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When you've got 79 years and 400 movies in your rearview mirror, you're bound to have one or two stories worth telling. If you're responsible for discovering names like Jack Nicholson, Charles Bronson, Martin Scorsese and dozens of other huge talents
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all the way up to Tobey Maguire, then your stories are worth listening to. So gather 'round, everyone, and lean in close, because Roger Corman has something to say.
"I think the worst thing you can do is say, 'I wanna start out and make a campy film,' " the articulate, razor-sharp producer advised to those who would follow in his footsteps. Admittedly, much of Corman's lingering appeal is a result of a mountain of biker flicks, girl-in-prison adventures and low-budget science fiction — but never, the so-called "King of the B's" insisted, did he set out to fill his movies with cheese. "Campy is something that occurs at a later date. It's when, 10 or 20 years later, you look back at a film that is representative of its era, and you smile at the film and the era as such. But to set out to make such a film, I think, is a mistake. I don't think you could."
If you've ever seen a movie, you've likely felt the influence of Corman. From an indie aesthetic that can be traced right up to "Saw," to the shameless special-effects embraces that would eventually yield something like "The Matrix," to foreign-film support that brought names like Bergman, Fellini and Kurosawa to the masses, Corman's fingerprints are everywhere. And, thanks to a new partnership, movie buffs will soon be able to put their own prints all over truckloads of long-buried classics.
"It was in our mind, at the beginning, that this was the least likely company for us to be with," Corman conceded of a deal with Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment that has put titles like "The Navy vs. the Night Monsters" and "The Crazysitter" into the hands of Mickey Mouse. The partnership kicks off with this month's release of his latest production, the sci-fi thriller "DinoCroc," as well as souped-up DVDs of three of his classics.
"The idea of a cross-country road race where you are scored on how fast you can drive, and how many pedestrians you can kill, is at least an original idea," Corman chuckled lovingly, recalling 1975's "Death Race 2000" and its young star, Sylvester Stallone. "I remember saying to my wife, who is also a producer: 'Sly is very good. He can make a great heavy.' My wife said, 'He can make a great leading man,' and I said, 'No, I don't think he is going to be a leading man. I think he is just going to make a great heavy,' and of course, he became a great leading man."
Looking back at 1979's "Rock 'n' Roll High School," Corman said the Ramones were great to work with, but "not the finest actors in the world. ... They didn't have attitude at all. They wanted to do it well, and they recognized that this was something that they were not experienced in. ... It came off as guys with quirky personalities."
Five years earlier, the producer oversaw a movie whose tagline was "Hot Lead, Hot Legs — Hot Damn!" But Corman cautions that those who pick up the new DVD may want to look a bit deeper. " 'Big Bad Mama' is actually, subtextually, a rather strong populist, liberal theme about poor people in the Depression," he insisted. In his eighth decade of life, however, the larger-than-life Corman is fully aware that aiming for the brain isn't the proper way to pitch. "It's a fast-moving rural gangster picture with car chases and crashes and shootouts and humor and some nudity from Angie [Dickinson]."
The man still has clout, luring names like Ron Howard, Dickinson and William Shatner back for commentary tracks on some of the upcoming DVD releases, and he remains active in Hollywood, currently working on getting a "Death Race" remake made.
"It's still on track; however, they've taken longer," he said. "[I'm working with] Tom Cruise's company, and ... it's been taken off the fast track, but if they don't go forward in about a year or so, I get the rights reverted to me, and I just may remake it myself."
Such a situation would reverse the notorious "Fantastic Four" process, which saw Corman attempting to make a big-screen adaptation in the early '90s for a sum too small for even him. "It was truly the strangest deal I was ever in," he marveled. "A German producer who is a friend of mine came to me in October ... and said he had the rights to 'The Fantastic Four' ... but he hadn't raised the money, and if he didn't start shooting by December 31st he would lose the option. Could I make the film for around a million dollars?
"I thought we made a good little picture," Corman remembered of the long-buried results, which showcased unrecognizable actors and laughably cheap special effects. "He offered me an unbelievably large amount of money to buy me out. I said, 'Fine!' And he had about 90 days ... after 80 days or so he made a deal with Fox. I said, 'Congratulations,' I was disappointed that we didn't get a chance to release it, but I was also happy to make a whole lot of money off it."
The producer continues to sink his money, whether it comes from Disney or Fox or any other studio, right back into his own productions (he sold "The Fast and the Furious" title to Universal in exchange for stock footage). He admits that the movie business has changed over the years, but insists that the thrill is still there every time he picks out a leading man — or makes up a name.
"If you've got Paul Newman, then you can call the movie 'Hud' and have a big success," he laughed. "But if you don't have a big star, and you call your movie 'Hud,' you're in a lot of trouble."
With that credo, Corman's productions have jumped off movie posters for decades with titles like "Eat My Dust!," "Gas-s-s-s" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches." "The wildest one of all was a picture I did for $60,000 in 10 days about Viking women," he said, smiling. "I said ... 'Let's make the longest, most elaborate title we could think of.' "
The result: 1957's "The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent."
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— Larry Carroll
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