Just like in Burton's Ed Wood - "Is there a script?" "Fuck no! But there's a poster."

To this day, the trashy, corny, exploration side of 50's and 60's cinema history fascinates me. Those posters are beyond iconic

The other fun part about AIP is how they essentially acted as film school. They got fresh, young directors and gave them an opportunity to make movies. They were made fast and cheap, but many famous directors got their start under AIP and Roger Corman. Directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Jonathan Demme!

For being clickbait, those posters sure did their job and grabbed my attention! Even if some weren't what it promised, they are great cornerstones to great advertising art!

I **love** the way you subtly animated the various posters. And I imagine that was a lot of work. Very well done! BTW, I think it's interesting that they realized their target audience is probably going to be distracted. The semi-random nature of their movies' structure makes more sense if you assume the viewers are only half-watching.

another reason, why horror novels back then had such amazing cover art

An era of film making you may want to dive into is the Anime OVAs of the 1990's. The animation from that time was amazing and still holds up.

Love the 4:3 aspect ratio! I haven't seen many KZfaqrs use this stylistic choice a lot, and I love it. It makes it feel like something I or anybody else could have done.

Great video. Samuel Arkoff’s entire process treats filmmaking as a business rather than an art. The method of analyzing the market before making a picture is generally more profitable, but it’s also why the output of original content keeps going down. Especially considering how bigger studios eventually adopted the exact same model… Now no one can make a high-budget picture unless you can sell it. It also disregards how the filmmaking process is essential in conceiving the final form and, more often than not, audiences don’t even know what they really want.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the sort of workaday artists who made these posters.

As a KZfaqr always trying to find the next video to go viral, this was very inspirational. I've always looked back at the early days of radio and movies, since there is no doubt that the internet is going through the same marketing strategies today. There is a lot we can learn from the golden days.

I grew up near a McDonalds entirely decked out in classic horror and sci-fi posters, and they always enticed me to watch the films in a way few posters do today. It's interesting to realize that so many of them came from the same studio.

Now I want some of those posters, the art was fantastic

I'd love to make a Netflix poster that has a similar poster to those from the 50's-60's, my personal favorite 50's throwback poster was the 2016 movie The Love Witch, I haven't seen it, but that poster is a work of art that sticks in my mind to this very day.

I have an 8x10 poster of Invasion of the Saucer Men on my wall by the light switch to spook people and no regrets whatsoever.

“I laughed! I cried! I fast-forwarded past the ads!” ~ KZfaq User

Grew up with this stuff. We knew we were getting used. It was still fun! Thank you for this collection!

My brother and i don't watch movies, we watch trailers. That last line is what I think the guy alluded to

So sort of like how popular KZfaqrs work on the concept, thumbnail and then the video afterwards. Good to see some concepts have been done before.

I know that comments are meant to boost engagement numbers and up your chances with the algorithm so here's a comment because this is a great essay and deserves to be seen by a lot more people

its a good day when theres a new ROFS video ❤️❤️❤️

Oh, and we wouldn't have even heard of anything like "Mystery Science Theater 3000" without them! I mean, let's be real. 😂✌

The "teenage werewolf" was none other than Michael Landon, best known as Charles Ingalls from The Little House on the Prairie.

I work in the entertainment department at Walmart… people 100% buy so many movies based on the covers.

If we're going to be honest, those poster were surely well designed more than the movies itself, because in a retrospective way, most of those movies aged pretty bad, but they entertained and it's probably the pleasure of many who grow up watching them, it's curious how sci-fi and horror were low budgets films at that time, I feel like the roles were switched after Industry realized that Sci-Fi and Horror were exploitable after the rise of the blockbusters in the 70s. There are blockbusters with very good quality made by talented directors, but I feel like now Hollywood became what low budget films like these were in the 50s and 60s, but now the budgets of those products are millionaire, making that the special effects are pretty good but the plot is merely important, because most of audicences (young folks) wants to see a big spectacle, something that make them relax and escape since that was one of the principles of cinema, no matter how fool those movies can be! 8:04 I'm surprised to read Buster Keaton's name in that poster.

Wow it is just like the 80s VHS boom where they made posters to go in the back of mail order magazines first and movies second.

Fascinating view on going with the marketability of a film. Granted, he was overlooking that other movies did it too already. They simply did it with the actors and directors. People didn't care what it was about, they cared that their favorite actor was on the screen. So it was entirely reasonable for them to "make a movie then market it" because they already had what mattered. The name.

The major studios in Japan did a lot of sexplotation films when they found tv biting into their business in the 60s.

I love videos that fit into my 4:3 monitor perfectly. Top marks

This is smart. During one of my last book store visits I remember skimming across books on shelves. Too often do I see books with boring imagery and bland titles that are trying to be clever. When working on my own short stories, I find it better to start with the front cover. Come up with a really blunt and awesome picture and base the story off that. A knight being strangled by vines in an enchanted forest, or a warlock standing by a fire and casting seven demonic shadows of himself on the back walls. When I picture the front cover the story writes itself....and I have the marketing campaign covered too! If I actually published these :p

You might want to also look into the career of William Castle!

07:13 the original morbin time

I think there was a charm to 50s trashy cinema. They knew it was corny and so did we. Nowadays every film pretends like it's the greatest one ever made.

Great video I grew up going to Jim Nicolsons house as well as Sam Arkoffs home to watch movies on his vitality g sofa. My father Albert Kallis was the artist Created most of the posters for AIP advertising He is still living healthy in his almost 100 years.❤

I know that basically every aspect of this is not of the highest quality and probably far worse than what we experience nowadays in the corresponding aspect of film culture, but it works on me. I just want to be a teen and to have fun with this same stuff in the 1950s.

The Mr. Sandman song is a nice touch to the video. As the song is both nostalgic and ominous as a reminder of a time that will never come again.

There was a movie from the 50ties (I don't remember its name) -the poster showed a burning city, buildings collapsing, and a lightly dressed woman falling to her death. The movie itself was about a bunch of people in a bar that watched WW3 on a TV. In the end, some sets got finally broken but then suddenly we find out that the war was not real and that everybody in the bar was hypnotized by some guy for some reason.

This is such a fun thing! Never heard about this beforehand. You never cease to make interesting videos. And your editing-some of the best in the business. Thank you for all you do.😊

Ah, the days of my youth. I saw about 2/3rds of those films on their initial release. Yes, I'm that old. Until I was about 12, they were my go-to at our local small-town theater. Then the manager decided to do the unthinkable, and show a festival of foreign films. I saw 8 1/2 and Last Year at Marienbad. At which point, goodbye AIP, hello "serious" cinema. But I still have a warm spot in my heart for the sensationalist matinee fodder of my early youth. Thanks for this lovely and insightful look into the mechanics through which it was born.

Hammer studios would paint a poster, use the poster to sell the film and then make the film with the sale.

Happy to see your back

love this channel. fascinating history and analysis derived from good research. with great editing + narration too!

It's interesting that I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF factors so heavily into this video because while the title is certainly sensational, the poster pretty accurately depicts a scene which is actually in the film.

I don't know why KZfaq recommended to me now, but I loved it. Kudos from Spain.

The difference between click-bait then and click-bait now is that the "thumbnails" were pleasing to look at.

A lot of indie companies did this in the 80s as well. Most famously New Line with some of the Freddy and Leatherface sequels.

Great video!

You and your channel are absolute wonders.

another Royal Ocean classic

This is actually brilliant and everything should be done like this.

First the title, then the poster, then the script...that DOES explain a lot.

Great doc! Never get tired of hearing about A.l..P l have in home weekend A.l.P festivals once a month and own a couple of original Reynold brown one sheets. Thanks!

God tier 4:3 upload, thank you!

This explains the countless shark B-movies Syfy is releasing in cable.

Oh god I'm going to have to binge this channel because I'm learning Ae and other graphics stuff a challenge since I'm retired and have no business doing it but jeeze louise this is good content and well executed

"How To Stuff A Wild Bikini" -- gotta love a title like that!

babe wake up it's a new Royal Ocean upload

I want to see an entire animated movie that looks like one of those posters

Great video Andrew. Always loved the AIP horror movies classic Friday night double bill on tv !

Absolutely LOVED this 💯‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

Thank you for this video

I just realized the Futurama news anchors are inspired by the poster featured in the thumbnail. I knew those characters were an old reference!

I appreciate the chosen aspect ratio for this project. 👍😎

Love the line at 7:46, might have to sample it.

Good video, buddy 👍

American International was eventually bought by M-G-M, who relaunched it in 2021. Some of their new releases have by co-produced by United Artists, which M-G-M also owns. They also own Orion Pictures. Since Amazon bought M-G-M they now also own AIP.

Absolutely fascinating. I loved the video. I think it would be great if you did a video on Cannon Films. I had watched a documentary on them, and it's quite fascinating.

Your videos are always an amazing blend of entertaining and informative. Great visuals and editing just add to your content as well. Amazing work

Nothing beats good, old-fashioned Horror Trash

This was an amazing video

I would absolutely love if you did a video on Forbidden Planet. A classic that pretty much opened the door for the gigantic industry that sci-fi is now. It's sad that is not as remembered as lot of other movies from the era. Without Forbidden Planet, we probably wouldn't have Star Trek or Star Wars, since sci-fi was considered to be type B trash back then.

Should have pointed out that McQ speaks to the marketing department first when making an M:I movie. No poster first, sure. But the audience and how to sell the movie are the first considerations. They then location scout and build the set-pieces around the locations. Only then is the script written. And clearly this works.

JFC I have no idea how you manage to produce such a visually stunning documentary. Well, I do in that I assume you are a master of Ae and other software.

I've seen every movie shown in this video, either depicted by a clip or a poster. Not sure if I should be admitting that. One I haven't ever seen though ( not in the video ) is 1959's "Street Fighter". I sure wish that movie would get remastered & released on DVD/Blu-ray. James & Sam sure knew what they were doing when they formed A.I.P. & it payed off handsomely.

It is amazing how Vincent Price can make your spine quiver, completely out of context, with one line. 8:45

Great Movies !!!!

this is an incredible look at quantity and how it can help produce quality.

Very nice. A new video.

I grew up with the AIP movies and still love them today.

Feels like Blumhouse took a play out of AIP’s playbook.

The drive in was the Netflix and chill of the 50s

Your videos are just brilliant! They're really unique and it's a shame that they don't get views they deserve. I don't even speak english properly and sometimes struggle to understand things, but those stories are fascinating

The end of the drive in theater in the late 70's helped end the studio.

What a great vid

Subscribed! 😃👍

Holy Crap in a Bucket. I just watched a KZfaq self help channel where he breaks down the same frickin' process AIP created. 1) Create your title. 2) Create your thumbnail 3) Outline and write an entertaining script. AIP would be killing it at KZfaq. Watched through. Liked. Subscribed. Clicked through. Thanks.

I love your videos

I was sold by the sizzle, but never got the steak,

It explains why the posters are usually better than the movie it promoted.

I saw that movie that was shown in phumpnail back in February invasion with a saucerman tubitv

I just learned what sprocket holes are.

This is top nodge quality content!

I’m shocked!

Gotta give it to them, I wanna watch these movie just because of the awesome posters.

Who designed all those amazing posters?

"My god, that's a million dollar title going on a hundred thousand dollar picture."

Interesting thx

True fact, AIP helped to keep many young and struggling actors working at a time when the big studios were cutting back on the number of actors that they would be using for minor parts. This was a blessing for cats like Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. They were also decent enough to cast actors from the earlier years,actors like Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. I am particularly fond of the studio for that very reason. Trash they made, most of their films were simply bad films shot too quickly and more underfunded than a progressive government policy. The editing generally seemed like the work of a nervous teenager, and their equipment was just a bit better than what the Soviets were using at the time. Quality was rare, but it did happen, and whatever they put Boris Karloff or Peter Lorre on the screen....suddenly it was as if you were watching something other than a movie made by AIP. If that ain't cool enough for ya, well,you just never made out with the girl you had a crush on while an AIP movie flickered on the screen of whatever theater you were at, and I feel sad for ya. That's history worth remembering, yes indeed.

Absolutely

Even AIP didn't know they were making POP culture Art with a big A. Tshoe posters and DVD's will sell forever, long after everybody stopped watching Kramer versus Kramer and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner ...and Forrest Gump....