Film Ventures International. Nightmare Fuel or Best Worst Movies Ever?

MST3K Central
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@mrw1980 I thought it added to the mystery and incomprehension of those experiments. My sense.

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Ah, so they were the ones who coined the phrase, “If you can’t dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bull :poop: .”

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@CLANG_Potroast Pretty much. They didn’t coin the phrase but they definitely lived it.

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FVI’s opening titles to Pod People (1983).

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Probably my #1 MST3K Host Segment. A recreation of FVI’s intro to Cave Dwellers (1984).

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I love how Joel is constantly adjusting his costume through this, underscoring the homemade vibe of the proceedings.

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In the Reels of Justice episode of The People vs. Grizzly (with defense provided by Frank Dietz AKA the babyface detective from Zombie Nightmare), at one point they feature Edward L. Montaro as a surprise witness. Though of course it’s in the style of the Rick Sloane interview conducted during the end credits of Hobgoblins.

ROJ-036: “The People vs. Grizzly” with Frank Dietz (buzzsprout.com)

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And you can hear the puppeteers shuffling around. Just makes it that much better. :smiley:

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29

Here’s some nightmare fuel - Lenny Henry’s live action Wallace & Gromit sketch. He’s going to be in the Amazon LOTR show!

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More Films Ventures International. Space Travelers (1969) opening credits.

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31

The FVI movies are among the first MST3K episodes I’ve ever seen, so some of them do hold a special place for me, particularly Pod People. The unrelated credit sequences kind of give them a strange, surreal quality.

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So it was with me and Pod People and Space Travelers on the Mystery Science Theater Hour.

And then there’s the Rhino VHS tape of Cave Dwellers.

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FVI is so instrumental to a number of essential MST episodes. Below are links to discussions of every Film Ventures riffed episode during the classic run of the show.

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Summary

213. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)

301. Cave Dwellers (1984)

303. Pod People (1983)

305. Stranded in Space (1973)

322. Master Ninja I (1984)

324. Master Ninja II (1984)

401. Space Travelers (1969)

403. City Limits (1985)

405. Being from Another Planet (1982)

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34

Agreed! It’s nonsensical and only adds to the Z-grade budget vibe. FVI gives me warm fuzzies similar to Golan/Globus. Granted, GG actually produced movies where FVI just repackaged other peoples’ stuff, but they feel like brethren.

My life is definitely richer for FVI’s terrible movies.

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35

The thing to understand is that FVI didn’t make films.

They bought the rights to show “clips” of movies, and then exploited a loophole in that there was no definition of how long those “clips” could be. So they could chop off the title and credits sequences, call the entire body of the movie one long “clip,” and then sandwich it between new sequences made from “clips” of other movies they’d bought under the same terms, and then release the whole thing as a new movie of compiled clips from different movies.

They were able to scoop up the “clip” rights for entire batches of movies on the cheap and then were happy to sell the screening rights to anyone who wanted them because 100% of their business was selling media secondhand. It was shady, but it worked. And it worked in our favor because they were happy to sell the license to MST3K. They didn’t care that the movies were going to be mocked because they didn’t make the movies.

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They 100% plagiarized that phrase. Very on-brand.

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37

edwood

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38

Yeah, they had a serious scam going.

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I knew the title credits film from Stranded in Space because I recognized Kay Lenz, but Pod and Cave were at first a mystery (until they weren’t)

Thanks for sharing Taur, sparroni, that’s one I’ve not watched unriffed, yet.

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40

If I may clear the air, the FVI that churned out those repackaged “films” was not the same as Montoro’s studio. It was initially a legitimate film company, albeit one that dished out knock-offs of the big blockbusters of the era (1970s through the early 1980s). After the debacle of “Great White” though, FVI went on a downward spiral financially and Montoro magically vanished but not before taking $1 million of company’s money with him. In 1985, they filled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and were soon acquired by a TV syndicator named Independent Network Inc., or INI for short. FVI didn’t start their odyssey of releasing glorified “clip” movies until 1989 and by that point, their name was clearly being exploited by their new owners.

This article goes into more detail about FVI’s downfall:

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