Harry here with tears in my eyes... A few months ago I had the joy of talking to Lou Arkoff, son of Samuel Z Arkoff, about the CREATURE FEATURE series that he's doing with Stan Winston for CINEMAX by way of HBO. We were talking about the idea of what he was trying to do with the titles of his father's films... the reinterpretation of those titles based on the fears of today. He invited me to come out to Los Angeles and meet his father, visit the set... the whole shebang. I never made it. I never got the chance to sit down and talk to a producer that so many thought, "Eh... he makes lil exploitation flicks... who's he?" Well, Samuel Z Arkoff was a god of producers and distributors and it is a damn shame we don't have a single distributor or producer that is half the man he was.
What was so important about Samuel Z Arkoff? It was his mind... It was opened in a closed era. He gave birth to B-Monster Movies, gave work to horror stars of the ancient era, while ushering in new ones as well. He kept Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Joe E Brown, and many others on the screen. He promoted Vincent Price into being the Horror Icon that he became. He backed Roger Corman, who in turn used that support to bring to the silver screen for the first time Jack Nicholson, David Cronenberg, Scorsese, Coppola, Robert DeNiro and freaking Woody Allen. He gave Frankie & Annette, Wes Craven, Michael Landon, George Miller, DICK MILLER, Ralph Bakshi, Joe Don Baker, Fred Williamson a chance on the big screen when noone else would! He brought over Mario Bava's films, introduced the American public to the name Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft!
His films created Quentin Tarantino to a large degree... Quentin watched at the drive ins... and Arkoff kept the Drive Ins busy!
He was the Producer I would love to have in the business today... He believed in Horror films, Biker films, Black Action and cool Rock N Roll flicks! In this day of corporate studios, agents, middle-men and tremendous egos... We will never see his like again.
I got the news late this morning/night... and I asked Wes Craven for some comments about Sam.
Harry:
Oh my god, is there no end to the bad news? I feel so strange. I recently put an ad in the trades to celibrate Sam's recent anniversary or birthday (I forget which) in which I mention that it was his (and AIP's) picking up of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT that gave me my first break in film. Before that, it was only being distributed by a small distributorship in the Boston area that had financed it. Sam bought it and opened it nationally, and suddenly I was a director (and Sean Cunningham was a producer).
Anyway, shortly after that, Sam called to invite me to lunch. A day before the lunch, he cancelled for 'family reasons.' Turned out his wife of many, many years had gone into the hospital. She died a short time later. And now Sam follows her. They were so close, he and his wife and his whole family. I used to get Christmas cards from them all, all laughing and in a tight group, and Sam with his big cigar.
There goes one of the great old-time promoters and distributers. A man who played his hunches and put his money on the line. I loved him.
Sam was generous, warm, down-to-earth and without pretense. He loved film almost as much as he loved his family, and was a showman of the first order. Give him a good mention on your site. The film world is all the poorer for his passing.
It was a brief IM session, but enough to get me in tears. So much of what we know about horror / sci-fi from the last half of 20th century was birthed in one way or another by Sam. This afternoon I was watching REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS, and at the end of it decided to go order some other A.I.P. films from Amazon on DVD. I had ordered THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES, DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, X-THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES and THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM along with non AIP films like KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, THEATRE OF BLOOD, SHE-FREAK and THE CHANGELING. Out of the 9 films I ordered today, he produced 5. And look at those titles!
I have spent hours talking with people like Guillermo Del Toro, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, John Landis, John Carpenter, Don Coscarelli, Roger Avary and on and on and on about A.I.P's films. They collect his posters, watch his films and cary on the tradition.
I am without any more words... Instead, in order of release, here is just a sampling of the films he made that you should see if you haven't... Here you go.....
