Herschell Gordon Lewis

Herschell Gordon Lewis (born 15 June 1929, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is an American filmmaker, best known for creating the "splatter film" subgenre of horror. He is often called the "Godfather of Gore", though his film career included works in a range of exploitation film genres including juvenile delinquent films, rural-themed comedies, nudie-cuties and even two children's films.

Early career

Lewis served as producer only on his first film venture, "The Prime Time" (1960), which was the first feature film produced in Chicago since the late 1910s. He would assume directing duties on nearly all of his films from then on. His first in a lengthy series of collaborations with legendary exploitation producer David F. Friedman, "Living Venus" (1961), was a fictitious account based on the story of Hugh Hefner and the beginnings of "Playboy".

The two continued with a series of erotic films in the early 1960s. These films marked the beginning of a deliberate approach to filmmaking which each respective party would continue through their production careers; films made solely with the intention of turning a profit. Typical of these nudies were the screwball comedies "B-O-I-N-G!" (1963) and "The Adventures of Lucky Pierre" (1961), a film made for a shoestring budget of $7,500 which would become the duo's first great financial success. Because film restrictions had not yet allowed for sexual depictions in films, the bulk of Lewis and Friedman's early work consisted of nudist camp features like "Goldilocks and The Three Bares" (1963), which appropriately billed itself as "the first (and to date the only) nudist musical".

With the nudie market beginning to wane, Lewis and Friedman entered into uncharted territory with 1963's seminal "Blood Feast", considered by most critics to be the first "gore" film. Because of the unprecedented nature of this type of film, they were able to cater to the drive-in theater market which would have been inaccessible with their prior skin flicks. "Two Thousand Maniacs!" (1964) and "Color Me Blood Red" (1965) followed the same formula. The full-color gore on display in these films caused a sensation, with horror film-makers throughout the world becoming eager to saturate their productions with similarly shocking visual effects.

Lewis stopped working with Friedman after making "Color Me Blood Red" (1965), but continued to make further gore films into the 1970s. His next gore entry wouldn't come until 1967, with "A Taste of Blood", often referred to as the "Gone with the Wind" of Gore" due to its relatively lengthy running time of nearly two hours. The following year would bring a more extreme take on the genre, "The Gruesome Twosome" (1967), most notable for incorporating an electric knife used to scalp one of the victims. Lewis's third gore phase served to push the genre into even more outrageous shock territory. "Wizard of Gore" (1970) featured a stage magician who would mutilate his volunteers severely through a series of merciless routines. By 1973, Lewis had taken the gore approach to such a limit that it began to lampoon itself, which is why "The Gore Gore Girls" (featuring an appearance by Henny Youngman as the owner of a topless club) would mark his semi-retirement from film altogether. He decided to leave the industry to work in copywriting and direct marketing, a subject on which he published several books in the 1980s. He returned to directing in 2002 with the straight-to-video "".

Always resourceful despite the low budgets he worked with, Lewis purchased the rights to an unfinished film and completed it himself, re-titling the film "Monster A Go-Go" (1965). Many years later, the film gained notoriety after being shown on the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" television show. Lewis would repeat this formula when he acquired a gritty psychological piece called "The Vortex" and released it as "Stick It In Your Ear" (1970) to be shown as a second feature to "Wizard of Gore". This approach demonstrated Lewis's business savvy; by owning the rights to both features, he knew he would not get fleeced by theaters juggling the box office returns, a common practice at that time.

Outside his notorious gore canon, Lewis pursued a wide gamut of other exploitation avenues throughout the sixties. Some of the more taboo subjects he explored include juvenile delinquency ("Just For The Hell Of It", 1968), wife swapping ("Suburban Roulette", 1968), the corruption of the music industry ("Blast-Off Girls", 1967), and birth control ("The Girl, The Body and The Pill", 1967). He was also not above tapping the children's market, as with "Jimmy the Boy Wonder" (1966) and "The Magic Land of Mother Goose" (1967), which were padded out to feature film length by incorporating long foreign-made cartoons.

Towards the end of the sixties, Lewis would return to the world of sexploitation, with regulations now being considerably more lax. Those films quickly vanished into obscurity: Lewis' 1972 film "Black Love", apparently an erotic film with an all African American cast, has completely disappeared. Also reportedly gone forever are a pair of nudies, "Ecstasies of Women" (1969) and "Linda and Abilene" (1969), a lesbian western which remains notorious for having been shot on the Spahn Ranch only months before it became inhabited by the Manson Family. "Year Of The Yahoo!" (1972) was also believed lost, though a largely complete print is now available on DVD as a double feature with the semi-gory ode to moonshine, "This Stuff'll Kill Ya!" (1971).

Recent activities

In 2006, Lewis was inducted into the Polly Staffle Hall of Fame. Lewis has a pair of film projects in development with Florida-based feature film production company Film Ranch International. He also made a cameo appearance in the Shock O Rama film "Chainsaw Sally", and starred in issue one of "American Carnevil", a graphic novel created by Johnny Martin Walters.

In the 2007 film, "Juno", Jason Bateman's character's claims that Herschell Gordon Lewis is the master of horror.

elected Filmography

*"The Prime Time" (1960)
*"Adventures of Lucky Pierre" (1961)
*"Living Venus" (1961)
*"B-O-I-N-G!" (1963)
*"Blood Feast" (1963)
*"Goldilocks and the Three Bares" (1963)
*"Scum of the Earth" (1963)
*"Two Thousand Maniacs!" (1964)
*"Moonshine Mountain" (1964)
*"Monster A Go-Go" (1965)
*"Color Me Blood Red" (1965)
*"Jimmy, the Boy Wonder" (1966)
*"A Taste of Blood" (1967)
*"The Gruesome Twosome" (1967)
*"Something Weird" (1967)
*"The Girl, the Body, and the Pill" (1967)
*"Blast-Off Girls" (1967)
*"She-Devils on Wheels" (1968)
*"Just for the Hell of It" (1968)
*"How to Make a Doll" (1968)
*"Linda and Abilene" (1969)
*"The Wizard of Gore" (1970)
*"This Stuff'll Kill Ya!" (1971)
*"Year of the Yahoo!" (1972)
*"The Gore Gore Girls" (1972)
*"" (2002)

External links

* [http://www.herschellgordonlewis.com/ Herschell Gordon Lewis Official website]
*
* [http://www.eofftv.com/names/l/lew/lewis_herschell_gordon_main.htm Filmography and biography]
* [http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue09/reviews/hglewis/ The Cinema of Herschell Gordon Lewis]
* [http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/34/lewis.html Interview with Herschell Gordon Lewis on BrightLightsFilm.com]
* [http://www.horrorgarage.com/horror/interview-hg-lewis.php Horror Garage Interview with H.G. Lewis on horrorgarage.com]
* [http://www.greencine.com/central/node/339?page=0%2C0 An interview with Herschell Gordon Lewis on Greencine.com]
* [http://www.searchmytrash.com/articles/herschellgordonlewis(9-08).shtml Biography on (re)Search my Trash]

Bibliography

* Curry, Christopher. "A Taste Of Blood: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis". London: Creation Books, 1999. ISBN 1-8715-9291-7.
* Palmer, Randy. "Herschell Gordon Lewis, Godfather of Gore: The Films". Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, 2000. ISBN 0-7864-0808-1.