Jim Jerome

Roger Corman is the king of the low budget movies, starting in the early 50s with a budget that would embarrass any other moviemaker. He plowed in the profits to make more. The 1950s and 1960s was his most productive period as he first directed, then switched to directing. I love the anecdote Jack Nicholson provides about filming The Raven with Karloff, Price, and Lorre. ("I loved those guys.) Lorre, as he apparently often did, adlibbed bits of business with Nicholson, who played his son, a practice that made Price uncomfortable although he adjusted (one time, Price is said to have interrupted a scene to say "Just say the lines, Peter" "Don't you like it?" Lorre asked?) and made classically trained Karloff livid. Price, of course, went on to make the Edgar Alan Poe movies, a peak period for both Price and Corman. Corman recalls the opportunity to burn down a barn with all kinds of great flames and fire patterns which he liberally used in his Poe movies. Little did he realize at the time that not only would people want to see these again, but would be able to do so with VCRs and DVD players, thus getting the opportunity to spot the similarity of the fire footage used in so many of those movies. As I recall, when this book came out Corman was shooting a series of horror movies for Showtime, many original, a few of them remakes using often only the title, a number of them quite watchable. He was engaging in what was a Corman specialty: creative financing. In this case he used almost the entire Showtime budget to film the movies, but retained European theatrical rights which produced his profit. Corman reveals he did work for a big studio for awhile, but was happy to leave when he found everybody took lunches to talk about making movies without actually making movies. (They thought he was trapped in B-movie land.) Great insights into a maverick's career. Excellent stuff.… (meer)

Roger Corman has long been famous for his exploitation movies, starting in the 1950s and continuing on until the current day. "How I made a hundred movies in Hollywood and never lost a dime" is a good read; Corman is a natural storyteller and he has plenty of anecdotes to share about the films he made and the actors who featured in them.

Also featured are vignettes by people who have worked with Corman over the years - from the legendary Dick Miller to director Jonathon Demme and producer Gale Ann Hurd. As you read them you realise just how important Corman has been to developing the talent that runs Hollywood today.… (meer)