Robert Towne is an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He started with writing films for Roger Corman including The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). Later, he became a well-known figure of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest screenplays. Towne also wrote the sequel, The Two Jakes (1990); the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975). He is also known for his collaborations with Tom Cruise on the films Days of Thunder (1990), The Firm (1993) and the first two installments of Mission: Impossible franchise.
Easy Rider is a 1969 American independent road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South, carrying the proceeds from a cocaine deal. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood era of filmmaking during the early 1970s.
Roger William Corman is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works that have an already-established critical reputation, such as his cycle of low-budget cult films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
Peter Henry Fonda was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fonda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Easy Rider (1969), and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Ulee's Gold (1997). For the latter, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Fonda also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999).
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.
Suburbia, also known as Rebel Streets and The Wild Side, is a 1984 American coming-of-age drama/thriller film written and directed by Penelope Spheeris and produced by Roger Corman. The film's plot concerns a group of suburban youths who run away from home and adopt a punk lifestyle by squatting in abandoned suburban tract homes. The punks are played by Chris Pedersen, Bill Coyne, Timothy Eric O'Brien, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and others.
Rock 'n' Roll High School is a 1979 American musical comedy film directed by Allan Arkush, produced by Michael Finnell, and starring P. J. Soles, Vince Van Patten, Clint Howard, and Dey Young. The film featured the punk rock group Ramones.
Samuel Zachary Arkoff was an American producer of B movies.
The Two Jakes is a 1990 American neo-noir mystery crime drama film and the sequel to the 1974 film Chinatown. Directed by and starring Jack Nicholson, it also features Harvey Keitel, Meg Tilly, Madeleine Stowe, Richard Farnsworth, Frederic Forrest, David Keith, Rubén Blades, Tracey Walter and Eli Wallach. Reprising their roles from Chinatown are Joe Mantell, Perry Lopez, James Hong, and, in a brief voice-over, Faye Dunaway. The musical score for the film is by Van Dyke Parks, who also appears as a prosecuting attorney. The screenplay is by Robert Towne, whose script for Chinatown won an Academy Award.
The Wild Angels is a 1966 American outlaw biker film produced and directed by Roger Corman. Made on location in Southern California, The Wild Angels was the first film to associate actor Peter Fonda with Harley-Davidson motorcycles and 1960s counterculture. It inspired the biker film genre that continued into the early 1970s.
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is a 1967 American gangster film based on the 1929 mass murder of seven members of the Northside Gang on orders from Al Capone. The picture was directed by Roger Corman, written by Howard Browne, and starring Jason Robards Jr. as a remarkably slender Capone, Ralph Meeker as Moran, George Segal as Peter Gusenberg, and David Canary as Frank Gusenberg.
Ride in the Whirlwind is a 1966 American Western film starring Cameron Mitchell, Millie Perkins, Jack Nicholson, and Harry Dean Stanton, and directed by Monte Hellman. Nicholson also wrote and co-produced the film. A trio of cowboys are forced to become outlaws due to a case of mistaken identity by the local authorities.
Hells Angels on Wheels is a 1967 American biker film directed by Richard Rush, and starring Adam Roarke, Jack Nicholson, and Sabrina Scharf. The film tells the story of a gas-station attendant with a bad attitude who finds life more exciting after he is allowed to hang out with a chapter of the Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle club.
Monte Hellman was an American film director, producer, writer, and editor. Hellman began his career as an editor's apprentice at ABC TV, and made his directorial debut with the horror film Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), produced by Gene Corman, Roger Corman's brother.
Luana Anders was an American film and television actress and screenwriter.
The Cry Baby Killer is a 1958 teen exploitation film produced by Roger Corman that marked Jack Nicholson's film debut. The film was out of print and difficult to find until 2006, when it was issued on DVD for the first time by Buena Vista Home Entertainment as part of its Roger Corman Classics series.
The outlaw biker film is a film genre that portrays its characters as motorcycle riding rebels. The characters are usually members of an outlaw motorcycle club.
John Joseph Nicholson is a retired American actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous accolades throughout his career which spanned over five decades, including three Academy Awards.
Highway Dragnet is a 1954 American film noir B film crime film directed by Nathan Juran from a story by U.S. Andersen and Roger Corman. The film stars Richard Conte, Joan Bennett and Wanda Hendrix. It was the first feature film on which Roger Corman worked - he co-wrote the original story with U.S. Andersen and worked as an associate producer.
The Filmgroup was a production and distribution company founded by filmmakers Roger Corman and Gene Corman in 1959. Corman used it to make and distribute his own movies, as opposed to ones he was making for American International Pictures. The company ultimately folded, however, lessons from running the company helped Corman make a success later of New World Pictures. Filmgroup also produced early feature work of Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Charles B. Griffith, Curtis Harrington, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Robert Towne and Jack Nicholson.
