Roger Corman

[knives]

Roger Corman (1926 - )



“I was called recently in some article "Hollywood's Oldest Established Rebel." So I'm sort of working from the inside now, with still a little bit of a rebellious spirit.”

Filmography*
Director
1955
Five Guns West; Swamp Women; Apache Woman
1956
Gunslinger; Day the World Ended; The Beast with a Million Eyes (uncredited); The Oklahoma Woman; It Conquered the World
1957
Naked Paradise; Carnival Rock; Not of This Earth; Attack of the Crab Monsters; The Undead; Rock All Night; Teenage Doll; Sorority Girl; The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent
1958
I, Mobster; War of the Satellites; Machine-Gun Kelly; Teenage Cave Man; She Gods of Shark Reef
1959
A Bucket of Blood; The Wasp Woman
1960
Ski Troop Attack; The Fall of the House of Usher; The Little Shop of Horrors; Last Woman on Earth
1961
The Intruder; Atlas; Creature from the Haunted Sea; The Pit and the Pendulum
1962
The Premature Burial; Tales of Terror; Tower of London
1963
The Young Racers; The Raven; The Terror; The Haunted Palace; X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes
1964
The Masque of the Red Death; The Secret Invasion

The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)
The Wild Angels (1966)
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)
A Time for Killing (1967) (uncredited)
The Trip (1967)
The Wild Racers (1968) (uncredited)
Target: Harry (1969)
De Sade (1969) (uncredited)
Bloody Mama (1970)
Gas-s-s-s… or, It May Become Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It (1971)
Von Richthofen and Brown (1971)
Deathsport (1978) (uncredited)
Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

Partial as Producer
1954
Highway Dragnet (Juran); Monster from the Ocean Floor (Ordung); The Fast and the Furious (Ireland and Sampson)
1955
Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes (Kramarsky)
1958
Stake out on Dope Street (Kershner); The Cry Baby (Addiss); Hot Car Girl (Kowalski); Night of the Blood Beast (Kowalski); The Brain Eaters (Ve Sota); Paratroop Command (Witney)
1959
Tank Commando (Topper); Crime and Punishment U.S.A. (Sanders); High School Big Shot ( The Young Sinners ) (Rapp); Attack of the Giant Leeches ( Demons of the Swamp ) (Kowalski); Beast from a Haunted Cave (Hellman); T-Bird Gang ( The Pay-Off ) (Harbinger); Battle of Blood Island (Rapp)
1960
The Wild Ride (Berman)
1961
Night Tide (Harrington); The Mermaids of Tiburon (Lamb)
1963
Dementia 13 (Coppola)
1965
The Girls on the Beach (Witney); Sky Party (Rafkin); Beach Ball (Weinrib); The Shooting (Hellman); Ride in the Whirl-wind (Hellman); Blood Bath (Hill and Rothman)
1966
Queen of Blood (Harrington)
1967
Targets (Bogdanovich); Devil's Angels (Haller)
1969
The Dunwich Horror (Haller); Naked Angels (Clark); Pit Stop (Hill); Paddy (Haller)
1970
Student Nurses (Rothman); Angels Die Hard! (Compton)
1971
Angels Hard as They Come (Viola); Women in Cages (de Leon); Private Duty Nurses (Armitage); The Big Doll House (Hill); The Velvet Vampire (Rothman)
1972
The Final Comedown (Williams); Boxcar Bertha (Scorsese); The Big Bird Cage (Hill); The Unholy Rollers (Zimmerman); Night Call Nurses (Kaplan); Fly Me (Santiago); The Young Nurses (Kimbro); The Hot Box (Viola); Night of the Cobra Woman (Meyer)
1973
I Escaped from Devil's Island (Meyer); The Arena (Carver); The Student Teachers (Kaplan); Tender Loving Care ( Naughty Nurses ) (Edmonds)
1974
Cheap (Swenson); Candy Stripe Nurses (Holleb); Cockfighter ( Born to Kill ) (Hellman); Big Bad Mama (Carver); Caged Heat (Demme); TNT Jackson (Santiago); Street Girls (Miller); The Woman Hunt (Romero)
1975
Capone (Carver); Death Race 2000 (Bartel); Crazy Mama (Demme); Summer School Teachers (Peeters); Dark Town Strutters (Witney); Cover Girl Models (Santiago)
1976
Hollywood Boulevard (Arkush and Dante); Fighting Mad (Demme); Cannonball ( Carquake ) (Bartel); Jackson County Jail (Miller); Nashville Girl ( New Girl in Town ) (Trikonis); Moving Violation (Dubin); God Told Me To (Demon) (Cohen); Dynamite Women ( The Great Texas Dynamite Chase ) (Pressman); Eat My Dust ! (Wilson)
1977
Black Oak Conspiracy (Kelljan); Grand Theft Auto (Howard); I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (Page); Thunder and Lightning (Allen); Andy Warhol's Bad (Johnson); Moonshine County Express (Trikonis); Dirty Duck (Swenson); Maniac ( Assault on Paradise ) (Compton); A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich (Nelson)
1978
Deathsport (Suso and Arkush); Piranha (Dante); Avalanche (Allen); Outside Chance (Miller); The Bees (Zacharias)
1979
Rock 'n' Roll High School (Arkush); Saint Jack (Bogdanovich)
1980
Battle Beyond the Stars (Murakami); The Georgia Peaches (Haller)
1981
Smokey Bites the Dust (Griffith); Galaxy of Terror (Clark)
1982
Forbidden World (Holzman); The Slumber Party Massacre (Jones); Android (Lipstadt)
1983
Star Child (Cohne); Space Raiders (Howard Cohen); Suburbia (Spheeris); Warrior and the Sorceress (Broderick)
1984
Love Letters (Jones); Deathstalker (Sbardellati)
1985
Barbarian Queen (Oliveira); Streetwalkin' (Freeman)
1986
Cocaine Wars (Oliveira), Big Bad Mama II (Wynorski)
1987
Munchies (Hirsch); Stripped to Kill (Ruben); The Lawless Land (Hess); Amazons (Sessa); Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Jones); Hour of the Assassin (Llosa); Sweet Revenge (Sobel)
1988
The Drifter (Brand); Daddy's Boys (Minion); Half Life (Ruben); Saturday the 14th Strikes Back (Howard Cohen); Nightfall (Mayersberg); Dangerous Love (Ollstein); Watchers (Hess)
1989
Two to Tango (Oliveira); Crime Zone (Llosa); Stripped to Kill (Shea Ruben); Dance of the Damned (Shea Ruben); The Terror Within (Notz); Time Trackers (Howard Cohen); Bloodfist (Winkless); Masque of the Red Death (Brand); Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II (Griffith); Heroes Stand Alone (Griffiths); Transylvania Twist (Wynorski)
1990
Overexposed (Brand); Streets (Shea Ruben); Morella (Wynorski); Cry in the Wild (Griffiths); Back to Back (Kincade); Primary Target (Henderson); Watchers II (Notz); Silk 2 (Santiago); Full Fathom Five (Franklin); Bloodfist II (Blumenthal)
1991
Terror Within II (Stevens); Hollywood Boulevard (Dante and Arkush); Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever (Feldman); Futurekick (Klaus)
1992
Play Murder for Me (Oliveira); Eye of the Eagle 3 (Santiago); In the Heat of Passion (Flender); Deathstalker 4 (Hill); Bloodfist 3 (Sassone); Immortal Sins (Hachuel); Berlin Conspiracy (Winkless); Field of Fire (Santiago); Dance with Death (Moore); Ultra Violet (Griffiths); Bodywaves (Pesce); Blackbelt (C.P. Moore); Sorority House Massacre 2 (Wynorski); Munchie (Wynorski); Body Chemistry 2 (Simon); Assassination Game (Winfrey); Final Embrace (Sassone); Homicidal Impulse (Tausik); Bloodfist 4 (Ziller)
1993
Firehawk (Santiago); To Sleep with a Vampire (Friedman); Stepmonster (Stanford); Dracula Rising (Gallo); Carnosaur (Simon); 800 Leagues down the Amazon (Llosa); Live by the Fist (Santiago); Dragonfire (Jacobson)
1994
Cheyenne Warrior (Griffiths); Unborn 2 (Jacobson); Watchers 3 (Stanford); In the Heat of Passion II (Cyran); Reflections in the Dark (Purdy)
1995
Carnosaur 2 (Morneau); Spy Within (Railsback); Crazysitter (McDonald); Dillinger and Capone (Purdy); Twisted Love (Lottimer); One Night Stand (Shire)
1996
Vampirella (Wynorski); The Unspeakable (McCain); Subliminal Seduction (Stevens); Rumble in the Streets (McCormick); Last Exit to Earth (Shea); Ladykiller (Winkless); Humanoids from the Deep (Yonis—for TV); House of the Damned (Levy); Death Game (Cheveldave—for TV); Bloodfist VIII: Trained to Kill (Jacobson); Black Scorpion II: Aftershock (Winfrey); Black Rose of Harlem (Gallo); Bio-Tech Warrior (McCormick); Alien Avengers (Spiro); Carnosaur 3: Primal Species (Winfrey)
1997
Urban Justice (Payne); Stripteaser II (Ernest) (exec pr); Starquest II (Gallo); Shadow Dancer (M.P. Girard); The Sea Wolf (McDonald); Overdrive (Spiro); Macon County Jail (Muspratt); Haunted Sea (Golden); Future Fear (Baumander); Falling Fire (D'Or); Eruption (Gibby); Don't Sleep Alone (Andrew); Detonator (Clancy) (exec pr); Criminal Affairs (Cullinane); Club Vampire (Ruben); Circuit Breaker (Muspratt); Born Bad (Yonis); Black Thunder (Jacobson); Alien Avengers II (Payne); Spacejacked (Cullinane)
1998
Stray Bullet (Wood); Running Woman (Samuels); Watchers Reborn (Buechler); A Very Unlucky Leprechaun (Kelly)
1999
The Protector (McCormick); The Phantom Eye (Gibby); The Haunting of Hell House (Marcus);
2000
The Doorway (Druxman); The Suicide Club (Samuels); Dangerous Curves (Cullinane)
2001
Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song (Riva); Raptor (Wynorski); The Arena (Bekmambetov); Avalanche Alley (Ziller)
2007
Searchers 2.0 (Cox)
2014
Operation Rogue (Clyde)
2019
Abduction (Barbarash)

*Years are a suggestion

Books
How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime (autobiography)
King of the Bs (McCarthy)
The Story of American International Pictures (McGee)
The Films of Roger Corman: 'Shooting My Way out of Trouble' (Frank)
Roger Corman (Gray)
Metaphysics on a Shoestring (Silver)

Web Resources
Sense of Cinema
AVClub interview

[knives]

I’m very excited for this page and really want to thank the mods who helped me to get this started. Last year I had so much fun with my little Dwan project, 50 films in about a year of months, that I really wanted to make it a tradition, but had the problem of deciding who next.

I wanted someone formative which I hadn’t explored the depth of before. Probably another American. I figured on Ince for a while given his small surviving output and importance, but then I saw Philadelphia which I deeply adored and made me curious to see more Demme. I started at the start with his first film as a script writer, a little biker flick at New World called Angels Hard as They Come and realized instantly that it wasn’t Demme I would be most curious about, but his mentor Roger Corman.

Corman is a really formative figure in my cinephilia especially with his Poe films and The Terror which I’ve loved since a little child, but surprisingly I’ve only seen a smattering of the nearly thousand films he’s touched either as director, writer, producer, or distributor. His influence really is oversized.

My hope is to have seen by the end of the year 100 films he produced, with a couple of exceptions I’ll be ignoring the distributed films, in part because I think it’s exciting to look outside the realm of the director. I’ve already got 70 films in the can so I’m really only talking three new films a month realistically. I’ll try to post in chronological order, but no promises there especially for some of the series and cycles that more organically make up Corman’s career.

I also would for some discussion, resources, and recs as we go through what I hope is a very exciting journey.

[knives]

(I’m mainly posting about these as a stalling tactic as I prepare for the first few posts)

In recent years there’s been three Corman adjacent docs placed out there which should be good enough primers for those who aren’t familiar with him. I don’t have access to the third of these, Machete Maidens Unleashed! which covers the Philippines films, but the other two are worth at least a peak.

First is Corman’s World which seemingly was made to celebrate him getting an honorary Oscar. It gives a basic overview of his career in largely hagiographic terms from his time as a book reader for Fox till the then current day making movies for SyFy. There’s two particularly great subjects in the interviews here: Jack Nicholson who doesn’t view the films with rose colored glasses, but clearly cherishes his time with Corman speaking about the man with great emotion. The second is Scorsese who is distantly appreciative for what Corman did for his career, but largely dismissive about the films themselves and really salty. Going with one of our recent split offs this has plenty of Scorsese negativity. Everyone else is either fawning (Dante and Arkush), entertaining as just characters (Miller, Haze, and Woronov), or boring.

Less successful, but possibly worth a completionist’s time is That Guy Dick Miller about, we’ll you read the title. It’s a pretty clumsy overview of Miller skimming the surface and told rather inarticulately. What it lacks in narrative finesse though it makes up some in subjects as Miller, his brothers, and friends are all great interview subjects and able storytellers that give a good sense of why Miller is so beloved. John Sayles, for example, gives a hilarious breakdown of their cameo in Matinee.

Anyways, permitting time, I’ll go over the first three or four films that Corman made tomorrow.

[Swift]

For docs, there's also It Came From Connemara!, an hour long documentary on YouTube about the movie studio he set up in the west of Ireland in the mid 90s.

[knives]

That’s really nifty. Thanks.

[jazzo]

Thanks for starting this thread.

If Mr. Corman had only ever helped Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Coppola, Joe Dante, John Sayles, Ron Howard and James Cameron start their careers, Hollywood and cinema-lovers everywhere would owe him a debt that could never be repaid, but the fact that he, himself, was an innovative and, quite often, a fascinating filmmaker, or that there was whole group of slightly less successful filmmakers that have made a living out of filmmaking for decades to come out of his orbit, or that his tsunami of his socially progressive films changed not only how exploitation cinema could be made, but what it could say/subvert, or how the financial success of a film could be measured, and redirected back into a company to create a steady stream of future projects, he is a god in cinema history.

That was a very long sentence. Sorry.

A couple of other satellite Corman projects, one new and one old.

PS Publishing has just put the preorder up ( https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/the-man- ... 5700-p.asp ) for Tm Lucas' novelization of his unproduced screenplay, The Man With The Kaleidoscope Eyes, which gives a slightly fictionalized history of Roger Corman's transition years from independent filmmaker to independent studio boss and filmmaker shepherd. I haven't read the script, but apparently it's amazing, and Bill Hader did a live reading of it a few years ago to try and generate interesting in financing the film for Joe Dante. Fingers crossed it can happen one day.

And master cartoonist/publisher, Sammy Harkham, in issues 3-6 of his comic anthology book, Crickets, serialized The Blood of a Virgin, a deeply melancholic (but fictionalized) account of a young house editor at an independent horror/action studio in 1970s Los Angeles, and the affects trying to land his first directing gig for a Cormanesque guru/studio head has on his relationship.

Well worth tracking down the issues from alternative comic shops like The Beguiling ( https://beguilingbooks.com/ ).

Again, thanks, and for anyone who investigates these projects, I hope you enjoy them.

[colinr0380]

Here's a horror discussion programme from April 1990 in which Corman figures largely.

X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes is an amazing sci-fi film, veering into horror through the sheer disturbing nature of its concepts as it pushes events to the next logical conclusion.

[knives]

Jazzo, one of the big and fortunate surprises of this project so far is how often these films subvert expectations and I think part of that has to do with the diversity of crew he worked with. That New World’s first film was directed by a woman, admittedly a long associate of Corman, really set the stage for that venture. The terse battle between those progressive politics and his intelligent sense of capital clash and function together in a way that becomes really nuanced with study. The same man who demanded nudity (and often rape) in nearly all his films is the same one who nurtured films making large and still relevant statements in support of feminism (the abortion scene in one of the nurse films remains very emotionally powerful.

It’s also getting comical how often with the films directed by him in the ‘50s I’m saying some variation of Proto-Tarantino. Griffith’s scripts in particular seem to be the text QT seems to have studied the hardest, but a few technical tricks are liberally borrowed from as well.

A final thing for people new to Corman, Tubi (a free streaming service) has nearly all of the New World films along with a few other Corman films. I believe as well anywhere where you can get Shout TV should have them as well sans the commercials of Tubi.

[domino harvey]

As someone who grew up with the Roger Corman Presents modern remakes on Showtime in the 90s, I have to share that I only recently learned that my favorite of that bunch, Welcome to Earth AKA Alien Avengers, was written by Michael McDonald from Mad TV (and McDonald also directed, unseen by me, the RCP installment remaking A Bucket of Blood with Anthony Michael Hall, Will Ferrell, Paul Bartel, and David Cross!)

[brundlefly]

It's been ages, but I have fond memories of How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, a breezy read egged along by a lot of testimonials/oral histories. Vividly remembered one bit from a participant in Teenage Caveman enough to Google it up on David Cairns' blog via the near-accurate phrase "Kick the shit out of that bear:"

BEACH DICKERSON: I must be the only person who played three death scenes and attended his own funeral in the same movie. I had to be the guy who drowns in the Sucking Sands, as the tribe called them. It was actually a rather scummy jungle part of an arboretum in Pasadena. Then we got to Bronson and we’re filming the funeral and Roger says, “What are you doing here?” and I say, “Roger, this is my funeral. The tribe is grieving over me.” He says, “No one will recognise you. Play a tom-tom at the funeral.” Then he asks me to be the Man from the Burning Plains who rides into the tribe’s land, drops off the horse, and dies. “What about the stuntman?” I ask. “Put Beach in the stranger’s outfit,” he yells, and they drape me up looking like General Grant with a bearskin rug and a big black wig.

Then we go to the big bear hunt scene. “Who do you have for the bear?” I ask Roger. “You,” he says, and they bring me this huge bear-skin suit. “How the hell am I going to play a bear?” I ask him.

“How do I know?” he says.

“But Roger, this is insane. I’m no stuntman. I’m just a fucking half-assed little actor.”

“Don’t make problems. Just do it.” The true Roger Corman speaks up. So after a couple of these takes where I come down this hill with my head hanging between my legs it’s 150 degrees inside this fucking bearsuit and I’m dying. I get down the hill, he yells, “BEAR, STAND UP!” I stand up. “BEAR, GROWL!” So I growl. He goes, “MEAN, BEAR, MEAN!” I growl louder, scratch the air with my deadly paws. “MEANER, BEAR, I WANT YOU MEANER!” he yells.

I’m going nuts inside this suit, growling and flailing, and then he yells to the rest of the extras, “Okay, tribesmen, KILL THAT FUCKING BEAR!” and thirty guys jump on me, take me down, and beat the shit out of me.

[knives]

Go really start things and to help those not in the know how about the story of Corman’s entry into film at least as told by him (there’s definitely some myth making in his overall telling of himself). Fresh from an engineering degree from Stanford he lasted a grand total of four days in that career before a Bukowski-esque exit and entry into film. He started at Fox as a reader suggesting what books might be good to adapt. His first yes was Criterion approved The Gunfighter with a few notes on how to adapt it some of which actually made it into the final product. Corman was peeved though when he got no recognition for this massive success and walked out to make his own movies.

From here on out until the end of the decade was Corman’s film school as he describes it where in view of the public he grew and developed into a truly great filmmaker though not without his bumps. To extend the film school analogy a tad the four films I talk about below are a bit like the classes he attended before he was allowed to start making student films.

The first of these, Highway Dragnet he really only wrote (though he also has an AP credit) and it stands as very different from the rest of his ‘50s films from a production point of view with bigger actors (Conte and Joan Bennett doing their thing) and an established director in mediocre Schlockmeister Nathan Juran. As to the film itself it runs with a logic and sense of cruelty to make a giallo seem sane otherwise this okay B noir really only distinguished itself from other B noirs from its pair of lead performances and happening to be Corman’s first real film. There’s fun to be had, but there’s nothing else there.

Corman’s follow up would be in the genre that made him famous and which he continues to work in to this day. Monster from the Ocean Floor is in many ways a step up and also an introduction to his first regular Jonathan Haze (credited as Jonothon) and Oscar winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby who consistently ensured that these films at least look beautiful.

Despite my enthusiasm this isn’t a terribly good film, but it is very charming for discovering how genre works and seeing Corman insert more of his personality into the proceedings. There’s a lot of clumsiness to the production. The script has a little bit of filler despite the length of only one hour and the effects aren’t as good as Corman would have even just a couple of years later (though it’s also far from his worst).

Yet, the charm is very strong running on the kindness of its lead. Framing the story as a mystery was also a pretty genius idea as it gives the script some real verve. It’s also fun to see some of Corman’s pet themes (and stable of crew) show up this early. The film is firmly told from a woman’s point of view and while the men around her are very sexist her characterization is as a competent and intelligent person. I can’t think of any other super low budget filmmaker from the era who was battling so keenly the impulse for lazy social roles.

Probably Corman’s strongest association was sparked in the distribution of The Fast and the Furious which was handled by the company which would become AIP. AIP was Corman’s home until Boxcar Bertha nearly twenty years later and many of his most enduring pictures were born there. This second noir though doesn’t have much going for it. Ireland is a competent enough director and the Hitchcock wronged man thing always has some charm. Probably the best thing here is a young Dorothy Malone as the lead actress.

Finally, a bit out of production order, I’d like to speak about The Beast with a Million Eyes which has one of the most famous titles and posters of the decade. The whole point of this was to make a little genre film which wouldn’t need special effects, but plagued by lots of problems it became Corman’s lesson in how not to do a movie (although I like it a lot). The first problem was self inflicted as Corman took about half the budget of this movie to finish the financing of his directorial debut, then AIP wanted the alien to actually be seen which meant a serious unexpected expense, and finally the original director was just not working out resulting in Corman shooting some of the film until Corman’s AP David Kramarsky was thrown the film in the first of many examples of Corman giving whomever is on hand a job.

The movie itself is about an isolated farm where weird things are beginning to happen. At its best it plays like The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street or Color Out of Space. It’s a real patient film with significant rewards if you allow yourself to focus on the domestic drama with the strange happenings as merely instigator for what was lurking beneath the surface. It’s one film I wholeheartedly recommend as a great start for beginners of ‘50s low budget sci-fi.


I don’t know when I’ll next be able to post an update, next week is going to be crazy busy, but when I do return we'll be heading west.

[pistolwink]

..

[therewillbeblus]

How can you revive a thread created a week ago? If anything, you've revived the thread, which has been dead for four out of seven days of its life!

[knives]

To be fair I did say it would be some time before I could post again. :-"

[Maltic]

Ursini and Silver's Metaphysics on a Shoestring. As is common when you try to cover a director's entire body of work on a film-by-film-basis (in Corman's case 50+ films), there are some redundancies and a lot of paraphrasing, but they're two of the best critics, after all.

[knives]

Now I’m back from a little break to get married. Where I left off Corman had just graduated from his schooling as a writer and producer by getting a sweet production and distribution deal from the company which would become AIP. Corman, decoding he had gotten adequate knowledge in the basics as a cost saving measure next decided to become his own primary director.

With all that in mind what do you think America’s future leader of horror, sci-fi, and smut would put out first? Another noir, maybe stick to monster movies? If you guessed a bunch of female led westerns you’d be correct and also insane. It’s kind of strange though how little Corman has dabbled in the western genre especially in an age where they were the cheapie genre. As a director he has these first few movies and later on the two Hellman’s and that’s it. Feels wrong somehow.

First up is Five Guns West. It’s fairly nuts and bolts, but with greater flavour and uniqueness than most of its ilk. The story is a proto-Dirty Dozen (this can’t have been the first film with this plot can it) where a desperate Confederacy pardons a bunch of criminals and sends them on a dangerous mission. The rest is told in a bare bones fashion hitting the expected make up and interactions of the crew and playing up the nerves of the characters against each other in lieu of the violence that Corman probably couldn’t afford to shoot. There’s a kind of Tarantino feel to the proceedings although it’s also a straight line to Hellman especially with the surreal use of geography. The beauty of the pathécolor cinematography makes all of this very arresting and then Dorothy Malone shows up and blows the whole thing away with a powerhouse performance.

The movie becomes a bit Yellow Sky from here on out and the parallels are close enough that I have to believe Corman knew about it. Malone as Miranda is another tough and intelligent woman who nevertheless is always framed like a cheesecake model. She also would become the first graduate of the Corman school. After two films she’d follow this up, more or less, with Written on the Wind which is just a crazy thing to consider. Jon Haze, as is the case for all of today’s films, is another real stand out as the immature Billy showing a real knack for comedy and derangement.

Corman followed this up with two more smaller westerns. I couldn’t find The Oklahoma Woman, but got a lot out of the similarly titled Apache Woman. Starting in medias res this is a real step up from Five Guns in a lot of important ways. Apache Woman is probably most famous as Dick Miller’s first film where he plays an Indian who gets killed by a cowboy played by Dick Miller. There’s a lot more of worth on display as Corman extends his complicated social development to ethnic relations and even explicitly bringing up colonialism. I wouldn’t argue this as an entirely successful attempt at dealing against convention, but Joan Taylor’s fiery performance manages to reach the ideal Corman is striving for between fulfilling genre expectations and rendering bare the wickedness of those expectations.

It’s also an exceptionally beautiful movie. Corman did some serious aesthetic push-ups as Crosby is afforded some really strange frames such as as one of a character lying down taking up the whole foreground as another moves across the background like he’s walking on the foreground character. It almost reminded me of Antonioni! Along with the improved framing comes just a better use of budget. I think this film cost less of the two and yet it seems so much more expansive with varied sets and crowd scenes.

Unfortunately Corman ditches Crosby for the next pair, but they offer up a lot of good with his replacement doing okay. You also get what will be an ongoing vibe for Corman across the next decade. You can tell see Corman’s desire for the big leagues here even if Gunslinger is a decidedly small league film. Ireland’s back this time just as an actor, the film is again in color and most shocking of all (a first for Corman) there’s several distinct sets suggesting a larger picture this time even if that’s not really the case.

There’s a real Johnny Guitar feel to the film and that’s where Corman’s effort is most interesting as a piece with the larger changes and goals going on in the genre at the time. From the first scene Corman prioritizes the feminist potential of the genre although the main thrust of the film is more broadly psycho-sexual. Of course all these positives also spell out the film’s downfall as in absolute terms every nice thing about Gunslinger applies to Ray’s classic with each quality significantly better done. It really forces a limitation on Corman’s ambition and makes it much more coherent why he quickly fell out of love with westerns.

Finally we step out of westerns for a film, but not yet into the genre that the next post will certainly be dedicated to. Swamp Women is, for me, the first truly great Corman feature and not just because it features Marie Windsor (who knew she was a blonde). It’s simultaneously Corman’s weirdest film and his most deftly constructed utilizing the swamps of Louisiana in an eerie fashion which highlights what a great location director he can be. The film, a color noir, starts at Mardi Gras as our soon to be main himbo tries to hook up with a lady while Jon Haze just steals the show in an extended cameo. Haze takes us directly to the film’s actual lead, who unfortunately is also the film’s worst actor, in a perfect example of what I mean by the film’s deft construction. It sets up the male lead so that he’s not just a tool for the plot giving him some stakes while also providing an easy entryway into this world of convicts that doesn’t have to force him into the plot early. I don’t really have any deeper thoughts about the film in isolation, but as a pure pleasure I am left delighted and as a cog in the Corman career it is very fascinating.

Anyways, next up (whenever I get the time) is the genre Corman would be known for during this segment of his career.

[swo17]

Congratulations? Assuming this was a voluntary marriage

[knives]

So far.

[knives]

I was expecting this to take up more time then it did, but much to my surprise classic sci-fi makes up a very small part of Corman’s career. In addition to what I’ve already covered, two films, there’s less than ten films which charitably could fit the genre and here rather radically different from each other. If I could hazard a guess I assume his is because of how hard it is to make good special effects. Even early on Corman seems to want to be seen as a quality purveyor of junk and not get lumped in with the Coleman Francis’ of the world, even as he actually worked with Francis. You see his in how consistently off camera the monsters are which Corman compensates for by focusing on the psychology of his characters which in turn is the source of these films having such a shelf life. Anyway, here’s four for a short post before an upcoming mega post.

I’ve previously spoken about Day the World Ended, but it really proves Corman’s meddle for creating scenarios that don’t need the monster to work (just to sell the flick to teens). It’s a dark and weary film which really emphasizes how miserable the end of the world would be. War of the Satellites is the other I’ve brought up before and the weakest of the bunch notable for Dick Miller’s straight man lead and nothing else. It’s a cheap predecessor to The Mysterians and not much else.

The two new to me films are a jump up in quality and really exciting especially my last pre-57 feature. The Brain Eaters, directed by Corman regular Bruno Vesota, has a lot of great ideas swirling in it with the conclusion having that monster you’re in love with thing that so many have since exploited. The movie really can be seen as a distaff Slither with Hawksian heroes. I do wish it had exploited the inherent sadness of the concept better though. No such complaint in this next masterwork.

It Conquered the World
You know that joke about sci-if villains of the era? The one with the vengeful scientist trying to prove he is not mad and should never be called Wendel? This little ditty plays that card straight and manages to build real pathos from it using techniques of the pathetic. This guy just wants to be loved and can’t realize he already is. It helps when that scientist is played by a young Lee Van Cleef who somehow is able to already show the enthusiasm for his ideals and an exhaustion with people in equal measure. It’s a great performance in a film held together by actors imbuing it with feeling. It’s a universally well acted picture to the point where even Dick Miller doesn’t make a blip. You get some real heart from each character which is nice as the film has a few big asks.

This is another film which holds off on using effects by using the drama of brainwashing. Pushing things further than The Brain Eaters would soon do and cross referencing Invasion of the Body Snatchers the movie becomes a sad tale of conformity. Though I think the primary terror invoked is with the sense of losing loved ones to their obsessions and being blocked from them as they drift away. Even without the alien that’s what Van Cleef is doing to his loved ones with the bat things really just being an extension of who he already is. If only he could pause and remind himself that the respect of strangers or being right isn’t worth the people that already care for you. Poetically, Griffith provides a story for not just the atomic age, but all ages since.

Next up: the year that would make Corman immortal.

[Orlac]

Isn't The Brain Eaters from 1958?

[knives]

Yes, sorry if I didn’t make it clear I was talking about It Conquered the World.

[Orlac]

In the 90s, BBC1 used to show old AIP flicks on Friday nights, with It Conquered The World being one of my faves. Sadly, it's never had an official DVD or Blu-ray release due to rights issues, nor has Invasion of the Saucer Men, which was on three times between 1995 and 1997...and each time I tried to record it, it failed!

[knives]

Here’s a pretty extreme take, but had Corman’s career ended after 1957 his reputation as one of the greatest independent directors would be sealed if not where his reputation is today. In one year as producer and director he made 9 increasingly ambitious features with a small dedicated crew some of whom such as Dick Miller, Jon Haze, and Charles Griffith have become synonymous with Corman and others like leading ladies Susan Cabot and Beverly Garland are essential to his team when seen as a whole.

This year also cements Corman’s love for cycles and series as most of the 9 are paired neatly with other films from the year. A lot of that I’m sure has to do with finances (why make one film with a set when you can do two), but there seems to be a thematic consideration present as well.

For simplicity’s sake I’ll finally be tackling each film on its own though I will try to organize them by pairs starting with some of the rougher films and leading up to my personal favorites.

The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent
Gag title included I liked this one a fair deal. It’s basically a ‘50s version of a Pam Grier film with a group of tough women trying to rescue their men. The plotting is nice and it seems like a temporary culmination of Corman’s female interest before he’d spend a few years with leading men like Jack Nicholson and Vincent Price. Whether shallow or sincere or both Corman really seems committed in providing his female characters the intelligence and strength others were limiting to their male characters.

It’s perhaps more interesting for how it was made. Oversold to him as a SFX masterpiece nothing on the shoot worked and the film barely made back his money. The cast was seasick and grumpy. Again Corman’s ambition was bruised causing him to follow this one up with several smaller and more psychologically deep films. Basically it’s mild loss is the audience’s great gains.

The Undead is perhaps the closest film this year to the above and succeeds hand over fist.
Smartly Corman fuses sci-fi onto his fantasy in a way that makes me wonder if this played an influence on the Terminator? In any case this is a truly great film which looks forward to the Poe Cycle in a juicy way. Satan announces it as such before a typical sci-if premise with a prostitute being taken in by a pair of mystic-scientists. They send her back to a previous incarnation accused of being a witch. As usual the story itself is told extremely well with a host of great character actors (including Allison Hayes and her assets as the villain), but what helps push this is all of the implications.

The film starts off seeming like a boys’ own adventure before shifting perspective. Every move of the script leads from there connecting the present situation of prostitution and definition by the view of others with past prosecution of witches. Some of it obvious such as the ugly master of good against the gorgeous servant of evil while others are a bit more nuanced such as an ending which finds optimism in the lead doing actions for herself and not needing to define herself in relation to men. At the very least Corman, Hanna, and Griffith are attempting to engage with the feminism of their day at its level. This creates a rich tapestry which is also an ace entertainment.

Surprisingly Corman only did two straight sci-fi films this year. They’re both classics though even if the first is the only one I love.
Not of This Earth
Patrick Bateman was an alien all along. I don’t think that was the originally intended metaphor, which seems to ride more on Cold War fears of the future, but that is what the bulk of the film is concentrated on making the central monster both disturbing and sympathetic. He’s constantly spoken of in terms of the wealthy, a philanthropist with a driver, and his actions are motivated in Will Smith like fashion from not understanding there are limitations in the world. This leads to a great deal of violence on the poorer from him, again basically Patrick Bateman down to a scene with the homeless, but mixed in with that is a backstory which shows our monster needing to escape from the poison that brought him here freeing him from those who are his peers.

Incidentally after working on a ton of Corman productions this leading role would be Paul Birch’s last. Supposedly he got fed up with how quick he shoot was and how uncomfortable the contacts were and quit so the team had to Plan 9 his character (to a more successful degree).

Attack of the Crab Monsters
I’ve talked about this before. It’s a good enough entertainment and for me the weakest feature from this year and one of Corman’s weakest as a director. Still, it’s fun with a Jun Fukada type vibe especially with the desert island setting. Good effects as well. It doesn’t even need to reuse the bugs from It Conquered the World.

Naked Paradise
This is Corman’s only color film of the year which makes it really stand out. It also had quite the shelf life with Corman remaking it several times over the years. This filmed vacation isn’t only a historical document though it’s also a great little hang out gangster flick. It plays out as a less brooding Key Largo focusing on Garland’s bad dame in love. That works really well, but the highlight is Miller and Haze’s Martin and Lewis bit which has at least one joke that sounds plagiarize worthy. They give a nice, relaxed vibe to the whole thing though the next flick is the ultimate hang out picture.

Rock All Night
This is unquestionably one of Corman’s absolute best films playing a simple premise with genius and a feeling of ease. Adapted from a television episode by Corman regular Charles Griffith this really tells two intersecting stories without ever really telling a story. A group of folks sit in a bar after hours just hanging out. On one side is an explosive Dick Miller in arguably his best performance as an insecure jerk and the other a young ingénue with second guesses on a music career.

The film as it describes itself is made up of incidents and not stories. The first act focuses on the common genre of rock films of the time ala Lester’s That’s Trad Dad with the Corman crime plot in place of surreal humour. The dialogue in the story portions is so good that it’s hard to accept. A couple of years before destroying them in Bucket of Blood the team has a lot of fun making fun of the Beats with the world’s oldest hipster as the band’s manager. The top of the heap though is bartender Al and a newsman trading bon mots like an old couple playing a disinterested chorus to the action. Though really everyone is chorus to the others (an actual old couple in particular is great with a nice cigarette gag in tow).

The script is like a play with just two scenes outside the main set and a real interest in the layout. Crosby has always been a great component of Corman’s success, but with this film he’s an absolute weapon framing and even moving the camera nicely so that nothing becomes stale, but without sacrificing clarity. Matched with some great editing the movie almost becomes a tone poem as it shifts effortlessly between emotion showing a real perfection of form.

Carnival Rock
This sister film to Rock All Night couldn’t be anymore different despite being made of the same composite parts. Where that film had the music as a frontloaded intergalactic part of the story this has it more incidental and backloaded. Where that film emphasized theatrical origins this moves from set to set bringing the pier to life. Where that was a proto-Tarantino hang out flick this one is all about that plot combining Shakespeare to the thematic structure of Sophocles ultimately delivering a downer worthy of Lon Chaney. The end result is such a captivating slow burner that it becomes hard not to fall in love with it.

Last, but certainly not least is Sorority Girl, my favorite of the bunch, one of Corman’s best film, one of the best juvenile films ever, and just plainly one of the best films ever. As what might be Corman’s first truly great film SG takes exploitation notes to develop a very sorrowful portrait of real life problems in the mask of violence. It’s a quick walk from Cabot’s bad seed to the wasp woman. It’s fascinating how friendly and caring the sorority is portrayed as with anti-hazing rules and the like contrasted with the cruelty of Cabot’s mother (who Cabot plays off of nicely even copying mannerisms) resulting in each act of madness having a breath of sympathy.

I can imagine when they weren’t snogging teens probably could relate to this melodrama similar to how they reacted to Twilight when I was a teen or whatever is popular in that same delightfully hokey vein nowadays. Even at 30 Cabot completely arrested me crying to her abusive mother asking what’s wrong with her. It’s frankly something out of a Cronenberg movie.

As a weird little side thought: It is weird seeing the ladies all run after Dick Miller sporting a truly strange accent. At first I assumed he was dubbed over by another actor. Further on this post script sadly I don’t have access to SG’s sister film the impressive sounding Teenage Doll.

Don’t know what I’m doing next. Maybe gangster flicks, but it’s frustrating I don’t think I’ll have access to the I'm most interested in.

[kidc]

Knives, it's been too long since I've watched a Corman film to chime in on your posts, but just wanted to say I'm loving reading your thoughts.

I don’t think I’ll have access to the [film] I'm most interested in.

Which one is this?

[knives]

Thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun for me so far.

The movie in question is Stakeout on Dope Street which does have a WA release, but I’m not paying $20 for it by itself so it’s a question of paying for a stream rental.