FILM POSTERS: EXPLOITATION - IMPORTADO

Sex, drugs, delinquency, Black Power, rock ?n? roll: these are just a few of the themes that have inspired B-movie makers over the past 80 years. A few of the films have become cult classics, but not many of us would want to sit through two hours of Hot Rod Rumble. The posters created to promote these movies, on the other hand, are fantastic period pieces that evoke all the taboos of bygone eras. Before the Hayes Code of 1934, Hollywood had few inhibitions: the poster for Girl Without a Room, for example, left little doubt as to how the young woman would find accommodation. In the 50s, Beats and juvenile delinquents attracted teens to the drive-ins; in the 60s and 70s came Blaxploitation films like Shaft and the first of Russ Meyer?s mammary- obsessed epics, Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill. The posters for these films?from Albert Vargas? venture into the genre for Ladies They Talk About to Alan Aldridge?s photomontage for Andy Warhol?s Chelsea Girls?are masterpieces of visual innuendo, offering, in most cases, far more than the movies themselves actually delivered.