Hello and welcome to Director of the Month, your cut-out-and-keep guide to the very finest auteurs in filmland…

This Month: Roger Corman

Nationality: American

D.O.B: 05/04/1926

Years active: 1955 – 1971, 1990

Number of films (as director): 50

Do say: “Wow! You’re the undisputed Godfather of Modern American Cinema. And you’re a really nice guy!”

Don’t say: “You’re the King of the Bs.”*

*This is a title that Corman has long disputed, but never been able to fully shake free from. His gripe is that the B-movie system was actually long gone by the time he began his career and he considers himself to be an honest independent filmmaker, as opposed to a studio-funded schlock peddler.

Who Hell He? Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Towne, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Peter Fonda, Joe Dante, Monte Hellman, Jonathan Demme, Jonathan Kaplan, and if you insist, James Cameron and Ron Howard. These are just some of the many talents that Roger Corman has discovered (either completely or in part) and nurtured during his career. Not bad, eh?

But it seems that whenever Roger Corman crops up in discussion these days it’s almost always as a footnote in the career of one of the more rich and famous directors/actors/producers he gave a big break to, and very rarely is he celebrated as a talented director in his own right. I acknowledge that the sheer influence of the famous ”Corman School” is immense, and the effect that it would have on modern American cinema cannot be ignored. But most people seem to miss the point; it’s not just the subsequent fame of his proteges that’s impressive, it’s the fact that Corman was bold, brave and pragmatic enough to give untried talent a crack of the whip in the first place. And that’s representative of a lot of what makes Roger Corman a really special filmmaker. He was industrious, resourceful, and not least of all, irrepressibly enthusiastic about filmmaking. How we could use a few more like him today!

When he’s not being talked up as a svengali and starmaker, the name Roger Corman is almost exclusively associated with cheap ‘n’ cheerful exploitation cinema. And while the great man (with much pride it must be said) has never worked with a budget much larger than what Richard Gere probably spends on hamster food, and his filmography is not shy of the odd monster movie, anyone familiar with his output will tell you that it’s actually impressively varied. There are complex crime dramas here, World War II adventure romps there, several eerie period horror films, and even a years-ahead-of-it’s-time racial melodrama. In fact, Roger Corman made so many films (50!) in the space of just 17 years that it’s safe to say there’s something for everyone!

Six of the Best:

Machine-Gun Kelly (1958)

Film number 19 from Roger, but this is where things start to get interesting, and the prolific pulp peddler scores his first big critical hit. Charles Bronson (oh, yes) stars as the depression era gangster of the title, and Corman does a great job of remoulding the myth as his Kelly (when parted with trademark machine-gun) develops into a blubbering coward with a morbid death obssession. This was the legendary Bronson’s first lead role, so I suppose you could say that he graduated from the Corman School too.

Teenage Caveman (1958)

“The Best Worst Film Ever Made” according to star Robert Vaughan (later The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and another Corman find), and he’s sort of got a point, as this deceptively typical prehistoric romp reveals itself to be rather highbrow by way of it’s profound twist ending. Vaughan plays a rebellious member of an ancient tribe, who breaks a long-held oath and goes in search of pastures new, only to be shocked by the strange things he finds there. It’s simply remarkable that Corman completed this mini-epic (along with three other feature films) in the same year he made Machine-Gun Kelly!

A Bucket of Blood (1959)

My personal favourite of all Roger Corman’s films, and I’ve chosen to include it on this list at the expense of it’s more famous horror-comedy cousin The Little Shop of Horrors. Corman regular Dick Miller stars as a put-upon waiter who turns to murdering folk and embalming them in clay in order to make it as a sculptor and impress his pretenious, arty peer group. Like Little Shop, this was written by ace screenwriter Charles Griffith and filmed in a small handful of locations over a couple of nights, although unlike the more well-known film, it has yet to form the basis for an internationally famous musical. More’s the pity!

X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)

Corman’s finest ever foray into one of his more frequently visited genres, this ingeniously put-together science fiction parable stars the great Ray Milland as a scientist who develops X-Ray vision for the proposed good of mankind, but ends up driven to the edge of insanity by his new powers. This is sci-fi as mystic parable, and a shock ending of Biblical proportions provides a neat twist. The special effects on display here have aged remarkably well, and Corman uses them to dazzle us with great invention, even managing to wring out the odd dash of wry humour here and there.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

A huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe since childhood, Corman would famously adapt eight of the legendary horror scribe’s tales for the big screen. The pick of the bunch is most certainly this, the penultimate film in the series, which sees Vincent Price on top form as a wicked, Satan-worshipping prince, holed up in a gothic castle in plague-ravaged medieval Europe. Future auteur Nicolas Roeg served as Director of Photography here, and the film boasts a colour scheme so rich, dark and bewitching that a young Dario Argento was surely taking notes.

The Wild Angels (1966)

“Just what is it that you want to do?” “We wanna be free… We wanna be free to do what we wanna do… And we wanna get loaded… And we wanna have a good time… That’s what we’re gonna do… We’re gonna have a good time… We’re gonna have a party.” So that’s where they got it from, and now you know and we can move on. Corman shows once again what a shrewd anticipator of trends he was by casting Peter Fonda in a successful motorbike movie a good three years before Easy Rider. Mind you, the bikers in the later film are of a much more gentle, freespirited stripe than the savage, antagonistic rabble captured in this still rather shockingly nihilistic exploitation classic.

What about the rest?: Well, I hope you’re sitting comfortably, as we’ve got rather a lot to get through… Swamp Women (1955) was Corman’s directorial debut, and is a surprisingly scintillating tale of a rabble of female cons who break out of a Louisiana jail… Five Guns West (1955) is a fairly unspectacular western in which several of the cast double up as extras… Apache Woman (1955) is more of the same, but with added proto-feminism… Day the World Ended (1955) sees Corman dabbling in sci-fi for the first time and stars a not wholly convincing rubber monster (we’ll meet a few more of those before we’re through)… The Oklahoma Woman (1956) is another unusually feminist western… While Gunslinger (1956) is the last western Corman would make… It Conquered the World (1956) is a return to science fiction which stars both Lee van Cleef and probably the worst rubber monster of them all… Naked Paradise (1957) is anything but, and sees a bunch of crooks holed up on a tropical island… Carnival Rock (1957) is a Rock ‘n’ Roll movie set in a travelling show, the bankrupt owner of which attempts to destroy after he is rebuffed by the girl of his dreams… Actually, Not of This Earth (1957) features probably the worst rubber monster of all, but it’s a pretty engrossing tale of vampire-like aliens, nevertheless… Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) is, rather unsurprisingly, about a scientific research expedition that gets attacked by giant, telepathic crab monsters… The Undead (1957) sees Corman move into gothic horror for the first time, predating the Poe cycle by three years… Rock All Night (1957) represents Dick Miller’s finest hour in a Roger Corman film as the wimp who stands up to the bad guys in a hostage situation… Teenage Doll (1957) is another Rock ‘n’ Roll movie, this time about a female tearaway… and Sorority Girl (1957) is a bit more of the same… The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957) possibly wins the prize for the longest title in film history, but that’s probably the most memorable thing about it… I, Mobster (1958) is a fine gangster picture which points the way towards the psychological approach Corman would take to the genre with Machine-Gun Kelly… War of the Satellites (1958) is pretty unmemorable sci-fi, though topical at the time… She-Gods of Shark Reef (1958), meanwhile, repeats the “gangsters-on-a-tropical-island” format with little in the way of improvement… The Wasp Woman (1959) is surprisingly prescient science fiction, as strange chemicals put into cosmetics result in some very bzzzzzzzzarre (geddit?) and unfortunate consequences… Ski Troop Attack (1960) is a fairly good, snowbound action romp… House of Usher (1960) sees Corman turn to Poe (and Price) for the first time… and The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) surely requires no introduction (“Feed me Seymour!” etc.)… Last Woman on Earth (1960) concerns a post-apocalyptic love triangle, and was the first of three Puerto Rico-based films Corman would make in collaboration with writer Robert “China” Towne… Atlas (1961) is a sword ‘n’ sandals romp about mythical strongman Charles Atlas… Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) finds us back in Puerto Rico, evading both gangsters and a rubber monster and on the hunt for treasure in one of the wittiest, most anarchic films Corman ever made… The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) is another serving of perversely poetical Poe ‘n’ Price (and that’s a lot of P’s)… While The Premature Burial (1962) is Poe meets Milland, with a Les Baxter score… The Intruder (1962) is an excellent drama about a conman who instigates race riots for his own ends (believe it or not, none other than William Shatner is spectacular in the lead)… Tales of Terror (1962) is a Poe portmanteau film, featuring the writer’s famous tale ‘The Black Cat’… Tower of London (1962) sees the story of Richard III remoulded into gothic horror… The Young Racers (1963) is a Grand Prix-set drama on which the young Francis Ford Coppola served as soundman… The Raven (1963) is Poe played for laughs a good 30 years before The Simpsons did it… The Terror (1963) is a disappointingly dull gothic potboiler, the finale of which would be reused by Peter Bogdanovich for the sublime Targets… The Haunted Palace (1963) sees Corman splicing the work of Poe with that of another horror bard, H.P. Lovecraft… The Secret Invasion (1964) is a World War II desperate-men-on-a-deadly-mission film that came out three years before The Dirty Dozen… And The Tomb of Ligiea (1964) sees Corman bid farewell to Poe, whilst Vincent Price sports some rather fetching Roger McGuinn-style glasses… The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967) is another great gangster film, with Jason Robards maniacally great as Al Capone… The Trip (1967) is a possibly pro-LSD freak-out fest that was banned for many years following it’s release… Target: Harry (1969) is Corman’s crack at a shaggy detective story, but it doesn’t quite come off… Bloody Mama (1970) is another depression era gangster romp, but one that manages to be even more freaky and violent than Machine-Gun Kelly… Gas-s-s-s (1971) is about a gaggle of freewheeling hippies making their way through an America which has mistakenly exterminated everyone over the age of 25, and resembles what the end result may have been like had Robert Altman directed Easy Rider from a Kurt Vonnegut script… and Von Richthofen and Brown (1971) is a tragically underseen World War I adventure drama, that sadly proved to be Corman’s final film as a director… Until that is he briefly returned behind the camera for the flawed, but still sufficiently intense and interesting, Mary Shelley rewrite Frankenstein Unbound (1990)…

Roger Corman continues to work this day as a producer, but it’s as an endlessly colourful and creative director that we’ll always love him best. And yes, he is a nice guy, a really nice guy. Just read his autobiography, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime. It’s the greatest book of all time.

Tags director of the month roger corman