The man was a national treasure. Great guy, did a lot for low-budget movie making.
Damn. One of the greats for sure. He had his niche of Hollywood and dominated it for a long, long time.
Sad to see this. I won’t say most of his movies are great, but many of them interested, amused, or intrigued despite their limitations.
A Bucket Of Blood is one of my favourite films. I had no idea he was almost 100.
Deathstalker 2 is a real gem. The first Deathstalker was unpleasant, but the second one was quite fun.
Big shout-out to him for the Carnosaur series, where Part 1 was basically “Alien, but with Dinosaurs!”, Part 2 was “Aliens, but with Dinosaurs!”, Part 3 was “Aliens Again, but with Dinosaurs!” And Part 4 was “Let’s try to make a movie using entirely previously shot footage from the first three films and make a game of how badly we match it all frame to frame!”
Loved “Not of This Earth”. (Both versions).
I read an old interview with Roger Corman in which he said that he would often arrange his shooting schedule in such a way that he could shoot one scene, and then simply turn the camera and lights around 180 degrees to shoot the next, saving time and money on set-ups.
There was a time I was involved in the production of commercials for a local TV station. My producer and I, both Corman fans, used this technique whenever possible. It could cut half the time off a commercial shoot.
RIP Mr. Corman. You were an inspiration to us all.
Produced Rock ‘n’ Roll High School and Death Race 2000, two of my favorites.
I read Corman’s book that came out in the 90’s. He was a trained engineer. He took that knowledge and found ways as a director to plan and shoot his movies very efficiently. It saved a lot of money.
Corman said that’s what set him apart from other B movie studios. Corman could shoot a movie in the 1960’s for $175k that looked like a $300k movie. His main customers were the Drive-ins and they were thrilled with how good his movies looked on their large screens.
Then he shifted to producing movies for his studio. Brian de Palma and Ron Howard got their early opportunities to direct by Corman.
Corman pioneered the Direct to Video productions in the 80’s. Skipping a theatre release and saving money.
I hope his studio can continue making movies.
RIP
James Cameron got his start in movies in Corman’s studio too.
I’d forgotten about James Cameron.
There’s a interesting story about Francis Ford Coppola. He was gearing up for Apocalypse Now. Corman had filmed a couple films in the Philippines. He warned Coppola not to go during the rainy season. He went anyway and Hearts of Darkness documents how tough it was.
Coppola, Scorsese, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles and Peter Bogdanovitch are also directors who got their start working for Corman. He helped launch a lot of actors careers as well - Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd and Wlliam Shatner to name a few.
Most people don’t know that he handled distribution of a lot of foreign films by directors such as Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman and Akria Kurasawa.
Corman had a much larger impact on the world of film than most people realize.
R.I.P.
I think Corman was one of the first Independent outfits that reused major Hollywood sets?
Little Shop of Horrors was an example. He reused the Hollywood set and the preset lighting. Corman claimed that movie was made for $30k.
Corman cut corners but he did use Union labor. That sets him apart from Troma.
Here is Jack Nicholson talking about him a few years ago. Brought to tears.
In Regina in the early '70s, back in the 2 channel era, The weekend late movies were all Roger Corman all the time. Specifically the '60s, Edgar Allan Poe ones with Vincent Price.
Not great art. Way more fun than great art.
Those were a lot of fun indeed. I feel like House of Usher (1960) was actually a really good film that hid the low budget. That is what I recall from decades ago.
Tales of Terror (1962) was crazy fun with Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone.
The Raven did one better with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson.
Given all the people he elevated in the business who went on to much greater success, Mr. Corman was a giant of the industry. His own films as director were generally a bit better than similar low-budget efforts by others and a few stand-out as “good” films in my mind, e.g., The Haunted Palace and Masque of the Red Death (with cinematography by Nicholas Roeg) made back-to-back in ‘63/’64. IMDB gives him 491 credits as “Producer” (including distribution), most of which are not terribly distinguished, though several are more entertaining than they should have been.
While working briefly for New World back in the mid-‘80s, I once nearly impaled him on the end of a tripod. Ah, the memories….
Corman received an honorary Academy Award some years back. Ron Howard presented it to him; I remember Howard reminiscing in his speech about making Grand Theft Auto for Corman. He mentioned that Corman said to him at the outset of shooting “Now Ron, just remember this: if you do a good job directing this movie, you’ll never have to direct a movie for me again.”
Corman also appeared playing a Senator during the Congressional hearings in The Godfather Part II.
He’s in Silence of the Lambs as well.