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Robert L. Lippert
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Robert L. Lippert
Robert Lenard Lippert (March 31, 1909 – November 16, 1976) 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.
He helped finance more than 300 films, including the directorial debuts of Sam Fuller, James Clavell, and Burt Kennedy. His films include I Shot Jesse James (1949) and The Fly (1958) and he was known as "King of the Bs".
In 1962, Lippert said, "the word around Hollywood is: Lippert makes a lot of cheap pictures but he's never made a stinker".
Born in Alameda, California and adopted by the owner of a hardware store, Robert Lippert became fascinated by the cinema at an early age. As a youngster, he worked a variety of jobs in local theaters, including projectionist and assistant manager. As a manager of a cinema during the Depression, Lippert encouraged regular attendance with promotions such as "Dish Night" and "Book Night."
Lippert went from cinema manager to owning a chain of cinemas in Alameda in 1942, during the peak years of theater attendance. Lippert's theaters in Los Angeles adopted a "grindhouse" policy, screening older and cheaper films for a continuous 24 hours with an admission price of 25 cents. Not only did his theaters attract shift workers and late-night revelers, but also servicemen on leave who could not find cheap accommodations and would sleep in the chairs.
In May 1948, he merged his theater chain with George Mann's, the founder of the Redwood Theatres. He also owned a number of drive-ins. The 139 theaters he eventually owned were mostly in Northern California and southern Oregon, as well as some in Southern California and Arizona.
"Every theater owner thinks he can make pictures better than the ones they sent him," Lippert later said. "So back in 1943 [sic] I tried it" (the year was actually 1945). Dissatisfied with what he believed to be exorbitant rental fees charged by major studios, Lippert formed Screen Guild Productions in 1945, its first release being a Bob Steele western called Wildfire, filmed in then-unusual Cinecolor. Veteran producer Edward Finney partnered with Lippert in 1946.
For the next few years Screen Guild entered into agreements with independent producers Finney, William Berke, William David, Jack Schwarz, Walter Colmes, and Ron Ormond to guarantee a steady supply of releases. One of the most controversial Screen Guild releases was The Burning Cross (1947), which concerned the Ku Klux Klan. In the main, however, Lippert concentrated on simple entertainments for small-town and neighborhood theaters: musicals, comedies, detective stories, action-adventure stories, and westerns.
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Robert L. Lippert
Robert Lenard Lippert (March 31, 1909 – November 16, 1976) 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.
He helped finance more than 300 films, including the directorial debuts of Sam Fuller, James Clavell, and Burt Kennedy. His films include I Shot Jesse James (1949) and The Fly (1958) and he was known as "King of the Bs".
In 1962, Lippert said, "the word around Hollywood is: Lippert makes a lot of cheap pictures but he's never made a stinker".
Born in Alameda, California and adopted by the owner of a hardware store, Robert Lippert became fascinated by the cinema at an early age. As a youngster, he worked a variety of jobs in local theaters, including projectionist and assistant manager. As a manager of a cinema during the Depression, Lippert encouraged regular attendance with promotions such as "Dish Night" and "Book Night."
Lippert went from cinema manager to owning a chain of cinemas in Alameda in 1942, during the peak years of theater attendance. Lippert's theaters in Los Angeles adopted a "grindhouse" policy, screening older and cheaper films for a continuous 24 hours with an admission price of 25 cents. Not only did his theaters attract shift workers and late-night revelers, but also servicemen on leave who could not find cheap accommodations and would sleep in the chairs.
In May 1948, he merged his theater chain with George Mann's, the founder of the Redwood Theatres. He also owned a number of drive-ins. The 139 theaters he eventually owned were mostly in Northern California and southern Oregon, as well as some in Southern California and Arizona.
"Every theater owner thinks he can make pictures better than the ones they sent him," Lippert later said. "So back in 1943 [sic] I tried it" (the year was actually 1945). Dissatisfied with what he believed to be exorbitant rental fees charged by major studios, Lippert formed Screen Guild Productions in 1945, its first release being a Bob Steele western called Wildfire, filmed in then-unusual Cinecolor. Veteran producer Edward Finney partnered with Lippert in 1946.
For the next few years Screen Guild entered into agreements with independent producers Finney, William Berke, William David, Jack Schwarz, Walter Colmes, and Ron Ormond to guarantee a steady supply of releases. One of the most controversial Screen Guild releases was The Burning Cross (1947), which concerned the Ku Klux Klan. In the main, however, Lippert concentrated on simple entertainments for small-town and neighborhood theaters: musicals, comedies, detective stories, action-adventure stories, and westerns.