Sam Arkoff said in a 70's interview that no
American-International picture ever went out of release. As long as there were
prints, any of them could be booked. Solution to wear and tear was to
cannibalize stock on exchange shelves, a bad reel tossed from one print substituted
by better reels from another. Ongoing mix-match kept oldest product in
service for years, until finally there were no good reels left of anything.
Theatres used AIP backlog to supply a kiddie bill, late show, all-nighter,
wherever there was need, and limit of cash to fill it. Latter half of the 50's
saw emergence of AIP as exploitation's handmaiden, their black-and-white combos a hopeful ticket's worthof entertainment. That couldn't last
as the market became oversaturated and other companies took to a same
scheme. Sam and partner Jim Nicholson knew they'd have to upgrade the product
in order to compete ... no, make that survive.
With House Of Usher underway, plus imported
gladiators ("a turning point," said Sam), the team knew color was a
future toward single bookings and an end to double-barrel cheapies. Still laid the dogs in depot kennels, however, and though played out as pairs, these
might yet service need for marathon or dusk-to-dawn use. Why not group them as
four now that they'd lost value as two? The B/W bunch had been announced to TV
in June 1963. Five ABC owned-and-operated stations got exclusive run through a
first year, then twenty-five more markets bought in for 1965 and onward play.
The package was lush, 69 titles, with seven in color. Whatever the exposure on
TV, showmen could still book the lot as whatever porridge they pleased,
rentals cheaper for the more they took. AIP did fresh one-sheets to boost the
foursomes, plus ad art to serve a theatre or drive-in's pick of genre. Themed
programs were a standby, especially on outdoor screens, so what better than a
"Mighty Blood and Guts War Show" or a "Hot Rod Riot Thrill Spill
Show"? With five groupings offered, possibilities seemed endless.
Drive-ins especially were big on "Fright
Nights." Never mind that parking lots were fairly bare by the time a fourth feature wound down. Mere promise of a feast would form the line, and who
cared what individual titles made the cut? All seemed the same to average viewership. Customers were therefor fun beyond what a screen showed. Playgrounds, a cafeteria
grill, maybe even pony rides for the kids ... it mattered not a hoot if it was
Night Of The Blood Beast or Dragstrip Girl illuminating a white surface. AIP
was ideal for these jamborees because their stuff wasn't even made to be
watched attentively. Distraction was factored into all of what Jim and Sam put
out. I'd have found a chili dog with fries and ice cream lots more engaging
than The Headless Ghost, then or now. Maybe it's fitting that most of these
AIP's can't be accessed today. Imagine being home alone and marathoning four at a sit. Thanks to longtime poster collector and expert
Bill Luton for the pressbook that was basis for this posting.
I tell wanna be film makers to study the people who had no money. When they ask why I tell them, "Because you haven't got any." Usually they get angry.
The quadruple billing worked fine until, as in the case of the Poe pictures, we saw the same special effects of burning houses, etc., being reused in picture after picture after picture after picture. That really took the juice out of an all night crowd.
Hmmm, come to think of it, I don't need my imagination to think of sitting in a room watching old AIP flicks, I know I've watched INVASION OF THE SAUCERMEN, DRAGSTRIP GIRL, SHAKE,RATTLE,AND ROCK, and several more in the last year, and they seem to hold up pretty well. What makes them are the old pros Nicholson and Arkoff would hire to prop up these films, Raymond Hatton alone in SAUCERMEN and SHAKE makes them worth watching, and in SHAKE he's joined by Margaret Dumont, Douglas Dumbrille, Sterling Holloway, Clarence Kolb, and Frank Jenks all happily scene-stealing in between Fats Domino numbers. Edward L Cahn directs a lot of these that Corman didn't handle, and he's another old pro who can turn out a snappy and entertaining film on a shoestring budget. And the tongue-in-cheek AIP color horror films of the early sixties sure hold up a lot better than the mean-spirited and humorless Hammer product of the same period, the AIP's only went down hill when they tried to match the Hammers in general unpleasantness in the late sixties.
AIP turned out a very respectable product for the level they were working on.
@lmshah: The Hammer horrors are classics for a reason, and a very good one: they're actual horror movies as opposed to what was coming out of Hollywood from AIP and others at this time (The Return Of Dracula [Curse Of Dracula] being one of the reasons.) Empathizing the horror of what Dracula did to his victims, for example made the Hammer horrors a vital thing to a populace that was bored with the old Universal horrors, and it also made these old horror characters (Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, The Phantom Of the Opera, etc.) come alive again and compete with the more modern sci-fi monsters on the screen from AIP and other companies, IMHO. It also didn't hurt that some of the originals that Hammer did come up with (The Gorgon being one example) were also good.
"I tell wanna be film makers to study the people who had no money. When they ask why I tell them, "Because you haven't got any." Usually they get angry."
That reminds me of the story where Joe Dante was making some Roger Corman picture and he was supposed to show a crowd of students in the hallway of a school passing between classes. The problem being, he had five extras. He calls up Corman. Corman's blithe answer is, "Shoot it like Eisenstein on Ivan the Terrible." Dante replies, "Oh yeah? Part One or Part Two?"
Josef Von Sternberg had the same problem on DISHONERED: how to make a handful of people look like a lot. He handled it very well. Probably IVAN THE TERRIBLE PART TWO. The Soviets had cut Eisenstein's budget.
The Hammer Horror films start out as mediocre horror films in color redeemed by good British actors and soon fall into blood and breasts in color with lackluster scripts still occasionally redeemed by good British actors but frequently just boring. Mean-spirited and exploitative to the core, and their threadbare budgets show more often than not. None of their retreads of the old Universal monsters hold a candle to the originals.
The AIP's have good scripts, good combinations of good old proa working with good newbies to make films that both scare and amuse their audiences, and hold up today a lot better than the Hammers, and when they go for comedy, they're actually funny. THE RAVEN and THE COMEDY OF TERRORS still work great with an audience.
Have to agree with Richard M. Roberts on the HAMMERS. A few hit the mark for me. Most do not. Same with the Amicus films and others. Always felt let down. Hearing Margaret Dumont was in SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK was irresistible. I found it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA9J5jytgPA . Yep, that's our Margaret.
I like the admission that lack of attention was assumed. "War Gods of the Deep" and the non-AIP "Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" both seem designed to convince you that exciting things happened at some point while you weren't watching. The latter especially is full of talk of illegal drag races and grudge matches, but there's never any racing on camera. We never even see a drag strip. It's as if an amusement park set up lines for non-existant rides, so you'd go home thinking there was more than the two or three you got on.
While too squeamish to become a real fan, I liked the Hammers for their period look. That it was a CHEAP period look gave them a visual kinship with Universal Bs. For me the turnoff was modern vampire / zombie / postnuclear stuff, where oppressive settings, gross anatomy and downer endings were supposed to replace thrills and chills.
Hammer horror films "mean spirited and humorless" ? I don't think so -- I like the 1933 Paramount "Murders in the Zoo" opening where Lionel Atwill sews his romantic rival's lips together, but even with the mean-spirited character I find that movie fun and full of humor.
I like lots of AIP horror, even more of Hammer horror, and just about everything from the old Golden Age of horror from 1931 through 1948.
I don't need to put any of it down in order to prefer another.
It's not a matter of putting down one in order to prefer another. Hammer lost its hold on audiences once the studio began to pander to us. They did everything they could to appeal to what is presumed the taste of the masses. TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA only had Christopher Lee in it BECAUSE Warner Brothers forced it. As far as it went SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA was a far better modern age DRACULA than DRACULA AD 1972 but again everything for myself (and I presume many others because the film never hit big as the first Hammers had) just fell short of the mark.
Even their first true DRACULA sequel, DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS after that great set-up to get DRACULA back in action just petered out. Lee was silent as Dracula in that because he refused to speak the words as they were written.
The Universal Films had excellent writers in the 30s. Curt Siodmak brought to the 1940s Universal Horrors his own skills as a top rank SF author. AIP in trying to replace Vincent Price with Robert Quarry were guilty of the same cheapness. Quarry was fine as far as that goes but Price was and remains among the greats.
I saw the quadruple (it may have been quintuple) bill of AIP Poes in a 5,000 seat cinema. HOUSE OF USHER had us. When we saw the burning set recycled through Poe picture after Poe picture the program felt cheaper and cheaper though seen by themselves the tricks work. The same thing happens watching Universal's Kharis the mummy series. They drain the life out of audiences in mass screenings.
OH BOO!!! I've always regarded AIP as the absolute WORST FILM STUDIO EVER. On the other view, CORMAN DID BRING IN the MONEY, can't argue that. However, this is just another film-crazed- movie- person's opinion here; that CORMAN had NO BUSINESS behind a camera whatsoever; that the AIP product was such crud and without any hesitation giving my OPINION declaring THAT MOST ALL of AIP'S stuff AN UNWATCHABLE/TORTUROUS/HARROWING EVENT no matter where experienced. And how I have TRIED to give any of the later so-called HORROR pictures some merit, but !@#%*(&*)%^^!!!! WHO can sit through some garbage like "PIT & THE PENDULUM", for CRYSAKE with any regard to coherent film making??!! Oh yeah, let's be SURE to film all of these 'seat-squirming-where- is- the end-title?'-disasters, in the cheap, soon-to-fade-fast PATHE'COLOR PROCESS!!!...at least they unreeled prints filmed in PANAVISION, to fill the wide drive-in SCREEN! The only thing GREAT about the whole (AIP)SHOWMAN'S SHMO, was the money-making idea/factor of throwing 3 or 4 of these celluloid DISASTERS onto the SCREENS OF PACKED-IN DRIVE-IN THEATRES. It seemed like these 'passion-pits' were created for the long run of folks who indeed took advantage of the OBVIOUS; ALL-NIGHT adventures with steamed-up windows! WHO CARED WHAT WAS ON THE SCREEN? Yes, most of us remember some of those nights at some of those drive-in theatres. HOWEVER, I must say that my remarks here are TAINTED with the overall covering of intense frustration and an obvious JEALOUS factor of ME THEN,.... NOT OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE YET, and drooling over the newspaper ads of the several DRIVE-INS which (naturally!), were located far away across town, seemingly screening such AIP crap on an IRREGULAR basis! The reasoning here I believe to be a very good point: that, as you all know, AIP's POSTERS were FANTASTIC IN DESIGN- WITH BEAUTIFUL ARTWORK! However luring they appeared, these POSTERS INDEED had all of us FOOLED--( especially those of us who were VERY IMPRESSIONABLE youngsters at the time), because the STAND-OUT AIP POSTERS WERE ALWAYS BETTER THAN THE FILM ITSELF!. In some cases, I recall film/poster collectors who would VALUE/WANT the rare AIP POSTER of a title OVER the RARE PRINT OF THE SAME. Thank the film gods that AIP steered away from making WESTERNS...especially with the dumb-cluck actors on their payroll during the 1950's stretch,,( Jack Nicholson excepted!) Not ever meaning to offend here, but dag-nab it, I HAD TO get it said: I HATE AIP !! HOWEVER--- I must admit I DID enjoy seeing some old pro stars from the THEN-PAST, (KARLOFF, CHANEY,ETC.)And lastly, here, I THOUGHT it was an EXTREME CRUEL DEED of the producers, to guest-star the GREAT BUSTER KEATON in several of those insipid 'beach party' fiascos, in what MUST HAVE BEEN a terribly embarrassing and humiliating experience for him. And --SHAME ON THOSE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE--- for that. BOO! for sure.
Now now, deep breaths, stay away from the CAPS lock. If you think the AIP films are such abominations, you haven't seen enough of this sort of product, try Andy Milligan, try Herschel Gordon Lewis. The AIP's have solid, professional technical levels for their budgets, and the actors make them, usually with a sense of fun knowing full well they're not making Shakespeare. And Roger Corman was a damn good director, whether making schlock or doing something like THE INTRUDER, Corman's work always moves, and keeps ones interest, sorry, a lot of folk like these films, however much it upsets you.
The writing talent was pretty darn impressive too, considering it's people like Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson churning out a lot of these scripts, beats the hell out of Jimmy Sangster.
And spare Buster Keaton you're pity, he was too busy making more money in the last fifteen years of his life than he ever made working for Joe Schenck, and what he's actually doing in those Beach pictures is keeping his face before a new young public (one of which was me come to think of it, those were some of the first things I ever saw him in way before I saw any of his silent films) by appearing in some big boxoffice films of 1964-65, fiascos they weren't, especially financially, and he walks away with them every time he's in a scene. Only the posthumously pretentious ever wanted to call Buster an "artist", he didn't think of himself in that way during his lifetime, and in fact, was treated with a lot of respect by the cast and crew of those films, and those films along with all his television work was the reason people were still stopping him and asking him for an autograph when they had forgotten or never knew who most of his silent contemporaries were.
I have always wished that someone had said to Buster in the last years of his life, "Buster, make a movie."
Just that. nothing more.
Watch the National Film Board of Canada documentary on the making of THE RAILRODDDER, BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN to see how Buster subtly took control of and directed THE RAILRODDER.
I met the credited director of THE RAILRODDER by chance at one of my screenings. He viewed Keaton as a talent less old man. That is to his discredit not Buster's.
Anyone seeing Buster in any of his later films who got curious would swiftly find themselves, as I did, drawn to see as much of his early work as they could (which, at that time, was damn near impossible).
Comic artist Wallace (Wally) Wood said the laws of drawing comics are "Don't draw what you can't trace. Don't trace what you can't paste."
He's talking about saving both money and time (which is money that can't be gotten back).
I don't fault AIP nor Universal nor any other studio for recycling footage. That is how professionals do what they do. The climax of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN features footage from THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN on while the gags are cribbed from the best moments of A & C's former films. The seams show only when we see these movies one after another in quick succession which is certainly not how they were made to be seen.
As for the posters AIP made the posters first as did Universal in the 1930s. Then if the poster generated enough bookings they made the movie. Those posters were designed to sell. Sell they did. It seems to be a lost art.
Take a pill, Steven. And one lo-o-ong paragraph is a bitch to read. I agree with Imshah, there was a lot of real crap out there, disgusting and humiliating stuff. If you get a chance (YouTube?) check out Buster doing a spontaneous routine in a diner on CANDID CAMERA that just destroys two other customers.
I think the indication of Gerald Potterton's talent in directing THE RAILRODDER is that some of the gags Buster is shown thinking up during the shooting of that film are better shot, presented and edited in BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN than they are in the film Potterton "directed".
That said, I have never heard Potterton say anything but respectful words about Keaton, the one that I have to shake my head at in irony is Alan Schneider, the director of FILM, which is the most pretentious wheeze Keaton ever appeared in. In Schneider's autobiography, he considers Keaton nothing but a broken-down old vaudeville clown, little realizing that any genius brought to that project is Buster making that silly and frankly simple concept work because whom else could give a compelling performance with their back to the camera most of the time?
That "broken-down old vaudevilliam" is the only reason that FILM has any immortality whatsoever.
Potterton walked into my original Cineforum at 12 Mercer Street in Toronto in 1980. He wasn't in public when he spoke. His comments were delivered privately to myself as from a knowing insider. Clearly he was not informed about Keaton's work. I refrained from saying what I actually thought when he spoke because I felt the words would have been wasted on him as well as dismissed by him. He would not be the first to express in private opinions contrary to those expressed publicly.
I agree with you 100% about Alan Schneider. His disparaging of Buster is all too common among the pseudo hip which he was.
That said, I don't find FILM pretentious. It was written by Samuel Beckett who revealed to Buster during its making that he had written WAITING FOR GODOT expressly for Buster who had passed on it when it was offered to him.
I think Beckett wrote FILM just so he could meet and work with Buster. I also agree with you 100% that outside of Beckett devotees the only reason FILM has any interest whatsoever is due to Buster who is great in it.
I am concerned about those who having read Schneider's autobiography dismiss Buster.
Though he never thought himself an artist Buster was. He was also a singularly great artist whose work will long endure as examples of the very best the art and craft of motion pictures can produce.
The business of motion pictures is the only art form that has consistently denied great talent the opportunity to work until they draw their last breath. Like I said earlier, I wish someone has said to Buster in his twilight years, "Here is the money. Make a movie."
We owe Sergio Leone's superb ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA to a chance encounter on a beach with just one such person. Too bad there are not lots more.
In an interview on the CBC (not the one with Fletcher Markle, this is one Buster did when he was up in Canada shooting TEN GIRLS AGO in 1962), the question is posted to Buster if he could make a film today like he did in the silent days, and Keaton interestingly says no, he says that today the Studio system and the unionization makes it too difficult for him to work the way he did, he couldn't just have everyone on staff and go out and shoot something on an idea and flesh it out as they went along, everything had to requisitioned in triplicate and it would take days to get it prepared and clearances to shoot on the streets etc.etc. He then says he has much more freedom working on small projects like commercials and industrial films where he has a small crew and much more input and he had enjoyed making those immensely.
John F. Long told me that on THE HOMEOWNER (1962), Buster had a meeting with him and his staff and said "give me your selling points, and I'll create gags to illustrate them", which he did, then during the shoot, the director Joe Parker just kept asking Buster "how do you want to shoot this Buster?" and let Buster be in charge. This apparently happened on a lot of Buster's industrial and commercial work, which is why it's some of Buster's best later work.
Gerald Potterton comes off a bit clueless in dealing with Buster on THE RAILRODDER in BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN, and Buster deals with him rather brilliantly. I have another two hours of outtakes of footage John Spotton shot for that documentary, of which unfortunately the soundtrack has disappeared, but there is footage of a long story conference Buster has with Potterton before they go out on location to shoot, and it looks like Buster is giving Gerald an earful. I need to get a lipreader to go over that footage some day and find out what Buster is saying.
I believe Beckett originally wrote FILM for Jack MacGowran, but they couldn't get him a work visa or union clearance to use him for a New York shoot, and Keaton was the replacement they decided on, Keaton was definitely not the first choice.
I think if someone had said, "Buster, here's the money, make a movie," Keaton would have said, "Fine." While he's right about the limitations of the studio system and unionization as blocks to the creative freedom he enjoyed in the silent era an independent production could have gotten around all that.
He's also right about the clearances to shoot on streets, etc., which just means everything works against a creative artist now when it didn't at the beginning.
During BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN I love the way they try to talk Keaton out of the ride over the abyss while he incorporates THEIR suggestions of an alternate into his main thread making it in the end way more dangerous (and, as a result, exciting) than it was as he originally conceived it. Frankly, without their being aware of it I feel Buster directed the film.
Thanks for the info on Jack MacGowran. He's fine but had he done it hardly anyone would today want to see it. I think you will agree. Love to see that John Spotton footage. Too bad the sound is lost. There are moments in BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN where Buster rightly does get worked up.
Favorite moments in "Buster Keaton Rides Again": Keaton laughing and smiling when "off camera", and getting giddy when describing a Laurel and Hardy routine (is he remembering a specific film?). Also his birthday toast, in an Irish brogue: "To show you me heart's in the right place, I'll fight any man in the house."
Interesting how these comments went from memories of AIP marathons to a battle as to the quality of AIP versus Hammer (I loved them both until quality and ideas slipped into cliche) to a long discussion of late Buster Keaton late career choices.
Few were watching those movies at the drive-in. They were making out.
And then there was this genius marketing poster. https://movieposters.ha.com/itm/comedy/beach-blanket-bingo-american-international-1965-one-sheet-27-x-41-advance/a/7156-86591.s?ic4=GalleryView-BidNow-071515
Keaton in FILM is worthy of reconsideration and can be seen with Ross Lipman's new fascinating feature about it, NOTFILM from Milestone.Just released on DVD/BluRay.
26 Comments:
I tell wanna be film makers to study the people who had no money. When they ask why I tell them, "Because you haven't got any." Usually they get angry.
The quadruple billing worked fine until, as in the case of the Poe pictures, we saw the same special effects of burning houses, etc., being reused in picture after picture after picture after picture. That really took the juice out of an all night crowd.
Hmmm, come to think of it, I don't need my imagination to think of sitting in a room watching old AIP flicks, I know I've watched INVASION OF THE SAUCERMEN, DRAGSTRIP GIRL, SHAKE,RATTLE,AND ROCK, and several more in the last year, and they seem to hold up pretty well. What makes them are the old pros Nicholson and Arkoff would hire to prop up these films, Raymond Hatton alone in SAUCERMEN and SHAKE makes them worth watching, and in SHAKE he's joined by Margaret Dumont, Douglas Dumbrille, Sterling Holloway, Clarence Kolb, and Frank Jenks all happily scene-stealing in between Fats Domino numbers. Edward L Cahn directs a lot of these that Corman didn't handle, and he's another old pro who can turn out a snappy and entertaining film on a shoestring budget. And the tongue-in-cheek AIP color horror films of the early sixties sure hold up a lot better than the mean-spirited and humorless Hammer product of the same period, the AIP's only went down hill when they tried to match the Hammers in general unpleasantness in the late sixties.
AIP turned out a very respectable product for the level they were working on.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
I ran a few of the AIP all nighters.
CYCLES - THE GLORY STOMPERS and three others.
POE - HOUSE OF USHER, PIT AND PENDULUM and another pair.
BAD GIRLS - BOXCAR BERTHA, BLOODY MAMA and two more naughties.
This was during the early-to-mid 1970s.
Not unusual for some of the color prints arriving with hues missing.
Lots of 'riding' at the drive-ins, too, and not involving ponies.
@Reg Hartt: Good advice to offer, Reg.
@lmshah: The Hammer horrors are classics for a reason, and a very good one: they're actual horror movies as opposed to what was coming out of Hollywood from AIP and others at this time (The Return Of Dracula [Curse Of Dracula] being one of the reasons.) Empathizing the horror of what Dracula did to his victims, for example made the Hammer horrors a vital thing to a populace that was bored with the old Universal horrors, and it also made these old horror characters (Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, The Phantom Of the Opera, etc.) come alive again and compete with the more modern sci-fi monsters on the screen from AIP and other companies, IMHO. It also didn't hurt that some of the originals that Hammer did come up with (The Gorgon being one example) were also good.
@Mike Cline: I'm going to guess that most of that 'riding' was of a sexual nature.
The 1980s equivalent of these drive-in "all nighter" programs were things like "Nightflight" on the USA Network.
Now we just have infomercials and reruns all night on broadcast and cable tv.
"I tell wanna be film makers to study the people who had no money. When they ask why I tell them, "Because you haven't got any." Usually they get angry."
That reminds me of the story where Joe Dante was making some Roger Corman picture and he was supposed to show a crowd of students in the hallway of a school passing between classes. The problem being, he had five extras. He calls up Corman. Corman's blithe answer is, "Shoot it like Eisenstein on Ivan the Terrible." Dante replies, "Oh yeah? Part One or Part Two?"
Josef Von Sternberg had the same problem on DISHONERED: how to make a handful of people look like a lot. He handled it very well. Probably IVAN THE TERRIBLE PART TWO. The Soviets had cut Eisenstein's budget.
The Hammer Horror films start out as mediocre horror films in color redeemed by good British actors and soon fall into blood and breasts in color with lackluster scripts still occasionally redeemed by good British actors but frequently just boring. Mean-spirited and exploitative to the core, and their threadbare budgets show more often than not. None of their retreads of the old Universal monsters hold a candle to the originals.
The AIP's have good scripts, good combinations of good old proa working with good newbies to make films that both scare and amuse their audiences, and hold up today a lot better than the Hammers, and when they go for comedy, they're actually funny. THE RAVEN and THE COMEDY OF TERRORS still work great with an audience.
Keep your Hammers, some of us like to have fun.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
Have to agree with Richard M. Roberts on the HAMMERS. A few hit the mark for me. Most do not. Same with the Amicus films and others. Always felt let down. Hearing Margaret Dumont was in SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK was irresistible. I found it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA9J5jytgPA . Yep, that's our Margaret.
I like the admission that lack of attention was assumed. "War Gods of the Deep" and the non-AIP "Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" both seem designed to convince you that exciting things happened at some point while you weren't watching. The latter especially is full of talk of illegal drag races and grudge matches, but there's never any racing on camera. We never even see a drag strip. It's as if an amusement park set up lines for non-existant rides, so you'd go home thinking there was more than the two or three you got on.
While too squeamish to become a real fan, I liked the Hammers for their period look. That it was a CHEAP period look gave them a visual kinship with Universal Bs. For me the turnoff was modern vampire / zombie / postnuclear stuff, where oppressive settings, gross anatomy and downer endings were supposed to replace thrills and chills.
Hammer horror films "mean spirited and humorless" ? I don't think so --
I like the 1933 Paramount "Murders in the Zoo" opening where Lionel Atwill sews his romantic rival's lips together,
but even with the mean-spirited character I find that movie fun and full of humor.
I like lots of AIP horror, even more of Hammer horror, and just about everything from the old Golden Age of horror from 1931 through 1948.
I don't need to put any of it down in order to prefer another.
It's not a matter of putting down one in order to prefer another. Hammer lost its hold on audiences once the studio began to pander to us. They did everything they could to appeal to what is presumed the taste of the masses. TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA only had Christopher Lee in it BECAUSE Warner Brothers forced it. As far as it went SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA was a far better modern age DRACULA than DRACULA AD 1972 but again everything for myself (and I presume many others because the film never hit big as the first Hammers had) just fell short of the mark.
Even their first true DRACULA sequel, DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS after that great set-up to get DRACULA back in action just petered out. Lee was silent as Dracula in that because he refused to speak the words as they were written.
The Universal Films had excellent writers in the 30s. Curt Siodmak brought to the 1940s Universal Horrors his own skills as a top rank SF author. AIP in trying to replace Vincent Price with Robert Quarry were guilty of the same cheapness. Quarry was fine as far as that goes but Price was and remains among the greats.
I saw the quadruple (it may have been quintuple) bill of AIP Poes in a 5,000 seat cinema. HOUSE OF USHER had us. When we saw the burning set recycled through Poe picture after Poe picture the program felt cheaper and cheaper though seen by themselves the tricks work. The same thing happens watching Universal's Kharis the mummy series. They drain the life out of audiences in mass screenings.
OH BOO!!! I've always regarded AIP as the absolute WORST FILM STUDIO EVER. On the other view, CORMAN DID BRING IN the MONEY, can't argue that. However, this is just another film-crazed- movie- person's opinion here; that CORMAN had NO BUSINESS behind a camera whatsoever; that the AIP product was such crud and without any hesitation giving my OPINION declaring THAT MOST ALL of AIP'S stuff AN UNWATCHABLE/TORTUROUS/HARROWING
EVENT no matter where experienced. And how I have TRIED to give any of the later so-called HORROR pictures some merit, but !@#%*(&*)%^^!!!! WHO can sit through some garbage like "PIT & THE PENDULUM", for CRYSAKE with any regard to coherent film making??!! Oh yeah, let's be SURE to film all of these 'seat-squirming-where- is- the end-title?'-disasters, in the cheap, soon-to-fade-fast PATHE'COLOR PROCESS!!!...at least they unreeled prints filmed in PANAVISION, to fill the wide drive-in SCREEN! The only thing GREAT about the whole (AIP)SHOWMAN'S SHMO, was the money-making idea/factor of throwing 3 or 4 of these celluloid DISASTERS onto the SCREENS OF PACKED-IN DRIVE-IN THEATRES. It seemed like these 'passion-pits' were created for the long run of folks who indeed took advantage of the OBVIOUS; ALL-NIGHT adventures with steamed-up windows! WHO CARED WHAT WAS ON THE SCREEN? Yes, most of us remember some of those nights at some of those drive-in theatres. HOWEVER, I must say that my remarks here are TAINTED with the overall covering of intense frustration and an obvious JEALOUS factor of ME THEN,.... NOT OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE YET, and drooling over the newspaper ads of the several DRIVE-INS which (naturally!), were located far away across town, seemingly screening such AIP crap on an IRREGULAR basis! The reasoning here I believe to be a very good point: that, as you all know, AIP's POSTERS were FANTASTIC IN DESIGN- WITH BEAUTIFUL ARTWORK! However luring they appeared, these POSTERS INDEED had all of us FOOLED--( especially those of us who were VERY IMPRESSIONABLE youngsters at the time), because the STAND-OUT AIP POSTERS WERE ALWAYS BETTER THAN THE FILM ITSELF!. In some cases, I recall film/poster collectors who would VALUE/WANT the rare AIP POSTER of a title OVER the RARE PRINT OF THE SAME. Thank the film gods that AIP steered away from making WESTERNS...especially with the dumb-cluck actors on their payroll during the 1950's stretch,,( Jack Nicholson excepted!) Not ever meaning to offend here, but dag-nab it, I HAD TO get it said: I HATE AIP !! HOWEVER--- I must admit I DID enjoy seeing some old pro stars from the THEN-PAST, (KARLOFF, CHANEY,ETC.)And lastly, here, I THOUGHT it was an EXTREME CRUEL DEED of the producers, to guest-star the GREAT BUSTER KEATON in several of those insipid 'beach party' fiascos, in what MUST HAVE BEEN a terribly embarrassing and humiliating experience for him. And --SHAME ON THOSE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE--- for that. BOO! for sure.
Now now, deep breaths, stay away from the CAPS lock. If you think the AIP films are such abominations, you haven't seen enough of this sort of product, try Andy Milligan, try Herschel Gordon Lewis. The AIP's have solid, professional technical levels for their budgets, and the actors make them, usually with a sense of fun knowing full well they're not making Shakespeare. And Roger Corman was a damn good director, whether making schlock or doing something like THE INTRUDER, Corman's work always moves, and keeps ones interest, sorry, a lot of folk like these films, however much it upsets you.
The writing talent was pretty darn impressive too, considering it's people like Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson churning out a lot of these scripts, beats the hell out of Jimmy Sangster.
And spare Buster Keaton you're pity, he was too busy making more money in the last fifteen years of his life than he ever made working for Joe Schenck, and what he's actually doing in those Beach pictures is keeping his face before a new young public (one of which was me come to think of it, those were some of the first things I ever saw him in way before I saw any of his silent films) by appearing in some big boxoffice films of 1964-65, fiascos they weren't, especially financially, and he walks away with them every time he's in a scene. Only the posthumously pretentious ever wanted to call Buster an "artist", he didn't think of himself in that way during his lifetime, and in fact, was treated with a lot of respect by the cast and crew of those films, and those films along with all his television work was the reason people were still stopping him and asking him for an autograph when they had forgotten or never knew who most of his silent contemporaries were.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
Ditto to Keaton's later career. He had no complaints and we all benefited too.
I have always wished that someone had said to Buster in the last years of his life, "Buster, make a movie."
Just that. nothing more.
Watch the National Film Board of Canada documentary on the making of THE RAILRODDDER, BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN to see how Buster subtly took control of and directed THE RAILRODDER.
I met the credited director of THE RAILRODDER by chance at one of my screenings. He viewed Keaton as a talent less old man. That is to his discredit not Buster's.
Anyone seeing Buster in any of his later films who got curious would swiftly find themselves, as I did, drawn to see as much of his early work as they could (which, at that time, was damn near impossible).
Comic artist Wallace (Wally) Wood said the laws of drawing comics are "Don't draw what you can't trace. Don't trace what you can't paste."
He's talking about saving both money and time (which is money that can't be gotten back).
I don't fault AIP nor Universal nor any other studio for recycling footage. That is how professionals do what they do. The climax of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN features footage from THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN on while the gags are cribbed from the best moments of A & C's former films. The seams show only when we see these movies one after another in quick succession which is certainly not how they were made to be seen.
As for the posters AIP made the posters first as did Universal in the 1930s. Then if the poster generated enough bookings they made the movie. Those posters were designed to sell. Sell they did. It seems to be a lost art.
Take a pill, Steven. And one lo-o-ong paragraph is a bitch to read.
I agree with Imshah, there was a lot of real crap out there, disgusting and humiliating stuff. If you get a chance (YouTube?) check out Buster doing a spontaneous routine in a diner on CANDID CAMERA that just destroys two other customers.
I think the indication of Gerald Potterton's talent in directing THE RAILRODDER is that some of the gags Buster is shown thinking up during the shooting of that film are better shot, presented and edited in BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN than they are in the film Potterton "directed".
That said, I have never heard Potterton say anything but respectful words about Keaton, the one that I have to shake my head at in irony is Alan Schneider, the director of FILM, which is the most pretentious wheeze Keaton ever appeared in. In Schneider's autobiography, he considers Keaton nothing but a broken-down old vaudeville clown, little realizing that any genius brought to that project is Buster making that silly and frankly simple concept work because whom else could give a compelling performance with their back to the camera most of the time?
That "broken-down old vaudevilliam" is the only reason that FILM has any immortality whatsoever.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
Potterton walked into my original Cineforum at 12 Mercer Street in Toronto in 1980. He wasn't in public when he spoke. His comments were delivered privately to myself as from a knowing insider. Clearly he was not informed about Keaton's work. I refrained from saying what I actually thought when he spoke because I felt the words would have been wasted on him as well as dismissed by him. He would not be the first to express in private opinions contrary to those expressed publicly.
I agree with you 100% about Alan Schneider. His disparaging of Buster is all too common among the pseudo hip which he was.
That said, I don't find FILM pretentious. It was written by Samuel Beckett who revealed to Buster during its making that he had written WAITING FOR GODOT expressly for Buster who had passed on it when it was offered to him.
I think Beckett wrote FILM just so he could meet and work with Buster. I also agree with you 100% that outside of Beckett devotees the only reason FILM has any interest whatsoever is due to Buster who is great in it.
I am concerned about those who having read Schneider's autobiography dismiss Buster.
Though he never thought himself an artist Buster was. He was also a singularly great artist whose work will long endure as examples of the very best the art and craft of motion pictures can produce.
The business of motion pictures is the only art form that has consistently denied great talent the opportunity to work until they draw their last breath. Like I said earlier, I wish someone has said to Buster in his twilight years, "Here is the money. Make a movie."
We owe Sergio Leone's superb ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA to a chance encounter on a beach with just one such person. Too bad there are not lots more.
"The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" Is best remembered for its closing title: "THE ENDEST, MAN!"
In an interview on the CBC (not the one with Fletcher Markle, this is one Buster did when he was up in Canada shooting TEN GIRLS AGO in 1962), the question is posted to Buster if he could make a film today like he did in the silent days, and Keaton interestingly says no, he says that today the Studio system and the unionization makes it too difficult for him to work the way he did, he couldn't just have everyone on staff and go out and shoot something on an idea and flesh it out as they went along, everything had to requisitioned in triplicate and it would take days to get it prepared and clearances to shoot on the streets etc.etc. He then says he has much more freedom working on small projects like commercials and industrial films where he has a small crew and much more input and he had enjoyed making those immensely.
John F. Long told me that on THE HOMEOWNER (1962), Buster had a meeting with him and his staff and said "give me your selling points, and I'll create gags to illustrate them", which he did, then during the shoot, the director Joe Parker just kept asking Buster "how do you want to shoot this Buster?" and let Buster be in charge. This apparently happened on a lot of Buster's industrial and commercial work, which is why it's some of Buster's best later work.
Gerald Potterton comes off a bit clueless in dealing with Buster on THE RAILRODDER in BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN, and Buster deals with him rather brilliantly. I have another two hours of outtakes of footage John Spotton shot for that documentary, of which unfortunately the soundtrack has disappeared, but there is footage of a long story conference Buster has with Potterton before they go out on location to shoot, and it looks like Buster is giving Gerald an earful. I need to get a lipreader to go over that footage some day and find out what Buster is saying.
I believe Beckett originally wrote FILM for Jack MacGowran, but they couldn't get him a work visa or union clearance to use him for a New York shoot, and Keaton was the replacement they decided on, Keaton was definitely not the first choice.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
Very interesting post and informative comments above. Best regards.
I think if someone had said, "Buster, here's the money, make a movie," Keaton would have said, "Fine." While he's right about the limitations of the studio system and unionization as blocks to the creative freedom he enjoyed in the silent era an independent production could have gotten around all that.
He's also right about the clearances to shoot on streets, etc., which just means everything works against a creative artist now when it didn't at the beginning.
During BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN I love the way they try to talk Keaton out of the ride over the abyss while he incorporates THEIR suggestions of an alternate into his main thread making it in the end way more dangerous (and, as a result, exciting) than it was as he originally conceived it. Frankly, without their being aware of it I feel Buster directed the film.
Thanks for the info on Jack MacGowran. He's fine but had he done it hardly anyone would today want to see it. I think you will agree. Love to see that John Spotton footage. Too bad the sound is lost. There are moments in BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN where Buster rightly does get worked up.
Favorite moments in "Buster Keaton Rides Again": Keaton laughing and smiling when "off camera", and getting giddy when describing a Laurel and Hardy routine (is he remembering a specific film?). Also his birthday toast, in an Irish brogue: "To show you me heart's in the right place, I'll fight any man in the house."
Interesting how these comments went from memories of AIP marathons to a battle as to the quality of AIP versus Hammer (I loved them both until quality and ideas slipped into cliche) to a long discussion of late Buster Keaton late career choices.
Few were watching those movies at the drive-in. They were making out.
And then there was this genius marketing poster. https://movieposters.ha.com/itm/comedy/beach-blanket-bingo-american-international-1965-one-sheet-27-x-41-advance/a/7156-86591.s?ic4=GalleryView-BidNow-071515
Keaton in FILM is worthy of reconsideration and can be seen with Ross Lipman's new fascinating feature about it, NOTFILM from Milestone.Just released on DVD/BluRay.
Gary Meyer
www.EatDrinkFilms.com
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