Katzman, Nicholson and Corman: Shaping Hollywood's Future

Mark McGee, the author of You Won’t Believe Your Eyes! once again takes the reader back to the 1950s, this time to explore the careers of three pioneers in bargain basement entertainment —Sam Katzman, James Nicholson and Roger Corman, the first filmmakers to recognize that the kids were the ones who bought most of the movie tickets. While the major studios continued to lose money every year on fi lms that were aimed at an audience that was home watching television, Katzman, Nicholson and Corman were making movies that appealed to the young people. Rock and roll movies. Juvenile delinquent dramas. Science fi ction and horror thrillers. They were hated by the critics and chastised by the guardians of public morality. But the exhibitors loved them. They counted on these three guys to keep them in the black, which they did for almost twenty years. It took the studios decades to finally get wise to themselves and now they’re flooding the market with mega buck versions of the kinds of movies Katzman, Nicholson and Corman made for $1.98. A lot of these films were junk. Some of them were treasures. You be the judge which was which.