AIP's I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF
© 1957 AIP

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In Memory of Sam Arkoff

Word has come of the death of producer Sam Arkoff.

Arkoff and his late partner James Nicholson launched the gone but effectionately remembered American International Pictures in the early 50s. Arkoff was the business side to Nicholson's creative side in a studio that defied declining movie box office (due to the advent of television) by releasing films geared for teenage tastes and often in drive-in movie theaters.

Among the notable films released by the studio in its decades of exploitation business were I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF starring a young Michael Landon, Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe series, the Frankie and Annette Beach films series, many of the 60s Toho giant monster films, including GODZILLA VS. THE THING, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS and GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER, as well as early works by Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, David Cronenberg, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Ivan Reitman, Martin Scorsese, and Robert Towne.

In recent years, Arkoff maintained a production company, of sorts, called Arkoff International Pictures. Six films created under his auspices at the old AIP, including THE SPIDER and WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, were remade for HBO's CREATURE FEATURES package of films with Arkoff's son, Louis, producing.

Arkoff was 83 years old. Our condolences go out his family and friends.