when i was just a kid, we had a small theater, named ''the ritz'' when the curtains opened and we saw ''american international pictures'' the place went nuts. we knew we would like it. thanks for posting this.
Great documentary! Growing up and seeing AIP's logo at the start of a movie always excited me! They made Sunday afternoon movies on TV for me! Toronto in the 70's had new TV stations starting, and I guess AIP pictures were cheap to buy and screen. What an education! :)
I could tell an AIP film from a mile away.Low budget, cheesy, and I loved every minute of it. This was entertainment. I would rather sit through any AIP film than any of the films of today. Thanks for posting this Fred.
You realize not all of today's films suck right? There are still good movies being made, you just gotta look, and if there's any you don't like, you don't have to watch it... simple as that.
These are the movies of my childhood. My cousins, who should have known better, took me and my brother to see " Bucket of Blood " and "Attack of the Giant Leeches " on the same bill. Even though I was frightened, I was also hooked.
Great documentary and I enjoyed it learning a lot of the history contained therein, but I am very puzzled as to why there was hardly any mention of the great AIP horror movies, which were HUGE drawcards at drive-in picture theatres., including "The Raven", "Count Yorga Vampire", "Murders In The Rue Morgue" amongst many other AIP horror classics. Their only competitor across the Atlantic in Britain was Hammer Films renowned for their gothic horror pictures around the same time. So why were the AIP horrors hardly mentioned other than "Blacula"?
AMC used to have some great documentaries back in the days when they were a commercial-free movie channel. They did one in 2000 entitled "Hollywood Rocks the Movies: The Early Years", that was narrated by Ringo Starr and covered the post-WWII era up to Woodstock, focusing on movie musicals and Pop & Rock music. I wish I knew how to upload it to RUclips; I had it on a VHS tape that a friend burned to a DVD for me. It was never commercially released, so unless you did what I did you won't find it anywhere else.
Good, yes, but only a fly-by mention of the imcomparable role Vincent Price and Corman played in the horror pictures of AIP. They were in competition with Hammer and Italian Gothic in the early 60s and did some great, Technicolor films based on Poe, etc. Including the Pit and the Pendulum with Steele. Maybe the teenage films did better, but the films remembered are the horror films with Price.
"Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson" were producer names as well known to me as "Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman", and the AIP logo, like seeing "Hammer Films" at the beginning of a movie, got me prepped for some awesome horror movie goodness to come.
For me seeing that "Samuel Z.Arkoff and James H. Nicholson present" credit after the AIP logo is great as "Darryl F. Zanuck presents" after the TCF or TCP logo on some pre Fox and Fox movies that Zanuck produced especially the Twentieth Century Pictures era that released thru United Artists.
Thanks for showing folks why AMC was once WORTH watching , no matter what crap hollywood's corporate dinosaurs deface the Marquees and movie screens with this kind of exploitation IS immortal , and the drive-in will NEVER die !
Peter Bogdanovich is the narrator! He, also, at some point divorced his wife to marry a Playboy Playmate during the 1980s. Roger Corman never forgave him. At the time Hollywood took the director of The Last Picture Show and his ex-wife lost all her friends except Roger Corman who called her he would produce her next film and she could do whatever she wanted. If I'm not mistaken she made a small gem of a film called "Streets" staring Christina Applegate who does a killer performance. When I was writting the comment, I googled Peter Bogdanovich to check a few things ... I found out the great director and film historian passed away in 2022. His book "Who The Devil Made It" is a great piece!
I saw quite a lot of cheesy American International movies on those weekend monster movie shows on Chicago TV. Good times. Thanks for the memories, FredFlix. 🎦
My father Albert Kallis was the artist of most of AIP Pictures. He’s still with us nearing 100 years old now and sharp as a tact! So so many stories he tells. Seeing this Documentary is a Trip!!! Pun intended!😉
Thank you. That was fabulous. This should be used as an extra when It Conquered the World, Teenage Werewolf and Amazing Colossal Man FINALLY get released on Blu-ray. Come on Susan, I'm not getting any younger!
Yes. Susan Nicholson Hofheinz (Susan Hart) is the copyright holder for 10 or 12 AIP films produced by her late husband and Sam Arkoff. Most of them were officially released on VHS years ago. Some ("The Undead," "Terror from the Year 5000," "The Brain Eaters," and others) never even made it (officially) to VHS. Susan seems like an intelligent, funny human being, and is still a knockout. I just wish she'd let somebody, like Kino or Shout release her husbands legacy on Blu-ray!
True, Walking Dead should have been a 12 episode miniseries at most. Sadly, Hollywood *LOVES* running things into the ground till even the lowest common denominator is sick of it.
That is funny! Having to sit in the bummer tent during Woodstock. Arkoff and Nicholson came onto the scene when Hollywood was in the middle of the TV crisis. Today there is a crisis just as turbulent.
Thanks to AI's TV ads when I was 1-6, I thought we actually had spaceships and men fighting space monsters. When my 2nd grade class was brought into the auditorium to see the Apollo rocket liftoff for man to walk on the moon. I was totally disappointed. "We haven't even gotten to the MOON yet??!!", was my 7-year old reaction.
No mention of Mystery Science Theater 3000? A lot of folks like me who were born after AIP folded know about them because of Joel, Mike, Jonah and the bots making fun of their films. Thanks to MST 3000, I've seen a lot of these films ... and with excellent commentary to boot! This documentary was released in 2001, which means MST 300 was around at the time. Surely MST 3000 is a key component to the legacy of AIP, in that they are exposing new generations to that old cheesy goodness.
I was thinking about local late night/sat. shows. they In Cleveland it was Ghoulardi. Elvira I think was in California. MST 3000 was inspired by those.
It was easy for MST3K to poke fun of AIP films because so many of the films ended up in public domain. For example the Screaming Skull. On the other hand MGM bought out many of the AIP titles and kept them in circulation and still under copyright and it's those films MST3K couldn't poke fun of, such as the Dunwich Horror starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee. Usual legal issues which can be costly to give them the green light. I'm sure they did go through the legal process to legally poke fun of This Island Earth (Universal Pictures) on MST3K: the Movie. It's the big reason you didn't see MST3K poke fun of bad movies done by major mainstream production companies (other than This Island Earth) because those companies kept their films under copyright to this day including their bad ones and MST3K could get in legal trouble if they didn't go through the legal process which can be costly as already stated.
(Circa early 1960s) I grew up on AIP movies from the TV "Creature Features" that used to be on Friday and Saturday nights. There was always some hokey host dressed up like a ghoul or some such thing to comment along with the commercial break. In my Boston suburb we would watch a host named "Feep" on "WNAC-TV Channel 7"... he was a mini spaceman. Monster movie night was always a big deal to me and my brother. Earlier in the day we would walk over to the small super-market near us to prepare for the night of horror. Bottles of coke, Jiffy Pop, potato chips and we would make chip dip with a packet of Lipton Dried Soup Mix and sour cream. Then when it was time to go to bed we were scared to death and slept with a light on.
@@tonymazzola1821 Now that you mention it I do have a vague memory of being told that.......but hey, do you remember when Major Mudd also played a character host named LORD BUMBLEBROOK when they showed tarzan movies.......or some such thing. Correct me on this if I am wrong.
@@inkey2 Wow now you're really going back in time. That was on Saturday mornings on Channel 7 WNAC Boston. Guess I was a TV kid watching those hosts show cartoons like Clutch Cargo LOL. Did you watch Rex Trailer's BOOMTOWN?
@@inkey2 Interesting you should mention this, Rex Trailer is my wife's cousin. We visited him a few times at his home, really nice man who sadly past away a few years ago
I loved this documentary when I was in middle school. AIP was extremely influential and important, I don't think all the great movies of the 80's and 90's would have been possible without them. What's sad though is that we have reverted in many ways, in terms of sex and violence in movies; it's all so restrained and tame. I know why it's being done: it's a way to avoid being consistent. Instead of allowing queer relationships on screen to be as explicit and sexual as hetero stuff, they're just going to stuff it all back in the closet.
Unless I'm mistaken, this completely skips over the Roger Corman/Vincent Price adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe, which might be the best movies AIP ever produced, and some of the most successful. Or it touches on them so briefly that I missed it while being distracted by some passing bit of shiny tin foil. Weird omission.
I like Jim Nickelson better because to Jim money wasn't the world to him nor did it mean everything to him. He kept his morals and ethics. Good for him.
Dick Dale wearing a shirt "337 cessna skymaster" Very obscure! My dad had a pressurized centurion 210. Skymasters could also be pressurized. Very fast and sexy!
Barely any mention of the corman poe movies which was aips biggest success what an absolute joke these films gave arkoff and nicholson critical respect for the first time ever this documentary is a joke how can they discuss dross like blacula and ignore certified classics like pit and the pendulum
The problem is they were boring. But AIP was bad (mostly because of the low budgets) yet fun and entertaining. Unlike, Republic, which aimed their films for the mass audience, AIP aimed their films at youngsters like me!
@@FredFlix Right.but that changed in 1979 when mad max was released.that was the most successful film the produced.aip values changed that time.cheesy films today cant amount to cheesy films of aip.
when i was just a kid, we had a small theater, named ''the ritz'' when the curtains opened and we saw ''american international pictures'' the place went nuts. we knew we would like it. thanks for posting this.
I enjoyed those films as a kid in the 60's and still do today. Time is the ultimate standard of success. I hope to meet Roger Corman some day.
Loved Beverly Garland's performance in IT CONQUERED THE WORLD..She has the conviction of Bette Davis in that movie
How about that scene in which she got a face full of auto exhaust? None of today's "divas" would even dare suggest such a stunt!
… and she looks incredibly HOT still!!!
Top favorite of mine I watched it over & over
Arkoff and Nicholson are very important in cinema history and they helped make some great movies so did corman they all should be greatly remembered
Grew up watching so many of AIP films on television. A staple of my youth. Good stuff.
Same. And that music...!
I'm a blossoming exploitation / drive-in / Grindhouse enthusiast, love Corman, thanks for posting!
You're welcome. Keep watering yourself with this stuff and you'll soon be in full bloom.
You should go to Cinema Wasteland.
This is a wonderfully put together documentary that is both informative and fun to watch!
Great documentary! Growing up and seeing AIP's logo at the start of a movie always excited me! They made Sunday afternoon movies on TV for me! Toronto in the 70's had new TV stations starting, and I guess AIP pictures were cheap to buy and screen. What an education! :)
I could tell an AIP film from a mile away.Low budget, cheesy, and I loved every minute of it. This was entertainment. I would rather sit through any AIP film than any of the films of today. Thanks for posting this Fred.
You realize not all of today's films suck right? There are still good movies being made, you just gotta look, and if there's any you don't like, you don't have to watch it... simple as that.
@@TheVideoMaker1999 I hate the snobbish use of nostalgia to deride everything new by old boomers. Grumpy old miserable jerks.
Nah most movies that come out nowadays still suck. Deal with it
People who complain today films sucks sounds like the old Hollywood people who didn’t complain AIP films sucks lol
Michael Schlong
These are the movies of my childhood. My cousins, who should have known better, took me and my brother to see " Bucket of Blood " and "Attack of the Giant Leeches " on the same bill. Even though I was frightened, I was also hooked.
This documentary is so interesting. Lucky they found Roger
Great documentary and I enjoyed it learning a lot of the history contained therein, but I am very puzzled as to why there was hardly any mention of the great AIP horror movies, which were HUGE drawcards at drive-in picture theatres., including "The Raven", "Count Yorga Vampire", "Murders In The Rue Morgue" amongst many other AIP horror classics. Their only competitor across the Atlantic in Britain was Hammer Films renowned for their gothic horror pictures around the same time. So why were the AIP horrors hardly mentioned other than "Blacula"?
So happy that I stumbled upon this documentary.
AMC used to have some great documentaries back in the days when they were a commercial-free movie channel. They did one in 2000 entitled "Hollywood Rocks the Movies: The Early Years", that was narrated by Ringo Starr and covered the post-WWII era up to Woodstock, focusing on movie musicals and Pop & Rock music. I wish I knew how to upload it to RUclips; I had it on a VHS tape that a friend burned to a DVD for me. It was never commercially released, so unless you did what I did you won't find it anywhere else.
Good, yes, but only a fly-by mention of the imcomparable role Vincent Price and Corman played in the horror pictures of AIP. They were in competition with Hammer and Italian Gothic in the early 60s and did some great, Technicolor films based on Poe, etc. Including the Pit and the Pendulum with Steele. Maybe the teenage films did better, but the films remembered are the horror films with Price.
Yeah, thought that was somewhat odd too, considering.
RIP Dick Miller.. December 25, 1928-January 30, 2019
"Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson" were producer names as well known to me as "Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman", and the AIP logo, like seeing "Hammer Films" at the beginning of a movie, got me prepped for some awesome horror movie goodness to come.
For me seeing that "Samuel Z.Arkoff and James H. Nicholson present" credit after the AIP logo is great as "Darryl F. Zanuck presents" after the TCF or TCP logo on some pre Fox and Fox movies that Zanuck produced especially the Twentieth Century Pictures era that released thru United Artists.
Fucking GREAT! I grew up with all this stuff. You had to be there to really appreciate the nuance. Give me any AIP re-run.
Thanks for showing folks why AMC was once WORTH watching , no matter what crap hollywood's corporate dinosaurs deface the Marquees and movie screens with this kind of exploitation IS immortal , and the drive-in will NEVER die !
AMPOP on a Saturday night was magic.
@FredFlix - thanks for preserving & posting this. RIP GOOD cable TV
These were great movies.
You know, I have a lot of interests, but this kind of thing is what really makes my eyes light up. Thanks for posting, and thanks twice!
so glad this is online
Peter Bogdanovich is the narrator! He, also, at some point divorced his wife to marry a Playboy Playmate during the 1980s. Roger Corman never forgave him. At the time Hollywood took the director of The Last Picture Show and his ex-wife lost all her friends except Roger Corman who called her he would produce her next film and she could do whatever she wanted. If I'm not mistaken she made a small gem of a film called "Streets" staring Christina Applegate who does a killer performance.
When I was writting the comment, I googled Peter Bogdanovich to check a few things ... I found out the great director and film historian passed away in 2022. His book "Who The Devil Made It" is a great piece!
Beverly Garland is such a hoot in this. Love her comments about the cucumber monster in It Conquered the World.
Thanks for sharing this, Fred! I miss the old AMC, too.
Roger is the coolest man in the movie business. Period.
I saw quite a lot of cheesy American International movies on those weekend monster movie shows on Chicago TV. Good times.
Thanks for the memories, FredFlix. 🎦
All most of American International Pictures library courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc., few of most AIP films whether distributed by other companies or even in public domain.
©1954-1980 Orion Pictures Corporation.
C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979) and Sinbad Jr. & His Magic Belt (1964 TV series) / Few Hanna-Barbera/AIP films and TV series: ©1964, 1979 Orion Pictures Corporation and Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc.
©2020 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc.
Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment now officially distributed all MGM Home Entertainment catalog titles including all of the American International Pictures library and also includes the latest United Artists Releasing/American International Pictures films starting with Breaking News in Yuba County on 2021.
My father Albert Kallis was the artist of most of AIP Pictures. He’s still with us nearing 100 years old now and sharp as a tact! So so many stories he tells. Seeing this Documentary is a Trip!!! Pun intended!😉
Some movie theaters were transformed into TVstudios.
These two people are my #1 heroes! lol I gotta admire them!
This documentary aged well, as AIP was relaunched by MGM last year.
This company along with Samuel Z. Arzoff and James H. Nicholson helped to put together one of my favorite horror films The Amityville Horror (1979).
Thank you. That was fabulous. This should be used as an extra when It Conquered the World, Teenage Werewolf and Amazing Colossal Man FINALLY get released on Blu-ray. Come on Susan, I'm not getting any younger!
Is "Susan" the copyright holder?
Yes. Susan Nicholson Hofheinz (Susan Hart) is the copyright holder for 10 or 12 AIP films produced by her late husband and Sam Arkoff. Most of them were officially released on VHS years ago. Some ("The Undead," "Terror from the Year 5000," "The Brain Eaters," and others) never even made it (officially) to VHS. Susan seems like an intelligent, funny human being, and is still a knockout. I just wish she'd let somebody, like Kino or Shout release her husbands legacy on Blu-ray!
@@unigonfilms99 Susan is asking a lot of money, more than Kino or Shout can pay. Darn it!
when Sam and Jim met Roger...
A wonderful and important piece of American film history
The Food of the Gods, Count Yorga, and At the Earths Core, ...Still on my favorites list all these years later.
Thank You !!!
Dick Miller the sign of Quality Entertainment for many Decades. Okiedoke that's all I wanted to text.
I remember the tv ads for The Colossal Man and War Of The Colossal Beast when I was little in the early 60's and thought they looked so cool.
I agree with those that equate AIP with crap, but it was fun crap. Lots of good memories.
Beautiful.
.
.
Love this stuff.🏆⭐✨💫🇺🇲😎
back when AMC was AMC not this walking dead carp
Justin Fencsak Damn those zany zombie carp!!
AMC SUCKS NOW.. Loved it back in 2000 ...Whole BEACH MOVIES no commercial breaks. Now these movies all edit so bad not near as good
carpnado!
True, Walking Dead should have been a 12 episode miniseries at most. Sadly, Hollywood *LOVES* running things into the ground till even the lowest common denominator is sick of it.
Walking Dead may suck, but AMC also made Breaking Bad
fantastic
Glad you enjoyed it
Some of the best films ever made were from American international.
Those were Great Movies !!!!
Arkoff and that cigar! Classic.
That is funny! Having to sit in the bummer tent during Woodstock.
Arkoff and Nicholson came onto the scene when Hollywood was in the middle of the TV crisis.
Today there is a crisis just as turbulent.
Thanks to AI's TV ads when I was 1-6, I thought we actually had spaceships and men fighting space monsters. When my 2nd grade class was brought into the auditorium to see the Apollo rocket liftoff for man to walk on the moon. I was totally disappointed. "We haven't even gotten to the MOON yet??!!", was my 7-year old reaction.
No mention of Mystery Science Theater 3000? A lot of folks like me who were born after AIP folded know about them because of Joel, Mike, Jonah and the bots making fun of their films. Thanks to MST 3000, I've seen a lot of these films ... and with excellent commentary to boot!
This documentary was released in 2001, which means MST 300 was around at the time. Surely MST 3000 is a key component to the legacy of AIP, in that they are exposing new generations to that old cheesy goodness.
I was thinking about local late night/sat. shows. they In Cleveland it was Ghoulardi. Elvira I think was in California. MST 3000 was inspired by those.
These movies had fervent fans long before MST3K, and moreover, many hate the show for generating a prejudice against them.
This ^^^
Christel Headington Ghoulardi was a little before my time (Cable TV) but I loved watching the Ghoul in the early 70s.
It was easy for MST3K to poke fun of AIP films because so many of the films ended up in public domain. For example the Screaming Skull. On the other hand MGM bought out many of the AIP titles and kept them in circulation and still under copyright and it's those films MST3K couldn't poke fun of, such as the Dunwich Horror starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee. Usual legal issues which can be costly to give them the green light. I'm sure they did go through the legal process to legally poke fun of This Island Earth (Universal Pictures) on MST3K: the Movie. It's the big reason you didn't see MST3K poke fun of bad movies done by major mainstream production companies (other than This Island Earth) because those companies kept their films under copyright to this day including their bad ones and MST3K could get in legal trouble if they didn't go through the legal process which can be costly as already stated.
I watched most of this films through MST3K. Most of them have a moment of genius! The execution in The Undead, for instance.
(Circa early 1960s) I grew up on AIP movies from the TV "Creature Features" that used to be on Friday and Saturday nights. There was always some hokey host dressed up like a ghoul or some such thing to comment along with the commercial break. In my Boston suburb we would watch a host named "Feep" on "WNAC-TV Channel 7"... he was a mini spaceman. Monster movie night was always a big deal to me and my brother. Earlier in the day we would walk over to the small super-market near us to prepare for the night of horror. Bottles of coke, Jiffy Pop, potato chips and we would make chip dip with a packet of Lipton Dried Soup Mix and sour cream. Then when it was time to go to bed we were scared to death and slept with a light on.
If you watched Fantastic Features on Saturday Nights hosted by Feep were you aware he was also the weekday mornings kids show host Major Mudd?
@@tonymazzola1821 Now that you mention it I do have a vague memory of being told that.......but hey, do you remember when Major Mudd also played a character host named LORD BUMBLEBROOK when they showed tarzan movies.......or some such thing. Correct me on this if I am wrong.
@@inkey2 Wow now you're really going back in time. That was on Saturday mornings on Channel 7 WNAC Boston. Guess I was a TV kid watching those hosts show cartoons like Clutch Cargo LOL. Did you watch Rex Trailer's BOOMTOWN?
@@inkey2 Interesting you should mention this, Rex Trailer is my wife's cousin. We visited him a few times at his home, really nice man who sadly past away a few years ago
Amazing. I've tried to emulate this many times with my own family (I'm 15) but it always never works.
"The bummer tent at woodstock". Wonder what that's like?😱😳😮😬🤩😂🤣
Beverly Garland is FIERCE in It Conquered the World💪🏼♀️
I loved this documentary when I was in middle school. AIP was extremely influential and important, I don't think all the great movies of the 80's and 90's would have been possible without them. What's sad though is that we have reverted in many ways, in terms of sex and violence in movies; it's all so restrained and tame. I know why it's being done: it's a way to avoid being consistent. Instead of allowing queer relationships on screen to be as explicit and sexual as hetero stuff, they're just going to stuff it all back in the closet.
I guess you could say they saw a niche , and scratched it .
Does anyone know the movie with the dancing women in the graveyard? I haven't seen that one.
'The Undead'. Great Corman film...features the exotic Allison Hayes. Better than average for A.I.P.
@@usmcfutball Thanks : )
Unless I'm mistaken, this completely skips over the Roger Corman/Vincent Price adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe, which might be the best movies AIP ever produced, and some of the most successful. Or it touches on them so briefly that I missed it while being distracted by some passing bit of shiny tin foil. Weird omission.
The worst AI movie is better than any of the new Star Wars bore-fests. All Hail Saint Roger of Corman!
I like Jim Nickelson better because to Jim money wasn't the world to him nor did it mean everything to him. He kept his morals and ethics. Good for him.
I agree, but i think Jim wouldn't have made it without Samuel, they completed each other
Dick Dale wearing a shirt "337 cessna skymaster" Very obscure! My dad had a pressurized centurion 210. Skymasters could also be pressurized. Very fast and sexy!
Beverly Garland had some gorgeous legs
Barely any mention of the corman poe movies which was aips biggest success what an absolute joke these films gave arkoff and nicholson critical respect for the first time ever this documentary is a joke how can they discuss dross like blacula and ignore certified classics like pit and the pendulum
Wait ... even The Fast and The Furious is a remake?
Hollywood america need and wants this again!!!
they left out one detail....the beach movies were directly copied from the massive success of Blue Hawaii.
I suspect the Presley estate wouldn't allow any clips or stills from the film.
@@KRhetor The film studio owns it though.
Never heard of that film. Sounds interesting, though: Elvis Preisly, really? Will have to look it up.
Pure cheepnis.
Attack of the Space Cauliflower 😆
nobody can say they did a lousy job
These guys were perfectly made for Ed Wood ! .
What they made was a lot better than anything by Wood.
Are you nuts? AIP was a class outfit. Ed Wood had no place there!
Plan 9 from Outer Space is an entertaining and now much-loved classic messterpiece...don't let anyone ever tell u otherwise!
aip was alot better than republic pictures.republic pictures made terrible films and had a reputation for bad films
The problem is they were boring. But AIP was bad (mostly because of the low budgets) yet fun and entertaining. Unlike, Republic, which aimed their films for the mass audience, AIP aimed their films at youngsters like me!
@@FredFlix Right.but that changed in 1979 when mad max was released.that was the most successful film the produced.aip values changed that time.cheesy films today cant amount to cheesy films of aip.
Except for the occasional quality war or western movie starring John Wayne, yeah....low budgets but not fun entertaining teen or drive-in movies
@@johnjackson7045 they also released another great film that year, The Amityville Horror. Also another successful AIP movie.
didn't RKO make some cheesy stuff at the end of its life when Hughes had it?