Raiders of a Living: Veteran Film Producer Samuel M. Sherman vs. Digital Piracy

By Chad Kennerk

Forget Dracula and Frankenstein; the real movie villains are pirates. According to a 2019 study conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and NERA Economic Consulting, digital piracy accounts for a $29.2 billion annual loss to the U.S. economy and some 230,000 jobs a year. Advances in technology have made it easier than ever for audiences to connect with content, but it’s also created a new wave of digital piracy. One veteran producer, who once made his mark with tropical island thrillers and mad doctors in the Blood Island series, now faces the daunting task of battling digital pirates.

Film preservationist Samuel M. Sherman, the legendary producer and founder of Independent-International Pictures (IIP), has brought to life countless cult classics like Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Brain of Blood, and Satan's Sadists. For decades, Sherman’s IIP served as a powerful competitor to studios like American International Pictures, becoming synonymous with the gritty, low-budget exploitation films that were the backbone of 1970s-era drive-in theaters. 

In recent years, Sherman claims that IIP’s iconic titles have been bootlegged, pirated, and licensed to streaming platforms around the world without his consent, leaving the 84-year-old film industry veteran unable to protect the valuable cinematic treasures he created. To assist with mounting legal and medical bills, Sherman has launched a GoFundMe campaign, with the hope that his loyal fans will rally behind him in his fight against digital piracy. Sherman recently spoke with Film Masters about his legal odyssey and shared insights from his savvy, storied career.

The industry has always had to contend with piracy, but advances in technology have made piracy even easier today. 

I've been fighting copyright piracy for 30 or 40 years. The bigger the lawsuit, the more difficult it is. If you look at the online world, there's a lot of copyrighted movies being pirated without paying the owners anything. Sometimes even major studios that used to be very proactive about copyrights are not today, and so we have online streaming that takes advantage of a lot of situations. I'm not opposed to films that are out of copyright being used. If they are out of copyright and in the public domain, they can be utilized for different purposes, but not films that are still under valid, exclusive copyrights. You're using the film for other purposes if somebody's running it without the rights. It hurts.

Without getting too much into the legalese of it all, why are these companies pushing back on a cease and desist letter from someone that holds the copyright?

Well, because they're going to claim that the copyright is not valid, saying, “There's something wrong with your copyright. It's green, it's blue, it's purple. It's not properly registered.” It's very simple—if you have a properly registered film with the Library of Congress for copyright and you're utilizing your film, it's your exclusive right to use it as you please. Nobody else may come in, steal it, and use it for what they want. 

You've crossed blades with pirates before, like with the home video release of Creature with the Blue Hand.

I was fighting a mob guy. He was a known, imprisoned felon who was a part of a mob group. He had a company that was pirating Creature with the Blue Hand. I had a big attorney who had been a Supreme Court Justice of the state of New York. We spent a lot of money on that. I couldn't get anywhere with it. I finally talked to this guy on the phone, and he says, “Don't get so angry at me. You don't know who you're talking to.” I said, “Yes, I do know who I'm talking to. You're a big thief, and you're a big crook.” He says, “Don't get mad at me like that.” I said, “What are you going to do? You're an imprisoned felon, and you're now moving into copyright infringement. I'm not afraid of you at all.” 

I have been through a number of these situations, and I've gone to the FBI. I helped the FBI many years ago on several cases involving piracy issues they were facing. I had discovered certain things, and they were very grateful to my helping them. When the time came that my company, Independent International Pictures Corporation, began having things pirated, they wouldn't help me. I expected the best from them but never got it. My opinion is you have to have the law, and the people in government have to uphold the law. If you don't have a law, then it's the Wild West. You can go out with your six guns and shoot it out with them.

People who watch or seek out pirated content likely don't realize the effects of piracy—particularly for independent producers. To put things in context, it’s like a farmer producing a crop and waking up to find his field empty.

You’re right; it's just like anybody's business. We spend money; we invest money in growing a crop, or making a film, buying a film, or whatever we're doing that's within the law. We own these films. We've been involved with them since they were made. We've been involved in registering them for proper copyright in the federal government. The pathetic thing is that the government is not upholding the law. So we're fighting it out. It hurts my family. My daughter has not been well, and money that should be going to her for medical purposes has to go to legal fees and things of that nature for this situation we're fighting. Anybody that has a source of income should be able to protect it.

Al Adamson was like a brother to you. In continuing his legacy, you’ve spoken on the importance of keeping the films he directed in distribution. To ensure that these films continue—and continue in a way that supports the creators.

Al and I were very close friends. We worked on a lot of projects. Many times we put our own money into these pictures and certainly our own labor, sometimes both. I have tried, as the head of the corporation and distribution company, to keep the films in release in as good quality as I can. That's why they're widely seen. There are plenty of independent films that are not widely seen, and still other independent films that are pirated, and that’s why they’re seen. 

I don't want to just be a complainer. There are other people complaining, but they're not very successful in fighting piracy in the online world because they haven't approached it properly. I think now, with a new FBI head and a new Department of Justice head, maybe there'll be some change. I've written some letters, but I haven't gotten any answers yet. The funny thing about time, someone once said, “time heals all wounds,” and someone else flipped that and said, “No, time wounds all heals.” People get away with all kinds of things. It's just incredible. 

There's been a resurgence of drive-in culture over the past few years. During the pandemic, you did something really ingenious by bringing your films back to drive-ins in a roadshow format. What was that experience like for you, seeing your films come back home in a way?

It was a kind of reminiscence because I did go to many drive-in theaters that were playing our films. I would go there to see how they played and what people did. That hadn't been done for many years. It was kind of a remembrance of days past. The main drive-in markets were in the South and the Midwest. Those areas were the big areas. I had an opportunity to go to many of those theaters and meet people there. 

Drive-in culture is more than just watching the movie; it's the whole experience of being in a community.

Oh, absolutely. It’s going there and buying corn dogs and getting drinks—watching the clock, which was an animated piece that cut commercials into the center. People locally could buy a commercial. “Charlie's Car Repair,” and they spliced it into this clock that would run. “It's 10 minutes more to show time.” Then maybe after that, they'd run some trailers. Trailers, to me, were always very important. I always liked them, and I collected them. I ended up becoming a producer of trailers. I made tons of them. I ended up doing it as a profession before I was involved with production. Especially horror and exploitation movies. Some of them could be funny, and I would try to inject a little humor of some kind into them. A lot of my trailers are still popular to this day. They're all over the place, and you can see them in many, many different forms. I never wanted to stop the running of trailers, old radio spots, and old TV spots because that was advertising. It was bringing the existence of those films to light. In other words, if I'd never made trailers, or if the trailers hadn't been collected and survived, who would remember these films at all? So many films have been made that are completely forgotten. Nobody's seen the pictures. I always find someone who tells me, “Oh, I really like your trailer for Horror of the Blood Monsters.” 

I once had a trailer that I did for a picture, a British horror comedy called Nightmare Park. l retitled it Crazy House, and that didn't go anywhere. I changed the title as a take on Night of the Living Dead and called it Night of the Laughing Dead. I used a friend of mine, Brother Theodore, who was an actor, and he was a European voice. He was very funny. Theodore did a number of trailers for me and did the opening narration for Horror of the Blood Monsters. If you just had a normal narrator, “Horror of the Blood Monsters. Coming Soon.” It's dull. But not if you got somebody who's what we call ‘over the top,’ and he really goes wild.

I think the best trailer I ever made was for Hemisphere Pictures. I did a lot of work for them and was involved in the company in a lot of ways. That trailer was for The Mad Doctor of Blood Island, and Brother Theodore did the narration for that. All faucets were open: I turned everything on in making that trailer. You've got certain fixed expenses: editing, music, maybe special optical effects. These all cost money. I told the people of Hemisphere, “I can do these any way you want. I'll do all the editing and I'll put nothing in that's costly. But if we put in optical effects and double expose this over that, that will be a really great trailer.” They didn't want to spend money. They always want to do it cheaply. “If you want to get something with really deluxe features, we'll try to watch the budget, but let’s get an optical house in to superimpose and do some other things.” 

The trailer for The Mad Doctor of Blood Island had every one of those things in it, every gimmick you could name. But of course, the next time around, they said, “Well, I don't think it meant anything. I don't know why you had Brother Theodore do the narration. He's got a German accent. This is a Filipino picture! What's the purpose of that?” Well, I guess over the years, my fans, who’ve enjoyed these things, figured out the purpose of it, but the people in Hemisphere never did. The trailer begins, “He will shock you out of your sanity too when the transfusion of terror is performed by the Mad Doctor of Blood Island!” I remember it like it was yesterday. Just amazing.

You've been working with Film Masters on a number of films that you've helped to rescue and save over the years. From your perspective, why is film preservation important? What does it mean to you to see a company like Film Masters continuing that legacy?

It's very important to me that all films are remembered, because every film has something to offer. A bit of entertainment, maybe horror, a bit of this, a bit of that. The thing that's important to remember is everybody is interested in something else. We don't want to lose that interest in obscure films. Years ago, when I had this idea that I should start collecting unusual films, I felt that the major archives and major studios preserved the big, important films, and rightfully so. As we get down the line to more obscure films, there's an audience for them, and nobody cares about them. Negatives are deteriorating. I've been collecting negatives and prints for obscure movies that people would appreciate seeing because they're kind of forgotten. I'm very proud of what I’ve worked on with Phil Hopkins at Film Masters. 

One of the things that Phil and I have done is The Sin of Nora Moran. I think that's a great, great movie. It was originally owned by Irwin Pizor, who was the head of Hemisphere. I got it from him, and I kept talking it up. I got to be very friendly with Zita Johann, the star of it. It's a wonderful film with many very good technical features, and it’s very well acted. Zita Johann eventually starred in a film that I directed, Raiders of the Living Dead. When I discovered The Sin of Nora Moran, a collector who had a worn 16mm print invited me to see it. I said, “Gee, that's a wonderful film. That's really great. What are you doing with it?” He said, “Nothing, I don't know.” I said, “Are you going to keep it?” He said, “No, no, I'll trade it for something else.” So I traded some other film for it, and that's how I got the 16mm print. 

Then I got to meet Zita Johann. I found her, and I brought the film to her and screened it for her. We got back to the original negative and fixed it up. It's been seen so widely. Burt Grey, the collector I got it from, was a great collector of odd, unusual things. That was the first time that anybody cared about that film. That's a definite thing I can point to. And the 1934 The Scarlet Letter, that's another one that I got from Irwin Pizor that I reissued theatrically. I've done a lot with things that are obscure. I try to bring them back and explain what the good qualities of it are. I’m pleased that people have enjoyed those films.

In your career, you've had the opportunity to meet and talk to a lot of incredible people. What are some of the things that stuck with you in your conversations over the years?

Irwin Pizor had a secretary by the name of Ceil Grodner Susnow. She had worked for his father back in the early 30s. I think she worked for Majestic Pictures, who did The Sin of Nora Moran. She worked for Hemisphere and for my company, Independent International. She would always give us advice: “You should be doing this. You should be doing that.” She'd tell my daughter, “Stephanie, you should be wearing this. You should be doing that.” I called her our den mother, and I said, “Stephanie, whatever Ceil says, you have to do. She knows what she's talking about.” Ceil was just great. 

One day Ceil told me a story. She knew how I loved the history of the industry. She said, “I met Adolph Zukor at a Variety club's lunch.” Zucker was one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures. He was one of the giants that started this whole industry. I said, “Did you gain anything from Adolph Zukor? Some little nugget that you could pass on, that I'll continue to pass on, that will be meaningful? I'm looking for wisdom. What can I learn?” And she said, “You came to the right place. I've got that thing for you, right from Adolph Zukor. Zucker told me that our life in this film industry is like a wheel. It keeps turning. Sometimes people are at the top. They're at the top of that wheel, and the wheel turns and turns, and then they're at the bottom. The wheel keeps turning, and somebody else comes up to the top. Adolph Zukor passes that on to you today.

Thank you for that.

I've learned a lot from people like that. I never met Adolph Zukor; I would have liked to have met him, but anybody who's a veteran of the industry, they've taught me something. I would say that one thing we should all know is we're never too old to learn. We can always learn something. My opinion about the film industry is that it’s not just cameras and motion pictures and labs and editing and projection and theaters— it's people. What they think, what they know. 

My father-in-law Harry became friendly with a man by the name of Aubrey Schenck, who was a famous independent producer and writer. Through Harry, I got to meet Aubrey Schenck. Schenck knew I was interested in the film industry and that I was in it. He said, “Sam, go to that shelf over there and pick that book off the shelf. You'll see a bookmark in it. Open it to that page. It was all about independent producers, and on that page was a big article about Aubrey Schenck. I said, “That's a great article on you. It's beautiful.” He said, “Now go past the article and turn to the next page.” On the next page from the article on Aubrey Schenck was Sam Sherman. I consider myself a Johnny-come-lately. Aubrey Schenck worked for Fox for so many years. His uncle Joe Schenck was one of the founders of the industry. There I am, the next article over from Aubrey Schenck is Sam Sherman. It was my friend Tom Weaver, by the way, who put me in the book like that. I thought it was very nice, but Aubrey got the bigger kick, and my father-in-law got an even a bigger kick. He was so proud of me. I thought that was so great.

You were once called an acronym that I love, a FOOF (Friend of Old Films). How can friends of old films today support your legacy and the work that's being done to save classic movies?

Anybody who's interested in classic movies, or any kind of movie, should collect it if they can. You can get a Blu-ray or a DVD very cheaply, and you then have it to show it. You should also not be afraid to talk about your favorite films, whatever they are, to anybody else. I think that films are wonderful entertainment. I don't remember who said it; maybe it was an advertising slogan or something, “Movies are entertainment.” That's true. A great place to see them today is Turner Classic Movies. They've had so many wonderful films that they discovered, things I've never heard of and things I've never seen. Their hosts are also great, from the late Robert Osborne on to the people who do it today. They do a beautiful job. I’m always scanning what they're running to see what they're turning up. Sometimes I’ll discover some odd picture that’s been forgotten, some very unusual film, or interesting comedies. I like a good comedy, but they've had unusual film noirs and things of that nature. People pick out certain pictures and talk about them. It’s great to learn about the people who made the picture, and sometimes it's Aubrey Schenck [laughs]. 

Schenck was a great filmmaker because he was also a writer. I think his first script of any importance went to Fox and was called Shock, with Vincent Price. When I was working for Famous Monsters of Filmland, Forrest J. Ackerman took me to the last day of shooting in L.A. of a film that Roger Corman was doing called The Raven. Alex Gordon, another great friend and great cult filmmaker, came out and said, “Oh, Karloff is there; he's in a wonderful mood. You're going to love meeting him.” He knew that we were there to see Boris Karloff, but we didn't know who else was in it. We got inside, and there were Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, just standing around with nothing to do until they were called. Forrey and I were talking to them, what nice people and both funny. That was just such a thrill, to have met people that meant so much.

That’s great to hear. I've had the privilege of collaborating with Vincent's daughter Victoria over the years, so I love hearing from people that had a chance to interact with Vincent. Across the board, they all say he was wonderful. 

I was talking to him about early pictures he was in. He was in a Fox picture called Brigham Young. I always liked that film. He had a big part in it, Vincent Price. I said, “Weren't you…” And he said, “I was the brother Joseph.” [Laughs] He knew exactly what he was in the story of Brigham Young. Whenever I see Vincent Price in anything, I think, ‘What a great guy.’ Peter Lorre, the same thing. He was very, very funny. I’ve got to hand it to Roger Corman. He found people that were good, well-known actors, and brought them back in leads. I thought that was a great, great contribution. I did it to a degree. It's a great opportunity. 

My favorite actor was Bob Livingston, who did many Westerns and he ended up starring in three films for me. It was always a dream of mine to bring somebody back who'd been a lead in movies who wasn't doing anything. I got to work with people like Kent Taylor, who played a part in one of our films that was originally offered to George Raft. I got to know George Raft also, who was a very decent fellow. He said, “Sam, I can't do it. I've got bad emphysema. I can't work on those dusty sound stages.” I can't blame him for that; they certainly were dusty, but it turned out that we ended up shooting around the pool outdoors. George turned it down, thinking he was going to be shot in the studio. 

I spent a lot of time with Kent Taylor, talking about the old days and things he'd done. It reminds me of the time I was walking down Broadway and 46th Street in Manhattan, and coming towards me was Reed Hadley, who'd been in many films and was a famous narrator. I met him walking across the street. I’d just met him from nowhere walking down the street, but we went out, had dinner, and I left him at his hotel at 3:30am in the morning. I was doing this picture called Brain of Blood, and I asked him if he was available and he said, “Yeah, sure.” It was his last film. Just from meeting him walking down the street.

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Click here to learn more about Sam Sherman’s GoFundMe campaign. In addition to the campaign, collectors and enthusiasts should note that Sherman is currently planning to downsize and is also offering the rare opportunity to buy his extensive film library.