BEFORE: I've been contacted once again to write about my previous life, and once again, it's in conjunction with the release (next year) of an animated feature that I worked on, and once again, it's an essay that will appear in the "special features" booklet of added material for those who purchase the Deluxe Limited Edition. That's right, people will need to pay extra to hear what I remember about the making of that film. Right now I'm waiting to hear if what I submitted is any good, like my wife liked it and my producer friend liked it, but I'm not sure yet if it's exactly what the Blu-Ray releasing company wants. Maybe I'll hear, "Cool stories, bro, but we were hoping to hear more about the change in production processes that took place during the switchover to digital filmmaking, could you maybe write some more about THAT?" We'll see.
But I'm reminded of it today because most of the films I worked on never got major distribution, it's not that they were "B" pictures but it was more due to the fact that there's not much of a market in the U.S. for animated movies aimed at adults, it's largely thought of as a way to make movies for kids, but it doesn't HAVE to be that way, it's not like that in Europe or Japan. Most attempts to make cartoons in the U.S. with adult themes never even get off the ground, because of the unwarranted fear that children will somehow be drawn to a cartoon and actually see an animated character drinking alcohol or smoking a cigarette or having sex, and that will be the moment that the world ends. But come on parent, your kids have to grow up and learn about the world at some point, wouldn't you rather they learn about sex via a cartoon porno, rather than a live-action porno? I'm kidding, because we have a thing in America called a ratings system, kids are not going to get into an "R"-rated movie, even a cartoon one. (Our work-around for this was to not have films reviewed by the ratings board at all, it turns out that entire process is voluntary.)
Anyway, my time spent working for the "Roger Corman" of animation will be well-documented one day, I just don't have the nerve to make that doc myself, but I have a feeling that the phone will ring one day, and it will be some enterprising filmmaker who wants the straight dope. I've got another film today that is NOT easily linking up with any particular U.S. state for my "Get to Know a State" feature, Corman was born near Detroit, but I've already profiled Michigan. And he made some films based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe, who was from Maryland, but I did that state, too.
But now I know what to do, just Google "Roger Corman" along with each of the five as-yet unassigned states, and take the best result. That leads me today to the filming location of TWO Roger Corman films that were shot back-to-back in 1960, "Ski Troop Attack" and "Beast from Haunted Cave", which were filmed in the Black Hills of...SOUTH DAKOTA! So there you go, not a bad connection.
Date admitted to the U.S.: November 2, 1889 (either the 39th or 40th state, the Dakotas were a package deal and twinsies)
Claim to fame: Well, sure, Mount Rushmore. It's not like anyone's flocking to South Dakota to see the shooting location of "Beast from Haunted Cave".
Nickname: The Mount Rushmore State. See? I told you.
State Motto: Under God, the People Rule.
State Flower: American pasque flower
State Bird: Ring-necked pheasant
State Fish: Walleye
State Animal: Coyote
State Insect: Western honey bee. Come on, isn't it always?
State Grass: Western wheat grass
State Fossil: Triceratops
State Mineral: Rose quartz
State Tree: Black hills spruce
Notable Sports Teams: The state sport is Rodeo, so unless there's a rodeo team, no dice.
Fun Facts: Let's see, the Missouri River divides the state into two parts - nah, that's no fun. Dust Bowl, Great Depression, no, no. Custer found gold in the Black Hills, nah, who cares? Really, the most fun thing about the state is that Grover Cleveland shuffled up the statehood papers so nobody could ever tell which state was the 39th and which was the 40th. Hah hah, what a card, that Grover Cleveland, most people just go alphabetically and list North before South though. South Dakota clearly has "lesser Dakota syndrome", which explains why somebody was asked to carve President faces into a mountain, right? OK, so it's been 100 years, isn't anyone ever going to finish that damn sculpture? Every attempt to add more faces has never gained enough support, not for Kennedy or Reagan and (let's hope) Trump too.
Ron Howard carries over from "John Candy: I Like Me" and I'm going to send out a rare DocBlock Birthday SHOUT-out to his "Happy Days" cast-mate, Don Most, born August 8, 1953. Jeez, it's been a while since I landed a birthday...
THE PLOT: The exploitation career of maverick producer Roger Corman, covering his heyday as a director, touching upon subjects that major studios wouldn't allow that appealed mainly to youth audiences at their local drive-ins.
AFTER: Roger Corman made a lot of films, sure, as a producer he's got 490 credits on IMDB and 56 as a director, but were any of them, you know, GOOD? As I mentioned, as a kid I got into his Poe-based movies like "The Raven", "House of Usher", "The Black Cat" and "The Pit and the Pendulum". Oh, yeah, and "The Masque of the Red Death", I was probably reading collections of Edgar Allan at the same time, junior high school let's say, and the local Boston TV UHF station had Saturday programming called "Creature Feature", it was a big hit bit of programming in town, often with very crappy movies. "B" pictures, but also probably "C" and "D"-level.
After that, Roger Corman and I kind of parted ways, and though I probably saw other films he produced, he didn't direct too many films after that. He was, however, very influential on the next wave of directors younger than him, giving jobs, assistance and advice to Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Peter Bogdanovich, among others. Joe Dante and Ron Howard also were "students" of his school of filmmaking, which I take to mean a very loose set of rules, not an actual classroom where they could go and study the craft of filmmaking. Ron Howard needed to learn from someone that time is money, and daylight only lasts so long, so right after one shot on a movie set is completed, you've got to go RIGHT into the next shot, call it out so the team of people can get working on whatever that requires. You don't stand around congratulating yourself until the entire film is in the can, so to speak.
Roger Corman seemed to have more luck with people who wanted to remake his films, at least he made a lot of money from selling the remake rights to "Death Race 2000" (funny, I just watched the remake with Jason Statham earlier this movie year) and also "The Fast and the Furious", though I suspect that Corman's version doesn't look a thing like the films in the more recent franchise with that name. Funny, I heard that you can't copyright a title, like if I wanted to make a movie about tornado chasers and call it "Gone with the Wind", I could do that, but maybe the filmmakers just wanted to go above and beyond, and not risk getting sued by Roger Corman.
I never saw "The Wild Angels", but since it's a biker movie with Peter Fonda, I get the feeling somebody just ripped Corman off and made "Easy Rider" and that was a much, much more successful motorcycle film, at least it meant something to the hippie generation, Corman just made a film about a biker gang, however, and I guess forgot that it should tap into the zeitgeist of the culture, too? And Corman made the original "Little Shop of Horrors" film, which was a minor cult classic, but then after being a Broadway musical it was then a MUCH bigger hit when that musical was re-made as a film. And I guess that's why we got a new "Matilda" movie and also a new "Mean Girls" remake, they were both Broadway musicals in-between. I guess that was the secret sauce, Corman should have had "Sharktopus" turned into a stage musical, then somebody would have likely turned it into a better, more successful movie.
Corman, of course, founded New World Pictures, and over the years many directors were in and out of working for that studio, and a lot of films got made, probably a lot of BAD films got made, but there became a market for all of them once people were standing in Blockbuster Video stores, desperate for entertainment when all of the copies of "My Cousin Vinny" were rented out. Ok, ok, we'll watch "Big Bad Mama II" instead, it's fine. But see if you can get "Sorority House Massacre" too, because the weekend's coming up.
Yes, at some point New World made the switch-over from quality productions to quantity ones, films that were made on the cheap JUST to have something showing at the drive-ins next summer. As Ron Howard said here, sometimes the movies at the drive-ins were more interesting than the company, and other times you just wanted an excuse to fool around with your lover in the car (like, with everybody watching?) and that was way more exciting than the movie. But hey, if the drive-in's playing "The Young Nurses" that could help your boyfriend get in the mood, just saying.
I'm still glad somebody made this documentary before Roger Corman passed away in 2024, it's important to hear him talk about his filmmaking process, by way of explaining also WHY those films got made the way they did, if we didn't hear him talk about it future generations would be scratching their heads wondering what a "B-picture" was, whether there really was a man who had X-ray eyes, or a planet of prehistoric women. Corman talks here about doing his own research for a film called "The Trip" about using LSD, however using acid only made him very happy, and the film needed to have some conflict in it, so they had to invent some kind of down side to using drugs, otherwise the film would never pass the censors or the court of public opinion.
It's not mentioned here in this documentary (which ran on Turner Classic Movies), but Corman's distribution company brought many foreign films to screen in American theaters, like the works of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut and Kurosawa, among others. That's nothing to sneeze at, film fans can't become fans of films that they can't see, and for him to deliver those amazing films to American audiences, that's a mitzvah for sure. This film was only 52 minutes long, so you can't tell me there couldn't have been a mention of this, even if it made the film three minutes longer, who cares?
The most expensive film Corman ever made was the "Star Wars" rip-off film, "Battle Beyond the Stars". It seems only fair for him to rip off George Lucas, when so many other filmmakers, Lucas's contemporaries, were ripping off Corman. Then it seems Corman sold New World Pictures to a group of lawyers in 1983 (that's not mentioned in this film either) and kind of cashed out, but stayed on as a consultant to the company (another cash grab, probably). But the whole affair ended up in a bunch of lawsuits, with each side claiming the other wasn't holding up their end of the deal, and as a result Corman didn't direct another film for a very long time, like seven years. Let's also remember that Corman was the first person to direct a film version of "The Fantastic Four" in 1994, and sure, it was terrible, from what I hear. It was made cheaply only to be able to retain the rights to the characters, and then it was so bad that Marvel paid him even more to never release it. Another case of somebody making a BETTER version of a Roger Corman film, years later, with him out of the picture. What the heck does THAT tell you?
Directed by Bertrand Tessier
Also starring Roger Corman (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Paul W.S. Anderson, Allan Arkush (last seen in "Rock 'n' Roll High School"), Peter Bogdanovich (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Gene Corman, Julie Corman, Joe Dante (last seen in "Eating Raoul")
with archive footage of Paul Bartel (also last seen in "Eating Raoul"), David Carradine (last seen in "Crank: High Voltage"), Francis Ford Coppola (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Boris Karloff (ditto), Bruce Dern (last seen in "Old Dads"), Angie Dickinson (last seen in "Valerie"), Peter Fonda (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Jonathan Haze (last seen in "East of Eden"), Dennis Hopper (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Jackie Joseph (last seen in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"), Don Most (last seen in "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind"), Anson Williams (ditto), Jack Nicholson (also carrying over from "John Candy: I Like Me"), Tim O'Kelly, Gregory Peck (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Vincent Price (last seen in "Wolfgang"), Shane Schoeppner, Martin Scorsese (last seen in "Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America"), William Shatner (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Nancy Sinatra (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Sylvester Stallone (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Jason Statham (last seen in "Death Race"), Mamie van Doren, Mary Woronov (last seen in "The Velvet Underground")
RATING: 5 out of 10 "Corman's Cult Classics" released on DVD in 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment