46 Facts About Sam Katzman

Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director.

Sam was born to a Jewish family; his father Abe Katzman was a violinist.

Sam 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.

Sam Katzman would learn all aspects of filmmaking and was a Hollywood producer for more than 40 years.

Sam Katzman worked as an assistant to Norman Taurog and got married on the set of The Diplomats in 1928 at Fox.

Sam Katzman was a production supervisor at Showmen's Pictures in the early 1930s, and Screencraft Productions in July 1935.

Sam Katzman's movies included Sam Katzman's Private Secretary starring a young John Wayne.

In June 1935 Sam Katzman announced he would make six films written by Peter Kyne for Fox, starting with Danger Ahead.

Sam Katzman ended up taking over Bryan Foy's studios at Culver City and doing the films through his own company, Victory Pictures.

In 1935 Sam Katzman founded Puritan Pictures, a film distribution group, their first film being Suicide Squad.

Sam Katzman entered the world of serials in 1936 and would return to the genre in 1944.

At Monogram, a "budget" studio, Sam Katzman co-produced with Jack Dietz, under the names Banner Productions, the East Side Kids features of the 1940s, eight thrillers starring Bela Lugosi, and two musicals.

In January 1943 Sam 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, and Sam Katzman replaced him with Gilbert's closest friend, Shemp Howard.

The Columbia serials proved successful, and Sam Katzman became their permanent producer.

In November 1945 Sam Katzman replaced the rowdy East Side Kids with The Teen Agers, a wholesome gang of high-schoolers.

Sam Katzman produced six of these musical comedies through 1948.

In June 1946 Sam Katzman announced he would make his first feature for Columbia, a remake of The Last of the Mohicans starring Jon Hall.

Sam Katzman was so pleased by I Surrender Dear that he devoted more time to it, and economized on her other picture, Manhattan Angel.

Sam Katzman made some sports-themed features starring Gloria Henry, Racing Luck and Triple Threat, and the musicals Mary Lou and Glamour Girl.

In February 1948 Sam Katzman had signed a five-year deal with screen Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller to make "jungle movies" starting with two films a year for two years where the budgets would be at least $350,000.

In October 1948 Sam 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 film series starring Johnny Weissmuller.

Sam Katzman's stock-in-trade was now a mix of Arabian Nights fantasies, western, action, and prison pictures.

Sam Katzman allowed a budget of $400,000 for The Prince of Thieves, a version of the Robin Hood story starring Hall.

Sam Katzman was a very enterprising fellow, and was enormously intuitive.

In July 1952 Sam Katzman announced he would make at least 15 films a year for seven years.

In November 1952 this contract was amended so Sam Katzman would make twenty films.

Sam Katzman continued to produce serials such as The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd, The Lost Planet, Riding with Buffalo Bill, and Gunfighters of the Northwest.

Lee Sholem directed Jungle Man-Eaters which was the last official Jungle Jim movie although Weissmuller continued to make jungle action adventures for Sam Katzman playing himself in Cannibal Attack.

Sam Katzman still made westerns such as The Gun That Won the West, Seminole Uprising, Blackjack Ketchum, Desperado and Duel on the Mississippi, swashbucklers like Pirates of Tripoli and crime films such as New Orleans Uncensored, Chicago Syndicate, The Crooked Web, The Houston Story, Miami Expose and Inside Detroit.

Sam Katzman did the occasional thriller like Uranium Boom.

Sam Katzman's work had an increasing focus on teens, however.

In 1955, when Columbia wanted to release the first rock-and-roll musical, Sam Katzman reworked elements from his Gloria Jean musical I Surrender Dear into one of Columbia's biggest hits, Rock Around the Clock with Bill Haley and His Comets.

Sam Katzman produced horror films for the teenage audience, including The Werewolf, The Man Who Turned to Stone, The Giant Claw, Zombies of Mora Tau and The Night the World Exploded.

Sam Katzman said at Columbia he had made 110 pictures, none of which lost money, and the average gross was $1 million.

In 1957 Sam Katzman made seven films for Columbia, including non-teenage fare such as Utah Blaine, Escape from San Quentin, The Tijuana Story and The World Was His Jury.

Sam Katzman did this under a verbal agreement with Buddy Adler then in September 1960 Robert Goldstein signed him to a three-picture contract.

Sam Katzman returned to Columbia to make The Wild Westerners, a Western, as well as two "twist" movies starring Chubby Checker, Twist Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Twist.

Sam Katzman accepted an offer to move his operation to MGM in 1963.

Sam Katzman started with a low budget musical Hootenanny Hoot, which led to several more musicals: Get Yourself a College Girl and When the Boys Meet the Girls.

MGM financed three of Sam Katzman's best known movies: two films starring Elvis Presley, Kissin' Cousins and Harum Scarum, as well as Your Cheatin' Heart, a biopic of Hank Williams starring George Hamilton.

In December 1964 Sam Katzman announced he would make five films that year for MGM in his third year at the studio.

Sam Katzman got the call and recruited his 1940s cronies, Arthur Dreifuss and writer Hal Collins, to make The Love-Ins and For Singles Only.

Sam Katzman was the uncle of television producer Leonard Katzman, and, in turn, the great-great-uncle of Ethan Klein of the Israeli-American YouTube comedy channel h3h3Productions.

Sam Katzman sued for divorce in 1955, but the two reconciled.

Sam Katzman is interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.