American International Pictures was created in 1954 as American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, sales manager of the RealArt Production Company, and Hollywood lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff. The two were the first to realize the potential ticket buying power of the teenage audience and over the next 30 years bombarded them with action, comedy and horror films.

     In 1956 ARC was renamed American International Pictures, but its teenage marketing target remained the same, most notably with the special-effects horror films of Bert I. Gordon. The 1960s saw several very lucrative series from AIP, first and foremost being Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price.  In marketing films to teenagers, AIP also began rediscovering former genre stars like Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. AIP was also a training ground for new actors and directors. Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich all got their starts from Corman and Arkoff.

     With “The Wild Angles” in 1966, AIP launched the biker-film genre and reflected a radical new spirit in AIP's youth-oriented fare. In 1969 Roger Corman made his last films for AIP: the violent gangster film “Bloody Mama” with Shelley Winters and the doomsday satire “Gas-s-s-s!” Corman then started his own distribution and production company, New World Pictures.

     James H. Nicholson died in 1971, but AIP kept going strong throughout the early 1970s and horror still paid the bills. “Count Yorga, Vampire,” “The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant,” the “Phibes” films, “Scream, Blacula, Scream!,” and “The Food Of The Gods” are just a handful of the dozens of horror films AIP released in the 1970s.

     With greater financial freedom, AIP began expanding its product by purchasing foreign sci-fi and horror films and financing more mainstream films. By the late 1970s, big-budget films had surprisingly become more important to AIP than the cheap, two-week shoot pictures of the past. “The Island Of Dr. Moreau,” “Love At First Bite” and “The Amityville Horror” all made money but the overspending led to the ultimate downfall of AIP. Massive spending hurt the company, and 1979, AIP merged with Filmways (Orion Pictures later bought Filmways).  In 1980, Sam formed Arkoff International Pictures, which has been sadly silent.  We owe a great debt of gratitude to Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson for making the world safe for fun, hip pictures of all genres, but especially horror and science fiction