ABSTRACT
In many ways the production and release of Rock around the Clock reflects the process that the film’s narrative dramatises: a producer, with a keen eye on following trends in film and other cultural industries, puts together a carefully packaged and managed film to cash in on a youth subcultural activity that was becoming increasingly visible at the time. This chapter provides a summary of the factors that contributed to this new environment for low-budget filmmaking that became intricately linked to what became known as exploitation film practices, before turning its attention to Sam Katzman. It focuses on the ways in which Katzman ‘exploited’ the song ‘Rock around the Clock’ as the origin for the film and as the cornerstone for the distribution approach he developed together with Columbia executives. Exploitation and showmanship quickly found their way into the arsenal of cheap publicity methods for the producers and distributors of B films in the 1940s.
