Russ Meyer and Roger Corman were prolific independent filmmakers who worked outside the studio system, largely enabled by their ability to find an audience and attain enough commercial success. Others worked inside the studios and were equally prolific for the same reason. The most successful of the insiders was Sam Katzman… a name you have likely seen numerous times during a film’s opening credits, though you’d be forgiven for not being able to name a single film he made.
Katzman began as a stage laborer at the age of 13, graduating to prop boy and then to assistant director at Fox Films (later to become half of 20th Century Fox). Key reasons for Katzman’s success were his adaptability and agility. After leaving Fox he became a production supervisor at Showmen's Pictures in the early 1930s, then moved again to Screencraft Productions in 1935.
Westerns were the most popular genre of the time and Katzman made the move to Supreme Pictures where he mostly made Westerns starring Bob Steele. His films weren’t as bad as bad as they sound including Tombstone Terror (1935), Trail of Terror (1935), and Sundown Saunders (1935).
In June 1935 Katzman founded his own companies, producers Victory Pictures, which made six films for his former employer Fox and distributors Puritan Pictures. Over the next five years Victory produced two serials and 30 features, including Westerns (with Tom Tyler and Tim McCoy), action pictures with Herman Brix and Bela Lugosi and crime films like Hot Off the Press (1935), Bars of Hate (1935), and The Fighting Coward (1935).
In mid 1939 Katzman closed Puritan and began releasing his productions through budget studio Monogram Pictures, he partnered with Jack Dietz, under the name Banner Productions, to produce twenty two East Side Kids features, two musicals, and nine low budget thrillers with Bela Lugosi.
While The East Side Kids series came to an abrupt end in 1945 when its star Leo Gorcey asked for double the usual salary Katzman replaced them with The Teen Agers, a wholesome gang of high-schoolers, starting with Junior Prom in 1946.
In September 1944 Katzman moved again, this time to Columbia Pictures, where he produced serials Brenda Starr, Reporter (1945) and Who's Guilty? (1945). They were made incredibly cheaply using Monogram's actors and technicians, and were very successful which earned him permanent producer status that came with his own technicians and facilities. He went on to produce serials: Jack Armstrong (1947), The Vigilante (1947), The Sea Hound (1947), Brick Bradford (1948), Congo Bill (1948) and Superman (1948).
Columbia also asked him to make features, with a focus on musicals. Once the studio realised his action movies and serial were far more profitable than his musicals or his comedies, Katzman was asked to shift his focus again. In October 1948 Katzman’s Kay Pictures signed a seven-year contract with Columbia to make four feature films a year, four serials a year through his Esskay Productions, and a Jungle Jim series.
Katzman's stock-in-trade became a mix of Arabian Nights fantasies (which he called "tits and sand"), western, action, and prison pictures, completing ten features a year, taking four to ten weeks each. During this period Katzman made a habit of scanning the newspapers looking for interesting storylines. When something piqued his interest he’d turn it over to one of his writers who’d quickly turn out a script Katzman would quickly turn into a picture.
By 1952 Katzman was contracted to make twenty films (seventeen features and three serials) a year with his latest venture Clover Productions. The result was many forgetable films including Jesse James vs. the Daltons (1954) (which was in 3-D), The Iron Glove (1954), Charge of the Lancers (1954), and Drums of Tahiti (1954).
By the mid 1950s television was becoming a significant competitor, serials were disappearing, and budgets were approaching all-time-lows. Katzman shifted his focus to the 15-25 age group, which meant more sci-fi, horror, and rock-'n'-roll musicals. The results included sci-fi films with titles like The Creature with the Atom Brain, It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) with effects from special effects innovator Ray Harryhausen.
There were teen crime films Teen-Age Crime Wave (1955) and Rumble on the Docks (1956) as well as the first rock-'n'-roll musical Rock Around the Clock (1956) followed by Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! (1956), Don't Knock the Rock (1956), Calypso Heat Wave (1957) and Juke Box Rhythm (1959). And there were teen horror films The Werewolf (1956), The Giant Claw (1957), Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) and The Night the World Exploded (1957).
Katzman’s attitude was a picture that makes money is a good picture—whether or not it has artistic merit. His pictures needed a gimmick to sell it to young audience and needed to be low effort, low stress productions. The films meeting these criteria included crime dramas Escape from San Quentin (1957), and The Tijuana Story (1957), teen melodramas Going Steady (1958) and Life Begins at 17 (1958); disaster films Crash Landing (1958) and war films The Last Blitzkrieg (1959) and The Enemy General (1960).
He joined 20th Century-Fox on a four picture deal that included The Wizard of Baghdad (1960), Gentlemen Pirates (about Mississippi gamblers) and Cypress Gardens and swashbuckler Pirates of Tortuga (1961).
He returned to Columbia for a Western, and two Chubby Checker films, Twist Around the Clock (1961) and Don't Knock the Twist (1962) before moving to MGM for low budget musicals Hootenanny Hoot (1963), Get Yourself a College Girl (1964) and When the Boys Meet the Girls (1965). Being on a run making crappy musicals producing Presley films Kissin' Cousins (1964) and Harum Scarum (1965), as well as Hank Williams biopic Your Cheatin' Heart (1964) were a logical progression.
He moved to Columbia for two quick, topical films about love-ins and singles-only apartments - The Love-Ins and For Singles Only (both 1967) and finished his career producing for his son Jerry.. Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969), How to Succeed with Sex (1970) and The Loners (1972).
Over his acreer Katzman worked with a great many recognisable names… some who were on their way up and others who were on the slide. They included John Wayne, Rhonda Fleming, Raymond Burr, Richard Conte, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalbán. Gloria Grahame, Bela Lugosi, John Derek, Dan Duryea, Johnny Weismuller, Van Johnson, Robert Stack, Paulette Goddard, Sterling Hayden, Lucile Ball, George Hamilton, Shemp Howard in addition to musicians like Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker, Roy Orbison, Herman’s Hermits, Hank William’s Jr and Bill Haley.
Like his low budget peers Katzman developed love-hate relationships. For those he made a lot of money they loved or both loved and hated him, and for those he squeeed to keep his budget low… they just hated him. He was described by those who knew him as being knowledgeable, enterprising, intuitive but also as a very tough taskmaster and a skinflint.
And when it comes to going back over his back catalogue of films, tread carefully. There are some enjoyable little films in Katzman’s checkered film history. One film I enjoy for its energy and seriously bad dialogue and storyline is Rock Around the Clock.