June 12, 2025 • 8 mins
Rebel Highway was a revival of American International Pictures created and produced by Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, and Debra Hill for the Showtime network in 1994. The concept was a 10-week series of 1950s "drive-in classic" B-movies remade "with a '90s edge".
Over the next ten weeks, Jeff and Cheryl will be going over each of the made-for-cable TV movies that make up the Rebel Highway series.
View the promo for Rebel Highway's original Showtime premiere here.
Follow the American International Podcast on Letterboxd and Instagram @aip_pod and on Facebook at facebook.com/AmericanInternationalPodcast
Get your American International Podcast merchandise at our store.
Our open and close includes clips from the following films/trailers: How to Make a Monster (1958), The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), High School Hellcats (1958), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), The Wild Angels (1966), It Conquered the World (1956), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), and Female Jungle (1955)
Over the next ten weeks, Jeff and Cheryl will be going over each of the made-for-cable TV movies that make up the Rebel Highway series.
View the promo for Rebel Highway's original Showtime premiere here.
Follow the American International Podcast on Letterboxd and Instagram @aip_pod and on Facebook at facebook.com/AmericanInternationalPodcast
Get your American International Podcast merchandise at our store.
Our open and close includes clips from the following films/trailers: How to Make a Monster (1958), The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), High School Hellcats (1958), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), The Wild Angels (1966), It Conquered the World (1956), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), and Female Jungle (1955)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It was the time when the only thing faster than the cops were the cars.
(00:05):
And the only thing faster than the cars were the girls.
Rebel Highway, an original series based on the cult classic films of the 50s,
take a ride on the wild side.
(00:28):
We're not talking about actors. We mean a real monster. I brought her back.
She'll live and I'll get her another body.
I know they're gonna catch me but don't let anyone see me like that! Please, doctor, help me!
Biologically speaking, it's of primary important that man should want to mate.
Hey, that's right!
You don't get all your kicks from surfing, do you?
We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man.
(00:51):
And we want to get loaded.
You think you're gonna make a slave of the world?
I'll see you in Hell first!
The American International Podcast.
Are you ready?
Welcome to a special episode of the American International Podcast.
I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
And I'm Jeff Markin.
And we're telling you what we're doing this summer.
(01:13):
We're going to go a little off book and we're going to be examining the Rebel Highway series
that Showtime ran in 1994.
They're not strictly AIP movies.
There were 10 movies for that series and 10 different directors, 10 different cast.
And they all used the same title as an AIP Classic 50s movie, but not the same script.
Note each of these directors was given the assignment they could use the title
(01:35):
and to come up with their own storyline.
Using their own style, choosing a writer to pen a script,
their own cast, everything that they wanted.
They didn't have to worry about what a studio wanted.
So this was an interesting experiment.
And they all aired on television, even though their movie length.
Yeah, they're made for TV movies.
And I'm really looking forward to seeing these because most of them I haven't watched before.
(01:58):
Same.
Well, all of them I haven't watched before, honestly.
Although I did get a little glimpse of one of them.
So the 10 movies that Showtime remade are Roadracers,
which the new version was directed by Robert Rodriguez and starred David Arquette and Salma Hayek.
The second episode was Confessions of a Sorority Girl, directed by Uli Edel
and starring Jamie Lunar, Brian Bloom, and Alyssa Milano.
(02:21):
The next one is Motorcycle Gang, which is directed by John Millius and starred
Gerald McRaney,, Carla Gugino, and Jake Busey.
Then Runaway Daughters directed by Joe Dante and starring Julie Bowen and Paul Rudd.
And then Girls in Prison, directed by John McNaughton,
written by Samuel Fuller and Crystal Lang, and starring Anne Heche, Jon Polito and Ione Skye.
Next up is Shake Rattle and Rock!, directed byAllan Arkush, and starring Renée Zellweger and Howie Mandel.
(02:46):
Then we move on to Dragstrip Girl, directed by Mary Lambert, and starring Mark Dacascos,
Traci Lords, Raymond Cruz and Natasha Gregson Wagner.
And that will follow with Jailbreakers, directed by Friedkin and starring Antonio Sabato Jr.,
Adrien Brody and Shannen Doherty.
Oh, already an Oscar winner.
After that is the Cool and the Crazy, directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Jared Leto and Alicia Silverstone.
(03:08):
And last will have Reform School Girl, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Aimee Graham and Matt LeBlanc.
These movies have an interesting pedigree.
They're not AIP movies granted, but Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, is a producer for the series,
along with Deborah Hill and Willie Kutner.
And these were all titles that were still owned by the Arkoff Estate, so they were available to use.
(03:30):
That's why we didn't get other movies, like I Was a Teenage Frankenstein or Attack of the Puppet People.
There are plenty of 50s movies that they could have made, but I think they chose the more social commentary type movies.
Yeah, we don't see the sci-fi ones here, but there is another series later where they do tackle some of those called Creature Features.
Well, maybe we'll do those one day.
I found an interview in the Washington Post, Patricia Brennan talked to Lou Arkoff,
(03:54):
or an article called "Fast Cars, Fast Girls, and Raging Hormones," in which we found out that Raging Hormones was the proposed title for this series,
but Showtime went with Rebel Highway.
I think that's smart.
I think Showtime had the right idea here, yeah.
Arkoff said in the interview, "The appeal to directors was that they weren't hampered by big studios saying, 'You can't do this or that,' and all the directors paid very close attention to the detail of the era.
(04:18):
We want these shows to be fun for the younger generation and for the older generation."
And to that end, they each got a budget of $1.3 million to play with.
The Arckoff was concerned about making these movies campy, explaining that when these movies were rated in the 50s, they weren't campy at the time, though as time went by, they became camp.
Yeah, and you might think they're corny, too. The original is not the remakes.
(04:41):
He's quoted as saying, "Back then, these movies dealt with teenage pregnancy and drugs, and that was pretty outrageous. Back then, during the Eisenhower Dream of Peace and Prosperity, there were only four elements of authority. Preacher, teacher, parents, and cop. That was the only environment."
Well, we've come a long way since then.
Now, just because Samuel Arkoff is an a producer, doesn't mean that he has any involvement at all in these series.
(05:03):
No, he appears as an actor in one of them.
Yeah, I can't wait to see that. And Lou Arkoff said in the interview that his father had seen the first one, road racers, and that he loved it.
He said, "He's very pleased and very proud. I took great care that they were not making fun of his old movies. In the same way that in the year 2018, when my two daughters want to remake them, they'd better not make fun of mine."
(05:26):
So, I guess he was predicting that there would be another remake series?
It's interesting to note that when these movies originally aired in 1994, they were remakes or retellings or how everyone would describe it of movies that were nearly 40 years old at the time.
And here we are just over 30 years later, looking back at these.
(05:47):
So, there's 70 years between us and the original is almost... These movies have some interesting song remakes too.
A soundtrack album was released called Fast Track to Nowhere, which is out of print, but available for an affordable price on eBay or sites like that.
No, wherever you do business, each movie has one particular famous artist remake.
I think we have Los Lobos doing "Lights Out," which was a Jerry Burns song for one episode.
(06:10):
We'll go down the entire track list. The Neville Brothers doing their rendition of "Let The Good Times Roll."
Then we have Iggy Pop of all people doing Eddie Cochran's “C'mon, Everybody."
Concrete Blonde does a remake of Jodie Reynolds' "Endless Sleep."
"Babes in Toyland." Oh my gosh. Doing Little Richards’ "The Girl Can't Help It."
Blues Traveler does a cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Walking." And Sheryl Crow, who's actually pretty new at this time, did a cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday."
(06:35):
Charlie Sexton does Gene Vincent's "Race with the Devil."
The Wild Colonials doing Muddy Waters’ "Evil."
And the last song represented on the soundtrack is the Meat Puppets' rendition of Chuck Miller's version of "The House of Blue Lights."
Hey, Arizona's own The Meat Puppets. I love them.
So the titles we mentioned is any one in particular you're really looking forward to seeing?
I'm really curious about "Confessions of a Sorority Girl" because the original “Sorority Girl" was so dramatic and so dark.
(07:03):
And I just wonder if they can sustain that darkness. What about you?
Well, of these the only one that I've seen is “Shake, Rattle and Rock!" But I'm really looking forward to Runaway Daughters because that's a Joe Dante direction.
Oh, your favorite.
And knowing how he puts easter eggs into all those films anyway, I'm anxious to see what he does with this.
Paul Rudd is in that too. So I want to see that as well. I think I want to see “Shake, Rattle and Rock!" just because I love jukebox movies where there's lots of pop songs.
(07:28):
And I think that one would have a lot of pop songs in it.
I can confirm that it does.
Well, that's great. That's really fun to watch.
The one that I saw part of was "Cool and the Crazy" with Alicia Silverstone.
And honestly, I found it very confusing and I didn't watch the whole thing.
So I have to give it a fair shake when we finally get around to that one.
Well, that's our penultimate one in this series. So we'll have a lot of other films to give it context. So maybe that will help.
(07:53):
I hope so.
So that's how Cheryl and I will be spending our summer.
And you can spend it with us over the next 10 weeks as we bring you our critique of each episode of Showtime's Roll Highway series.
All right. So hope you're spending the summer with us for the American International Podcast. I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
And I'm Jeff Markin, and we'll meet you at the drive-in.
Follow the American International Podcast on Instagram and Letterbox at AIP_Pod and on Facebook at facebook.com/AmericanInternationalPodcast
(08:22):
The American International Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Markin.
A man whose mind is distorted by hatred.
And Cheryl Lightfoot.
A girl hungry for too many things.
The American International Podcast is part of the Pop Culture Entertainment Network.
(08:49):
[Music]
It was the time when the only thing faster than the cops were the cars.
(00:05):
And the only thing faster than the cars were the girls.
Rebel Highway, an original series based on the cult classic films of the 50s,
take a ride on the wild side.
(00:28):
We're not talking about actors. We mean a real monster. I brought her back.
She'll live and I'll get her another body.
I know they're gonna catch me but don't let anyone see me like that! Please, doctor, help me!
Biologically speaking, it's of primary important that man should want to mate.
Hey, that's right!
You don't get all your kicks from surfing, do you?
We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man.
(00:51):
And we want to get loaded.
You think you're gonna make a slave of the world?
I'll see you in Hell first!
The American International Podcast.
Are you ready?
Welcome to a special episode of the American International Podcast.
I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
And I'm Jeff Markin.
And we're telling you what we're doing this summer.
(01:13):
We're going to go a little off book and we're going to be examining the Rebel Highway series
that Showtime ran in 1994.
They're not strictly AIP movies.
There were 10 movies for that series and 10 different directors, 10 different cast.
And they all used the same title as an AIP Classic 50s movie, but not the same script.
Note each of these directors was given the assignment they could use the title
(01:35):
and to come up with their own storyline.
Using their own style, choosing a writer to pen a script,
their own cast, everything that they wanted.
They didn't have to worry about what a studio wanted.
So this was an interesting experiment.
And they all aired on television, even though their movie length.
Yeah, they're made for TV movies.
And I'm really looking forward to seeing these because most of them I haven't watched before.
(01:58):
Same.
Well, all of them I haven't watched before, honestly.
Although I did get a little glimpse of one of them.
So the 10 movies that Showtime remade are Roadracers,
which the new version was directed by Robert Rodriguez and starred David Arquette and Salma Hayek.
The second episode was Confessions of a Sorority Girl, directed by Uli Edel
and starring Jamie Lunar, Brian Bloom, and Alyssa Milano.
(02:21):
The next one is Motorcycle Gang, which is directed by John Millius and starred
Gerald McRaney,, Carla Gugino, and Jake Busey.
Then Runaway Daughters directed by Joe Dante and starring Julie Bowen and Paul Rudd.
And then Girls in Prison, directed by John McNaughton,
written by Samuel Fuller and Crystal Lang, and starring Anne Heche, Jon Polito and Ione Skye.
Next up is Shake Rattle and Rock!, directed byAllan Arkush, and starring Renée Zellweger and Howie Mandel.
(02:46):
Then we move on to Dragstrip Girl, directed by Mary Lambert, and starring Mark Dacascos,
Traci Lords, Raymond Cruz and Natasha Gregson Wagner.
And that will follow with Jailbreakers, directed by Friedkin and starring Antonio Sabato Jr.,
Adrien Brody and Shannen Doherty.
Oh, already an Oscar winner.
After that is the Cool and the Crazy, directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Jared Leto and Alicia Silverstone.
(03:08):
And last will have Reform School Girl, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Aimee Graham and Matt LeBlanc.
These movies have an interesting pedigree.
They're not AIP movies granted, but Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, is a producer for the series,
along with Deborah Hill and Willie Kutner.
And these were all titles that were still owned by the Arkoff Estate, so they were available to use.
(03:30):
That's why we didn't get other movies, like I Was a Teenage Frankenstein or Attack of the Puppet People.
There are plenty of 50s movies that they could have made, but I think they chose the more social commentary type movies.
Yeah, we don't see the sci-fi ones here, but there is another series later where they do tackle some of those called Creature Features.
Well, maybe we'll do those one day.
I found an interview in the Washington Post, Patricia Brennan talked to Lou Arkoff,
(03:54):
or an article called "Fast Cars, Fast Girls, and Raging Hormones," in which we found out that Raging Hormones was the proposed title for this series,
but Showtime went with Rebel Highway.
I think that's smart.
I think Showtime had the right idea here, yeah.
Arkoff said in the interview, "The appeal to directors was that they weren't hampered by big studios saying, 'You can't do this or that,' and all the directors paid very close attention to the detail of the era.
(04:18):
We want these shows to be fun for the younger generation and for the older generation."
And to that end, they each got a budget of $1.3 million to play with.
The Arckoff was concerned about making these movies campy, explaining that when these movies were rated in the 50s, they weren't campy at the time, though as time went by, they became camp.
Yeah, and you might think they're corny, too. The original is not the remakes.
(04:41):
He's quoted as saying, "Back then, these movies dealt with teenage pregnancy and drugs, and that was pretty outrageous. Back then, during the Eisenhower Dream of Peace and Prosperity, there were only four elements of authority. Preacher, teacher, parents, and cop. That was the only environment."
Well, we've come a long way since then.
Now, just because Samuel Arkoff is an a producer, doesn't mean that he has any involvement at all in these series.
(05:03):
No, he appears as an actor in one of them.
Yeah, I can't wait to see that. And Lou Arkoff said in the interview that his father had seen the first one, road racers, and that he loved it.
He said, "He's very pleased and very proud. I took great care that they were not making fun of his old movies. In the same way that in the year 2018, when my two daughters want to remake them, they'd better not make fun of mine."
(05:26):
So, I guess he was predicting that there would be another remake series?
It's interesting to note that when these movies originally aired in 1994, they were remakes or retellings or how everyone would describe it of movies that were nearly 40 years old at the time.
And here we are just over 30 years later, looking back at these.
(05:47):
So, there's 70 years between us and the original is almost... These movies have some interesting song remakes too.
A soundtrack album was released called Fast Track to Nowhere, which is out of print, but available for an affordable price on eBay or sites like that.
No, wherever you do business, each movie has one particular famous artist remake.
I think we have Los Lobos doing "Lights Out," which was a Jerry Burns song for one episode.
(06:10):
We'll go down the entire track list. The Neville Brothers doing their rendition of "Let The Good Times Roll."
Then we have Iggy Pop of all people doing Eddie Cochran's “C'mon, Everybody."
Concrete Blonde does a remake of Jodie Reynolds' "Endless Sleep."
"Babes in Toyland." Oh my gosh. Doing Little Richards’ "The Girl Can't Help It."
Blues Traveler does a cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Walking." And Sheryl Crow, who's actually pretty new at this time, did a cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday."
(06:35):
Charlie Sexton does Gene Vincent's "Race with the Devil."
The Wild Colonials doing Muddy Waters’ "Evil."
And the last song represented on the soundtrack is the Meat Puppets' rendition of Chuck Miller's version of "The House of Blue Lights."
Hey, Arizona's own The Meat Puppets. I love them.
So the titles we mentioned is any one in particular you're really looking forward to seeing?
I'm really curious about "Confessions of a Sorority Girl" because the original “Sorority Girl" was so dramatic and so dark.
(07:03):
And I just wonder if they can sustain that darkness. What about you?
Well, of these the only one that I've seen is “Shake, Rattle and Rock!" But I'm really looking forward to Runaway Daughters because that's a Joe Dante direction.
Oh, your favorite.
And knowing how he puts easter eggs into all those films anyway, I'm anxious to see what he does with this.
Paul Rudd is in that too. So I want to see that as well. I think I want to see “Shake, Rattle and Rock!" just because I love jukebox movies where there's lots of pop songs.
(07:28):
And I think that one would have a lot of pop songs in it.
I can confirm that it does.
Well, that's great. That's really fun to watch.
The one that I saw part of was "Cool and the Crazy" with Alicia Silverstone.
And honestly, I found it very confusing and I didn't watch the whole thing.
So I have to give it a fair shake when we finally get around to that one.
Well, that's our penultimate one in this series. So we'll have a lot of other films to give it context. So maybe that will help.
(07:53):
I hope so.
So that's how Cheryl and I will be spending our summer.
And you can spend it with us over the next 10 weeks as we bring you our critique of each episode of Showtime's Roll Highway series.
All right. So hope you're spending the summer with us for the American International Podcast. I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
And I'm Jeff Markin, and we'll meet you at the drive-in.
Follow the American International Podcast on Instagram and Letterbox at AIP_Pod and on Facebook at facebook.com/AmericanInternationalPodcast
(08:22):
The American International Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Markin.
A man whose mind is distorted by hatred.
And Cheryl Lightfoot.
A girl hungry for too many things.
The American International Podcast is part of the Pop Culture Entertainment Network.
(08:49):
[Music]
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.