Jay Samuelz Concert

Arkoff had appointed the 28-year-old Corman as producer and writer on the first of the company's productions, the $60,000 car-racing film The Fast And The Furious (1954), which grossed $250,000. From then on, AIP never had a year when it lost money. "We went into business to make money - for ourselves, for distributors and exhibitors," Arkoff said. Arkoff was born in Iowa of Russian-Jewish parents. At 15, he was seeing three or four movies every week, and subscribing to Variety. When war broke out, he tried to join the army but failed the physical because he weighed 230 pounds and had high blood pressure. He spent the war in uniform in the Azores as a cryptographer.samuelz After the war, he graduated as a lawyer and moved to Los Angeles to be closer to the movie industry. In 1952, aged 33, married with two young children, he was struck by a cerebral haemorrhage. Emerging from a seven-day coma, his doctor told him that if he lived for another five years he would probably be alright. Having teenage children, Arkoff was able to keep in touch with changing fads. "If teenagers were involved in something new, we made a movie about it," Arkoff explained. First came the hot rod cycle, including Dragstrip Girl (1957) - "Car crazy, speed crazy, boy crazy" - and Hot Rod Gang (1958), which had "Crazy kids living to a wild rock 'n' roll beat". Then came the Beach Party movies with titles such as Muscle Beach Party (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) and The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini (1966). The pictures were shot in less than two weeks for under $500,000, and grossed millions. Almost every one of them starred Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, and involved a group of young surfers defending their right to continue their mindless activities without interference from "squares".