20 A-Grade Facts About B-Movie Legend Roger Corman

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20 A-Grade Facts About B-Movie Legend Roger Corman

Roger Corman is an absolute legend. He’s widely known as the king of B-movies, the Pope of Pop Cinema, yet his career and legacy deserve the sort of respect descriptions like that don’t really capture. He is also a highly creative experimental filmmaker, a legend of independent cinema, and a mentor to some of the best directors and actors of recent decades. As the late The Silence of the Lambs’ director Jonathan Demme put it, “Roger is arguably the greatest independent filmmaker the American film industry has ever seen and will probably ever see.” Not bad for the producer of Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda.

For us here at Cracked, Corman is one of the minds behind the best Fantastic Four movie out there. Not Fanfourstick, not even those other two, The Bland One and The Less Bland One. Indeed, we’ve discussed Corman before, since in 1994 he produced the unreleased Fantastic Four movie — which yes, you can watch right now. But Roger Corman’s career is much larger and more impressive than what Johnny Storm’s moans of pleasure would make you believe. The man was ahead of almost every trend in cinema: from horror comedies, women’s prison flicks, and trippy counterculture biker and psychedelic movies, to gritty gangster biopics, lavish Gothic horror, and artsy French cinéma — if it rocks, Corman directed it, envisioned it, or promoted it. Let us take a look, then, at 20 awesome Roger Corman facts.

An Impressive Resume

CRACKED.COM From the depths of the sea... A TIDAL WAVE OF TERROR! Roger Corman He's directed 56 movies and produced around 500. Quantity was certainly the name of the game in Corman's decades-spanning career. Не directed nine movies in 1957 alone, including one of his cult classics, Attack of the Crab Monsters. A ROGER CORMAN PRODUCTION Screenplay by CHARLES В. GRIEFITH

Source: IMDb

Beginnings

Roger Corman Не worked his way up the movie industry The man who discovered Coppola, Scorsese, and Cameron began in the mailroom of 20th Century Fox. Не then dabbled as a story reader, a TV stagehand, a messenger, an assistant, and a literary agent. By the early '50s, he'd write scripts in his free time. CRACKED.COM

Source: Wikipedia

First Movie

EDUCATION RICHARD CONTE Roger Corman Не sold his first script for $2,000. The script, titled House by the Sea, was renamed Highway Dragnet to cash in on the success of the Dragnet TV show. Corman served as an associate producer for no money, just for the experience. CRACKED.COM

Source: Wikipedia

Machine Gun Kelly

Roger Corman His first success was... Machine Gun Kelly? Did you know that before meaning try-hard, douchey mediocrity, Machine Gun Kelly was the name of an old-timey gangster? Corman directed a movie about him in 1958 - his first critically and commercially successful movie (especially in Europe). CRACKED.COM

Source: Wikipedia

An eye for casting

CRACKED.COM Roger Corman Many A-listers began their careers with him. Robert de Niro, Charles Bronson, Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock... many had their first acting gig with Corman. Jack Nicholson appeared in 1960's The Little Shop of Horrors and 1963's The Terror, and also wrote Corman's psychedelic 1967 movie The Trip.

Source: IGN

Literature

Roger Corman He's a bookworm. Corman briefly studied English literature at Oxford-and it shows. His entire filmography is sprinkled with movies or movie projects involving authors like Lovecraft, Joyce, Gibran, and Updike. Of course, Corman's most famous literary interest was in horror icon Edgar Allan Poe. CRACKED.COM

Source: Wikipedia

Sci-Fi with Coppola

out III space beyond nED the sizzling sun... in TERRIFYING in color!! UNKNOWN worlds! Roger Corman Не made a sci-fi movie with Francis Ford Coppola (sort of). In 1962, Corman hired Coppola to Americanize the Soviet film Nebo Zovyot. Coppola was charged with redubbing the movie, erasing any anti-American propaganda, and even adding a monster fight scene. The result was called Battle Beyond the Sun. CRACKED.COM

Source: Wikipedia

The Fast and The Furious

CRACKED.COM Roger Corman Не wrote the original The Fast and The Furious. It's a 1954 race car crime drama, unrelated to the present-day franchise. Universal Pictures licensed the title decades later, and part of the deal involved giving Corman a bunch of stock footage. You know, to make more Roger Corman movies.

Source: Wikipedia

Targets

CRACKED.COM Roger Corman Не is politically involved. Corman directed William Shatner in 1962's anti- racist movie The Intruder, and in 1968 produced Peter Bogdanovich's Targets. Quentin Tarantino described Targets as, one of the strongest cries for gun control in American cinema, and also, the best film ever produced by Roger Corman.

Source: Wikipedia

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