Farewell to the Legend: Roger Corman

I don’t envy my younger brother’s Hollywood success. As a top-tier Second Unit Director, George has worked with Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, and Francis Ford Coppola. But I worked with the man that launched all of them (actor...

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I don’t envy my younger brother’s Hollywood success. As a top-tier Second Unit Director, George has worked with Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, and Francis Ford Coppola. But I worked with the man that launched all of them (actor Howard as a director) — the legendary Roger Corman. Roger, who died last Saturday at the age of 98, distributed a science-fiction action film I wrote called Electra in 1996.

Electra was no Boxcar Bertha (1972), Scorsese’s breakout movie, yet both pictures adhered to the same inviolate Corman Rule of Filmmaking: “You can do whatever you want to — make any statement you like — only show female nudity in the first 10 minutes.” Of course, Marty went a lot further than I did after his Corman collaboration. But then, he had Barbara Hershey for the rest of the movie, I had “B” queen Shannon Tweed (no slight on the lovely, nice Ms. Tweed). Okay, and a lot less cinematic genius, which Roger bottled as no other producer ever did. (READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: Men Begin the Masculine Pushback)

Corman was a true maverick in a brutal business, finding money where there wasn’t. He mined gold out of the lowest budgets, starting with third-bill Westerns in the mid-50s, and giving them exploitative titles like Five Guns West, Apache Woman, and The Oklahoma Woman. He could make them cheap back then because they built so many Western sets for movies and TV shows. All Roger did was shoot his fast between big productions, using familiar yet non-star names like Lloyd Bridges and Dorothy Malone. But soon he found his lucrative forte — horror and science-fiction.

Roger knew boys loved monsters and pretty girls, and he delivered both in spades. Between 1956 and 1959, he became a moneymaking creature-feature factory. That the movies seldom lived up to their sensational titles — Day the World Ended, It Conquered the World, The Undead, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Night of the Blood Beast, Teenage Caveman (starring a pre-The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Robert Vaughn), She Gods of Shark Reef — was part of their charm. “It” never threatened, let alone conquered, the world. And Roger no longer had to pay for Lloyd Bridges-level names. With a title like Night of the Blood Beast, the Blood Beast was the star.

Yet there was something unique and visionary about his early movies that also intrigued more mature minds. Corman was no Hollywood hack. He’d studied English Literature at Oxford and understood the value of narrative theme. His underappreciated 1957 feature, The Undead, dealt with a troubled psychiatric patient haunted by her medieval incarnation. To uncover the secret of her phobia, her psychologist travels back in time to Dark Ages Britain and confronts the Devil himself. For the less cerebral audience members, Corman showcased sexy bombshell Allison Hayes (Attack of the 50-Foot Woman) as a seductive witch. He knew his business.

His darkly humorous Little Shop of Horrors (1959) concerned a timid shop clerk housing a man-eating plant. It featured a memorable performance by then unknown actor Jack Nicholson, who would soon be well known and revered. The movie developed a cult following, becoming a hit Broadway musical then a hit 1986 film. Corman shot the original in two days.

The more visceral, less censored early Sixties provided fertile ground for his art, first trod by England’s hugely successful Hammer Studios. Deftly, he increased the violence, horror, and unpleasantry of the offerings if not the budget. For his 1963 pre-slasher about a mysterious axe murderer, Dementia 13, Corman let his assistant direct for the first time. He was a young writer-editor named Francis Ford Coppola.

Corman himself took the reins on a series of higher-budgeted — widescreen, technicolor — atmospheric period films inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe – The House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, The Masque of the Red Death, The Raven. To top bill all but The Premature Burial (which starred former Hollywood A-lister Ray Milland), he wisely hired a great actor closely associated with the horror genre — Vincent Price.

The combination of Price and Poe proved very profitable for American International Pictures. The Masque of the Red Death is today considered a semi-classic horror film. A 2021 reappraisal by The Guardian awarded it five stars. “Corman’s formal artistry and conviction on a limited budget looks more impressive than ever,” stated the Guardian critic. “And with his iconic Poe adaptations he did more than anyone in academe to establish the author’s position in the literary canon.” (READ MORE: World War True)

Corman was more than ready for the late Sixties, and the countercultural male youth disdain for the Establishment and its moral pretenses while it sent them to a bloody war somewhere in Southeast Asia. Roger had the perfect stars to speak for them: John Cassavetes (Devil’s Angels), a pre-Easy Rider Peter Fonda (The Wild Angels, The Trip), and of course Nicholson (Ride in the Whirlwind).

But in 1968, he took a chance on another unknown writer-wannabe-director and his disturbing script about a broken young Vietnam War veteran on a sniper rampage at a drive-in theater. To guarantee an audience, Corman cast horror legend Boris Karloff as the old star being honored at the drive-in. The result was the excellent suspense thriller Targets by the late, great Peter Bogdanovich.

Roger continued to entertain us and innovate through the 80s, 90s, and early 21^st century. I’m proud to be a tiny part of his legacy. And sorry I will never get his call to write a project we once discussed — Electra II: The Second Coming.

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