Sam Katzman

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Sam Katzman bigraphy, stories - Film producer and director

Sam Katzman : biography

July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973

Sam Katzman (July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973) was an American film producer and director. Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry. He would learn all aspects of filmmaking and become a highly successful Hollywood producer for more than 40 years.

Katzman produced cost-effective films that made money for the studios and his financial backers. He is noted for numerous westerns of the ’30s, his Bela Lugosi and East Side Kids features of the ’40s, the 15-chapter Superman serial of 1948 and a string of rock-‘n’-roll musicals in the ’50s. At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the ’60s Katzman produced several Elvis Presley films and singer Roy Orbison’s only film, The Fastest Guitar Alive.

He is the uncle of television producer Leonard Katzman.

Biography

Early life and career

Born in New York City to Abraham and Rebecca Katzman, a poor Jewish family, Katzman entered the film industry shortly before World War I as an errand boy at Fox Film Corporation, which was then making low-budget short films at its studios in Fort Lee, NJ. As a mail carrier, prop boy and laboratory messenger, carrying cans of exposed film back and forth to the lab, Katzman quickly learned all the angles of the low-budget film business, and gradually rose to the rank of assistant director.

Fox let Katzman go in the early ’30s in a wave of cutbacks just before the company merged with 20th Century Pictures. He thus became an independent producer and created his first venture, a feature-length film called His Private Secretary (1933), which he wrote himself. John Wayne was featured, and Katzman made it in six days at an overall cost of $13,000. It was a financial, if not critical, success, and from this modest beginning, Katzman never looked back.

Low-budget producers usually made outdoor westerns and action pictures, saving money on sets and using inexpensive actors. Katzman was no exception, and he filled his films with former silent-screen players who still had name value but commanded lower salaries. His companies of the late ’30s, Victory Pictures (1935–1939) and Puritan Pictures (1935–1938), relied on screen menace Bela Lugosi, cowboy star Tim McCoy and Olympic athlete Herman Brix (later to change his name to Bruce Bennett) to draw the customers.

Monogram Pictures

Monogram Pictures, a small but prolific independent studio, specialized in low-budget films for neighborhood theaters. Monogram produced most of its own films in-house, but also released films made by independent producers. Katzman sold Monogram on a juvenile delinquency series, to cash in on the successful cycle of the Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys melodramas. Katzman’s series, The East Side Kids, caught on almost immediately, and before long many of the original Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys joined Katzman’s series. The East Side Kids films gradually evolved from noisy melodramas to roughneck comedies. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, Billy Benedict and ‘Sunshine’ Sammy Morrison were mainstays of Katzman’s East Side troupe.

Katzman branched out with companion series for Monogram. He partnered with Jack Dietz to produce Bela Lugosi thrillers and comedy features with Harry Langdon, Billy Gilbert and Shemp Howard. When Leo Gorcey demanded double his weekly salary from Katzman in 1945, Katzman refused and pulled the plug on The East Side Kids series. He then approached Monogram with an idea at the opposite extreme: the wholesome adventures of squeaky-clean high school kids. Monogram agreed, and Katzman launched the "Teen Agers" series, featuring singer Freddie Stewart and future "Superman" co-star Noel Neill. The first of these was 1946’s Junior Prom.

Move to Columbia

In 1945 Katzman accepted a contract from Columbia Pictures to produce adventure serials and, soon after, feature films. For two years he worked for both Monogram and Columbia, grinding out serials and low-budget features at a truly torrential pace. In 1947 he joined Columbia full-time, with a series of four Jean Porter musical comedies and another two Gloria Jean vehicles. Columbia’s arrangement with Katzman was straightforward: Katzman selected the properties, Columbia approved the scripts and financed the productions, Katzman made the films using studio personnel and resources, and Columbia gave Katzman 25% of the profits.p.134 Dick, Bernard F. The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row: Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures University Press of Kentucky The Katzman unit occupied the former Tiffany Pictures studio, now Columbia property.p.108 Weaver, Tom A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde: Interviews with 62 Filmmakers McFarland