When George Lucas made Star Wars, his inspiration came from the 'B' series and serials of three decades earlier. The 'B' movie was the bottom half of the double-bill; the 'bread and butter' that kept the studios going. When it was killed off by television in the 50s the 'B' was replaced by the cheaply made drive-in movie. A generation of film-makers - Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich - learned their craft working for Roger Corman, the king of the so-called 'exploitation' movie.