Jerry Warren(1925-1988)

With all due respect to the man himself, it is hard to think of any horror filmmaker who made movies that were as cheap or as ridiculed as Jerry Warren's. Whether making shoestring quickies like Le monde pétrifié (1959) or Teenage Zombies (1959), or mangling Mexican imports, Warren could be counted on through the late '50s and early '60s to deliver the lowest common denominator in horror. Warren said that he grew up with the same natural inclination that every other kid growing up in Los Angeles had: He wanted to get into the movie business. He first pursued this ambition by playing small parts in such '40s films as Ghost Catchers (1944), Escale à Hollywood (1945) and Les conquérants d'un nouveau monde (1947). A producer made a big impression on Warren when he said, "In this town, producers are the ones that have it all". Warren subsequently took the producers' plunge in 1956 with the horror adventure Man Beast (1956).