Article and Interview by John Rossi
He's been referred to as a movie maverick, an outlaw producer/director, even the Orson Welles of Grade Z Cinema. With so much rhetoric bandied about, it seems that no one in Hollywood really could figure out who or what he was. Filmfax fans, however, know exactly who Roger Corman is-he's the king of the low-budget exploitation film.
Me, I'd simply compare him to that unassuming guy at the pool hall who you have totally underestimated-like Minnesota Fats, phenomenally skilled, and with more than a little hustler thrown in. Before you had a chance to chalk up your cue or line up the first shot, he'd already have cleared the table, picked up his winnings, and started scouting out his next location.
For over three decades, in the course of producing large motion pictures on small budgets, Roger Corman became proficient at problem-solving, negotiating, and dispensing a distinctive product that proved to be amazingly sucessfull, both financially and, for the most part, critically. Factoring in that of his films were shot in ten days or less, with a budget of $100,000 or less, their success seems no less than magic. Openly audacious, they encompass the entire spectrum of American culture-and counter-culture-plus a generous dash of things that go bump in the night.
Corman's A Bucket of Blood (1959) and Little Shop of Horrors (1960), both written by Charles Griffith, not only gave audiences their first taste of the comedic psychotic, with a satirical look at the beatnik generation, but they also redefined the genre of dark comedy. The Trip (1967) brought us an unsurpassed and daring look at the psychedelic world of LSD, incorporating creative camera techniques and special lenses to further document and simulate the experience. The Wild Angels (1966) took to the road many years before Easy Rider, and for far less money. While at the time Peter Fonda was happy to earn $10,000 for his role in The Wild Angels, he must have been elated when he became a millionaire three years later in Easy Rider. The House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum(1961), The Premature Burial (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Mask of Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964), are easily the best adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe's work on film-true classics in the gothic horror genre that will last well into the future.
Although he had the reputation of a strict taskmaster, Roger Corman fostered the careers of many others, who still speak highly of him. The list is an impressive one. His "graduate" filmmakers include: Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese, Ron Howard, James Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Towne, Gary Kurtz, and Joe Dante. The "alumni" of actors boasts: Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Robert Vaughn, Bruce Dern, Dick Miller, and Burt Convy.
This impressive resumé is
just one of the reasons why American Movie Classics invited Corman to
host the scariest AMC monster movie event ever-Monsterfest '99-a month-long
celebration of some of the best horror films ever produced. Not only will
Corman serve as host for the proceedings, but he also has produced and
will star in a 35-part miniseries created specifically for the event.
Recently Roger took time out of his busy schedule to talk to Filmfax
about his amazing career and this new and inovative AMC project. After
all, a good story always sounds better when a real storyteller tells it.
FILMFAX: In your fascinating book How I made a Hundred Movies In Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, you mention that your degree from Stanford was in Industrial Engineering. Do you feel that this technical ability helped you to become the world's most efficient filmmaker?
CORMAN: Probably, it helped not only in production, but also specifically in pre-production. This was partially learned as an engineering student, and also from my own experience. The preparation of the film is almost as important as the shooting of the film. I've always put a tremendous emphasis on having everything planned as carefully possible before shooting, knowing that you can never follow your plan 100%. Either portions of it will not work, or you might get a better idea during shooting, but at least you have a plan to work with. Generally or ideally, you can follow it 80-to-90 percent.
FILMFAX: You also mention an aptitude test you took at Stanford that had some unprecedented and unusual scores.
CORMAN: Yes, the scoring was from 1 to 100 in several different categories. I scored between 95 and 100 in everything, every category except one. I don't remember what I got in that category, I seem to remember it was something like a 10, something ridiculously low. When I asked what category it was, they informed me it was bookkeeping and accounting, and that I would be a big success in any endeavor I might choose to go into, provided that it didn't involve bookkeeping and accounting.
FILMFAX: And to this day, you still don't care for accounting.
CORMAN: I still dislike it. Unfortunately, now that I'm running this company I'm forced to deal with it.
FILMFAX: Every single minute on your sets was productive. By contrast, your book tells of a director friend of yours who once visited a Paramount set to observe a Billy Wilder shoot. Do you recall what his observations were?
CORMAN: I remember that it took them an incredible amount of time to get everything set up, and then even longer to actually get the shot. I was amazed to discover that it took them the entire morning just to light one close-up of Jack Lemmon. This was quite a bit different from the way we were used to making films.
FILMFAX:
Your wife, Julie, states that the two words which describe you best are
"conservative" and "outrageous." How is this significant
to your work?
CORMAN: I think this is because, from a fiscal or production standpoint, I definitely treat these areas in a conservative manner, while as far as the concepts and the treatments of the films, I tend to follow a more outrageous strategy.
FILMFAX: The Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954), your first film, cost roughly $12,000 to produce...
CORMAN: That was cash, but there was a deferment on top of that. It came to close to $30,000 total to produce.
FILMFAX: You were able to get a lot of major props on loan for free, for this and other of your films. How were you able to accomplish that?
CORMAN: Well, for one thing, you could rent from the major studios, but you could also rent from independent prop houses and more importantly, from independent special-effects houses. In most cases if the special-effects house makes an effect that creates the monster or some device for a motion picture, they retain the ownership of it after the picture. It may be sitting on the shelf there; it cost them a great deal of money to make originally. If you're convincing enough in your pitch, as it were, you can rent those things for very little money because they're not generating any money for the house on the shelf. You can sometimes offer a credit in the film to borrow something you need.
FILMFAX: And this is how you were able to get large items like submarines and Jaguars?
CORMAN: (Laughs) Right.
FILMFAX: On The Fast and the Furious, John Ireland sat behind the director chair. While he was directing a key racing sequence, something happened. Do you recall what it was?
CORMAN: You're referring
to the incident where I was one of the stunt drivers. Well, that was just
a little misunderstanding. I still maintain after all these years that
it wasn't my fault, although everyone else claims that it was. I was supposed
to be driving the heavy's car-the bad guy's car. We were supposed to come
around the last turn more or less even, then the good guy was supposed
to pass me and go on to win. He never passed me-I won! We had to go for
take two and shoot it all over again. The feeling was that I drove to
win, completely forgetting that it was a motion picture. They felt that
I thought I was in a race, so I just drove to win the race. My statement
was, (I'm not certain which is right)-- my alibi was I couldn't drive
any slower without wrecking the scene, and the professional driver should
have driven faster and passed me.
FILMFAX: Tell us about your experience with your first "location hassle" while filming Teenage Doll (1957).
CORMAN: Actually this is not a complaint, it's a justified complaint of filmmakers everywhere. If you've rented a location, someone, not always, but very often, somebody next door to the location or somewhere in the immediate vicinity will try to do something on their property that will be totally legal, but it's really designed to make you pay them to stop so that they don't wreck the picture. In the middle of the night, this woman came out and turned on all the sprinklers in her front yard, expecting us to pay her to stop. I sent a production assistant over to ask her if she could keep them going all night long instead of shutting them off because we thought the effect looked great in the background. She immediately turned them all off and went back into the house.
FILMFAX: So you managed to get what you wanted in the first place without paying her extortion money?
CORMAN: (Laughs) Exactly.
FILMFAX: One of the Corman "graduates," Francis Ford Coppola cast you in a role in The Godfather II. I know you had done some acting in your own films, but what was this experience like for you? Did you wind up catching the acting bug?
CORMAN: Not really, although I played a number of roles in other films. As a matter of fact I just played the head of a studio for Wes Craven (Swamp Thing, Nightmare on Elm Street, The People Under the Stairs) last week in Scream III. Almost invariably directors who are friends of mine will ask me to come and play a small role just sort of for the fun of it. However, I finally had to join the Screen Actors Guild because Jonathan Demme (Married to the Mob, Philadelphia, Swing Shift) had cast me in Silence of the Lambs and SAG called me up. I said, "this is just a joke between the directors and myself." The guy from The Screen Actors Guild said, "The joke's gone on long enough-now you have to join the union."
FILMFAX: What part was it you played in Silence of the Lambs?
CORMAN: I played the head of the FBI.
FILMFAX: I'm going to have to view that again and watch for you.
CORMAN:
It's a very small role. It was slightly bigger, but they trimmed it down.
FILMFAX: The list of other
Corman "alumni" is very impressive, people like Martin Scorcese,
Ron Howard, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson-I could go on and on with the
list of other fine filmmakers and actors.
CORMAN: You can now add Jim Cameron to that list since the book has been published.
FILMFAX: Exactly. Did these people approach you, or did you seek them out?
CORMAN: Generally I sought them out. Occasionally they came to me. Jonathan Demme came to me looking for something, Peter Bogdanovich way back in the beginning came to me. In the case of Ron Howard, it was his idea for us to do a sequel to Eat My Dust (1976). He said he would do another picture again since Eat My Dust was such a huge success, he had received a salary and a percentage on that film. He knew I wanted to do a sequel the following year (Grand Theft Auto), and he said that normally an actor playing the lead receives a larger salary on the second film, but instead he would do the second film for exactly the same price. He also told me he would do another job for nothing. I said "What's that?" He said "I'll direct it." I said, "You always looked like a director to me, Ron."
FILMFAX: You had a great working relationship with AIP (American International Pictures), and United Artists when you decided to launch New World Pictures. What prompted that decision?
CORMAN: I was shooting a World War I flying picture in Ireland called Von Richthofen and Brown (1970). I was just so tired I barely made it to the set each morning. I thought I'd just made too many pictures in too short a period of time; I'm just going to take a year off and rest. During that year, more for the fun of it, but partially for an investment, I started an independent production and distribution company with the intention of getting it started and then turning it over to somebody. But I couldn't really find a person to turn it over to, so I just stayed with it and kept it going myself.
FILMFAX: In 1982 you sold it and began two new ventures, Millennium Pictures and Concorde.
CORMAN: Yes, well that is actually one company. I first called it Millennium, and one day the switchboard operator came to me and said, "Roger, you have to change the name of the company." I asked her why and she said, "because I say 'Good morning Millennium ...' and they say, 'What did you say?' 'What does that mean?' 'How do you spell that?'" She said she kept getting into a long conversation on half of the phone calls that came in just over the name, so I changed it to Concorde, and then for a variety of reasons we have a home video distribution company called New Horizons we just put together, so it's now Concorde New Horizons.
FILMFAX: The Edgar Allen
Poe films have always been some of my favorites. These brought you into
Cinemascope and larger budgets, and are the finest adaptations of Poe's
work ever, yet at the time it was looked upon as a high risk. You had
to convince AIP to give the idea a chance.
CORMAN: It was a big risk for AIP, we spent over $200,000 on the first one. They had never spent anything like that before. They actually wanted me to do two ten-day black and white horror films to go out as a double bill. Frankly, I was tired of doing that, so I convinced them to go into color and shoot three weeks to make The Fall of the House of Usher (1960). It was tremendously successful, and we went from there.
FILMFAX: That was going to be my next question, how did they feel after that success?
CORMAN: They were delighted; they wanted to keep going, going, going... as a matter of fact, since you're in Chicago you'll like this--both the first one and the second one The Fall of the House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum opened in Chicago. I think it was the Roosevelt Theater... a big theater on State Street?
FILMFAX: I believe the Roosevelt was on State.
CORMAN: They opened in multiples, in a number of theaters at the same time; but the key theater at that time was in downtown Chicago. I remember for the second one, The Pit and the Pendulum, they built a giant pendulum over the marquee that was swinging back and forth.
FILMFAX: A film with a much tighter shooting schedule and a smaller budget, Little Shop of Horrors (1960), to this day still has quite a cult following. Did you ever think at the time that it would be that tremendous of a film, and enjoying that kind of popularity?
CORMAN: As a matter of fact I was slightly disappointed with what happened, because it was such an outrageous thing to do; to shoot a picture in two and a half days for less than $30,000; specifically one with such a wild subject matter. I thought it would either be a big success, or a big failure. Somewhat to my chagrin, it was a modest success. I thought at the time, it's really disappointing merely to have it be just another picture that made a little profit, and then go on to the next one. It should have been something either big or bad but not just 'okay.' Then it started playing at midnight screenings on Friday and Saturday nights in certain cult-type theaters and on college campuses-it kept going and going-it still plays year after year. It ended up being a big success, of course then it was an off-Broadway musical, and finally it became a big-budget motion picture.
FILMFAX: I think it might have been just a little bit ahead of its time.
CORMAN: That may very well be.
FILMFAX: The Intruder (1961), another film I think may have been slightly ahead of its time, was a very intense and powerful film. Do you think that the subject of racial integration might have made it one of your riskiest projects?
CORMAN: Yes, it was. I knew it was risky when I made it, and I was very disappointed. That picture got the best reviews I'd ever received. It won a couple of film festivals, and it was the first film I had ever made that lost money. However, again, over a period of time, it never became quite the cult film that Little Shop of Horrors did, but it kept going and going, so I guess it's probably earned its money back by now.
FILMFAX: You had some trouble with the law during the shooting of the film...
CORMAN: Yes, well, we hadn't broken any laws, but we were run out of two towns. They just wanted us out, even though we had the proper permits and hadn't done anything wrong. The final sequence takes place in front of a high school where Bill (Shatner) put the young black man up on the swing. He's actually on three different swings at three different locations. Each swing was at a different height than the others, but we cut it in such a way that nobody's ever noticed it.
FILMFAX: The young man that played the role of Joey Green (Charles Barnes) was somebody you just found locally and had never acted before?
CORMAN: Yes, he actually was a high school football star who had been one of the first black kids to go to that high school. He was very good in the role.
FILMFAX: I thought he turned out a great performance as well. Let's talk about some other trouble you ran into over a film. After completion of The Wild Angels (1966), you received a death threat.
CORMAN: (Laughs) Right. The head of The Hells Angels announced they were going to sue me; in fact the television newscaster started laughing as he read the story on TV. They were going to sue me for defamation of character on the basis that I had portrayed them as an outlaw motorcycle gang, whereas in reality they were a "social organization" dedicated to the spreading of technical information about motorcycles. When the head of the Angels called me, he said he was going to snuff me out. He also announced this on television, that they were going kill me, and then he called me to repeat the threat. I said, "That's a big mistake. You announced publicly that you're going to snuff me out, Otto, and if I die, you're the first person the police are going to come after. Meanwhile, you're suing me for a million dollars. Think about it. If you kill me, you can't get the million dollars. My suggestion is to forego the momentary pleasure of killing me, and go for the million dollars." Otto thought about it for a second and said, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense-that's what we'll do."
FILMFAX: (Laughs) I'll just have to kill you later. Let's talk about AMC's Monsterfest '99. This sounds like quite an event. What can you tell me about this 35-part miniseries you've done for the event?
CORMAN: Well it's a very interesting show. What it is, is like an old Saturday afternoon serial in which the hero and heroine are in danger in each segment. What AMC wanted was for me to host the Monsterfest, and they also asked me if I could make a picture which would fit between the different pictures they were showing, and serve as sort of a lead-in from one to the other. I came up with the idea that I'm this evil old film archivist, Dr. Gorman, and I have two young film school interns from the NYU film school. I send them into the vault to get these monster films. Each time they go into the vault, a monster comes out of the film and attacks them, so it becomes a question of will they get out of the vault or will they be killed by the monster?
FILMFAX: It sounds great! And they had approached you about hosting the show, producing the segments, and in addition they will be featuring a lot of your films, correct?
CORMAN: Yes. Of course they'll be showing many more films other than mine. They'll be showing the Poe films I think each Friday night, starting now and going up through Halloween. Then during the Halloween week, they'll show them again, with a number of my other films. They'll go into their library as well. I think they're going to have 35 or 36 films or something like that.
FILMFAX: While we're on the subject of cable TV, your movies are now reaching a new and larger audience. Do you think that Cable TV has now somehow become the "drive-in movie" of the new millennium?
CORMAN: To a certain extent. I think the combination of home video and cable TV have luckily given us a new audience that in some respects have some similarities to the drive-in audience. I feel very strongly that DVD, which is coming in fairly well, may be another two years or so before it's really strong, but it's growing very well. DVD will give us another new type of audience. Beyond that, maybe a few years more, I think the Internet will be the biggest of all.
FILMFAX: This has been a great pleasure to speak with you, and I have one final question. Let's for a moment bring the clock ahead five decades. We're now in the year 2050. How would you like to be remembered, and which of your films would you like to be remembered for?
CORMAN: Well, I think I would like to be remembered. I think I will be remembered, if I'm going to be remembered at all, as a person who made films-probably not one of the great filmmakers-but a person who made some interesting, possibly significant films, and had a part in passing on knowledge and training in helping young filmmakers as well-- so it would be sort of a two part thing. I think if there were a book on films, it would be a very small couple of sentences, but I think it would be there.
FILMFAX: Which of your films might still be around?
CORMAN: Maybe the Poe films, plus The Intruder. Maybe The Wild Angels or The Trip as sort of cultural artifacts of the sixties. Not so much for the films themselves, but because they showed a way of life.
Personally, I believe that Roger Corman and his work will be remembered quite a bit more than in his modest estimation. Good film entertainment such as his will always be in vogue, and I believe his role in the evolution of film production and development will take a much more prominent position in the history of film.
I'm not sure what type of media they might be using to view movies in 2050, but I'm sure that it will include titles such as: Attack of the Crab Monsters (1956), Deathsport (1978), Dementia 13 (1963), The Crybaby Killer (1958), and Bloody Mama (1970), to name but a few. My basis for stating this is that people will always enjoy thrills and chills in their daily life, and Roger Corman's films certainly contained more than their share of them. Good thrills and chills don't come cheap-not even on a Roger Corman budget.
American Movie Classics has spared no expense in bringing us Monsterfest '99. The event will be kicked off with a special hot-air replica (Cuddles) of The She-Creature. Designed and built by Cameron Balloons of Bristol, England, the balloon stands 80 foot tall (nearly nine stories). It was launched from Baltimore on September 5, and will cover 25,000 miles through Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, St. Louis, New York, and will reach Salem, Massachusetts on Halloween for Salem's annual Halloween Festival.
Some of the movies Roger Corman will host for AMC Monsterfest '99 will include: Godzilla, Amazing Colossal Man, Gorgo, Frankenstein Conquers the World, Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, War of the Gargantuas, The Werewolf and many, many others.
On September 24th Corman's The Mask of the Red Death will be featured. The Tomb of Legeia airs October 1st, be sure to watch for Beatle Paul McCartney's then- girlfriend, Jane Asher as a beautiful, young innocent victim in that classic. October 8th continues with Corman's first Poe Film, The Fall of the House of Usher, and each Friday night thereafter, right up through Halloween. Check your local listings for exact times in your area, set the VCR, crack open a jar of "Orville," and enjoy.
Unless you happen to be a serious film student, I can't fathom why it is so important to have a psychological profile of Roger Corman, or a deep analytical preoccupation of his methodology in the first place. I say we should be content with enjoying his films and leave it at that; but since every single one of the many books and magazine articles I am aware of have delved into this, I see no reason to buck the system.
The "Outlaw" or "Maverick" comes about because the projects he chose to lend his talents to were far more daring than most independent filmmakers; and downright audacious as far as regular Hollywood would have had it. His films encompass the entire spectrum of what societal life is like. Along the way he may blend in a little counter-culture to give it perfect character and symmetry; here and there he may decide to add a generous dash of things that go bump in the night-- purely for flavor and entertainment purposes.