Fifty Worst Films of All Time (ISBN 0446381195)

Before you order this, please...:
...read this online review. This book might have been good if it had been written when MST3K was on the air. Unfortunately, this was published 10 years before the series pilot. Keep reading! This book is just SO Subjective. It's partly due to their ground rules. The ground rules eliminate Mexican productions (the 1959 film "Santa Claus") as well as porno flicks (Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure \o1964\c), movies made for television ("A Charlie Brown Christmas"--anybody who thought that had charm obviously had not taken the time to sit down and watch it), films about the Army ("The Green Berets"), and training films ("Faces of Death"). OVERRATED ART FILMS. I have never condemned the inclusion of heralded classics in a book like this if the author makes a convincing argument. He does not. OLDIES BUT BADDIES. I agree wholeheartedly that bad movies have actually been around almost as long as motion pictures themselves. That's what makes the selections here all the more tragic. They include the 1937 biopic "Parnell" (considered the worst biography ever made at the time of the book's publification); however, the ground rules do not state it, but they also apparently exclude Depression-era cautionary films such as "Reefer Madness" and "The Struggle." These are crucial because the actors are laughable in their failure to convince. It is also crucial because these films commit others to the sight of death or ruined lifes with no care. GRADE "Z" ATROCITIES. The only ones of those are "Robot Monster," "Eeegah," and the Roger Corman-New World-produced "Swamp Women." If those can be the only ones eligible for inclusion, I am lost for words. The book could also benefit from Ed Wood's and Coleman Francis's creations as well as "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" and "'Manos' the Hands of Fate." This book has inspired me to write a less subjective sequel; however, I will still exclude silent films, Chinese and Polish productions (Have the Chinese ever made a bad movie? No really, have they? There's "Surf Ninjas," but that's ABOUT the East), and travelogues (how can these be bad?). As for this, 4 words: Avoid...at...all...costs.

Film fans, seek it out:
THE 50 WORST FILMS OF ALL TIME will give movie buffs a good laugh. It was worth reading just for the review of "Trouble Man." Seek it out and keep it on your coffee table.

Still An Invaluable Filmgoer's Companion:
This classic satirical effort chronicles the "fifty worst" films ever made as the end of the 1970s. When this was written, bad films were defined by their short cinematic run and scathing theater reviews. Twenty years later, the advent of video has given us an altogether more awful prospect: the simply unwatchable "straight to video" flick which isn't even watched by critics before being foisted on the unsuspecting home-viewer. SOME of the Fifty Worst Ever are "so bad they're good," veritable classics worthy of repeat viewing, e.g. "The Omen" (1976), "Robot Monster" (1948), "Valley of the Dolls" (1967) and "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster" (1973). Others are plain, unwatchably, bad, such as "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" (1971); yet others, such as "Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975) are admittedly in bad taste but not actually bad films. Some of these line-ball calls are due to the fact that there was originally a core of about 20 really "good" bad films in the first draft - then the publisher insisted on 50.

Informative:
Unlike most "best of" or "worst of" books, this one takes the time to really delve into what happened to the film, why it was made, and so forth. For instance, "Eegah!" was a cult-hit in California -- and the cast would barnstorm with it to packed houses (Richard Kiel even wearing his caveman toga!)

Delight from beginning to end:
Rarely has a book given me the continuous laughter that this one provided! The wry wit and "courage" to take "classics" and show their glaring deficiencies was a constant delight. My only regret is that there was no later edition.