Howco Productions later Howco International Pictures, was an American film production and distribution company based in South Carolina, specialising in low budget B pictures designed for double features.
In 1951 Joy Newton Houck Sr. (born 10 July 1900, Magnolia, Arkansas died 8 July 1999, Texarkana, Texas), owner of 29 Joy Theatres in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, teamed up with producer/director Ron Ormond and J. Francis White, an officer of Consolidated Theatres[1] and owner of 31 cinemas in Virginia, North and South Carolina, to contract with independent film producers to create product for their combined theatre chains.[2] Their initials, "H, O, W," provided the name of the company.
Outlaw Women, started in November 1951, was its first production.[3]
Initially Howco released Westerns from Ron Ormond's company featuring Lash LaRue, then moved into monster, science fiction, and exploitation films. In 1954 Howco expanded its production with four films announced, including Kentucky Rifle.[1] The same year, it started a television distribution company called National Television Films.[4] Howco released Roger Corman's Carnival Rock (paired with Teenage Thunder), Ed Wood's Jail Bait (paired with The Blonde Pickup, a reissue of 1951's Racket Girls), double features such as The Brain from Planet Arous and Teenage Monster (1957), and Lost, Lonely and Vicious and My World Dies Screaming (1958). One unusual exploitation effort was derived from an aborted television series, filmed in Europe and starring radio's hillbilly comedians Lum and Abner. Howco compiled the three half-hour pilot episodes into a feature film, Lum and Abner Abroad (1956), which played to the comedians' fan base in the rural South. Howco exploited the film as "a big dish of corn with a continental flavor."
American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing films from 1955 until 1980, a year after its acquisition by Filmways in 1979.
Lum and Abner was an American network radio comedy program created by Chester Lauck and Norris Goff that was aired from 1931 to 1954. Modeled on life in the small town of Waters, Arkansas, near where Lauck and Goff grew up, the show proved immensely popular. In 1936, Waters changed its name to "Pine Ridge" after the show's fictional town.
Samuel Zachary Arkoff was an American producer of B movies.
Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director. Katzman produced low-budget genre films, including serials, which had disproportionately high returns for the studios and his financial backers.
Mesa of Lost Women is a 1953 American low-budget black-and-white science fiction film directed by Herbert Tevos and Ron Ormond from a screenplay by Tevos and Orville H. Hampton who is given on-screen credit only for dialogue supervision.
Herman Cohen was an American producer of B-movies during the 1950s, and helped to popularize the teen horror movie genre with films like the cult classic I Was a Teenage Werewolf.
Norris Goff was an American comedian in radio and film best known for his portrayal of Abner Peabody on the rural comedy Lum and Abner.
Joy Newton Houck Jr. was an American actor, screenwriter and film director who is probably best known for Creature from Black Lake, one of the many Bigfoot horror films of the 1970s.
Charles Bryant Pierce was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, set decorator, cinematographer, and actor. Pierce directed thirteen films over the span of 26 years, but is best known for his cult hits The Legend of Boggy Creek (1973) and The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976).
The 1950s mark a significant change in the definition of the B movie. The transformation of the film industry due to court rulings that brought an end to many long-standing distribution practices as well as the challenge of television led to major changes in U.S. cinema at the exhibition level. These shifts signaled the eventual demise of the double feature that had defined much of the American moviegoing experience during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s. Even as the traditional bottom-of-the-bill second feature slowly disappeared, the term B movie was applied more broadly to the sort of inexpensive genre films that came out during the era, such as those produced to meet the demands of the burgeoning drive-in theater market.
Ron Ormond was an American author, showman, screenwriter, film producer, and film director of Western, musical, and exploitation films. Following his survival of a 1968 plane crash, Ormond began making Christian films.
Robert Lenard Lippert was an American film producer and cinema chain owner. He was president and chief operating officer of Lippert Theatres, Affiliated Theatres and Transcontinental Theatres, all based in San Francisco, and at his height, he owned a chain of 139 movie theaters.
Timothy Michael Sullivan is an American film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter.
Mena High School is an accredited public secondary school located in Mena, Arkansas, United States. The school provides comprehensive education to more than 550 students annually in grades nine through twelve. Mena High School is the largest of four public high schools in Polk County and is the sole high school administered by the Mena School District.
Lum and Abner Abroad is a 1956 European comedy film directed by James V. Kern and written by Carl Herzinger. The film stars Chester Lauck, Norris Goff, Jill Alis, Lila Audres, Gene Gary, and Chris Peters. The film was released on January 1, 1956.
James McCullough Sr. was an American film director and producer who wrote and directed several horror films in the 1980s.
King of the Bullwhip is a 1950 American Western film produced and directed by Ron Ormond starring Lash LaRue and Al "Fuzzy" St. John. It was the eighth of LaRue's films for Ormond's Western Adventures Productions Inc. The film was the second to be released by Howco, Ron Ormond's new film company composed of Ormond and drive-in movie owners Joy N. Houck and J. Francis White, and Ormond's first film as director. The screenplay is co-written by Jack Lewis and Associate Producer Ira S. Webb. Jack Holt and Tom Neal return from the previous film but in different roles. The film was shot at the Iverson Movie Ranch.
The Thundering Trail is a 1951 American Western film produced and directed by Ron Ormond starring Lash LaRue and Al "Fuzzy" St. John. It was the ninth of LaRue's films for Ormond's Western Adventures Productions Inc. The film was the third to be released by Howco, Ron Ormond's new film company composed of Ormond and drive-in movie owners Joy N. Houck and J. Francis White, and Ormond's second film as director. The screenplay is co-written by Ormond's wife June Carr and Associate Producer Ira S. Webb. The film features a large amount of footage from previous Ormond LaRue Westerns.
The Vanishing Outpost is a 1951 American Western film produced and directed by Ron Ormond starring Lash LaRue and Al "Fuzzy" St. John. It was the tenth of LaRue's films for Ormond's Western Adventures Productions Inc. The film was the fourth to be released by Howco, Ron Ormond's new film company composed of Ormond and drive-in movie owners Joy N. Houck and J. Francis White, and Ormond's second film as director. The screenplay is credited to Ormond's wife June Carr and Maurice Tombragel. The film is composed mostly of footage from the previous Ormond LaRue Westerns Son of Billy the Kid (1949), Mark of the Lash (1948), Outlaw Country (1949) and Son of a Bad Man (1949). No outpost, vanishing or otherwise is seen in the film. The story appeared in Fawcett Comics' Motion Picture Comics #111 (1952).
The Black Lash is a 1952 American western film produced and directed by Ron Ormond and starring Lash LaRue and Al "Fuzzy" St. John. It was the eleventh of LaRue's films for Ormond's Western Adventures Productions Inc. The film was the fifth to be released by Howco, Ron Ormond's new film company composed of Ormond and drive-in movie owners Joy N. Houck and J. Francis White, and Ormond's second film as director. The screenplay is credited to Ormond's wife June Carr and his infant son Timothy. The film is composed mostly of footage from previous Ormond LaRue Westerns with the majority of scenes taken from Frontier Revenge (1948) with Ray Bennett repeating his role as the released Duce Rago, making the film a sequel to that film.
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