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Attack of the Killer Bs!
Keeping one step ahead of the sheriff with Roger Corman
by Susan DeMarco
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 One measure of any producer/director is his ability to quickly overcome obstacles – and that’s where Roger Corman excels. Recently, while approaching the stage at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to introduce his 1960s biker film, The Wild Angels, he saw that there were no stairs. So he simply placed his hands on the boards and in one swift, cat-like motion, vaulted himself onto the stage. Never mind that he had just turned 73. Roger Corman simply cannot be stopped.
Corman is known as “The King of the B Movies” – or, more correctly, “exploitation films.” Gleaning story ideas from the headlines, or just exploiting the popular dreams and fears of the day, Corman probes our psyche, tickles our funnybone, plays on our fears, and leaves us screaming for more. His 1959 film Little Shop of Horrors, about a florist shop clerk and a man-eating plant, is perhaps his most well-known film, partly because it stars a starving young writer/actor named Jack Nicholson who had to talk Corman into letting him be in the film.
Corman had a burning desire to make his own films, and he couldn’t have picked a better time to break into the business. The early '50s were ushering in a more independent-friendly era in Hollywood, clearing the way for a new breed of independent – the “outlaw” filmmaker – to work outside the system. And Roger Corman was ready.
Frugal, focused, and smart, he parlayed the success of each preceding film into the next one, eventually producing over 550 movies and directing fifty others. He found that he had a flair for making deals and thinking on his feet, and established a reputation for churning out a large number of quality films in a minimum amount of time for very little money, all while making a tidy profit – a feat unheard of in Hollywood. But more importantly, Corman had an uncanny knack for spotting talent, fostering the careers of a veritable Who’s Who of Hollywood, including Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese, Peter Fonda, Jonathan Demme, and James Cameron.
Although Corman’s films have received accolades in Europe, and although his companies have pioneered the presentation of high-quality foreign art films to the American public, success in the usual Hollywood sense has eluded him. However, that has largely been by his own choice. When his films began to attract the attention of the big studios, he made a conscious decision to remain outside the established Hollywood system in order to continue making his own films in his own way. If he has any regrets about that decision, he has made his peace with them.
Back at the Brattle Theater, The Wild Angels had ended and the floor was opened to questions. A grey-bearded, heavily tatooed man called out: “Mr. Corman – I was one of the Hell’s Angels in this movie! I just want you to know that the citizens of Idlewyld, California loved you. Every day after lunch at the local dinette, they’d storm the place and scoop up any souvenir in sight. My brother has a coffee cup with Nancy Sinatra’s lipstick on it that he still hasn’t washed in over thirty years!” Corman beamed. Mutual respect, outlaw to outlaw. Forget Oscar. It doesn’t come any sweeter than this!
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On video: Meet King of the B Movies, Roger Corman.
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Roger Corman
;)
