Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

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Independent Film SAMUEL Z. ARKOFF b. Fort Dodge, Iowa, 12 June 1918, d. 16 September 2001 In 1979, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a retrospective tribute to the producer Samuel Z. Arkoff and his company American International Pictures (AIP). At the time, Arkoff seemed an unlikely choice for such an honor. For well over twenty years in the film business he had clung to a single guiding principle: ‘‘Thou shalt not put too much money into any one picture.’’ The sorts of films he produced at AIP were as far from the high art world of the museum as one could imagine. A quick look at Arkoff ’s oeuvre at AIP between 1954 and 1979 presents daunting evidence of his success as a purveyor of a particular sort of teen-oriented exploitation cinema. He made over 500 films, including The Fast and the Furious (1954), The Day the World Ended (Roger Corman, 1956), Hot Rod Girl (1956), Shake, Rattle and Rock (1956), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), The Cool and the Crazy (1958), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Raven (1963), Beach Party 1963), Dementia 13 (1963), Summer Holiday (1963), The T.A.M.I. Show 1965), The Wild Angels (1966), What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), The Trip (1967), Wild in the Streets (1968), Three in the Attic (1968), Bloody Mama (1970), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Boxcar Bertha (1972), Blacula (1972), Dillinger (1973), The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), and following the sale of AIP to Filmways, Love at First Bite (1979), The Amityville Horror (1979), and Dressed to Kill (1980). With his long-time partner James Nicholson, Arkoff, a lawyer by training but a huckster by instinct, clung to a simple template, the so-called ‘‘A.R.K.O.F.F. formula’’: Action (excitement and drama), Revolution (controversial or revolutionary ideas), Killing (or at least a degree of violence), Oratory (memorable speeches and dialogue), Fantasy (popular dreams and wishes acted out), and film set in India titled Storm Over Bengal (1938), after Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) were successful for the major studios. Grand National produced a series of films featuring ‘‘The Shadow,’’ a character on a popular radio suspense show. A tendency to reflect (writ small) the work being produced at the major studios dominated independent B- Fornication (sex appeal, to both men and women). Though best known today for the Beach Party films (1963–1965) and his adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories (all directed by Roger Corman between 1960– 1965), Arkoff should be remembered more for the opportunities he provided over the years to talented writers, directors and actors struggling to make it in Hollywood, including Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Yates, Woody Allen, Robert Towne, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Jack Nicholson. AIP films inevitably bore the Arkoff stamp, no matter who wrote, directed, or starred in the feature. Though he never directed a film, Samuel Z. Arkoff was one of the most prolific and influential independent filmmakers of the twentieth century. RECOMMENDED VIEWING The Fast and the Furious (1954), The Day the World Ended (1956), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Raven (1963), Beach Party (1963), The Wild Angels (1966), The Trip (1967), Wild in the Streets (1968), Three in the Attic (1968) FURTHER READING Arkoff, Samuel Z. with Richard Trubo. Flying through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants: From the Man Who Brought You I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Music Beach Party. Secaucus, NJ: Carol, 1992. Clark, Randall. At a Theater or Drive-In Near You: The History, Culture and Politics of the American Exploitation Film. New York: Garland, 1995. McCarthy, Todd, and Charles Flynn, eds. Kings of the Bs: Working Within the Hollywood System: An Anthology of Film History and Criticism. New York: Dutton, 1975. Schaefer, Eric. "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1959. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Jon Lewis movie production at the time, suggesting a dependence on (rather than independence from) the studios for raw material. This commitment to simple genre entertainment mirrored the less ambitious aspects of studio filmmaking. Thus the notion that B-movie studios provided an alternative to studio fare seems, at least in the studio era, inaccurate. 4 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM
Samuel Z. Arkoff. EVERETT COLLECTION. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION. While the B-movie studios made films to fill out programs headlined by studio A pictures in exchange for a quick, modest payoff, exploitation filmmakers like Kroger Babb (1906–1980), a savvy carnival huckster, made films that openly defied the strictures of the MPPDA production code. Kroger is best known today for his sex-hygiene film Mom and Dad (1945), which dealt with material (venereal disease and teen pregnancy) that mainstream films could not, and did so with frankness and explicitness. Because of its prurient content, Mom and Dad could not be shown as part of a larger, legitimate film program. Instead Babb traveled with his film, renting out theaters for a weekend (an arrangement called ‘‘four-walling’’), and staging his own film shows. Babb advertised his shows with lurid posters (which would have been forbidden by the mainstream industry’s Production Code) promising just what the studios could not deliver: ‘‘Everything shown. Everything explained.’’ Independent Film To give the show a semblance of respectability, for many of the screenings of Mom and Dad Babb hired an actor to play the part of the noted sexologist Dr. Elliot Forbes, who, after the screening, answered questions from the crowd. Like any good huckster, Babb made a lot of money by never overestimating the intelligence and taste of his audience. Throughout its existence, exploitation cinema depended upon an apparent defiance of commercial Hollywood, a defiance signaled by its promise of material prohibited in more mainstream fare. One popular exploitation genre in the 1950s was the nudist colony film. Films such as Garden of Eden (1955), Naked As Nature Intended (1961), and World without Shame (1962) showed ample on-screen nudity, which was forbidden by the Production Code. Claiming documentary status of a sort, nudist colony films successfully challenged previous limitations on First Amendment protection for cinema. In the precedent-setting 1957 case Excelsior Pictures v. New York Board of Regents attending a New York ban on screenings of Garden of Eden, a state appeals court found that nudity per se on screen was not obscene. Such a ruling freed exploitation cinema to go even further. In 1959, the independent filmmaker Russ Meyer (1922–2004) produced The Immoral Mr. Teas, a film about a man who gets conked on the head and acquires a gift of sorts, the ability to see through women’s clothing. Meyer’s film—made very much with the Excelsior decision in mind—spawned a brief new wave of independent exploitation pictures. These more visually explicit films included a variety of colorfully termed new genres: nudie cuties (suggestive, often light comedies with nudity but no touching, such as Mr. Peter’s Pets [1962], Tonight for Sure [1962], and Adam Lost His Apple [1965]); roughies (depicting anti-social behavior as well as nudity, as in The Defilers [1965] and The Degenerates 1967); kinkies (with revealing titles such as Olga’s House of Shame [1964], The Twisted Sex [1966], and Love Camp 7 [1969]); and ghoulies (merging kink with gruesome humor, as in Satan’s Bed [1965] and Mantis in Lace [1968]). The common element among all these independent exploiters was on-screen nudity. Striking a less salacious note, another group of independent filmmakers in the 1950s and 1960s took aim at the burgeoning youth culture and found a ready and willing audience. Chief among the purveyors of this slightly tamer exploitation cinema were Samuel Z. Arkoff (1918–2001) and Roger Corman (b. 1926), who together and then separately released films under the American International Pictures (AIP) and New World banners. Notable among Arkoff ’s oeuvre as a producer and distributor of low budget exploiters are two film SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM 5
Page 1 and 2: Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
Page 3 and 4: INDEPENDENT FILM ‘‘Independence
Page 5: of raw film stock. By the end of 19
Page 9 and 10: terrible acting, and low-end produc
Page 11 and 12: Independent films the following yea
Page 13 and 14: y boldly acquiring Miramax, and in
Page 15 and 16: The fact that India annually produc
Page 17 and 18: RAJ KAPOOR b. Ranbirraj Kapoor, Pes
Page 19 and 20: and Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen (
Page 21 and 22: Satyajit Ray. EVERETT COLLECTION. R
Page 23 and 24: Pinaki Sen Gupta (right) as young A
Page 25 and 26: Although the origins of the Interne
Page 27 and 28: important and exceptional case in f
Page 29 and 30: Apple’s library, the January 2006
Page 31 and 32: Iran Abbas Kiarostami is perhaps th
Page 33 and 34: Iran fact and fiction, using both n
Page 35 and 36: Ireland images of the Irish have ma
Page 37 and 38: Ireland (b. 1949), Pat Murphy, Cath
Page 39 and 40: Israel origin and class, whereby th
Page 41 and 42: Israel are of parking lots, empty s
Page 43 and 44: Italy dockworker and taciturn prota
Page 45 and 46: Italy Italian films through a few g
Page 47 and 48: Italy Federico Fellini on a crane s
Page 49 and 50: Italy SOPHIA LOREN b. Sofia Scicolo
Page 51 and 52: Italy The self-reflexive world of i
Page 53 and 54: Italy LINA WERTMÜLLER b. Arcangela
Page 55 and 56: Italy Sophia Loren and Marcello Mas
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Italy Giancarlo Giannini and Shirle
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Italy Palmerini, Luca M., and Gaeta
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Japan the content of film, but actu
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Japan YASUJIRO OZU b. Tokyo, Japan,
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Japan Yasujiro Ozu examined the dyn
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Japan Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (
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Japan Akira Kurosawa on the set of
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Japan TOSHIRÔ MIFUNE b. Qingdao, C
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Japan Burch, Noël. To the Distant
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Journals and Magazines fanzines fro
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Journals and Magazines PAULINE KAEL
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Journals and Magazines group of Hol
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Korea screenings. Though these exhi
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Korea IM KWON-TAEK b. Chang-sŏng,
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LATINOS AND CINEMA Latinos/Hispanic
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Latin-American cultures and themes
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Luis Valdez. Ó UNIVERSAL PICTURES/
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Fregoso, Rosa Linda. The Bronze Scr
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Lighting Suggestive lighting in Alf
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Lighting Expressionist lighting in
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Lighting who used the technique in
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Lighting John Alton on the set of T
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MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA While the f
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Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol’s work
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earlier films may have lacked appea
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There are three kinds of makeup art
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Tuttle succeeded him and ran the de
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JACK P. PIERCE b. Janus Piccoulas,
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(1889-1968), who in the 1930s devis
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Martial Arts Films of dozens of fil
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Martial Arts Films Bruce Lee in Ent
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Martial Arts Films an American mast
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Marxism read as one long plea for s
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Marxism most influential style of t
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Marxism Pier Paolo Pasolini. Ó HUL
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Marxism West (Anthony Mann, 1958).
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Few artistic movements have provoke
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DOUGLAS SIRK b. Detlef Sierck, Hamb
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investigated the uses of the term m
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Vincente Minnelli. EVERETT COLLECTI
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While there has been merchandise as
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long-term relationship agreements b
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George Lucas. EVERETT COLLECTION. R
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Mexico Mexican film industry. In 19
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Mexico Arturo Ripstein. Ó IMCINE/C
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MGM (METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER) Created v
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Louis B. Mayer. EVERETT COLLECTION.
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Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina (Clare
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Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on
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allowed them to continue operations
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Mise-en-scène but in the editing r
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Mise-en-scène Characters are only
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‘‘Film music’’ as a term ha
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BERNARD HERRMANN b. New York, New Y
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important work has begun. Martin Ma
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and sound effects, could now be use
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With well over a hundred major feat
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Howard Shore conducting the music f
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SERGEI PROKOFIEV b. Sontsovka, Ukra
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Sergei Prokofiev worked closely wit
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As a distinct genre, the film music
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proven the most durable type of fil
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Ginger Rogers masks (‘‘If he co
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BUSBY BERKELEY b. William Berkeley
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GENE KELLY b. Eugene Curran Kelly,
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Perhaps no term is more central to
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Ancient Babylon as depicted in one
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D. W. GRIFFITH b. David Wark Griffi
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NARRATIVE THEORY Under the influenc
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film is still the cinematic practic
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National Cinema insisted that the n
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National Cinema Gurinder Chada’s
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NATIVE AMERICANS AND CINEMA The rep
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In the 1990s Dances with Wolves (19
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Nature filmmaking has a long and mo
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ARNE SUCKSDORFF b. Stockholm, Swede
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which premiered on NBC in 1963 and
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follow-up to the Blue Planet series
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Neorealism Italian neorealist cinem
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Neorealism Cesare Zavattini. DAVID
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Neorealism between 1945 and 1953 in
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About one thousand feature-length f
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poetic, or contemplative compositio
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The period from the mid-1950s to th
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conventional directors who had serv
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Jean-Luc Godard. EVERETT COLLECTION
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THE RENEWAL OF FILM FORM However, t
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Alain Resnais. EVERETT COLLECTION.
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one kind of empire and the developm
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New Zealand 1930. Welsh’s system
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New Zealand Point Day 507 (1980) an
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Paramount JOSEF VON STERNBERG b. Jo
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Paramount Marlene Dietrich and Gary
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Paramount Harpo, Chico, Groucho, an
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Paramount Gary Cooper, 1934. EVERET
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Paramount DeMille, Cecil B. Autobio
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Parody Young Frankenstein (Mel Broo
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Parody MEL BROOKS b. Melvin Kaminsk
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Parody parodies take great care in
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Philippines wider appeal. Independe
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As a result of successive partition
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Zbigniew Cybulski (left) in Andrzej
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Andrzej Wajda remains first among e
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2002) have proved to be the most co
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Populism of an orientalist ‘‘Sh
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Pornography is a genre that involve
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sexually explicit films with pornog
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American director, producer, writer
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so that representations of rape and
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It is now a truism to say that the
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GUY MADDIN b. Winnipeg, Manitoba, C
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Rather than functioning as a cause-
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The cinema’s prehistory is freque
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THE INFLUENCE OF LOUIS DAGUERRE One
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The American Grandfather, a 19th-ce
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Zoopraxography: animal locomotion s
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Eadweard Muybridge. Ó HULTON-DEUTS
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Prizes and Awards if a film is nomi
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Prizes and Awards show business) aw
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Producer genres. Finally, the produ
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Producer IRVING THALBERG b. Brookly
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Producer beautiful friendship’’
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Producer Jerry Bruckheimer may be t
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Producer Schatz, Thomas. The Genius
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Production Design WILLIAM CAMERON M
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Production Design The sleek futuris
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Production Design FERDINANDO SCARFI
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Production Design some visual exces
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Production Process Staged films dem
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Production Process The problems of
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Production Process Jerry Lewis dire
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Production Process Fitzcarraldo (19
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Production Process The production p
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Propaganda This ‘‘rescue’’
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Propaganda LENI RIEFENSTAHL b. Hele
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Propaganda Triumph des willens ( Tr
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Propaganda is juxtaposed with a mil
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Propaganda Taylor, Philip M. Muniti
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Psychoanalysis Ingrid Bergman as ps
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Psychoanalysis the spectator is pre
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PUBLICITY AND PROMOTION Hollywood c
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ad campaign was distilled into a pr
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WILLIAM CASTLE b. William Schloss,
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streetcar accident, then denying th
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Originating in the early 1990s, que
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difference directly informs queer t
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RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER b. Bad Wor
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RACE AND ETHNICITY Race and ethnici
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that even when films do not appear
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JAMES YOUNG DEER PRINCESS RED WING
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Other—provide a point of identifi
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final runs of films that had played
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Hollywood’s involvement with radi
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Orson Welles directs the historic W
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Woody Allen’s Radio Days (1987) o
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Realism has become one of the most
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the same. In 1995, the Danish filmm
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JEAN RENOIR b. Paris, France, 15 Se
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Arnheim, writing in the early 1930s
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photographic image is an illusion.
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RECEPTION THEORY Reception theory p
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uncovering how actual spectators in
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Traditionally, ‘‘religion’’
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decades. The demise of this earlier
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Krzysztof Kies´lowski directing Tr
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as verging upon nihilism, as in L
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RKO RADIO PICTURES The history of R
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approved a screen test for Fred Ast
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and budget. After two false starts,
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Val Lewton. MARTHA HOLMES/TIME LIFE
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which opened the proverbial floodga
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Road Movies the road movie tends to
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Road Movies Thelma and Louise (Ridl
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