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The paradoxes of movie producer Roger Corman, '47,
hit you as soon as you enter his Los Angeles office. In typical
Hollywood fashion, the foyer is decorated with the posters of films he
has produced. But only at Corman's company will you find the garish
poster for the straight-to- video Stepmonster ("She's Mean, She's
Green, She's Your New Mom") facing a poster for the austere Cries and
Whispers (the Ingmar Bergman classic that was distributed by Corman in
the United States).
Or consider this: Corman, who is in the midst of selling his company, Concorde-New Horizons, for $100 million, is widely considered to be one of the most gentlemanly and honest executives in Hollywood. Yet he churns out an astonishing amount of forgettable low-budget movies that sell (and sell . . . and sell) on their reliable delivery of violence, female nudity, and the frequent interaction of the two.
Or this: In a town that tends to publicly turn a cold shoulder to schlockmeisters, reserving its awards for "quality" middlebrow fare such as The English Patient, Corman is not only genuinely respected, but genuinely loved. As a producer and director of nearly 300 films, from The Little Shop of Horrors to Stripped to Kill 2, he has not only managed to continue making films over a period of 40 years, but he has also nurtured many of Hollywood's best talents--and secured himself a place in the heart of this fickle town.
Tall, trim and fit at 71, Corman's gracious and refined manner seems a little out of place in his own office, which shows evidence of his fabled skinflint ways--carpeting so black with dirt that it should have been replaced years ago, sofa cushions pockmarked with the aftereffects of bubblegum and who knows what else. It's an apt metaphor for the tight budgets that have made Corman's name legendary in the world of independent movie production.
"He's the most" says writer and director Quentin Tarantino, whose edgy, blood-soaked crime films Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are eminent examples of the Corman aesthetic: adrenaline-rush violence spiced with black comedy, aggressive camera style, impatience with inner emotions and a solidly "male" world-view--all done up with postmodern arty irony and cutting edge craftsmanship. "That's all there is to say. I've been a fan of his films since I was a kid," Tarantino adds.
However film historians finally judge Corman's work, he has secured for himself an unshakable position as one of cinema's best talent scouts. Among the scores whose careers he helped launch are directors Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Ron Howard and James Cameron; actors Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Peter Fonda and William Shatner; and screenwriter Robert Towne. Countless top Hollywood executives got their start with Corman, too.
At a recent tribute to Corman sponsored by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Carl Franklin, who made two Corman films before directing One False Move and Devil in a Blue Dress, explained another side of Corman: "It's one thing for someone to say, 'I like your short film, I'll recommend you to someone.' It's quite another for someone to actually pull the trigger and put up the couple of hundred grand to make the movie. He's the best friend that a new filmmaker in this town has."
Perhaps the greatest honor Hollywood has unwittingly bestowed on Corman is the phrase "Corman film." It's something that is heard constantly in the low-budget circles of Los Angeles, where the febrile desire to direct a film, any film, hangs in the air as palpably as the burnt sienna smog of August. So what is a Corman film? A cheap, fast, exploitation movie that will be hell to make and sure doesn't pay anything, but could well be a ticket out of desperation. As Corman said to fledgling director Ron Howard, then trying to shed his Opie and Happy Days television image and move behind the camera: "If you do a good job for me on this picture, you will never work for me again."
Moreover, what makes Corman special, even to those independent filmmakers who have no interest in making the type of films Corman produces, is that he has survived in a terribly brutal, hugely risky business. And he shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. While other early independents have fallen by the wayside, overwhelmed by the vastly more powerful production and marketing behemoths of Hollywood, Corman has proved that by nimbly exploiting the niches left available by the lumbering major studios, one can work outside the studio system and still prosper.
Of course, independent filmmakers have struggled to establish themselves since the beginning of Hollywood. In 1919, Charlie Chaplin banded together with D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to form United Artists. Other greats such as Preston Sturges and Orson Welles worked extensively outside the Hollywood studio system. But those examples are instructive-- comedy great Sturges's attempts to make movies with backing from Howard Hughes flopped, and Orson Welles wound up as a Gallo wine pitchman.
Corman has prospered by always keeping up with the latest trends--or staying just ahead of them. In the late '50s and early '60s, his staple was super-cheap science fiction and horror pictures such as The Little Shop of Horrors, shot in two-and-a-half days for $35,000. In the '60s, he turned to a string of motorcycle movies such as Peter Fonda's The Wild Angels, which, as the trailer luridly promised, depicted bikers "Getting Their Kicks From Violence And Torture . . . Their Every Enjoyment A Parody Of Pleasure." And, showing his versatility, in the '70s Corman made a name for himself distributing foreign art films from heralded directors such as Bergman, Fran