred: Intelligent but very funny. He makes no mistake about the overall quality of the films these guys distributed and pokes fun at them constantly. It’s this jovial tone that makes what could be a dry and dull book into a pleasure to read. The New Poverty Row isn’t a sexy subject but Ray does his best to spice it up and because of it, it’s an enjoyable read for those interested in independent distribution or Ray himself”—Toxic Graveyard
• “entertaining…fast-paced and full of inside humor…a fun book”—Midnight Marquee
• “an important and fun reference…a must”—Fatal Visions
• “a good illustrated book…enlightening…a labor of love”—Psychortonic
• “informative…entertaining”—Brutarian