Writer, producer and distributor Samuel M. Sherman was born April 23, 1940, in New York City. He attended New York’s City College Film Institute, where he ran “Flash Gordon” serials and “The Mask of Fu Mancho” in the student film program and made the 16mm short “The Weird Stranger” in a single day. Sam did freelance work for noted magazine publisher Jim Warren from 1958-1965. He was briefly in the army but got discharged because of a leg injury. The first picture Sherman distributed was a re-release of the Monogram’s 1934 The Scarlet Letter (1934) in 1964. He also worked in the publicity department of Hemisphere Pictures prior to forming the hugely successful production and distribution outfit Independent-International Pictures with Do-It-Yourself indie filmmaker ‘Al Adamson (I)’ in 1968 (Sam first met Al and his actor/director father Victor Adamson in 1962). Independent-International produced and/or released a slew of movies in such genres as horror, Western, science fiction, comedy, action and even blaxploitation for the drive-in market throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. More recently Sherman has done lively, enjoyable, and informative interviews and commentaries for DVD releases of many films he has made and/or distributed in his long, eclectic and impressive career.
1968 Chaplin’s Art of Comedy (Documentary) (producer)
