Samuel Bischoff(1890-1975)
- Producer
- Production Manager
- Additional Crew
Samuel Bischoff, a Connecticut-born graduate of Boston University and
Northwestern College, was trained as a Certified Public Accountant and
naturally viewed the film industry from a financial, rather than
artistic, perspective. In 1922, he formed his own production and
distribution company, which, for six years, released short comedies
made on shoe-string budgets, including the early
Stan Laurel effort
Mixed Nuts (1922), and a series of
twelve two-reelers for Mack Sennett,
starring Eddie Gribbon and
Mildred June.
From 1926, Bischoff turned out feature films for Poverty Row studios like Mascot and Tiffany, where his budget-conscious methodology sufficiently impressed the ever-frugal Columbia boss Harry Cohn to hire him as supervising producer. In 1932, he moved on to work at Warner Brothers, primarily as associate producer for the B-unit. In that capacity, his only credited A-grade features were the gangster melodramas Les fantastiques années 20 (1939) and Castle on the Hudson (1940). Having acquired the taste for more ambitious projects, Bischoff produced a string of popular escapist films for Columbia and RKO between 1941 and 1956. These included the lavish musical L'amour vient en dansant (1941), the mystery-comedy Une nuit inoubliable (1942), the tongue-in-cheek fairy-tale adventure Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse (1945) and the Robert Mitchum - Jane Russell film noir Le Paradis des mauvais garçons (1952). His final six films were released under the banner of his short-lived Bischoff-Diamond Corporation, the last being the Alfred Hitchcock wannabe Le tueur de Boston (1964).
From 1926, Bischoff turned out feature films for Poverty Row studios like Mascot and Tiffany, where his budget-conscious methodology sufficiently impressed the ever-frugal Columbia boss Harry Cohn to hire him as supervising producer. In 1932, he moved on to work at Warner Brothers, primarily as associate producer for the B-unit. In that capacity, his only credited A-grade features were the gangster melodramas Les fantastiques années 20 (1939) and Castle on the Hudson (1940). Having acquired the taste for more ambitious projects, Bischoff produced a string of popular escapist films for Columbia and RKO between 1941 and 1956. These included the lavish musical L'amour vient en dansant (1941), the mystery-comedy Une nuit inoubliable (1942), the tongue-in-cheek fairy-tale adventure Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse (1945) and the Robert Mitchum - Jane Russell film noir Le Paradis des mauvais garçons (1952). His final six films were released under the banner of his short-lived Bischoff-Diamond Corporation, the last being the Alfred Hitchcock wannabe Le tueur de Boston (1964).
