Since the early 1950s, Roger Corman, a well-known independent producer and director, whose filmography includes hundreds of low-budget films that are dubious in terms of both artistry and taste, has revolutionized the way they are produced and distributed. Working outside the studio system, he set a record as one of the most commercially successful filmmakers in Hollywood history, 90% of whose production was profitable.
Talent seeker
Roger Corman, whose complete filmography includes more than 400 films, managed to create only a few paintings that became classics of the genre, including “Not From This Earth” (1957), “Shop of Horrors” (1960), “Raven” (1963), “ Race of Death 2000 ”(1975) and“ Battle for the Stars ”(1980). Perhaps more important than his own achievements was the fact that he brought to the people of many famous Hollywood actors and directors, such as Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, John Sales, Curtis Hanson and James Cameron. At the same time, in the 1970s, he helped foreign directors such as Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut and Ingmar Bergman become popular in the United States when no one wanted to risk it. He was one of the first producers to recognize the financial benefits of filming in Europe, and used set designs unclaimed by other films. It is not surprising that Corman, nicknamed the king of low-budget films, became one of the most prolific and successful producers of his time.
short biography
Roger was born April 5, 1926 in Detroit, Michigan. He was the eldest of the two sons of Gene Corman, an engineer who participated in the design of the Greenfield Village Dam, and his wife Anne. Grew up in the industrial Midwest, but because of his father’s illness and early retirement, his family moved to southern California. After graduating from high school in Beverly Hills in the last years of World War II, Roger served in the U.S. Navy, and then followed in his father's footsteps and became an engineer, educated at Stanford University. Then he first showed interest in the entertainment industry by publishing film reviews in the Stanford Daily. After graduating in 1947, he worked for 4 days at US Electric Motors and, having parted with the ambitions of an engineer, decided to try his hand at Hollywood. Corman broke into the film industry, working as a messenger for the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, and later became a stage worker and film script analyst. At his last job, he met a number of budget stories that seemed to him a decent way to make money.
Engineering approach
Roger Corman sold his first script, "Drive the Highway" for 4 thousand dollars. He invested money in the production of his first film, “The Monster from the Bottom of the Ocean” (1954), an ultra-low-budget horror film about a tourist and a deep-sea diver who tried to find a mysterious sea creature attacking people and animals. Having shown the ability to direct, he saved up funds for further filming, choosing the American Releasing Corporation, which later became American International Pictures, distributor of his second film, Fast and the Furious (1954), which became his most long-lived creation. By the next year, when he made his debut as the director of the film “Five Rifles of the West” (1955), Corman’s formula had already crystallized: bizarre characters, unusual stories riddled with social commentaries, clever use of set and cinematography, the search for new talents and, most importantly, dense shooting schedule with scanty budgets. This approach allowed us to create up to 9 films a year. It was unheard of performance in Hollywood at the time.
Roger Corman - Director
Over the next decades, he released hack-work for hack-work, among which, however, sometimes came across ribbons worthy of admiration of critics. Among the films that Roger Corman directed were the films It Conquered the World (1956), Swamp Women (1956), Attack of the Monster Crabs (1957) and Risen from the Dead (1957), which were ridiculed over the years later in the popular television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999). After shooting the paintings “Carnival Rock” (1957) and “Naked Paradise” (1957), he created the best work of the era “Not from this Earth” (1957), in which he got rid of a standard monster in a rubber suit, depicting a humanoid alien who arrived on Earth for blood to nourish his fellow tribesmen. Dark, creepy and mystical, this film was one of those rare cases where Corman was able to turn a small budget into a creative advantage. The following tapes - Machine Gun Kelly (1958), Night of the Beast of Blood (1958), and Fasting on Dope Street (1958) - left no doubt about his intention to sacrifice his artistic merits in favor of a fast, cheap and ultimately profitable genre.
From Carnivorous Plant to Edgar Allan Poe
He made another commendable horror film, A Bucket of Blood (1959), dedicated to the near-by assistant to the waiter at the beatnik coffee house, which was received on Wednesday, turning terrible murders into works of modern art. Perhaps his most famous film of the time was “The Shop of Horrors” (1960), a comedy about an assistant florist who produced a carnivorous plant that feeds on human blood. Two successful musicals and a remake were staged on it, and the tape itself became a cult and gained a long life on video and DVD, due to the fact that the director shot Jack Nicholson, then unknown, in an episodic role. Corman Roger entered his most famous period when he filmed several short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe, which starred the great Vincent Price. The first and best of the films is Asher’s House (1960), in which Price played Roderick Asher, followed by a movie version of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Well and the Pendulum” (1961).
Roger Corman continued to shoot cheap genre films based on Poe adaptations. After The Horror Stories (1962), he directed the young William Shatner in The Intruder (1962), a surprisingly mature and ahead of its time film on racial segregation and civil rights. The following year, he directed another popular adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe, based on the author’s most famous work, Raven (1963), in which Nicholson, Peter Lorr and Boris Karloff played the main roles . Corman's fascination with the works of the pioneer of the thriller was embodied in the adaptations of “Bewitched Castle” (1963), “Mask of Red Death” (1964) and “Tomb of Ligeya” (1964). The latest film was scripted by the future Oscar winner Robert Towne. At the same time, the thriller “Dementia 13” (1963) was shot, directed by the young Francis Ford Coppola.
Corman Roger returned to the production of film consumer goods, removing "Beach Ball" (1965), "Journey to the Prehistoric Planet" (1966) and "Wild Angels" (1966). The latest film on bikers shines with the play of Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra, Diana Ladd and Bruce Dern and the script of Peter Bogdanovich. Then, in The Massacre on Valentine's Day (1967), Corman switched to the theme of the famous gangster wars of the 1920s, where Jason Robarbs (Al Capone) and Bugs Moran (Ralph Meeker) starred.
New world pictures
Always allowing creative talents to experiment, Corman drew Nicholson into writing the Journey script (1967), a surreal psychedelic fantasy about a television commercial director who embarks on an LSD journey similar to Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, which ends with his rebirth in the finale. They say that the director took drugs to get a better idea of ​​what the effect of the acid might look like. Over the next few years, he directed and produced The Targets (1968), the directorial debut of Peter Bogdanovich about the sensational shooting of Charles Whitman from the tower from a sniper rifle in 1966, The Bloody Mom (1968) with Shelley Winters about a criminal family led by Ma Parker and Dunwich Horror (1970), which starred Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee, and the script was written by the future Oscar-winning director Curtis Hanson. Unsatisfied with the American International Pictures distributor interfering with the scripts and budgets of his films, Corman decided in 1970 to organize his own company New World Pictures in order to gain complete control over his products. He made the films "Gas!" (1970) and Von Richthofen and Brown (1970), but soon lost interest in directing until the 1990s.
Sex and crime
At the same time, Corman actively helped novice directors get on their feet, many of whom created the greatest films in the history of cinema. After launching Jonathan Demme’s career, starting with writing the script for The Hot Box (1972), he hired young Martin Scorsese to film Berta, the Freight Wagon (1972), a crime drama about the period of the Great Depression that drove the young woman ( Barbara Hershey) and union activist (David Carradine) become embroiled in crime. At the same time, Corman made a series of films about sexual exploitation, full of nudity and violence, in which there was little plot or vivid characters, including “Tender Care” (1972), “Student Practitioners” (1973) and “Young Nurses” (1973 ) Korman’s film school also went to Curtis Hanson, who made his directorial debut in The Sweet Slaughter (1973), and Demme tried his luck in the film about women in prison, The Renegades (1974). After “Sisters of Mercy” (1974), “Mad Woman” (1975) and a cameo in “The Godfather II” (1974), he shot another high-quality sci-fi action movie “Mortal Races 2000” (1975), a futuristic satire about the national rally, the winner of which will be the driver who crushed more pedestrians.
Chases and crime thrillers
For 10 years, Corman has stamped chase tapes and criminal thrillers - Cannonball (1976), Jackson County Prison (1976) with Tommy Lee Jones and Grand Theft Auto (1977), in which Ron Howard made his debut. Then he released a parody of the horror films "Piranha" (1978) Joe Dante. After producing and playing a role in the documentary Roger Corman: The Hollywood Wild Angel (1978), he created some of his most famous paintings: The Rock and Roll School (1979), The Lady in Red (1979), and Battle for the Stars ”(1980), one of his biggest hits, in which John Sales' talents and special effects of James Cameron were again used. The film “Howl” (1981), an innovative film about a werewolf, was also successful, with stunning makeup, directing by Joe Dante and the screenplay of Sales. Following Forbidden World (1982), Angels of Hell Forever (1983) and Eccentrics (1984), Corman once again showed his keen business acumen when he sold New World Productions, the largest independent company in 1983, engaged in the production and distribution of films in the United States, for $ 16.5 million.
New Horizons
In addition, in the same year, Corman founded the Concorde / New Horizons film company, which became a successful and profitable company that made full use of new markets such as the sale of video tapes, and later DVDs, pay TV, as well as sales abroad, which produced low-cost films such as Violations of the Rules (1985), Sorority House Massacre (1986), Nightmare at the Summer Camp (1986), and Undressed for Murder (1987), full of violence and nudity. Over the next few years, Corman released a long series of horror films and martial arts films that were of low quality and hardly different from each other. But, as always, his work was profitable. Of the many names, only a few stood out, including “Bloody Fist” (1989), which gave rise to many sequels over the years. He also helped revive the career of porn star Tracy Lords, who starred in the remake of "Not From This Earth" (1988). Then, after a twenty-year hiatus, Corman unexpectedly returned to directing, making the film Frankenstein Unchained (1990). He continued to play the role of producer of films with ridiculous titles such as “In a fit of passion” (1991), “Deadly Impulse” (1992) and “Carnosaurus” (1993).
In recent years, actor Corman Roger has starred in several sensational films, including The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Philadelphia (1993), directed by his old protege Jonathan Demmey. After the appearance of Ron Howard in the movie Apollo 13 (1995), he seemed to begin to slow down his work for the first time after he began filming 40 years ago. In fact, Corman just caught up with the usual pace of modern producers releasing one or two films a year. Following Black Thunder (1998) and The Coming of Night (2000), he was executive producer of Varvara (2003), a cheap counterfeit for Conan the Barbarian. Corman continued to exploit the old plots and scenery, creating the nth sequel to the sequel “Blood Fist 2050” (2005).
Honorary Oscar
Roger Corman has been around in the film industry long enough to win the respect of Hollywood, who largely ignored the director for most of his career. In 2009, following the production of Joe Dante's Spleter web series, at the Governors Awards on November 14, Corman was awarded the Honorary Oscar. Although some called the award undeserved because of his lack of artistry and taste for many years, many came out in his defense, arguing that the director and producer made a significant contribution to the cinema, as thanks to him many great filmmakers appeared.