A24 is an indie film studio/distributor that has gained a huge following in recent years. Hip young movie buffs have come to see the A24 logo as the mark of something worth seeing. The company has carefully built its catalog to be, well, weird. They pick lower budget projects, ranging from sci-fi comedies to graphic horror, and put them in front of a wide audience. They’re not the first indie outfit to walk this path, but they’re certainly the classiest – their films have taken home the Best Picture Oscar twice in ten years! Their direct ideological ancestor was just as weird but decidedly less award winning: American International Pictures.
The American International Pictures Formula
American International Pictures was founded in 1954 by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff. Their focus was on an audience underserved by the major studios: teenagers! The whole concept of “teenager” as a demographic was still fairly new in the mid-50s, and the prevailing wisdom in Hollywood was that they didn’t go see movies. AIP did the unthinkable and held focus groups asking real teens what they wanted to see. Arkoff used this information to develop his “ARKOFF Formula” for what a movie needs:
- Action (exciting, entertaining drama)
- Revolution (novel or controversial themes and ideas)
- Killing (a modicum of violence)
- Oratory (notable dialogue and speeches)
- Fantasy (acted-out fantasies common to the audience)
- Fornication (sex appeal for young adults)
We defy you to compare that formula to A24’s library and tell us they’re not using it! That said, it wasn’t articulated until after the studio went kaput. In their day, they publicly talked about their “Peter Pan Principle”. It was built on two major assumptions. First, a younger kid will watch anything an older kid will but not vice versa. Second, a girl will watch anything a boy will but not vice versa. Therefore, you can capture the biggest chunk of the youth audience by catering to a nineteen-year-old male. Looking at the modern state of blockbuster cinema, it seems like that idea really caught on.
“A Bucket of Blood”, Roger Corman’s first horror flick with AIP.
Roger Corman & Horror Movies
One of AIP’s top producer/directors was Roger Corman. Corman’s specialties were horror and science fiction flicks, both made directly by AIP and “just” distributed by them. His first horror flick with them was A Bucket of Blood, a film that arguably invented the modern horror comedy. That movie led Corman to create Little Shop of Horrors, a mix of science fiction, horror, and comedy that was shot on the same sets as Bucket. AIP paired it with Italian horror picture Black Sunday (directorial debut of the legendary Mario Bava) as a drive-in double feature. Both were hits.
Corman and AIP would go on to great success in the 1960s with their “Poe Cycle” of films. Loosely adapted, or just inspired by, the stories of legendary American author Edgar Allen Poe, these films provided cheap scares with a literary failure. Vincent Price starred in seven out of eight of these features, cementing him in the minds of a new generation as horror legend. AIP’s horror offerings would go on to be the backbone of Elvira’s Movie Macabre in the 1980s.
Beach Party Comedies
Concurrently with the Poe Cycle, AIP was putting out the Beach Party series. Starring young actor/popstars Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, the loosely connected series put out a whopping eleven movies in just four years – eat your heart out, Marvel Studios! The movies were simple: they were the romantic misadventures of nebulously aged young people as they surfed, skydived, drag raced, and (above all) shook their bodies to rock ‘n roll. Fuddy-duddy adults would try to ruin their fun, cool adults would help them out (played by the likes of Buddy Hackett, Don Rickles, Mickey Rooney, and Elsa Lanchester), and the stakes were never much higher than “will my best girl make-out with me on our beach blanket?”
“Mad Max”, one of AIP’s final releases.
The series was very kitschy and did not take itself at all seriously. The highlights of the series are often the musical guests. The series boasts performances from the likes of Dick Dale & The Del-Tones, James Brown & His Famous Flames, Stevie Wonder, Nancy Sinatra, The Bobby Fuller Four, The Kingsmen, and the Supremes. The series would go on to inspire the House Party movies of the 1990s, which re-envisioned the concept through a hip-hop lens.
The Fall of AIP
The changing movie market drove American International out of business in the 1980s. They went out with a bang, however, with one of their last major releases being George Miller’s Mad Max! The gritty, violent sci-fi thriller straddles the line between “high art” and “low art”, much like its Oscar nominated sequel Mad Max: Fury Road would decades later.
Movie posters and lobby cards from some of AIP’s iconic films and franchises are currently available in our eBay store! They’re just one part of a nifty selection of movie posters, prop replicas, toys, and other collectible treasures film fans will go ga-ga over. And if you’ve got a collection of vintage movie memorabilia that you’re looking to sell, we wanna talk to you!
What’s your favorite AIP flick? Tell us in the comments or on social media @b2pcollect!
