Robert L. Lippert

Associated Producers Incorporated

In October 1958 a new company was formed by Lippert, called Associated Producers Incorporated (API), to make low-budget films for Fox at the rate of one per month, starting with Alaska Highway. The company was headed by George Warren, formerly a production cost controller for MGM, with William Magginetti as production supervisor and Harry Spaulding as story editor. Lippert was described as being "associated" with the company.(API having similar initials to exploitation specialist American International Pictures may have been coincidental).

Harry Spalding and Maury Dexter were the driving forces of API. Lippert explained, "We use hack writers or new writers, and beat-up faces or new faces. No, I don't direct any of them. I wouldn't be a director for anything. No wonder they all have ulcers." Lippert had indeed directed a Lippert production -- once -- in 1948; the film was the outdoor adventure Last of the Wild Horses.

In October 1959, Lippert said making "little Bs" for $100,000 was no longer as lucrative because "it is now in the same category as the short TV feature which people can see for free." He persuaded Fox to start financing his films up to $300,000 and a shooting schedule of around 15 days starting with The Sad Horse.

"I have an angle on everything", he said in 1960, adding that he found it profitable to focus on small towns and country areas. "There's a lot of money in sticks." In December 1960 he said he had been "bumped" off The Canadians due to problems with Canadian governmental loan negotiator Wilfred Griffin Eady.

In 1962, Lippert criticized Hollywood for the "slow suicide" in moviegoing, blaming involvement of New York bankers in creative matters, inflated overhead, union featherbedding, and obsolete theaters. "The economics of this business have gone cockeyed. The total gross of pictures has dropped from 20-30% and the costs have doubled. It's nuts." By this stage, he estimated that he had made "about 300 films" including 100 for Fox in five years. "One year, I made 26, more than the rest of the studios."

"Most Bs cost $100,000 or $200,000", he said. "We shoot them in six or seven days. There's hardly any reshooting. Unless something is glaringly wrong, we let 'em go. What the hell, people don't care. They want to be entertained. I've heard people coming out of my theaters after seeing a double bill that featured a big production, 'Everybody died' or 'How that girl suffered. Thank God for the little picture'."

Lippert said that he wanted to make more Westerns "because they're cheap" but didn't because "television had saturated the market."

Faced with increasing production costs in Hollywood, Lippert announced in 1962 that he would be making films in England, Italy (The Last Man on Earth), and the Philippines. Fox ended the relationship with Regal/API when its own production schedule had declined and it didn't have enough "A" features to maintain double-feature programs.

In 1926, he married Ruth Robinson and they remained married until his death. He has a son, Robert L. Lippert Jr., and a daughter, Judith Ann. His son followed his father into producing and also helped manage the theater chain. Maury Dexter says Lippert had a mistress, Margia Dean, who would be cast in the company's films at Lippert's insistence.