ART S The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 19, 2001-11 ~Exp mas By Lyle Henretty Daily Arts Editor This past S Arkoff passed Arkoff was onei film producers i yet one not resp peers. Arkoff, w upwards of 500 itable) films, may grandfather of th With such tit "The Thing wit "The Ghost in t there is little qu his film-makin Arkoff's filmsc and distribute intended simplyf Arkoff bega Releasing Corpo James H. Nichol er for the Reala pany. Two years was renamed Am Pictures (AlP). T and '60's, AIPr front of expoloi production, nea back the little th profit. Nicholso Arkoff kept th strong with doze throughout the' Arkoff cared1 merit and less ab and so-called co say. He was inte ing people and t of his many ma money spent ona screen, not ont egotistical whim As one of the( film producer turned out sev Nearly all of the ous genre pics some urge or an teenagers. Zom flicks, girl-in-c some of the mo ploitation filmse breaking work lI never have mad symbol and "Bl have seen the lig been for Arkoff a Arkoff also ga doses of horror IN MEMORIAM: loitation film ter dies at 82 in all of his manic glory. By way of Arkoff protege Roger Corman, who directed and produced several unday, Samuel Z. exploitation films himself, Price away at age 83. appeared in some of the most of the most prolific famous films in his prolific career. in American history, Beginning with "The Fall of the ected by many of his House of Usher" in 1960 and contin- vho had his hand in uing through "The Abominable Dr. (most wildly prof- Phibes" in 1971. Many of these y just have been the films were loosly based on stories e exploitation film. by the eerily disturbing Edgar Allen les to his credit as Poe, and starred such (washed up) th Two Heads" and screen legends as Peter Lorre, Bela he Invisible Bikini," Lugosi, and Boris Karloff. uestion as to where Despite his rather laxed approach ng motivation lay. to blockbuster filmmaking, a hand- were cheaply made ful of Arkoff's films achieved a d, and they were higher evolution than "schlock for teenagers. film," to the status level of "cult an the American classic." He produced both Brian ration in 1954 with DePalma's essential "Dressed to son, a sales manag- Kill," as well as contemporary hor- rt Production Com- ror masterpiece, "The Amityville later the company Horror." He gave the world its first nerican International look at "A Nightmare on Elm Throughout the '50's Street" director Wes Craven when he moved to the fore- purchased "The Last House on the tation or "B" movie Left." irly always making As an executive producer, ey spent with a tidy Arkoff's final film was 1985's n died in 1971, but "Hellhole." He stayed busy the last he studio running 16 years of his life appearing in var- :ns of horror movies ious documentary films discussing 70's. his part in the history of American little about artistic film, as well as commenting on the bout what his critics lives and work of others. He ntemporaries had to remained happily married to his crested in entertain- wife of 55 years until her death this he bottom line. One past July. The couple had two chil- antras was that all dren. Their daughter Donna is mar- a film should be on- ried to producer/director Joe Roth. big names or their It is an amazing feat that Arkoff s. lasted over thirty years in the film original "Maverick" business without ever becoming s, Arkoff and AIP obsolete or loosing the pulse of his eral films a year. core audience: teenagers. People ese films were vari- went to the movies, Arkoff often intended to satisfy said, in order to be titilated. He never nother in American lost track of the entertainment value bie movies, biker- of violence, gore, sex, mayham, and, cage classics, and of course, "Dr. Goldfoot and the st memorable blax- Bikini machine." Arkoff was not an ever made. Ground- auture. He was not even a good film- ike "Coffy" would maker. But his honest desire to make e Pam Grier a sex money by giving people what they acula" would never wanted is nearly honorable, especial- ht of day had it not ly in a world where Hollywood and nd AIR. billions of dollars cannot accomplish C ave the world large so seemingly easy a task.- THE GRANDFATHER OF SCHLOCK Several big names made Arkoff films Courtesy otiThe Motion Picture ano Televistion Archive Vincent Price and Peter Lorre both saw carreer rebirths due to Arkoff. By Lyle Henretty Daily Arts Editor With the recent death of Samuel Z. Arkoff, it proves astounding to cull through his other-worldly backlog of films to see how many truly great actors and directors got their start (or spent their retirement slumming) in an Arkoff picture. His American Interna- tional Pictures (AIP) was purly bent on entertaining the public for profit. Yet, while Arkoff was not out to win any awards, some of his film alumni have won more than a few. Not surprisingly, the most prolific filmmaker to come away from Arkoff's studio was Roger Corman, himself an exploitation master that has directed some of cinemas most infa- mous films, including his Edgar Allen Poe series, with such titles as "The Raven" and "The Pit and the Pendu- lum" In 1970, Shelly Winters may have realized her career was ending when she made "Bloody Mama" for Cor- man, and Pat "Commissioner Gordan" Hingle's role was pretty much par for his course, but the real surprise came from the completely unimportant role of "Lloyd Barker." Three years before making a name for himself mouthing off in Martin Scorsese's "Meanstreets," Robert DeNiro as one of the gang members led by Ma Bark- er. The Oscar winner has played many criminals since, notably for his por- trayal of a young Vito Corleone in "The Godfather II." Another Academy Award winner to claw his way up from Arkoff/Corman films into superstardom was Jack Nicholson. Cutting his teeth (literally and figuratively) as a masochistic den- tal patient in "Little Shop of Horrors," he moved on to star with such lumi- naries as Peter Lorre and Vincent Price in "The Raven" and "The Ter- ror." Jack often played the handsome young leads, and his hambone perfor- mances made his outlandish co-stars seem justified in their showy actions. Horror icon and the father of both "Scream" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street," Wes Craven made his first film for a small group of movie theater owners on the east coast. The result would have remained in their hands forever had Arkoff not bought and dis- tributed the film. "Last House on the Left" can still be rented today in almost any video store, and remains one of Craven's starkest films. He also found time to produce unknown Fran- cis Ford Coppala's "Dementia 13," which pre-dated "The Godfather" by nine years. Occasionally venturing outside the realm of no-budget cinema, Arkoff executive produced Brian De Palma's 1980 thriller "Dressed to Kill," star- ring Michael Caine and Angie Dickin- son. While many newcomers find their way into Corman films, veteran horror stars found themselves grateful to him as well. Some thirty years after Uni- versal's horror boom of the 1930s, genre actors like Bela Lugosi ("Drac- ula") and Boris Karloff ("Franken- stein") had trouble finding work. They joined contemporaries Price and Lorre and saw small career resurgences. For a producer who made what many consider films devoid of art, he had tremendous luck with the artistic people he choose to populate his film sets. :-.-.- , SELET AL ORP :t~i~2 tiSAM U2~ i Nmen~i 3(1963 i i !.!!;E? st ii ,",.:~," 5y, lo Courtesy of (toptwo) American International Pictures and (bottom two) MGM Clockwise from top left: "Blacula" mixed the trendy blaxplotation film with the old- fashioned horror. "The Amityville Horror" is still considered one of the scariest films of all time. Both "Dressed to Kill" and "The Last House on the left" are rentable today. :: w::s !;:atss 9? !R s ; a,:k Tb~~ Iin~d ino(13 diety Vincent Price t .:: 1i1 a "] 1: a A& V mk-.l Goff Smith Lecture Thursday, September 20, 2001 4 p.m. Dorothy L. And Harry E. Chesebrough Auditorium Chrysler Center North Campus MichiganEngineering