ABSTRACT
Eric Schaefer (1999) argues that exploitation fi lm emerged as a discernible category in the United States around 1919-20. Chronicling the public controversy over sex hygiene/anti-venereal disease fi lms in this period, he argues that these fi lms crystallized the possibility of an alternative fi lm space at a moment when the mainstream industry had consolidated its industrial base in Hollywood, established a fi rm mode of production, and developed a stylistic system anchored in narrative and stylistic transparency. In Latin America, however, fi lmmaking developed at a different pace and under different kinds of contextual pressures. An exploitation cinema akin to that outlined by Schaefer could not even begin to emerge as an alternative fi lmic practice grounded in spectacle until the late 1940s-1950s, when the Mexican cinema had become established as the cinema for the continent (López, 1994). However, what emerged earlier, especially in the effervescent experimental period after the arrival of sound, were multiple alternative cinematic practices that, attempting to fi nd the ‘magic’ formulas for box-offi ce success and audience satisfaction, laid the groundwork for both the mainstream ‘national’ cinema and future exploitation practices.
