Sam Katzman(1901-1973)
- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Production Manager
New York-born Sam Katzman entered the film industry as a prop boy at
age 13, and worked his way up the ladder, learning virtually every
facet of film production before becoming a producer himself. Starting
out producing action/adventure serials (where he got the nickname
"Jungle Sam"), Katzman's output encompassed virtually every genre
imaginable. In the 1930s he turned out Tim McCoy westerns for Puritan and
Victory, the next decade he was grinding out the East Side Kids series
at Monogram, the 1950s saw him making sci-fi opuses and teenage
musicals for Columbia and in the 1960s he was cranking out hippie/biker
films for AIP and Elvis Presley musicals for MGM. Due to a combination of
astute marketing and the fact that he ground out films so quickly and
cheaply that he could cash in on a fad before it faded away, Katzman's
movies seldom if ever lost money.
