The stories relayed by Corman collaborators Charles Griffith, Beach Dickerson and Paul Blaisdell are fun and illuminating. Corman comes off as rather churlish in his efforts to get the most out of cast and crew for the least amount of money. Blaisdell had arguably the biggest challenge, creating rubber monsters that needed to somewhat resemble the movie's posters, on a budget of a few hundred dollars. What should be noted here is that a title and advertisting campaign were approved before the film was actually made. Griffith, author of Little Shop of Horrors, is interviewed to better effect in the web magazine Senses of Cinema about his fractious relationship with Corman.

While some A.I.P. films from the Sixties appear occassionally on the cable channel Flix, I was able to see a couple of older films on DVD. The Fast and the Furious is not particularly fast or furious. It is the second film produced by Roger Corman, and the first film released by American Releasing Corporation, the company that became A.I.P. The story of prison escapee John Ireland and rich girl Dorothy Malone moves along fitfully. What was probaby fast and furious was the shooting schedule as the screenplay defies logic. Given the status of American Releasing Corporation films in its first couple of years, the ambitions of this film were clearly to be no more than the cheap bottom half of a double feature.

By 1956, American Releasing Corporation had changed its name to American International Pictures. While McGee doesn't attribute the decision to anyone, it was probably James Nicholson who determined that films would be released in "combinations" of pre-packaged double features. This change kept A.I.P. solvent while RKO and Republic Pictures went bankrupt. Hot Rod Girl is representatvie of the niche market, teenagers, that A.I.P. targetted successfully. Pre-Rifleman Chuck Connors is the police detective who runs a race track to keep the hot rodders off the street. Bad guy Mark Andrews tries to goad the kids into street races. You know he's bad because he wears a black leather jacket. Frank Gorshin, in his second film, commits petty theft by stealing the movie from the rest of the cast with his animated expressions and body in constant motion. The score was the first composed by Alexander Courage, most famous for the Star Trek theme. Among the musicians for the somewhat jazzy score were Maynard Ferguson, Bud Shank, Barney Kessell and Georgie Auld, the man who taught Robert De Niro how to "play" the sax for New York, New York.

For myself, my favorite A.I.P. films are Corman's Edgar Allan Poe films, especially Masque of the Red Death and Tomb of Ligeia. Maybe there was something about working in England that brought out a more accomplished craftsman. I saw The Trip on television a couple of years ago and still admire the film for the circular tracking shots. At a time when every other new American film is a lame remake, my dream is of a remake of X - The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. The story of drugs, obsession, and seeking the truth of the universe is perfect for Darren Aronofsky. Here is a film begging to be remade with the kind of special effects that could barely be imagined, much less rendered, in 1963. The scientific pursuits and eventual descent into a hell of self-distruction make Corman's Dr. Xavier a kindred spirit to Aronofsky's mathematician in Pi and the junkies of Requiem for a Dream.

Maybe I'm just being a nostaligic boomer here. I admit a lot of what A.I.P. made and released was junk. But it's junk that I'll have a certain affection for.