Crack The Spine - American International Pictures - The Golden Years

Gary Smith's history of American International Pictures is interesting, but only for very niche audience. If you are a film buff, you'll probably enjoy this. If you are looking for a history of AIP told in a conventional narrative format, are looking for detailed synopses and reviews of their films or are a more causal movie-goer, you probably won't enjoy the book.

Smith charts the rise of AIP through the use of interviews, press kits, industry write-ups from the 50s-70s, as well as capsule synopsis of some of the films and reviews from contemporary sources. He wants to show how AIP formed, how they did business, how they sold themselves and their pictures and how, ultimately, they fell out of step with what the American movie-going public wanted.

Some of the book drags. For example, reading about trade award ceremonies isn't very interesting and, I think, holds less insight into how the company functioned than the author thinks. Conversely, his choice of press kits - including advice on how theaters can promote the films (much of which is very "gimmicky") - and release schedules is fascinating. It is particularly of interest to see which films were planned but never made. For example, H.G. Wells The Sleeper Awakes is on their release schedule for years but was never produced. The book also details how significant domestic releases of foreign films became, with a significant proportion of their release schedule being repackaged films from Europe. Finally,the reader gains insight into how AIP could rise from nothing to one of the most significant independent film producer sin Hollywood.

If there is anything that is lacking it is that the fall of AIP is handled in one chapter. I would've like to see more about how the AIP model ceased to work after 20 years of success. That model - to make tightly budgeted films that appealed primarily to teen and early adult tastes, mostly in genres that are consideration "exploitation", while remaining flexible enough to change the formula to stay fresh - seemed to falter as AIP became more ambitious and the major studios started to adopt some of AIP's marketing and production strategies.

If you are interested in a history of AIP that has a different structural style than a standard film history narrative style and focuses more on how AIP functioned instead of in-depths looks at each film, then you should check it out.