Robert L. Lippert
[1] He helped finance more than 300 films, including the directorial debuts of Sam Fuller, James Clavell, and Burt Kennedy.[2] Born in Alameda, California[3] and adopted by the owner of a hardware store, Robert Lippert became fascinated by the cinema at an early age.[4] Lippert's theaters in Los Angeles adopted a "grindhouse" policy, screening older and cheaper films for a continuous 24 hours with an admission price of 25 cents.Not only did his theaters attract shift workers and late-night revelers, but also servicemen on leave who could not find cheap accommodations and would sleep in the chairs.[2] Dissatisfied with what he believed to be exorbitant rental fees charged by major studios, Lippert formed Screen Guild Productions in 1945, its first release being a Bob Steele western called Wildfire, filmed in then-unusual Cinecolor.Among the established names who worked for Lippert were George Raft, Veronica Lake, Zachary Scott, Robert Hutton, Joan Leslie, Cesar Romero, George Reeves, Ralph Byrd, Richard Arlen, Don "Red" Barry, Robert Alda, Gloria Jean, Sabu, Jon Hall, Ellen Drew, Preston Foster, Jean Porter, Anne Gwynne, Jack Holt, Dick Foran, Hugh Beaumont, Tom Neal, Robert Lowery, John Howard, and Julie Bishop.Lippert maintained a small stock company of supporting actors, including Margia Dean, Mara Lynn, Don Castle, and Reed Hadley.With typical economy, Ormond arranged for all six scripts to be filmed simultaneously, to take advantage of the sets, locations, and actors on hand.Lippert used Cinecolor and sepiatone to dress up his more ambitious features, and embellished others by using tinted film stock for special effects (mint green for Lost Continent, pinkish red-sepia for the Mars sequences in Rocketship X-M).Rocketship X-M succeeded in becoming the first post-war science fiction outer space drama to appear in theaters, but only by 20 days, while capitalizing on all the publicity surrounding the Pal film.Six half-hour episodes were filmed with co-stars Hugh Beaumont and Edward Brophy, which were then combined into three theatrical features: Pier 23, Danger Zone, and Roaring City.[31][10] Maury Dexter, who worked at Regal, later recalled the outfit's productions were all shot at independent sound stages because they could not afford to shoot at 20th Century Fox, due to the high cost of rental and overhead they charged.Dexter says "the only stipulation production-wise was that we had to give Bausch and Lomb screen credit on each film for CinemaScope camera lenses, as well as being charged back to Fox, $3,000 of each budget.[35] In October 1958, a new company was formed by Lippert, called Associated Producers Incorporated (API), to make low-budget films for Fox at the rate of one per month, starting with Alaska Highway."[2] In October 1959, Lippert said making "little Bs" for $100,000 was no longer as lucrative because "it is now in the same category as the short TV feature which people can see for free."[38] In 1962, Lippert criticized Hollywood for the "slow suicide" in movie going, blaming involvement of New York bankers in creative matters, inflated overhead, union featherbedding and obsolete theaters.I've heard people coming out of my theaters after seeing a double bill that featured a big production, 'Everybody died' or 'How that girl suffered."[2] Faced with increasing production costs in Hollywood, Lippert announced in 1962 that he would be making films in England, Italy (The Last Man on Earth), and the Philippines.