Roger Corman Has Passed Away

[Hobo]

Helped launch the careers of Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, James Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich and Francis Ford Coppolla among others.

Imported Bergman and Fellini films to the US.

He made the original Little Shop of Horrors and Fast and the Furious.

And has about a half dozen movies featured on MST3K at the same time.

 

 

[gunnar hendershow]

Corman is an undeniable legend for so many reasons, his shadow on Hollywood is as long as anyone's. The many tributes he'll receive over the coming days are all deserved.

Between his own output of cult b-movies, working with up-and-coming New Hollywood directors, and foreign film distribution nobody from the 50s to the 80s likely touched more of American cinema.

[King Ellis]

I've always meant to watch that batch of films he made in the 60's based on Poe stories as the cast in those is like a who's who of classic horror icons; Price, Chaney Jr, Lorre, KARLOFF and of course, early fame Jack Nicholson.

I did see, and I think I still have it around on DVD somewhere, The Terror which was apparently the result of still having use of a castle set and Boris Karloff for 2 days so you might as well make a movie.

[gunnar hendershow]

33 minutes ago, King Ellis said:

I've always meant to watch that batch of films he made in the 60's based on Poe stories as the cast in those is like a who's who of classic horror icons; Price, Chaney Jr, Lorre, KARLOFF and of course, early fame Jack Nicholson.

I did see, and I think I still have it around on DVD somewhere, The Terror which was apparently the result of still having use of a castle set and Boris Karloff for 2 days so you might as well make a movie.

Criterion Channel, last summer, put up a huge collection of his Poe films. I am unsure if most of them are still on there as they typically have short-term streaming rights. But most of them in one place would be probably worth paying for a month or two of the subscription.

[Hobo]

speaking of Criterion

I forgot that he had done a Closet Picks about 6 months ago.

[gunnar hendershow]

https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3811896/roger-corman-horror-movies-to-stream-this-week/

[Your Mom]

I've never honestly known what a producer does but I always recognized his name from Deathrace 2000 which I still love watching

[gunnar hendershow]

1 hour ago, Your Mom said:

I've never honestly known what a producer does but I always recognized his name from Deathrace 2000 which I still love watching

Not all producers are the same. Corman basically ran a workshop at New World Pictures which focused on finding young talent, giving them a few bucks & a bit of time to cobble together a movie, and watched as they then went on to do great things, win awards, be Martin Scorsese, etc. There is no one else quite like him.

[Skummy]

8 hours ago, Your Mom said:

I've never honestly known what a producer does but I always recognized his name from Deathrace 2000 which I still love watching

the short answer in Hollywood is everything. Secure funding, hire the crew, scout locations, manage the budget, and everything in-between. 

General rule of thumb is that, as much as the job titles might suggest otherwise, the Producer is the important one, the Executive Producer usually isn't. That's not always true - often the executive producer has a lot of oversight and responsibilities above the Producer, and they usually have more of a financial interest - but if you ever see an actor's name as Executive Producer, it's usually because they've negotiated that credit to get more of a financial stake in the film, or because it gives them a degree of creative control, effectively allowing them to veto stuff they're not happy with.

 

I do a weekly movie watchalong with some friends, that started during lockdown as a way for my partner and some of her friends to still do stuff together. The idea, generally but not always, is that we pick a "bad" film each week (everyone picks, they're chosen on the roll of a dice or the flip of a coin until everyone has had a choice played, and then the cycle starts over) and just chat along with it. Long before that, I've always been fascinated by "bad" movies, and drawn to B-movies and schlock, and obviously I'm a huge MST3K fan too. So Roger Corman is everywhere in my tastes and interests.

His influence is enormous, though it's interesting seeing him eulogised as a great independent director and artist, when his far greater skill was as a producer and a money-man - he reliably got things in before deadline and under budget, and there's stories of him filming whole other movies using leftover filming time and props. He's an example of how much more fluid and open the film industry used to be, and it's a shame that there's really not a space for that kind of B-movie any more. He spoke a lot in later interviews about the direction of the industry, and how everything being $100 million dollar special effects-laden superhero movies would necessarily push mid-budget films out and change the movie business into something else entirely, and I don't think he's wrong about that at all.

He also apparently used to claim that if the credits weren't rolling on one of his films by the 89th minute, he started cutting until they did. That's something I can definitely get behind.

[GhostMachine]

Corman's Poe adaptations, especially Masque of The Red Death, are all must-sees. In fact, I think the latter should be required viewing in some filmmaking courses.

 

Plus, Vincent Price is freakin' brilliant in it.

 

[Vamp]

One of my former lecturers wrote an essay about Roger Corman in which he suggested Corman must have been a "boring, conventional fuck."

I expect he won't be asked to deliver the eulogy.