Roger Corman was born on 5 April 1926. He lived to be 98 — dying on 9 May 2024.
I have mixed feelings about Corman. On the one hand, as I’ve written before, “Regardless of the film, he tended to do a better job than other low-budget directors.” On the other hand, he was a low-budget producer and thus almost guaranteed to be a dick.
Let me tell you one story. When they were looking for funding for their Corman/Poe homage, Elvira’s Haunted Hills, Mark Pierson and Cassandra Peterson met with Corman. He really liked the project and offered himself a 30 percent stake in the film.
That’s right: if they paid him 30 percent of the profits, they could put his name on it. Otherwise, nothing. This goes along with all the “Roger Corman” releases that have little if anything to do with him.
Don’t get me wrong: I understand that we live under capitalism and this is the way things are. And if he hadn’t been this way, he wouldn’t have been successful. Just the same, I prefer how Russ Meyer was a money-grubbing bastard only about his own films.
But Corman is impressive. Regardless of how ridiculous his films sound, he always made them work. And his best work is great. Like most people, I love his Poe cycle.
Corman hasn’t directed that many films, though. It was his association with American International Pictures that allowed him to stretch his wings in this regard. He would always be a producer at heart. And during the last half of his life, it was all about providing money (or not) and getting his name on pictures.
But from his earliest films, like The Fast and the Furious, he helped create a lot of quality material for the low-budget market. And generally, he made the industry better.
I think Corman’s best film is The Masque of the Red Death. So let’s watch it on this day he would have turned 100!
Other Anniversaries
Films released on April 5th: One Million BC (1940), The Degenerates (1967), Theatre of Blood (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), There’s Nothing Out There (1991), Fargo (1996), Dead Air (1999), Scream Queen (2003), The Reaping (2007), The Despair (2009), Ancient Evil 2: Guardian of the Underworld (2005), Blood Rites (2012)
Actors born on this day: Walter Huston (1883-1950), Spencer Tracy (1900-1967), Melvyn Douglas (1901-1981), Bette Davis (1908-1989), Gregory Peck (1916-2003), Michael V Gazzo (1923-1995), Nigel Hawthorne (1929-2001), and Frank Gorshin (1933-2005). Michael Moriarty is 85, Max Gail is 83, and Jane Asher is 80.
Producer Albert R Broccoli (1909-1996) and director Kurt Neumann (1908-1958) were born on this day. Director Peter Greenaway is 84.
Image cropped from Roger Corman by OIFF. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.