We were saddened to see that Sam Arkoff has passed away, and even sadder to see that Entertainment Weekly only wrote a tiny paragraph about him.

Sam Arkoff was, along with Jim Nicholson, one of the founders of American International Pictures, the greatest film company there ever was. They came up with the idea of cashing in on the teenage demographic, and because of this, released many of my favorite movies of all time. They were almost single-handedly responsible for introducing different genres of movies to the public. They began with juvenile delinquent films, like Dragstrip Girl and Girls In Prison, then moved on to horror movies, like It Conquered the World (see photo) and The Shecreature. After they felt they exhausted these genres, they moved onto the beach movies starring Frankie and Annette, the Roger Corman-Vincent Price Poe movies, then biker films, and then blaxploitation films.

If you see the AIP logo at the beginning of a movie, you can bet that at the very least it will be highly entertaining. But to me, these movies are more than entertaining. They are a way of life for me, an escape into riding on a bike with John Ashley, being scared by a monster made by Paul Blaisdale, and singing along with Annette Funicello. "Beach Blanket Bingo. That’s the name of the game."