Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel | Review

With over 400 films to his credit (as producer and director) there’s not a film buff in existence who should claim they haven’t been exposed to a Roger Corman film, a filmmaker often dismissed as the producer of B, C, and D grade cinema, bearing the unjust moniker of schlockmeister. With her feature debut, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, director Alex Stapleton brings us a fascinating and superbly endearing portrait of an overlooked artist and a man whose significance to modern day Hollywood is unmistakable. An influence and mentor to a whole generation of today’s elite auteurs and master actors, Roger Corman, who recently received an honorary Academy Award in 2009, gets something even better here—a loving and charismatic documentary that honors his work and shows us a portrait of a filmmaker that consistently worked against and outside of the system to tell stories that weren’t being told anywhere else in American cinema.

Having such a massive catalogue of films, Stapleton wisely showcases only a select few titles and instead focuses on periods of Corman’s filmography. Beginning, of course, with his 1950’s B grade sci-fi flicks, Corman’s World examines how his first few pictures were really just Corman learning how to make movies since he had never been to film school. They also show how Corman had a real knack for learning how to effectively use money to make a movie on a nonexistent budget. His credo was that you couldn’t start making another picture until you’d made your money back from the previous. After writing the original The Fast and the Furious (1955), Corman landed a three picture deal that enabled him to apply his business plan to making movies. Deciding he was most uncomfortable guiding actors, Corman took an acting class, which is where he met Jack Nicholson. Corman decided to give Nicholson his first role, the lead in a film called The Cry Baby Killer (1958). For the next decade, most of Nicholson’s work was in Roger Corman productions.

As a director, he’s perhaps best known for his several adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe films starring Vincent Price, including the fantastic House of Usher (1960), but it was during the 1960’s that Corman finally made a film that reflected something about his personal views. With The Intruder (1962), which saw William Shatner cast in the lead as a racist trying to cause trouble in a small southern town during desegregation, Corman created a controversial firestorm, resulting in the film being yanked out of many theaters. It was after this film that Corman discovered the difference between text and subtext, deciding there was a way to give audiences what they paid for and also be able to say what he wanted to say. As the 60’s drew to a close, Corman was responsible for jumpstarting the careers of Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Dennis Hopper with The Wild Angels (1966) and The Trip (1967), which would lead to the creation of Hopper and Fonda’s Easy Rider (1969). And going forward, Corman would discover the talents of Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bodganovich, Polly Platt, Jonathan Demme, George Hickenlooper, Ron Howard, Pam Grier, John Sayles, Joe Dante, and many others.

In the 1970’s, Corman founded his own production and distribution company, titled New World Pictures, where he also became responsible for distributing major foreign directors’ works when major studios wouldn’t, such as films from Bergman, Fellini, and Kurosawa. Stapleton’s film follows his filmography closely until the juggernauts of Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) rang the death knoll for drive-in cheapies, and the big budget, “event movie” era was born.

Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel has to be one of the most heartfelt and nostalgic documentaries to be released this year, to be cherished by anyone in love with the movies. In today’s world, some of Corman’s earlier work is best viewed with an MST3K treatment (in particular, a couple of Beverly Garland starrers, Gunslinger and Swamp Diamonds, both 1956), and his Edgar Allan Poe adaptations with the reptilian Vincent Price are horror hound classics (not to mention Susan Cabot’s last major starring role in the awesomely camp The Wasp Woman, 1959). But perhaps the best aspect of Stapleton’s homage are the snippets of interviews with many of the icons Corman has worked with throughout the years, including footage of recently deceased luminaries like George Hickenlooper, David Carradine, and Dennis Hopper. Particularly poignant is Nicholson’s interview (purportedly the hardest interview to snag, with Nicholson claiming Corman and Kubrick may be the only two people he’d ever get in front of the camera to talk about), where he loses his menacing sneer to break down in tears over his feelings for an old boss and friend that he claims he owes his career to. Surprisingly endearing and certainly an illuminating treatment of a director never quite given his due, Stapleton’s documentary is a beautiful tribute, and one that should be seen by anyone that appreciates cinema.

Rating 4 stars