First bitten by the showbiz bug while rapidly working his way from janitor, to projectionist's assistant, to usher, to head manager at a local theater in his native Detroit, Herman Cohen, after a brief stint in the Marines, and barely in his twenties, then took a job as sales manager for Colombia Pictures' Detroit branch, and later made the move to Hollywood to work in the same studio's publicity department. This was about the same time that fellow Detroiter Jack Broder began re-releasing Universal's old monster movie catalog through his Realart Pictures. And wanting to produce his own films, Broder hired Cohen on as his production assistant, allowing his new hire to learn the nuts and bolts of the trade as Realart quickly and cheaply churned out two films: Bride of the Gorilla, whose production, including the tragic tale of lead actress Barbara Payton and her illicit ménage à trois with actors Tom Neal and Franchot Tone (-- that ended violently shortly after the film was in the can), is a lot more interesting than the finished product, and Bela Lugosi Meets the Brooklyn Gorilla, featuring the horribly -- make that painfully, unfunny antics of the Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis knock-offs, Duke Mitchell & Sammy Petrillo, which seemed to ignite the fledgling producer's life-long obsession with men in monkey-suits. And after a few more co-productions over in England with Nat [no relation] Cohen's Anglo-Amalgamated, Herman Cohen was finally ready to fly solo and make his own movie: Target Earth. To read the full review, click here.
Well, folks, after almost a year of giving me the finger and refusing to work, my old web-building program on my ancient mariner of a computer has magically healed itself. And pouncing on the opportunity before it decides to go tits up again, I'm scrambling to get a few more of these refurbished reviews published for you reading pleasure. Enjoy!
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