Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Independent Film
Peter Fonda (standing, center) in The Wild Angels (Roger Corman, 1966), produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff. EVERETT
COLLECTION. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
franchises, the Beach Party films (Beach Party [1963],
Muscle Beach Party [1964], Bikini Beach [1964], Beach
Blanket Bingo [1964], and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini
[1965], all directed by William Asher [b. 1921]); and a
series of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories starring
the veteran horror film actor Vincent Price (1911–1993)
(House of Usher [1960], Pit and the Pendulum [1961],
Tales of Terror [1962], The Raven [1963], and The Tomb
of Ligeria [1965], all directed by Corman). While the vast
majority of Arkoff ’s films, bearing titles such as The Beast
with a Million Eyes (1956) and Dr. Goldfoot and the
Bikini Machine (1965), were produced quickly and
cheaply and paid off modestly at the box office, a few
of his later titles—The Wild Angels 1966), a motorcycle
film starring Peter Fonda that foreshadowed and foregrounded
Easy Rider (1969), and the sex-farce Three in
the Attic (1966)—were top-twenty films for their year of
release.
With producer credit on well over 300 films in over
forty years in the business working for Arkoff at AIP and
then at his own company, New World Pictures, Roger
Corman became the most important and most successful
purveyor of low-brow independent cinema in American
motion picture history. Key titles in Corman’s oeuvre (in
addition to those mentioned above) include his own A
Bucket of Blood (1959), Little Shop of Horrors (1960), and
The Trip (1967), as well as Dementia 13 (1963), Francis
Coppola’s first film as a director.
Another important exploitation filmmaker is George
Romero (b. 1940) whose series of zombie films—Night
of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day
of the Dead (1985), and Land of the Dead (2005)—have
acquired for the director a cult status of sorts. The bloodletting
in Romero’s films is so extreme that many in his
intended audience—young horror film fans, mostly—
find them funny. Despite an almost campy appeal,
6 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM