Sam
Sherman,
President
of
Independent-International
Pictures.
I've
known Sam since around 1986 and we worked
together on DRIVE-IN MADNESS, a documentary on
the history of drive-in movies, and for the
Americanization of the feature film CREATURE
WITH THE BLUE HAND. Over the years we've kept in
touch and have run into each other at movie
conventions. We did talk about doing other
movies together but nothing came of it. HELL
HOLE was one title Sam had mentioned to me
shortly after CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND was
completed.
Sam
Sherman is an extremely interesting guy, having
made loads of exploitation feature movies as
well as getting involved in magazines with
horror/ scifi/fantasy super fan, Forrest J.
Ackerman.
Sam
used Forry in his best known movie, DRACULA VS
FRANKENSTEIN(1969) which is also available
through TROMA on DVD.
Sam
met his main partner and filmmaker, director Al
Adamson, in the 1960s and together they made movies
up until Al was sadly murdered just a few years
ago. I met Al only once at a convention and he
seemed very nice.
During
the late 80s Al I guess had stopped making
movies with Sam, so I got the job on CREATURE
WITH THE BLUE HAND instead. It was around this
period Sam directed his own features too, like
RAIDERS OF THE LIVING DEAD, available I think on
DVD from IMAGE,INC, who is distributing the DVD
of CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND.
A
couple of times Sam and I got together for lunch
and he tried to educate youthful me on
the ways of the film business, much like I pass
on things that I've learned over the years to
others. Sam's words of wisdom were mostly wasted
on me. It was only in retrospect, years later,
that I understood everything he was telling me
back then and was trying to do for me. If I
could turn back the clock, armed with Sam's
advice, I could have been better prepared for
what pitfalls were ahead of me.
Sam,
knowing I was unhappy with my returns from EI
Entertainment, for INVASION FOR FLESH AND
BLOOD and FLESH EATERS FROM OUTER SPACE, when my
contract expired, helped shopped my movies for
me and introduced me to Michael Herz and Lloyd
Kaufman of TROMA. Sam's movies are being
distributed by lots of different DVD
distributors including EI, TROMA, IMAGE and
others, so he knew almost everyone and was the
perfect Producer's Rep. TROMA had Sam's best
movies - SATAN'S SADISTS with Russ Tambyln and
DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN, so I was happy when Sam brought
me to them.
All
during the 7 or 8 years EI had FLESH EATERS and
INVASION I regretted that TROMA didn't have them
instead. TROMA had a reputation of aggressive
marketing which EI, in my opinion, lacked. The
biggest blow was when a Japanese company wanted
my movies and actually approached EI to buy the
Japanese rights but EI asked for such a high
amount that the deal fell apart. The amount
asked was too high - even I knew that! I really
want my movies in that market and hopefully that
will come about shortly one way or another.
Sam
is a true friend and in all the years that I
have known him its been nothing but good. And
Sam and my father share a love of old westerns
and when they get together they talk excitedly
about movies made way before I was born.
There
are so many aspects to Sam Sherman as a person
that, when he gets around to writing his
autobiography, it should be quite an
entertaining read. Thanks Sam.
