Sam Katzman
Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director. Katzman's specialty was producing low-budget genre films, including serials, which had disproportionately high returns for the studios and his financial backers.
Early career
Sam was born to a Jewish family; his father Abe Katzman was a violinist. He and Sam's mother Rebecca were from Kishinev, Bessarabia Governorate, Russian Empire. Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry and moved from prop boy to assistant director at Fox Films. He would learn all aspects of filmmaking and was a Hollywood producer for more than 40 years. Katzman worked as an assistant to Norman Taurog and got married on the set of The Diplomats in 1928 at Fox.In October 1927 he signed with comic Joe Russo to make a series of two-reel comedies.
Screencraft Pictures
Katzman was a production supervisor at Showmen's Pictures in the early 1930s, and Screencraft Productions in July 1935.His movies included His Private Secretary starring a young John Wayne. They also made Police Call, Ship of Wanted Men, Public Stenographer, and St. Louis Woman.
Supreme Pictures
He worked as a producer at A. W. Hackel's Supreme Pictures, where he mostly made Westerns starring Bob Steele. Filming started 15 May 1934 with A Demon for Trouble.Other films included Western Justice, The Brand of Hate, Smokey Smith, Tombstone Terror, Trail of Terror, Alias John Law, Big Calibre, Sundown Saunders, Brand of the Outlaws and The Kid Ranger.
Victory Pictures and Puritan Pictures
In June 1935 Katzman announced he would make six films written by Peter Kyne for Fox, starting with Danger Ahead. He ended up taking over Bryan Foy's studios at Culver City and doing the films through his own company, Victory Pictures.In 1935 Katzman founded Puritan Pictures, a film distribution group, their first film being Suicide Squad.
From 1935 to 1940 Victory produced two serials and 30 features, including Western film series starring Tom Tyler and Tim McCoy, and action pictures with Herman Brix and Bela Lugosi. Katzman also made crime films like Hot Off the Press, Bars of Hate, The Fighting Coward and Danger Ahead, many of which were written by Peter B. Kyne.
Katzman entered the world of serials in 1936 and would return to the genre in 1944.
In June 1937 a fire damaged the building where Victory was based. In January 1939 Victory announced they would make 20 more Westerns., but within six months Katzman closed Puritan and began releasing his productions through Monogram Pictures.
Monogram Pictures
At Monogram, a "budget" studio, Katzman partnered with Jack Dietz, under the name Banner Productions, to produce 22 East Side Kids features, two musicals, and a series of thrillers with Bela Lugosi. In April 1941 Katzman signed Lugosi to make three films, which were well received. Lugosi ultimately made nine films for Katzman.In January 1943 Katzman signed a contract with stage star Frank Fay and screen comic Billy Gilbert for four films. Fay walked out on the series after the first film, Spotlight Scandals, and Katzman replaced him with Gilbert's closest friend, Shemp Howard.
Katzman continued to produce features for Monogram through 1948. His final East Side Kids movies were Docks of New York, Mr. Muggs Rides Again and Come Out Fighting. The series came to an abrupt end when its star Leo Gorcey wanted double the usual salary from Katzman. Katzman reacted by pulling the plug on the series.
In November 1945 Katzman replaced the rowdy East Side Kids with The Teen Agers, a wholesome gang of high-schoolers. These were vehicles for singer Freddie Stewart. It was an early example of Katzman's output aimed specifically at a teenage audience. He produced six of these musical comedies through 1948.
Columbia Pictures
In September 1944 Katzman was offered a job producing serials for Columbia Pictures, starting with Brenda Starr, Reporter and Who's Guilty?. With typical thrift, he produced these on the side, using Monogram's actors and technicians. The Columbia serials proved successful, and Katzman became their permanent producer, using Columbia's own technicians and facilities.In June 1946 Katzman announced he would make his first feature for Columbia, a remake of The Last of the Mohicans starring Jon Hall. However, the first movies he ended up making at the studio were musicals. In August 1946 he signed Jean Porter to star in Betty Co-Ed, made by Katzman's Monogram director Arthur Dreifuss. The film received excellent reviews, prompting Columbia to ask for three more. Porter left Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which was downsizing, to sign with Katzman. The three musicals were Little Miss Broadway, Sweet Genevieve and Two Blondes and a Redhead.
Katzman and Dreifuss then made two films with singer Gloria Jean, who had been a star at Universal Pictures. Katzman was so pleased by I Surrender Dear that he devoted more time to it, and economized on her other picture, Manhattan Angel. These were budgeted at about $140,000 per film.
Katzman's other Columbia musicals were Mary Lou and Glamour Girl. He made two sports-themed features starring Gloria Henry: Racing Luck and Triple Threat. During this time Katzman continued to produce serials: Jack Armstrong, The Vigilante, The Sea Hound with Buster Crabbe, Brick Bradford, Congo Bill and the outstandingly successful Superman.
Focus on action pictures
The boxoffice performance of Katzman's action movies and serials, particularly Superman, was outstripping those for his musicals and comedies, leading him away from those genres. From 1949 to 1954 he would produce only action fare for Columbia. In October 1948 Katzman signed a seven-year, $4 million contract with Columbia to make four feature films a year through his Kay Pictures corporation, four serials a year via his Esskay Productions, and a Jungle Jim series starring Johnny Weissmuller. The budgets for the Weissmuller films were announced at $350,000 per film.Katzman's stock-in-trade was now a mix of Arabian Nights fantasies, western, action, and prison pictures. He would average ten features a year, producing them in four to ten weeks. Katzman allowed a budget of $400,000 for The Prince of Thieves, a version of the Robin Hood story starring Hall. Other action-oriented Katzman product around this time included the Jungle Jim adventures; the serials Tex Granger, Adventures of Sir Galahad, Batman and Robin, and Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies ; the action thriller The Mutineers with Hall; the swashbuckler Barbary Pirate ; and the crime movie Chinatown at Midnight.
Charles Schneer, who worked for Katzman in the 1940s and 1950s, said the producer "knew everything there was to know about making a movie. He was a very enterprising fellow, and was enormously intuitive. But, he was a very tough taskmaster and a real skinflint. I managed to get along well with Sam, because I knew what he was and respected what he did. Unfortunately, all his input was negative. He never contributed anything positive. I would suggest an idea, and he would knock it down. I would argue with him, but I never got very far. He wouldn't say: 'Do this instead of that.' He would only say: 'Don't do this' — and I didn't. I certainly learned the value of a dollar from Sam."
Katzman's Monogram cameraman Richard Cline later recalled, "We did 106 features in six years, working six days a week – an average of 20 to 22 features a year. Those were "B" pictures... There was a clever writer in the unit. Sam would pick up a newspaper and say, 'Oh, here's a story.' He'd give it to the writer and the writer would turn out a script. We'd go all over. We were actually a traveling unit, a very cohesive unit, and I really learned my trade from that experience."
Katzman shrewdly planned each production with both eyes on the budget, so that he would be spending less and less money as filming progressed. He would film crowd scenes first, then dismiss many of the actors. The remaining featured players would perform their scenes, and then leave. Finally, only the two or three leading actors were still on the payroll, working with a few recognizable, economical bit players.
Katzman's main directors during his early years at Columbia were Arthur Dreifuss, Lew Landers, William Berke, and Spencer Gordon Bennet. Berke specialized in the Jungle Jim films: Mark of the Gorilla, Pygmy Island, Captive Girl and Fury of the Congo. Bennet made the serials: Pirates of the High Seas, Atom Man vs. Superman, Cody of the Pony Express, Mysterious Island, Roar of the Iron Horse and Son of Geronimo. Landers handled the other action features like State Penitentiary, Revenue Agent with Lyle Talbot, Last of the Buccaneers with Paul Henreid, Chain Gang, Tyrant of the Sea with Ron Randell, Hurricane Island and When the Redskins Rode with Hall, A Yank in Korea with Lon McAllister. Richard Quine, then under contract to Columbia, made one of his first films as director for Katzman, Purple Heart Diary ; he later did Siren of Bagdad with Paul Henreid.
Lew Landers took over direction of Jungle Jim movies for Jungle Manhunt and Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land, and did California Conquest with Cornel Wilde. Fred F. Sears, formerly an actor in Columbia features, began directing Columbia's Charles Starrett westerns; when that series lapsed, he started work for Katzman with Last Train from Bombay starring Hall. Wallace Grissell directed A Yank in Indo-China and Sidney Salkow directed The Golden Hawk with Sterling Hayden and The Pathfinder with George Montgomery.
Columbia's president Harry Cohn sometimes used the Sam Katzman unit as a threat, to keep recalcitrant actors in line or terminate an unwanted contract. Columbia owed Lucille Ball one feature assignment and an $85,000 salary, which Cohn tried to sidestep by sending Ball a "tits and sand" script from the Katzman unit. Cohn was confident that Ball would refuse the Katzman assignment, thus breaking her contract. Ball bristled at the script but didn't want to lose the salary, so she told Cohn she loved the script and agreed to the assignment. Cohn was forced to honor the agreement, and to his credit he allowed a higher production budget for The Magic Carpet, which was filmed in Super Cinecolor.
Director Spencer Bennet continued to make serials like Blackhawk and King of the Congo, and branched into features such as Brave Warrior with Hall and a Jungle Jim film, Voodoo Tiger. Paul Henreid returned to Katzman to star in Thief of Damascus, directed by Will Jason.
In July 1952 Katzman announced he would make at least 15 films a year for seven years. In November 1952 this contract was amended so Katzman would make twenty films.
William Castle joined the Katzman group as director in 1953, starting with Serpent of the Nile with Rhonda Fleming and Raymond Burr. Castle later wrote in his memoirs that Katzman "was a smallish man with a round cherubic face and twinkling eyes. Few people in the motion picture industry took him seriously as a producer of quality films, but to me, Sam was a great showman." Castle went on to make a series of films for Katzman including Slaves of Babylon with Richard Conte, Conquest of Cochise with John Hodiak, and two Westerns with Montgomery, Fort Ti and Masterson of Kansas, The Law vs. Billy the Kid with Scott Brady, and The Saracen Blade with Ricardo Montalbán.
Richard L. Bare directed Prisoners of the Casbah with Gloria Grahame. William Berke returned to the Jungle Jim franchise with Valley of the Head Hunters. Sidney Salkow made Jack McCall, Desperado with Montgomery and Prince of Pirates with John Derek. Spencer Bennet directed the Jungle Jim films Savage Mutiny and Killer Ape. Fred Sears directed Target Hong Kong with Richard Denning, Sky Commando with Dan Duryea, The 49th Man with John Ireland and Denning, and Mission Over Korea with Hodiak and Derek. Former assistant director Seymour Friedman made Flame of Calcutta.
Katzman continued to produce serials such as The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd, The Lost Planet, Riding with Buffalo Bill, and Gunfighters of the Northwest
Lee Sholem directed Jungle Man-Eaters which was the last official Jungle Jim movie. Weissmuller made three more, playing himself.
In July 1954 it was announced that Katzman's company, now called Clover Productions, would make 15 films for Columbia. Castle directed Jesse James vs. the Daltons in 3-D, The Iron Glove with Robert Stack, Charge of the Lancers with Paulette Goddard, Drums of Tahiti with Dennis O'Keefe and The Battle of Rogue River with Montgomery. Fred Sears had a solid hit with The Miami Story.