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Roger Corman might be the person that is most responsible for pretty much everything that has happened with Hollywood in the last 70 years. He pretty much invented the cinematic language of modern genre movies and pushed sci-fi and horror into the mainstream. Without him, there is no Star Wars and there are no comic book movies. The dude is an absolute legend.
He's one of the most important people in the history of cinema, bar none.
It's weird trying to explain this to people. He honestly hasn't ever made a ground breaking movie. What movies of his are worth watching? Not many. But the guy has his fingerprints all over every poll of best American movies ever. Blockbusters and best pictures.
But he loved film and gave anyone a chance if they could make a movie on a shoestring. And the because of that some of the biggest movies in the 120 odd years of cinema couldn't have happened without him.
He also basically had his own little school for up and coming directors before film school was a thing. They make a Corman movie and it gets their name out there and gets them reps. James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Coppola, Jonathan Demme, and Ron Howard all owe a lot to Corman. When I did my Demme completionist run Caged Heat was a surprisingly awesome women in prison film.
Huge loss. RIP to the realest.
And if you want to branch out into actors, he also basically launched Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper's careers among many others. That's not even getting into how he was responsible for the distribution of basically every foreign film in the United States. He's the reason Americans know who Fellini and Kurosawa are
Jack Nicholson was literally in tears talking about how much he owed to Corman for his career.
In the documentary Corman’s World yeah. He had a wife and kid and Corman was the only person who would give him consistent work. Nicholson would have given up acting without him.
I remember an interview where Matt Damon said that he told him he came from “the Corman School of acting”
Helped boost Bergman too. He distributed Cries and Whispers when no one else would touch it. Got it nominated for best picture and four other nominations too.
Jonathan Demme gave Corman a cameo role as the FBI director in Silence Of The Lambs. He was on screen for about ten seconds and said about ten words.
He cameos as a senator in Apollo 13 too.
He's also in The Godfather Part II playing a senator during the mafia hearings (he off-screen to the left (our right) of the man in the grey suit in the opening shots of this clip -- you'll see him wide shots later):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FeMvQR-0VA
He gave so many people their start, including Coppola.
Peter Bogdonavich too.
Also Joe Dante, John Sayles...it's a LONG list.
I haven't thought about John Sayles in a long time. LONE STAR and MEN WITH GUNS are awesome movies, I remember.
Bogdonavich died still owing Corman for a personal loan that he had taken from him in the 80's.
Caged Heat 2 remains a punchline in my parents friend circle. "Dance for me, BITCH"
James Cameron alone owes his start to Roger Corman. He started as a matte painter for him and then worked as a VFX artist on Corman productions before Corman hired him for his first directing gig.
Cameron going from Corman's school of hyper frugality to making some of Hollywood's most expensive films will never not be funny to me.
Working with Corman definitely taught him how to use every penny available. His movies justify the insane amount of money spent to produce them. True Lies, Titanic, Avatar - they definitely look like the most expensive movies ever made for their time, still do. Nowadays Marvel movies look so cheap despite the astronomical amount of money poured into making them.
My storyboard teacher, Luis Russo, worked on TITANIC - he said Cameron's "secret" was he wrote a $400Million movie, but only had $200Million to make it - so he figured out EVERY shot beforehand in storyboards. James himself said it was the only reason TERMINATOR got done correctly because he drew every frame.
So many big budget movies don't hold up visually over time, or you watch them at release and wonder "How did this cost that much money", but not Cameron's work.
Makes perfect sense when you see films like Justice League where a director tries to save it in post.
Learned how to do more with less, which really paid off in his early work, allowing him to expand later.
Agreed.
Roger Corman and some ‘obedient’ maggots!
Nearly 500 (491) producer credits on IMDb. Obviously a fair share just have his name slapped on them. There's still probably at least 200 that he actively had a hand in, if not more.
As far as Corman directing goes people will mention his Poe movies, which is understandable. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) might be his best as a director though. A young Jason Robards as Al Capone, along with George Segal, Bruce Dern & Alex Rocco. It's not included with any streaming service but it's definitely worth a rental.
I think that may be the only time he directed for a major studio. Jack Nicholson's also there as a chauffer.
For another of his directing credits, check out The Intruder (1962). William Shatner plays a sleazy but charismatic hatemonger that arrives in a Southern US town to fight desegregation.
Roger called that "the best movie I ever made and the only one that lost money."
Wow, that's interesting. I can see how he could consider it as his best movie (mostly because it's tackles a serious subject with gravity, rather than it's quality — which, I want to say, is rather good considering the obviously low budget), but I'm surprised it lost money. Did people boycott it because of the subject matter?
That movie is so unique, he really was a pioneer.
Dude was doing things that were revolutionary in the 50s and 60s. The young people he worked with and mentored took those lessons into the New Hollywood era which was basically the start of "modern" cinema.
The interesting thing is that Corman himself just wanted to make low budget monster movies his entire life.
Corman was pathologically frugal and, honestly, it worked against him in the long run. New World or Concorde could've grown to be Miramax or New Line before either of them were things but Corman could never get past his cheapness. And while actors, writers and directors were/are grateful for the opportunities he provided to them, they knew they were being exploited and moved on to bigger things as soon as they could.
Yeah absolutely. Most people have never of him because on the surface, his legacy was a bunch of shitty genre films made on shoestring budgets.
His actual legacy was basically inventing modern independent film production, having a good eye for fresh talent, and teaching his knowledge to a new generation of filmmakers. He's the Obi-Wan Kenobi to multiple Luke Skywalkers.
He was basically a better coach than film maker. I don't think Corman has made a single important film that belongs in the canon. But about 80% of the canon of American films owe him a huge debt.
If you think about how many directors cut their teeth doing horror movies, like Peter Jackson, Edgar Wright, Sam Rami, Stephen Spielberg. That was because Corman championed genre films and opened up people to the idea that directors could 'graduate' to more mainstream films.
one famous quote of his is "if you're successful on this you won't have to work for me again"
I think he knew and enjoyed his weird niche.
I feel like even people who've never seen any of his movies generally know what a "Roger Corman-style" movie is.
I bet a lot of people who think they've never seen a Roger Corman movie have seen a Roger Corman movie.
Perfectly said, as are all the follow-ups below this.
https://youtu.be/ijAw7tOljEA?si=qCmnKLNGyzuPAD4w
Here's the full version of "Corman's World" on YouTube
He gave their first chance to basically everyone. Coppola, Lucas, Demme, and a large etc.
I saw George Lucas at a grocery store in San Francisco yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him make lightsaber noises as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen bottles of Coke Zero in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be Jar Jar and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bottles and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any disturberance in the Force,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bottle and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by reciting the opening crawl of the Phantom Menace really loudly.
"The Corman Film School"
A number of noted filmmakers (including directors, producers, writers, and cinematographers) have worked with Corman, usually early in their careers, including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Polly Platt, Peter Bogdanovich, Declan O'Brien, Armondo Linus Acosta, Paul Bartel, Jonathan Demme, Donald G. Jackson, Gale Anne Hurd, Carl Colpaert, Joe Dante, James Cameron, John Sayles, Monte Hellman, Carl Franklin, George Armitage, Jonathan Kaplan, George Hickenlooper, Curtis Hanson, Jack Hill, Robert Towne, Menahem Golan, James Horner, and Timur Bekmambetov. Many have said that Corman's influence taught them some of the ins and outs of filmmaking. In the extras for the DVD of The Terminator, director James Cameron asserts, "I trained at the Roger Corman Film School." The British director Nicolas Roeg served as the cinematographer on The Masque of the Red Death. Cameron, Coppola, Demme, Hanson, Howard and Scorsese have all gone on to win Academy Awards. Howard was reportedly told by Corman, "If you do a good job on this film, you'll never have to work for me again."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Corman
I cannot recommend enough checking out Criterion’s release of Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets and watching the special features that go into how the movie got made. Corman was a legend and gave so many incredible directors their first shots at moviemaking.
I only recently watched that movie, after it's been sitting on my watchlist for years.
It's incredible. If there's a single demarcation point between classic horror and modern horror, that film may be it. And that itself is crucial subtext to the movie, Boris Karloff's character is basically him playing himself, and feeling like the real world is so scary that his old timey horror roles are pointless in comparison, only to run up against an example of (sadly still relevant) "modern horror" himself.
Almost three decades before Scream, horror got meta and self-aware with Targets.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I was completely blown away by it, I can’t remember the last time a movie left me speechless like that.
That first shooting spree on the oil towers is still deeply upsetting.
Great movie. Fantastic ending.
Roger was basically the guy who got your foot in the door and then let you go on to bigger things. He, for example, gave Ron Howard his first directing opportunity. Ron asked for final cut and Roger responded, "Ron, I'm not going to give you final cut. But look on the bright side. If you do a good job, you never have to work for me again."
Also vice versa by giving Boris Karloff some work and introducing him to other directors like Bogdanovich.
"Targets" is a masterpiece and it all happened because Karloff owed him a couple more days and he told Bogdanovich, "Use that to make a movie with him."
If anyone hasn't seen it, he was on a great episode of Dinner For Five with Bruce Campbell, Jon Favreau, Rob Zombie and Faizon Love. (Sorry, a Facebook video was all I could find.) He seemed like a cool guy to share a meal with, and he gets on a roll of just name-dropping all the people whose careers he helped start.
…and now I’m going to rewatch all four seasons of Dinner For Five.
Ha, this brings back memories. I was on set for that shoot. It was at French restaurant on Santa Monica Blvd. Rob Zombie signed a DVD for us.
Fun fact: Joe Dante was supposed to be there but had to drop out so Faizon Love filled in for him.
His bit about less gore is quite good.
damn I didn't know he was still alive. Sad to see THE icon of low budget movies pass. RIP
There's a great story about this in his book about filming "The Trip".
Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson both told him that they wouldn't do the movie unless Corman tried acid first so he drove out to Big Sur and took a hit. He's wandering around and nothing is happening so he figures he'll just go home. Right then (as it always does) is when the acid kicks in so he goes to sit under a tree to calm down. He spends seven hours lying face down in the dirt convinced that he's created an entire new art form.
He was making movies in his head and "projecting them" into the ground. He thought that anyone anywhere else in the world could also lie down in the dirt and receive his movies through their brainwaves.
And in the middle of this soul-awakening experience where he believed that all humans were tuned into the same global frequency so we could all experience each other's mind theater he has the following thought: "This is going to save me a fortune in printing and distribution costs!"
Pennypinching quirky moviemaker discovers psychic abilities and mentally projects movies to the public with no budget other than for psychedelics. Has this idea been a movie?
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing!
He just recently appeared as the special guest on a Joe Bob Brigg's special on Shudder.
I've never had Shudder (or even heard of it outside of that Slasher show) so that's probably why I didn't know about that
His legacy isn't exactly synonymous with "good production value," but he made some some really exquisite films during his Poe era.
Masque of Red Death is one of the most lush, handsome horror movies I've ever seen. House of Usher and Pit and the Pendulum look great too.
Was gonna say, his Masque of the Red Death is one of my horror favourites.
I watch it every Halloween. Sublime.
Jane Asher, who plays the Redheaded Francesca, was dating Paul McCartney when it was filming, and he visited the set! (This was when the Beatles were still just a rock band, just before exploding in into the USA)
I wouldn't call it low budget even it's what they were, they were effectively genre films with all the money on the screen optimizing bombs, bullets, and boobs for screen time.
It's Kirk Douglas all over again
This man literally changed the world of independent cinema. RIP Roger
Corman's Criterion Closet picks. One of his last interviews 6 months ago.
Still had his iconic pattern of speech haha
(Obviously, why would he have lost it)
Like he is loading while speaking
An incredible cinematic legacy. Literally hundreds of films produced, written and directed.
Hard to understate just how impactful his business model was. He proved that independently financed films had viability and provided a springboard to many actors and filmmakers who would eventually partake in the New American Cinema revolution.
His autobiography was titled "How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime." Which is apt as he was ALWAYS successful.
RIP to the man who brought us Death Race 2000, Targets, The Intruder, the Poe films, Battle Beyond the Stars, and the rest.
And Chopper Chicks in Zombietown.
RIP
Sorceress is one of my favorites. Cheesy as hell, and the idea that anyone is fooled into thinking the sisters are men is ridiculous, but it's so fucking funny.
The Intruder was filmed in my father’s hometown and was one of William Shatner’s earliest movies he had a lead in. Glad to hear it get some recognition.
Rest in peace brother.
Damn, this one hurts. I knew it was likely going to happen sooner rather than later, but he's an important one. One of the most important (and underrated) producers and directors in cinematic history. Without Corman, you likely don't get Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Scorsese, etc. Not to mention he either directed, produced, or distributed many of my favourite films (A Bucket of Blood, the Edgar Allen Poe series, Battle Beyond the Stars, the original - and best - Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000, The Intruder etc). RIP.
He was basically a one man film school for a generation of filmmakers. If you worked on his movies, you ended up doing like six different jobs. He’d give you $20,000, some leftover sets, stock footage, and hungry actors, and have you come back with a movie in 3 weeks. Even though 95% of his movies were schlock, there are some legitimate great films in his catalogue, and he probably knew more about the craft of making movies than anyone else in Hollywood.
I remember some people balking at his receiving an honorary Oscar years ago, which really pissed me off. His impact was enormous. RIP.
RIP king and legend
So many actors, actresses, and directors wouldn't be where they are at right now in their careers without Corman.
Corman set the gold standard of what a great producer should be:
No matter how silly, outrageous, or over the top a film was, he would step in and make them possible.
Also the king of budget crunching. To quote an MST3K riff.
"Sorry about the outfit, guys. Corman's poodle died and he doesn't like to waste anything."
My favorite story about him is how he had the cameraman film an ambulance that happened to be going by when they were filming because he figured he could use it for stock footage somewhere even if it wasn’t in the current movie.
Or this:
"There's an old tank in the field we just passed. Can we use it?"
We're doing location shooting in Italy, write me two road trip movies, one for the trip down, and one for the trip back.
“I’ll go this way, you go that way. If you see anything, film it; we’ll put it in.”