Katzman, Nicholson and Corman: Shaping Hollywood's Future
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on most orders of $75+
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Brand New
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Paperback Book Details
- 342 Pages, Paperback
- Publisher: BearManor Media
Authors:
| Author: | Mark Thomas McGee | |
| Subject: | Sam Katzman & Roger Corman |
Entertainment Reviews:
Description by OLDIES.com:
During the 1930s, Katzman worked for every two-bit outfit on Hollywood's Poverty Row, becoming a producer when the woman he loved told him she's come to Hollywood to marry a producer. In the late 1940s, he went to work for Columbia, cranking out serials and low-budget action pictures. Rock Around the Clock (1956) was Columbia's biggest money-maker that year, after which Sam turned his attention to making movies for teenagers. He created the East Side Kids and the Jungle Jim series, and co-produced It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955) and Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956). After making Twist Around the Clock (1961) and Don't Knock the Twist (1962) for Columbia, he moved to MGM to make a series of musicals that included two with Elvis Presley, Kissin' Cousins (1964) and Harum Scarum (1965).
James H. Nicholson borrowed $3,000 from a fellow exhibitor and founded the American Releasing Corporation, which later became American International Pictures (AIP), often called "The Jolly Green Giant" by movie insiders. As the company grew, he took on a lawyer as a partner, Samuel Z. Arkoff. Jim handled the creative end; Arkoff took care of the business end. The two men joked that Jim was the good cop and Arkoff was the bad cop. AIP movie milestones included I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), several horror films with Vincent Price that were based on Edgar Allen Poe stories, and Beach Party (1963), Muscle Beach Party (1964), Bikini Beach (1964), and Fireball 500 (1966) with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. AIP was also in the forefront of the 1960s protest pictures, such as Wild in the Streets (1968).
Roger Corman made dozens of juvenile delinquency dramas and sci-fi thrillers for American International and Allied Artists. Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) and its companion picture, Not of This Earth (1957) were big money-makers. Corman is probably best-known for the cult classic, The Little Shop of Horrors (1960). Every now and then, Corman worked on movies with bigger budgets, such as The St. Valentines Day Massacre (1967), but his modestly budgeted The Wild Angels (1966) earned more than $10 million in box office returns. He started his own successful company, New World Pictures which he sold for $16 million in the 1980s, after which he opened Concorde-New Horizons and began producing movies for the home video market. He was bestowed a special Academy Award Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.
Includes an Index, a selected Filmography, complete with behind-the-scenes information, and quotes from the critics and the exhibitors, and more than 150 photographs.