"Blood and Flesh: The Reel Life and Ghastly Death of Al Adamson" was a 2019 documentary detailing the career of Hollywood hustler and director Al Adamson, whose own bizarre demise is the focus for the last 25 out of a lengthy 100 minutes that pass quickly. The gloomy atmosphere that wraps things up with his killer's conviction almost diminishes everything preceding it, an absolutely delightful look at maverick exploitation filmmaking in the late 60s and early 70s, a time when drive-ins still needed product from Samuel Z. Arkoff at AIP, Roger Corman at New World, or Kane Lynn at Hemisphere, the latter the company that brought together would be producer Samuel M. Sherman and wannabe director Adamson. Tentative beginnings with "Half Way to Hell" and "Echo of Terror" (which evolved into "Blood of Ghastly Horror") soon allowed for more pictures to be filmed, such as "Blood of Dracula's Castle," "Five Bloody Graves," "Horror of the Blood Monsters," and "Hell's Bloody Devils," before "Satan's Sadists" opened the door to form Independent-International Pictures to roll them all out month after month while churning out "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" and "The Female Bunch" in 1969, the last film roles for an ailing Lon Chaney. Virtually all the veteran performers who appeared in one of his 30-plus titles receive a mention (John Carradine, Scott Brady, Kent Taylor, Jim Davis), with on screen reminiscences from Russ Tamblyn, Robert Dix, Kent Osborne, John 'Bud' Cardos, Gary Graver, Gary Kent, and numerous others. The shooting of "The Female Bunch" parallels the real life horrors perpetrated by the Charles Manson family, living out at the Spahn Ranch where Westerns were still being made, Charlie using his girls to entice men out into the desert. Adamson's stated goal was not for profit but to make each film as good as possible on whatever limited budget he had, and while the commentators agreed that he wasn't much good at anything he tried he was always an affable dealmaker who would hire anyone looking to work without pay (some even laughed about being paid and wondering where he got the cash, all collected on a spare time paper route!). Exploitation changed with the times and several movies were retitled again and again with a new ad campaign for another go round to infuriate theater audiences, from the late 60s biker trend to blaxploitation ("Mean Mother"), steamy airline encounters ("The Naughty Stewardesses"), an action vehicle for porn star Georgina Spelvin ("Girls for Rent"), kung fu ("Black Samurai"), James Bond rip offs ("Death Dimension"), an X-rated musical ("Cinderella 2000"), beach party hikinks ("Sunset Cove"), Exorcist possession ("Nurse Sherri"), and one final stab at a mishmash with someone else's footage ("Doctor Dracula"). The fun and games come to an end once the corpse of this unassuming filmmaker is found buried beneath a concrete tomb in the summer of 1995, a real life storyline played out to actual coverage and new interviews with investigators. For all the criticism about how bad his movies were, Al Adamson managed to finish them all for a ticket buying audience, a lesson taught to him by his father Denver Dixon, in order to maintain complete control: "if you don't have a way to distribute your films you're in trouble!"
