Burt Topper
A 60-minute salute to American International Pictures. Entertainment lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff founded AIP (then called American Releasing Corporation) on a $3000 loan in 1954 with his partner, James H. Nicholson, a former West Coast exhibitor and distributor. The company made its mark by targeting teenagers with quickly produced films that exploited subjects mainstream films were reluctant to tackle.
Matthew Crowe, a whoring, pot-smoking, wandering singer teams up with a tent-show preacher. The preacher recognizes Mathew's charisma, and together they collect big donations delivering sermons with rocking gospel songs.Soon enough, Matthew lands a record deal, and the older man becomes the manager of Crowe's new act: Matthew, Son of Jesus. They hire a backup group of mustachioed rock musicians, who play in brown monks' robes, in contrast to Matthew's white robe and sandals. Their debut album becomes a huge hit so they go on a concert tour to promote it.
While in Vietnam, a GI promises his dying buddy that he'll take care of his motorcycle, "Baby", when he gets back home. After his discharge, he meets up with his dead friend's girlfriend, gets the bike, and then runs into trouble from some other bikers who don't like the idea of his having the motorcycle or the girl.
The Devil's 8 is a 1969 film from American International Pictures. It is about a Federal agent (Christopher George) who recruits six convicts to bust a moonshine ring.
Max Flatow is a precocious, social miscreant who has a way with home-made explosives. When he tires of these, he runs away from home only to emerge seven years later as Max Frost, the world's most popular entertainer. When Congressman John Fergus uses Frost as a political ploy to gain the youth vote in his run for the Senate, Frost wills himself into the system, gaining new rights for the young. Eventually, Frost runs for the presidency.
Stock car racer Dave Owens plays into the hands of whiskey runners by agreeing to drive in a cross-country road race.
In the year 2000 the spaceship Hope One sets off to find new galaxies for colonization. However, an encounter with an alien being and a swarm of meteorites sends the ship streaking off course into a sea of monsters on an uncharted world. Written by Jeremy Lunt
An overweight lab technician with low self esteem, brought on by his dominant mother, becomes a serial killer of female nurses.
During the Korean War, a glory-hunting sergeant leads his platoon on a mission against the enemy--not telling them that a cease-fire has just been declared--so that he can win medals. Trouble arises when some members of platoon begin to suspect that something is fishy.
A rebellious punk of the beat generation spends his days as an amateur dirt track driver in between partying and troublemaking. He eventually kidnaps his buddy's girlfriend, kills a few police officers and finally sees his own life end in tragedy.
A demolition squad searches for how the Germans are getting tanks across a river. An Italian boy leads them to a bridge under the surface of the water.
To scare the squatters from the cattle country he claims as his own, rancher Ed Sampson orders the Martin farm house burned. Galt Martin is killed, and his eldest son, Joe, is pistol-whipped. Timmy Martin sees the killer, Cass Becker and points him out when he and Joe are in Painted Flats. Cass forces Joe to put on a gun but Ned East, a retired gunfighter, saves the inexperienced Joe by forcing Cass to draw on him, and Ned is the winner.
A 17-year-old high-school senior marries a 20-something law student who works as a waiter. Who said marriage was bliss?
Director Albert C. Gannaway's 1958 melodrama, about the sordid private lives of California crop-dusting pilots, stars John Ireland, Mari Blanchard, Robert Middleton, Gail Russell and Jackie Coogan.
During World War II, a squad of five American soldiers become lost in Tunisia and are killed one by one in fights with German units. Finally only one man, Private Russo, is left, in the midst of a mine field, together with a German officer, locked in a stalemate. Russo has water, while the German claims to have a map revealing the mine positions. So Russo agrees to swap water for the map, but the German officer tries to double-cross him. This was Burt Topper's debut film, made on 16mm on weekends together with some friends in Indio, California. It was also Wally Campo's debut film, as well as script supervisor Joyce King's.
