By Bruce Klauber
It’s almost impossible to believe that the same man who produced classic American motion pictures like “Touch of Evil” and “Written on the Wind,” also directed low-grade, exploitation films like “Sex Kittens Go to College.” But such was the career of Atlantic City native Albert Zugsmith, who had, according to author and Temple University film historian Irv Slifkin, “one of the most deliriously colorful careers in Hollywood.”
Born in Atlantic City in 1903, the history books indicate that he attended Atlantic City High School and in his senior year there, started booking and promoting the bands of Paul Whiteman and Ted Weems, both frequent performers at the Ritz-Carlton’s nightclub, the Terrace Room. He later studied law at the University of Virginia and initially worked professionally as a journalist.
By the late 1930s, he was concentrating on brokering the sale of radio stations, newspapers, and later, television stations. It was tremendously lucrative.
His most visible case as a lawyer came in 1947 when he represented “Superman” creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who wanted National Comics to return the “Superman” rights to them. Siegel and Shuster eventually settled out of court for a reported $100,000.
By 1952, Zugsmith was restless and flush with cash. In that year, the self-described film buff acquired two partners and formed the American Pictures Corporation.
APC signed a three-picture deal with RKO for three, low-budget projects which never really went anywhere. It wasn’t until Zugsmith moved to Columbia Pictures that same year and produced “Invasion USA” when he hit box office pay dirt.
Though the 1952 film had next to no budget and was poorly acted and produced, the message of “Invasion USA” – how to stop the Red Menace from taking over the world – struck a nerve. The movie cost just $127,000 to produce, but made more than $1 million in profits. Albert Zugsmith now had respect as a producer of motion pictures, which enabled him to move to the Universal lot where he signed a long-term contract.
“He was a restless showman who seemed to settle down as a successful producer for Universal,” according to Slifkin. “Zugsmith was involved in such big-time 1950s successes as the highly acclaimed Douglas Sirk/Rock Hudson melodramas ‘Written on the Wind’ and ‘The Tarnished Angels,’ as well as the science fiction gem, ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man.’
“Film historians and movie fans are forever in debt to him for hiring the Hollywood malcontent, Orson Welles, to direct and star in the ‘B’ crime picture, ‘Touch of Evil,’ now considered one of the greatest of film noirs and one of Welles’ finest films.”
Zugsmith was one of the few producers able to easily work with the notoriously difficult Welles.
“He was charming and very, very nice,” Zugsmith said of Welles at the time. “Strangely enough, he knew of my films and knew of my work and was very well researched on it. Welles was amazed that a producer knew how to write or rewrite with a sense of dramatic composition, and we really built on each other as collaborators.”
It would seem natural that after the critical acclaim of “Touch of Evil,” that Zugsmith would go on to produce other, “A” pictures with good budgets and star names. Curiously, it was not to be. In 1958, he moved his operations to MGM and signed a six-film deal, this time as director.
“What Zugsmith obviously wanted to do was direct,” says Slifkin. “And direct he did into the 1960s with a series of exploitation pictures, some for MGM, some for the low-budget studio Allied Artists, and others for even more cash-strapped studios. He wasn’t really good at it, but he was prolific and put a lot of misplaced energy into capturing the spirit of the times and the pulse of youth.
“Many Zugsmith-directed titles were lurid – including ‘High School Confidential,’ ‘Sex Kittens Go to College,’ ‘The Private Lives of Adam and Eve’ – and all starred platinum blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren, the former Miss Palm Springs. Though most of his films he directed are jaw-droppingly awful including ‘Dondi,’ his maudlin adaptation of the popular comic strip starring David Janssen, most remain entertainingly campy. Who else but Zugsmith would pair the likes of Steve Allen and Mickey Rooney with the voluptuous Van Doren?”
Most of these films were nothing more than low-grade projects for drive-ins, with titillating titles that promised much more than the films delivered.
“I pick my titles to get ‘em into theaters,” Zugsmith said of his exploitation efforts. “Thousands of theater owners say ‘amen’ to that.”
Unfortunately, he ended his career with a bomb. “Violated,” produced in 1975, starred a washed-up Troy Donahue and soft-core porn actress Rene Bond, “Violated” was a lurid story about a masked serial rapist. It barely saw commercial release and was later presumed lost until it was “rediscovered” and released to DVD two years ago by an outfit called “Vinegar Syndrome,” which specializes in rescuing off-beat titles like these.
To his credit, Zugsmith never forgot his Atlantic City roots. On May 29, 1958, “High School Confidential,” probably the best of all his low-grade potboilers, had its world premiere at the Apollo Theatre on New York Avenue and the Boardwalk.
Some of the film’s stars, including Jackie Coogan, Jan Sterling, and Charles Chaplin, Jr., were in attendance, and Zugsmith received the key to the city from then-Mayor Joseph Altman. The entire event benefited the Atlantic City/Cape May Chapter of Cerebral Palsy, Inc. This was pretty big stuff for Atlantic City at the time. The Atlantic City Press wrote about the premiere for several days.
Though reviewers of the day didn’t think much of the film itself, it made plenty of money, and “High School Confidential!” has become a cult classic. “It’s one of those films that was meant to be a straight drama, but ends up being an unintentional laugh riot,” wrote one reviewer who watched it recently.
Given his extraordinary legacy of films, from the sublime to the ridiculous, it’s tough to determine just how he’ll be remembered.
Historian Irv Slifkin said it best when he wrote that Zugsmith “had one of the most deliriously colorful careers in Hollywood.”
Albert Zugsmith died in 1993. He was 83.
