Direct to Peoria

Regarding “Bypassing the Big Picture,” by Michele Willens (Nov. 28):

In your article on direct-to-video movies, the technique that Charles Band boasts about for deciding which films to make was in fact pioneered by one of the three greatest film executives of the latter half of the 20th Century, the late James H. Nicholson, co-founder of American International Pictures. (The others are Nicholson’s partner Samuel Z. Arkoff and Roger Corman.)

In the mid- to late ‘50s, AIP established very close ties with the owners of independent theater chains in the South, Midwest and Southwest, who had a much better understanding of the tastes of their audiences than exhibitors based in New York or today’s ivory-towered types.

Nicholson would conceive of several exploitable titles and hire assistants to create posters based on them. Those titles and posters that got the most positive reactions would have scripts commissioned for them and be put into production.

Like Band’s products, the finished films rarely lived up to the promise of the posters; those that did, however, live in the memory as Saturday afternoons well spent.

RICK MITCHELL Los Angeles