Sam Katzman (July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973) 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. In the 1930s, he produced numerous Western films for Victory Pictures and Puritan Pictures, and in the 1940s, he produced 22 East Side Kids features for Monogram Pictures. As well as producing the Jungle Jim series, in the 1950s, Katzman and his studio Clover Productions made science fiction, horror, and teen films for Columbia Pictures, including Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), Rock Around the Clock, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The Werewolf (all 1956), and The Giant Claw (1957). Katzman also produced two musicals starring Elvis Presley for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM): Kissin' Cousins (1964) and Harum Scarum (1965).
Early career Sam was born to a Jewish family;Jewish Virtual Library: "Katzman, Sam" 2008 his father Abe Katzman was a violinist. He and Sam's mother Rebecca (née Sugarman) were from Kishinev, Bessarabia Governorate, Russian Empire (now Chisinău, Moldova). 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.p.48 Dixon, Wheeler W Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (September 1, 2005) 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 (Showmen's, 1933) starring a young John Wayne (made for $9,000 and earned $95,000). They also made Police Call (1933), Ship of Wanted Men (1933), Public Stenographer (1933), and St. Louis Woman (1934).
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 (1934).
Other films included Western Justice (1934), The Brand of Hate (1934), Smokey Smith (1935), Tombstone Terror (1935), Trail of Terror (1935), Alias John Law (1935), Big Calibre (1935), Sundown Saunders (1935), Brand of the Outlaws (1936) and The Kid Ranger (1936).
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 (1935).
From 1935 to 1940 Victory produced two serials and 30 features, including Western film series starring Tom Tyler and Tim McCoy,p. 438 Pitts, Michael R. Poverty Row Studios, 1929–1940: An Illustrated History of 53 Independent Film Companies, with a Filmography for Each McFarland & Company, 1 Jan 1997 and action pictures with Herman Brix and Bela Lugosi. Katzman also made crime films like Hot Off the Press (1935), Bars of Hate (1935), The Fighting Coward (1935) and Danger Ahead (1935), many of which were written by Peter B. Kyne.
Katzman entered the world of serials in 1936 (with Shadow of Chinatown (1936) starring Bela Lugosi) 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 (1943), 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 (1945), Mr. Muggs Rides Again (1945) and Come Out Fighting (1945). 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. (Gorcey stayed with Monogram, which retooled the series as The Bowery Boys.)
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 (1945) and Who's Guilty? (1945). 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 (1946), 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.MacGillivray, Scott and MacGillivray, Jan, Gloria Jean: A Little Bit of Heaven, Universe, 2005, p. 218. . The three musicals were Little Miss Broadway (1947), Sweet Genevieve (1947) and Two Blondes and a Redhead (1947).
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 (1948) that he devoted more time to it, and economized on her other picture, Manhattan Angel (1949).MacGillivray, p. 225. The budgets averaged out to about $140,000 per film.
Katzman's other Columbia musicals were Mary Lou (1948) and Glamour Girl (1948). He made two sports-themed features starring Gloria Henry: Racing Luck (1948) and Triple Threat (1948). During this time Katzman continued to produce serials: Jack Armstrong (1947), The Vigilante (1947), The Sea Hound (1947) with Buster Crabbe, Brick Bradford (1948), Congo Bill (1948) and the outstandingly successful Superman (1948).
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 (which he called "tits and sand"), 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 (1948), 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 (1948), Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949), Batman and Robin (1949), and Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies (1949); the action thriller The Mutineers (1949) with Hall; the swashbuckler Barbary Pirate (1949); and the crime movie Chinatown at Midnight (1949).
Method of working Charles Schneer, who worked for Sam 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 (1950), Pygmy Island (1950), Captive Girl (1951) and Fury of the Congo (1951). Bennet made the serials: Pirates of the High Seas (1950), Atom Man vs. Superman (1950), Cody of the Pony Express (1950), Mysterious Island (1951), Roar of the Iron Horse (1951) and Son of Geronimo (1952). Landers handled the other action features like State Penitentiary (1950), Revenue Agent (1950) with Lyle Talbot, Last of the Buccaneers (1950) with Paul Henreid, Chain Gang (1950), Tyrant of the Sea (1950) with Ron Randell, Hurricane Island (1951) and When the Redskins Rode (1951) with Hall, A Yank in Korea (1951) with Lon McAllister. Richard Quine, then under contract to Columbia, made one of his first films as director for Katzman, Purple Heart Diary (1951); he later did Siren of Bagdad (1953) with Paul Henreid.
Lew Landers took over direction of Jungle Jim movies for Jungle Manhunt (1951) and Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land (1952), and did California Conquest (1952) 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 (1952) starring Hall. Wallace Grissell directed A Yank in Indo-China (1952) and Sidney Salkow directed The Golden Hawk (1952) with Sterling Hayden and The Pathfinder (1952) with George Montgomery.