What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, James Cameron, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Peter Fonda, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, Robert DeNiro, David Carradine, Sandra Bullock and plenty of more A list names? An array of amazing movies right? So now how many of you thought of the Corman Film School? Well the man behind this “institution” single-handedly jump started all of their careers. So here’s our birthday Ode to our Fright Master!:
Roger Corman April 5th, 1926
So this man has produced an outstanding 411 flicks, has directed 56, and has written 9. Maybe I shouldn’t have ended with that last one. Anyways, this man’s sole mission in life is trying to combine words from the dictionary and make it into a movie as the proof suggests: The Oklahoma Woman, The Beast with a Million Eyes, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Naked P
aradise, Machine Gun Kelly, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Atlas, The Terror, The Raven, X: The Man with the X-Ray eyes, Operacija Ticijan, Targets…the list literally goes on.
What makes him a very unique producer is his way of shooting films. He manages to produce movies fast and on a constraint budget, he improvises any problems thrown at him, and he has a knack for casting nobodies who eventually become Oscar winners. Little Shop Of Horrors was filmed in two days and there are a few rumors as to how this was done.
Roger Corman had a bet with someone that he would be able to shoot a film in the two days allowed and succeeded in doing so but this rumor was later denied by Mel Wells, an actor Corman was going to use in a private detective movie. The other rumor relays that Corman had been given access to the set from a previous movie two days before it was demolished. Gathering up a crew he already had from a flick he had just shot, he directed LSOH in the two days. The most realistic rumor was perhaps that he raced against time in finishing this film in order to not adhere to the industry rules that were changing, where in a producer would have to pay residuals to the actors for release of any of their future works.
No matter what you believe or what is the truth, filming a movie in 2 days is a mighty feat. Even the bad ones take weeks.
               
               
These three films were shot within 5 weeks time in Puerto Rico and featured a lot of the same cast. Future Oscar winning screenwriter of Chinatown, Robert Towne,  wrote The Last Woman on Earth on the fly and even acted in it under a pseudonym. Creature from the Haunted Sea was the last of the three films to be shot and it was a last effort to draw out one more picture from his crew before they headed back home.
It would seem as if this was his MO in starting up productions as fast as they wrapped. 
 
After finishing work on The Raven, Corman realized he still had some shooting days left before the sets were torn down. So gathering the cast and crew of the same movie, he quickly began work on The Terror. Boris Karloff’s scenes were shot in three days by Corman himself while he sent out an unknown Francis Ford Coppolla to Big Sur for additional pick up shots. Jack Nicholson even directed some scenes himself.
In 1967, Corman directed a movie entitled The Trip. The movie chronicles a television commercial director who is in the middle of a personality crisis. He is getting divorced and seeks out help from his friend to go on a “trip” via acid. What follows are visions of sex, death, dancing girls, witches, hooded riders, and a dwarf.
This movie was also written by Jack Nicholson and starred Bruce Dern, Peter Fonda, and Dennis Hopper.
So where is Roger Corman now? Retired perhaps? Living alone maybe? Not at all. Remember when I said he has produced over 411 flicks? Well, he’s still at it. You can go back year by year and almost pinpoint the last time this man had a vacation. He only produced 2 movies in 1984 so I must assume this is when he took his vacation. Year after year this man has produced more movies than anyone I can think of. He is a steady producer with no looks of slowing down. Â So we salute you, Mr. Corman.
Happy Belated birthday to you, sir!
