Samuel Z. Arkoff Filmography

How to Make a Monster

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Julie Strain, Clea Duvall, Steven Culp, Tyler Mane

Synopsis: Another made-for-cable horror story from the "Creature Features" series of in-name-only remakes of classic American International Pictures scare flicks, How to Make a Monster concerns a new video game, "Evil-ution," which is being designed by a top virtual reality firm headed by Faye Clayton (Colleen Camp Read More

Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies

Synopsis: Pauline Kael once wrote that since movies were so rarely great art, if one weren't interested in great trash, there wasn't much reason to pay attention to them, and one could reasonably argue that few periods brought us more top-quality cinematic trash than the 1950s and '60s. With drive-ins and Read More

Some Nudity Required

Actors: Maria Ford, Julie Strain, Jim Wynorski, Odette Springer

Synopsis: In this documentary, filmmakers Odette Springer (former music supervisor for Concorde-New Horizons) and Joanna Demetrakas take a look at the exploitative world of grindhouse gore, and trashy slasher films. Trained in classical music, Springer turns self-analytical in this movie memoir, asking Read More

Confessions of Sorority Girls

Crew: Co-producer

Actors: Jamie Luner, Alyssa Milano, Brian Bloom

Synopsis: This campy remake of Roger Corman's 1957 drama Sorority Girl was part of a series of made-for-cable adaptations of old American International Pictures titles, prepared by original co-producer Samuel Z. Arkoff. Uli Edel captures just about the right over-the-top theatrics in this period drama, set Read More

Up the Creek

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Tim Matheson, Jennifer Runyon, Stephen Furst, Dan Monahan, Sandy Helberg

Synopsis: In this inane teen comedy, a rafting competition is going to determine whether four friends will graduate or not (an interesting amendment to college practices), and up against their team is a group of offensive rich kids. Meanwhile, a band of expelled military rafters is out to thwart the race as Read More

The Final Terror

Crew: Producer

Actors: John Friedrich, Adrian Zmed, Daryl Hannah, Rachel Ward, Mark Metcalf

Synopsis: This mediocre slasher film from director Andrew Davis is worth watching more for its cast than for its cliched story. The film is set in the usual isolated forest, where a ratty-looking killer (who seems to be covered with Spanish moss) makes survival difficult for some foul-tempered campers. Read More

Underground Aces

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Ever wonder what happens to your car when you give it to a parking lot attendant? Find out in this zany slapstick comedy set in an exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel. There the attendants gleefully smash and bash the expensive cars of patrons while trying to get them parked. The story really perks up Read More

How to Beat the High Co$t of Living

Crew: Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: Susan Saint James, Jessica Lange, Richard Benjamin, Fred Willard

Synopsis: Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James share star-billing with Jessica Lange in this uninspired comedy about three women who need a cash infusion. (Curtin and Saint James would later co-star in the popular sitcom Kate and Allie.) Jane (Saint James) is divorced and financially pressed to raise her Read More

Dressed to Kill

Crew: Producer

Actors: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz

Synopsis: One of Brian De Palma's most divisive films, Dressed to Kill is a spine-chilling Alfred Hitchcock update for the late 1970s. Sexually frustrated wife and mother Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) visits her New York psychiatrist, Dr. Elliott (Michael Caine), to complain about her unfulfilling erotic Read More

C.H.O.M.P.S.

Crew: Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: Wesley Eure, Valerie Bertinelli, Conrad Bain, Chuck McCann, Red Buttons

Synopsis: Brian Foster (Wesley Eure) is a young inventor who creates a mechanical dog as part of a home protection system. When he falls out of favor with his boss Ralph Norton (Conrad Bain), the boss' pretty daughter Casey (Valerie Bertinelli) uses her pull to save the company and Brian's job. Mr. Gibbs (Jim Backus Read More

The Amityville Horror

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger, Don Stroud, Natasha Ryan, Murray Hamilton

Synopsis: "For God's sake, GET OUT!" was the ad campaign for the 1979 shocker The Amityville Horror. The film was based on the allegedly true story of the luckless Lutz family, who move lock, stock, and barrel into a new home, only to find that it is possessed by the demonic spirits of its previous owners. Read More

California Dreaming

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Glynnis O'Connor, Seymour Cassel, Dorothy Tristan, Dennis Christopher, John Calvin

Synopsis: T.T. (Dennis Christopher), a Midwesterner, has traveled to the beaches of California for a dose of the surfin' life. He believes that the people he finds there are glamorous and knowledgeable. They reject his Midwestern nerdiness, make fun of him, and generally give him a hard time for not fitting Read More

Our Winning Season

Crew: Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: Scott Jacoby, Deborah Benson, Dennis Quaid, Randy Herman, Joe Penny

Synopsis: In this youthful drama, a high-school senior aspires to become a track star while simultaneously dealing with the other travails of youth. One of his best friends is drafted and ends up getting killed in Vietnam. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Force 10 from Navarone

Crew: Presented by, Producer

Actors: Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford, Edward Fox, Barbara Bach, Franco Nero

Synopsis: Force 10 From Navarone was a sequel to the 1961 blockbuster The Guns of Navarone and tells the tale of ten widely divergent WW II troubleshooters who attempt to blow up a crucial bridge in Yugoslavia. As in the first Navarone film, one of the guerillas is a traitor: group leader Mallory (Robert Shaw Read More

Empire of the Ants

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Joan Collins, Robert Lansing, John Carson, Albert Salmi, Jacqueline Scott

Synopsis: In the '50s, Bert I. Gordon made a career out of sci-fi movies about gigantic mutated insects (Beginning of the End, Earth vs. the Spider), lizards (King Dinosaur, Serpent Island), and even people (The Amazing Colossal Man), and in 1977, he was still up to his old tricks with this picture, loosely Read More

The Island of Dr. Moreau

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Michael York, Nigel Davenport, Barbara Carrera, Richard Basehart

Synopsis: In The Island of Dr. Moreau, which is based on a novella by H.G. Wells, Braddock (Michael York) is a decent young Englishman who has unaccountably been saved from being thrown overboard from a ship sailing in a remote area of the Pacific by the mysterious Dr. Montgomery (Nigel Davenport). Dr. Read More

A Matter of Time

Crew: Producer

Actors: Liza Minnelli, Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Spiros Andros, Tina Aumont

Synopsis: Singer and actress Liza Minnelli teamed up with her father, legendary director Vincente Minnelli, to make this evocative drama. Nina (Liza Minnelli) is a popular film star who, in the midst of a press conference, finds herself remembering her life before her big break, when she worked as a Read More

The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lee Marvin, Oliver Reed, Robert Culp, Elizabeth Ashley, Strother Martin

Synopsis: In this broad comedy-western set in 1908 Colorado, Lee Marvin and Oliver Reed team up as Sam Longwood and Joe Knox, two con-men who once worked as a team. They reunite in order to get revenge upon their third partner, Jack Colby (Robert Culp), who used the trio's ill-gotten gains to become a high Read More

Futureworld

Crew: Producer

Actors: Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner, Arthur Hill, Yul Brynner, Jim Antonio

Synopsis: This follow-up to the successful 1973 thriller Westworld stars Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner as Chuck Browning and Tracy Ballard, investigative reporters. The team has been dispatched to the expensive theme park Westworld on the remote island of Delos, to find out what caused the park's robots to Read More

One Summer Love

Crew: Producer

Actors: Beau Bridges, Susan Sarandon, Mildred Dunnock, Michael Miller, Linda G. Miller

Synopsis: One Summer Love is a drama about a man (Beau Bridges) who is released from a mental hospital and sets out to rejoin his nutty family. Along the way, he meets a pretty gal (Susan Sarandon) who works in a movie theatre, and they fall in love. In a dramatic manner, their love exorcises the Read More

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells, Jimmy Clem, Charles B. Pierce

Synopsis: This thriller -- based on actual events -- tells in a pseudo-documentary-style of the murders of five people by a man in post-WWII Arkansas. This mystery was still considered unsolved at the time of its release. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

The Food of the Gods

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin, Ralph Meeker, Ida Lupino, Jon Cypher

Synopsis: Based on a novel by H. G. Wells, a group of bloodthirsty, oversized creatures (including rats, chickens, wasps, and worms) have taken over a remote island after ingesting a mysterious growth known as "Food of the Gods." It is up to an unusual group of people to put an end to this animal threat. Read More

Return to Macon County

Crew: Producer

Actors: Nick Nolte, Don Johnson, Robin Mattson, Robert Viharo, Eugene Daniels

Synopsis: When they're just out for fun, the fun turns foul for two wild guys who head down Georgia way where they run into trouble with the law, Georgia style. This is the first film effort for actor Nick Nolte. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Cooley High

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Glynn E. Turman, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Garrett Morris, Cynthia Davis, Corin Rogers

Synopsis: Michael Schultz directed this deeply felt recollection of adolescent life on Chicago's near North Side in 1964. Like American Graffiti, Cooley High deals with girl, school, and police troubles as a group of high-school seniors prepare for post-high-school life. The chums are Glynn Turman as Read More

Hennessy

Crew: Producer

Actors: Rod Steiger, Lee Remick, Richard Johnson, Trevor Howard, Eric Porter

Synopsis: Actor Richard Johnson wrote the original story for this taut suspense drama that stars Rod Steiger as Niall Hennessy, a man who plans to blow up the British Parliament in retaliation for the accidental death of his family in Belfast. Johnson plays Scotland Yard-inspector Hollis, an expert in the Read More

Sugar Hill

Crew: Producer

Actors: Albert J. Baker, Thomas C. Carroll, Judy Hanson, Peter Harrell III, Larry D. Johnson, Charles Krohn, Walter Price, Ray Simpson, Marki Bey, Robert Quarry, Don Pedro Colley

Synopsis: In this blaxploitation horror movie, a young woman enlists the aide of a voodoo priest to help her get revenge upon the gangsters who killed her lover. With a few incantations and magical spells, the priest raises an army of zombies. Later the film was cut and shown on TV as The Zombies of Sugar Read More

Madhouse

Crew: Producer

Actors: Peter Cushing, Vincent Price

Synopsis: This semi-serious horror film represented the first on-screen pairing of icons Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, who play, respectively, aging former horror star Paul Toombes and actor-turned-writer Herbert Flay, who unite in an effort to revive the popularity of Toombes' screen character "Dr. Read More

Dillinger

Crew: Producer

Actors: Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Michelle Phillips, Cloris Leachman, Harry Dean Stanton

Synopsis: John Milius's first directorial effort in its own small way set the stage in the 1970s for a subgenre of action films that depict a nostalgia for historical figures tinged with a hard-edged skepticism. Warren Oates stars as John Dillinger, whose short-lived career as Public Enemy No.1 was, at Read More

Scream, Blacula, Scream!

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: James Kingsley, Dan Roth, William Marshall, Pam Grier

Synopsis: In this horror sequel from the director of Count Yorga, Vampire, a member of an American voodoo cult revives the fanged Prince Manuwalde (William Marshall), only to become his slave. Manuwalde then puts the bite on various victims, but finds himself fixating on pretty Lisa (Pam Grier), a voodoo Read More

Little Cigars

Crew: Producer

Actors: Felix Silla, Angel Tompkins, Jerry Maren

Synopsis: The "little cigars" are five midget criminals, masterminded by Billy Curtis. They team up with full-sized Angel Tompkins, a gangster's girlfriend who's on the lam from her homicidal "protector." Tompkins and the five little people form a travelling carnival as a front for their crooked activities. Read More

Blacula

Crew: Producer

Actors: Eric Brotherson, William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Denise Nicholas, Thalmus Rasulala, Gordon Pinsent

Synopsis: Advertised as the 100th production of American International studios, Blacula stars actor/singer William Marshall in the title role. An 18th century African prince, Blacula is transmogrified into a vampire while visiting Transylvania. Two centuries later, he rises from his coffin to wreak havoc in Read More

Dr. Phibes Rises Again

Crew: Producer

Actors: Vincent Price, Robert Quarry, Valli Kemp, Hugh Griffith, John Thaw

Synopsis: This sequel to the stylish 1971 melodrama The Abominable Dr. Phibes once more stars Vincent Price in the title role. Long believed dead, Phibes arises from a state of suspended animation, in search of the means to bring his deceased wife back to the land of the living. Phibes also wears a rubber Read More

The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten, Virginia North, Terry-Thomas, Hugh Griffith

Synopsis: Long thought dead, the victim of a horrible accident, Dr. Anton Phibes (Vincent Price) still lives, surrounded by art-deco bric-a-brac and attended by mute beauty Vulnavia (Virginia North). Outwardly normal in appearance, Phibes actually wears a rubber mask, covering his hideously deformed Read More

Who Slew Auntie Roo?

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jacqueline Cowper, Charlotte Sayce, Shelley Winters, Mark Lester, Ralph Richardson

Synopsis: In this English film, a group of orphans visiting the home of a wealthy, retired singer (Shelley Winters) discover that the woman is hiding a disturbing secret. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Bunny O'Hare

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Cassidy

Synopsis: Would you believe Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine as a pair of free-spirited hippies on a crime spree? That's the premise of this unlikely comedy starring the two Oscar-winning veterans. Bunny O'Hare (Bette Davis) is an elderly woman living in New Mexico who is trying to keep herself afloat Read More

Murders in the Rue Morgue

Crew: Producer

Actors: Christine Kaufmann, Herbert Lom

Synopsis: The fourth film to explore Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale, this clever adaptation takes some rather broad liberties with the source material. A flamboyant Jason Robards plays Cesar Charron, owner of a Grand Guignol theatre in 19th-century Paris, who is launching a stage adaptation of "Murders in Read More

Godzilla vs. Hedorah

Crew: Producer

Actors: Hiroyuki Kawase, Toshie Kimura, Akira Yamauchi

Synopsis: Beyond a doubt the weirdest chapter in Toho's Godzilla saga, this eco-conscious entry pits the Big Green Guy against a living mass of industrial sludge dubbed "Hedora." Capable of splitting into numerous satellite monsters and secreting sulfuric acid, Hedora grows exponentially larger as it Read More

Up in the Cellar

Crew: Producer

Actors: Joan Collins, Larry Hagman, Wes Stern, Judy Pace, David Arkin

Synopsis: A light, almost beach-party atmosphere pervades this comedy, based on The Late Boy Wonder, a novel by Angus Hall. Larry Hagman plays a college president with political aspirations who flunks out a college student (Wes Stern) and then has the temerity to save the boy from committing suicide. In Read More

The Dunwich Horror

Crew: Producer

Actors: Sandra Dee, Dean Stockwell, Ed Begley, Sr., Sam Jaffe, Donna Baccala

Synopsis: With a style and tone that wreaks of the late '60s, this cheap-looking adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story plays like an obvious reference to the battle between the establishment and the counterculture. The film stars Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley, a brooding young man who makes a connection Read More

Wuthering Heights

Crew: Producer

Actors: Anna Calder-Marshall, Timothy Dalton, Julian Glover, Ian Ogilvy, Hilary Dwyer

Synopsis: This romantic drama concerns two star-crossed lovers who are half-brother and sister to each other. Catherine (Anna Calder-Marshall) is the daughter of the lord of the manor who falls for the brooding stable boy Heathcliff (Timothy Dalton). When Heathcliff leaves to seek his fortune, he returns to Read More

Bloody Mama

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Shelley Winters, Pat Hingle, Don Stroud, Diane Varsi, Bruce Dern

Synopsis: Shelley Winters, who once played the spoofish "Ma Parker" on Batman, brings the same larger-than-life approach to her portrayal of real-life Ma Barker in Bloody Mama. Presiding over her outlaw gang, consisting mainly of her goonish sons, Ma goes on a Depression-era rampage of bank robbery, murder Read More

De Sade

Crew: Producer

Actors: Keir Dullea, Senta Berger, Lilli Palmer, Anna Massey, Sonja Ziemann

Synopsis: Keir Dullea dives into a bevy of babes with an open wine bottle as the notorious Marquis de Sade in this low-budget debauch from American International Pictures -- purveyors of fine entertainment morsels for the connoisseur. The film takes place as an extended flashback after de Sade has escaped Read More

The Savage Seven

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Robert Walker, Jr., Larry Bishop, Joanna Frank, John Garwood, Adam Roarke

Synopsis: This violent motorcycle gang drama finds the outlaws riding onto an Indian reservation to take over. A rival gang has other ideas. There are few likeable characters in this feature, the possible exception being Johnnie (Robert Walker), and he is a convicted thief. Rock-guitar legend Duane Eddy Read More

Wild in the Streets

Crew: Producer

Actors: Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones, Diane Varsi, Ed Begley, Sr., Hal Holbrook

Synopsis: A rock star decides he'd rather rule the free world than just sell records in this ambitious fusion of political satire and teen exploitation. Teenage rebel Max Flatow (Christopher Jones) has grown tired of life in suburbia with his domineering mother (Shelley Winters) and weak-willed father (Bert Freed Read More

Three in the Attic

Crew: Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: Yvette Mimieux, Christopher Jones, Judy Pace, Maggie Thrett, Nan Martin

Synopsis: A modern Don Juan pays the price when he "two-times" three different women. Paxton Quigley (Christopher Jones) is the campus Casanova who sleeps with Caucasian coed Tobey (Yvette Mimieux), the black beauty Eulice (Judy Pace) and the Jewish hippie girl Jane (Maggie Thrett). The three women discover Read More

Fireball 500

Crew: Producer

Actors: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Fabian, Chill Wills, Harvey Lembeck

Synopsis: In this musical aimed at teenagers, Frankie Avalon, and Fabian battle it out for Annette Funicello's affections on the stock car track. The tale begins when smugglers trick Avalon into taking on contraband during a cross-country race. He catches on to their ploy and helps the Feds capture the Read More

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini

Crew: Producer

Actors: Deborah Walley, Tommy Kirk, Aron Kincaid, Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Quinn O'Hara, Dwayne Hickman, Jesse White

Synopsis: American-International's Beach Party series came to an abrupt end with Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Because of such tangible reasons as contractual commitments, coupled with such intangibles as illness and death, most of the series "regulars" are absent. Deborah Walley and Aron Kinkaid fill the Read More

Planet of the Vampires

Crew: Producer

Actors: Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Angel Aranda, Evi Marandi, Fernando Villena

Synopsis: This classic blend of science-fiction and horror belies its extremely low budget with buckets of atmosphere and some genuinely creepy setpieces. The story concerns the crews of two spaceships, who land on a foggy, seemingly deserted planet. What they don't know is that the planet was home to a Read More

Sergeant Deadhead

Crew: Producer

Actors: Frankie Avalon, Deborah Walley, Cesar Romero, Fred Clark, Gale Gordon

Synopsis: In this comedy, a hapless Army sergeant's plans to marry are temporarily delayed after he accidentally ends up launched into space with a chimpanzee. Upon his return, he is a changed man and is ultimately sent to prison after he threatens to go public with the mix-up. Meanwhile, suave Sgt. Read More

How to Stuff a Wild Bikini

Crew: Producer

Actors: Annette Funicello, Dwayne Hickman, Brian Donlevy, Harvey Lembeck, Buster Keaton, Beverly Adams

Synopsis: How to Stuff a Wild Bikini is considered to be the strangest of the "Beach Party" movies. Frankie (Frankie Avalon) is off in the navy, serving in the South Pacific, and nervous about all of the guys that will be hitting on Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) back at the beach. He makes a deal with an Read More

Beach Blanket Bingo

Crew: Producer

Actors: Earl Wilson, Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley, Harvey Lembeck, John Ashley, Marta Kristen, Linda Evans, Timothy Carey, Don Rickles, Paul Lynde

Synopsis: Part of American-International's "Beach Party" series, Beach Blanket Bingo was directed by William Asher. Frankie (Frankie Avalon) briefly deserts Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) in favor of pop star Sugar Kane (Linda Evans). Also around and about is a mermaid, appropriately named Lorelei (Marta Kristen Read More

Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine

Crew: Producer

Actors: Vincent Price, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Susan Hart, Jack Mullaney

Synopsis: The great Vincent Price obviously had fun with his characterization of Dr. Goldfoot in this campy spy spoof directed by Norman Taurog. With his henchman Igor (Jack Mullaney), the demented doctor builds a machine that mass-produces an army bikini-clad babes. Goldfoot programs his vixens to seduce Read More

Pajama Party

Crew: Producer

Actors: Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, Elsa Lanchester, Jody McCrea, Jesse White, Buster Keaton, Harvey Lembeck

Synopsis: Out of the beaches and into the boudoirs go Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello and the rest of the gang in Pajama Party. Actually, the whole megillah is as innocent as a newborn babe, but there's plenty of smirking and snickering during a wild 'n' wacky girl's slumber party. Frankie Avalon has only Read More

The Comedy of Terrors

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: On the verge of bankruptcy, undertaker Vincent Price hits upon a novel method of drumming up business. Together with his cringing assistant Peter Lorre, Price sneaks into the homes of wealthy old men under cover of night and smothers the sleeping occupants to death--then collects a hefty Read More

Muscle Beach Party

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Luciana Paluzzi, John Ashley, Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett

Synopsis: The Beach Party Gang meets a coterie of muscle-men who try to take over their spot on the beach in Muscle Beach Party. Surfing sensations Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Dee Dee (