Transcript: Exploring Hicksploitation Films on Blu-ray

Greetings, Classic Cinema and TV fans. Jason here with you once again on Classic Cinema Plus. And today we're talking about a new release from the good folks at Film Masters. And they have joined forces with something weird, Cinema, to bring us a backwoods double feature. Da-da-da! Okay. This is a double feature of Southern cinema. And yeah, it's pretty awesome. Okay. So let's take a look at Southern cinema real quick. We've heard a lot of different exploitation films. There's black exploitation and different things where it's exploiting different types of people or races of people or female exploitation, different things like that. And this is what is considered hicksploitation. So filmmakers found that they could do films about the Southerners and do it in a exploitive type way, and it would make a lot of money for real cheap. And so they decided to do this, and there became a whole lot of them. And they were more or less stereotyping the southern people, if you will. Well, everybody marries their cousin or everybody marries some old codger, marries some young kid or whatever. You know, that was the thing that the Hicksploitation was. and so they would make movies about this and they were big business. They made a lot of money because people would go and watch them and that was kind of the thing. But that's not true, but that's what people felt back in the day, that that was true. And so they were interested in seeing it and so people would – and they were big business in the South too as far as that goes. So it became a big thing. And this is a double feature, backwoods double feature, of common law wife and genie wife child. Okay, so what we'll do is we'll share what these are. Um, so common law wife, um, follows a wealthy old dude, uh, named, uh, Shugfoot Rainey, uh, who is aiming to trade in his current girlfriend for a newer model who just happens to be his niece Okay That creepy but uh different time But anyway and his niece baby doll Unfortunately for Suge his older mistress Linda does her research and finds that she's probably legally his common law wife, and he won't be able to get rid of her that easily. It's really cool. So I like it, the fact that women, you can get rid of me like that, boy, you old codger. I like it. It's kind of cool. Then there's Jeannie Wife Child. Albert Peckinpah takes Jeannie to be his wife, But Jeannie is a whole lot younger and happens to have her eye on the young farmhand named Mario. Jeannie and Mario enjoy some good times together. But the old man Peckinpah is bound to find out what's happening and when he does, watch out. Okay, so these are, you know, as we said, southern, you know, exploitation films. These are not Citizen Kane. Okay, they're not. They're interesting films, and they're films from a different era. And being that they're from a different era, they can be offensive for the stereotypes and different things for a lot of people. People can find them stereotypical and very offensive. But I think they're important films to realize. And I'm of the feeling that if you don't learn from something, you're doomed to repeat it. That's been said before, but I really feel that way. And so if we're ever going to learn, if we're ever going to grow, if we're ever going to be different people and better people, we need to learn from mistakes, even if it's in cinema. And, you know, a lot of times these are mistakes from cinema in the fact that they are showing people in a bad light. That is probably not true for the most part. And I think that's what makes these films so interesting and so important, if you will. But like I said, these are not Citizen Kane. These are not the great American Western. They're not anything like Rebel Without a Cause or some of the great pieces of cinema in history. But they're entertaining. They're very entertaining. And so what we seen here is that the film masters have restored these films and they are spectacular Okay They really look amazing They been scanned in 4K from archival prints of 35 millimeter and the common wall wife has really been restored piecing together things. Now, there's a little bit of, you know, I hate to say damage, but it's not damage. It's a little bit of specks and some dirt and some stuff and maybe not be pristine. But to see these the way they look now, I mean, they're amazing when you think about it because these films are so old. I mean, it's like, I mean, you're talking, these films are like 60 years old. I mean, you're talking, and you have to understand that these films were not made to be seen throughout generations, okay? Old films like this that were just made to make money, they were just, there it is, throw them away. And that's what a lot of people thought films. And especially for TV, I mean, until Lucy and Desi changed that, you know, TV was just thrown aside, you know, and that's why we have lost so much television throughout the years, because that was what it was. It was just, you just throw it away after it was seen, and you just throw it away. And that's kind of what a lot of people felt with films, it's not going to be seen beyond this, off this run in theater. There is no such thing as home video. People really didn't think too much about home video back in the day because there was never going to be home video, was there? And so that's why a lot of these old films are just tossed aside. And we don't, you know, they, the prints are bad because they're, they were never of thought to be anything beyond what they were, just the theatrical run and that was it. So to see these looking as good as they do is a miracle in a lot of ways. And they do look amazing. I mean, they really do. So Film Masters and Something Weird Cinema have released these two on two discs, Blu-ray. Okay. Common Law Wife, you get the feature film on this disc, you get an archival commentary, you get a new commentary, and you get the 1963 restored Common Law Wife trailer, which is really nice to see that restored, because sometimes these old trailers are just, oh, they're horrible, scratched up and messed up. And this looks pretty nice, actually. The trailer looks pretty nice. Genie Wife Child bonus features. You get the full film on this disc You get a new commentary and you get a 2024 trailer for Jeannie Wife Child And then the thing that I really enjoyed was the That Hicksploitation documentary from Ballyhoo Pictures featuring C. Courtney Joyner. And wow, this thing is like a 50-minute documentary. And it takes us, see Courtney Joyner takes us on an amazing journey through the exploitation and goes through and tells us all about I mean it is amazing I really for me that was an amazing bonus feature that was so much information it's so cool I always love when film masters put together a and work with Ballyhoo Pictures to bring us some of those bonus features. To me, that is amazing. It's amazing to see these films restored and looking amazing, but then the bonus feature, that just takes it even to a whole different level. Then we get a booklet filled with all kinds of cool information about these double features, and I won't go into great detail on that, but you will definitely want to check that out. Just so much information all about genie wife, child, and common law wife and all. It is so, so cool. They put little clips and picture clips and stuff of the stuff in here, which is so awesome. To me, this is one amazing release. We have done a full written review of this double feature at Classic Cinema Plus. You can check that full written review out at Classic Cinema Plus. You can get a link below. But yeah, definitely. If you love weird cinema, something weird, if you will, definitely check out the Something Weird and Film Masters Blu-ray release of Common Law Wife and Genie Wife Child. It's really interesting. This also is available on DVD if you would prefer DVD. But it is pretty awesome. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on this Backwoods double feature? Let us know in the comments. We'd love to hear from you. Also, be sure to like, share, and subscribe. We would appreciate it. It helps out so much to know you appreciate what we do. And yeah, go to Classic Cinema Plus. Check out all of our reviews all the time. We got tons up there all the time. And until we're with you next time, bringing you another one of these videos. This is Jason reminding you that if you want to see a great film or a TV series, check out a classic, and we'll see you next time here on Classic Cinema Plus. Have a good one. Bye.