4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Roger Corman Edition

Posted on October 8, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!

Today’s director is one of the most influential figures in American film history, the one and only Roger Corman!

4 Shots From 4 Films

It Conquered The World (1956, dir by Roger Corman)

The Raven (1963, dir by Roger Corman)

The Trip (1967, dir by Roger Corman)

Frankenstein Unbound (1990, dir by Roger Corman)

Halloween Havoc!: CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (Filmgroup 1961)

Posted on October 4, 2017 by gary loggins

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Roger Corman satirizes himself in CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, throwing in everything but the kitchen sink to create one of the most wacked-out goofy drive-in flicks ever filmed, that gets even goofier as it goes along. We’ve got goony gangsters, a lovesick spy, beautiful babes, and the silliest looking monster you’ll ever see.

Rapid Roger had just wrapped up shooting THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH in sunny Puerto Rico, and since the weather was so beautiful, decided to quickly churn out another picture. He got screenwriter Charles B. Griffith to whip up a monster movie spoof (having had success with Griffith’s A BUCKET OF BLOOD and LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS) and retained the previously shot film’s stars. Actor Beach Dickerson designed the sea creature out of a wet suit, with ping-pong ball eyes and covered in an oil cloth to give it that straight from the depths look. Hokey looking…

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Halloween Havoc!: THE RAVEN (AIP 1963)

Posted on October 1, 2017 by gary loggins

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Let’s kick off the third annual “Halloween Havoc” with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Hazel Court, young Jack Nicholson , director Roger Corman , screenwriter Richard Matheson , and an “idea” by Edgar Allan Poe. How’s that for an all-star horror crew? The film is THE RAVEN, Corman’s spoof of all those Price/Poe movies he was famous for, a go-for-the-throat comedy guaranteed to make you spill your guts with laughter!

Sorcerer Erasmus Craven (Price ), still pining for his late, lost Lenore, hears someone gently rapping on his chamber door… er, window. It’s a raven, a talking raven, in reality Adolpho Bedlo (Lorre ), who’s been put under a spell by the Grand Master of magicians, Dr. Scarabus (Karloff ), who like Craven is adept at “magic by gesture”. After Craven mixes up a potion to reverse the spell, Bedlo tells him he’s seen Lenore alive at Scarabus’s castle.

The…

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Roger of the Skies: VON RICHTOFEN AND BROWN (United Artists 1971)

Posted on August 21, 2017 by gary loggins

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Producer/director Roger Corman finally cut ties with American-International Pictures after they butchered his apocalyptic satire GAS-S-S! Striking out on his own, Corman’s next movie was VON RICHTOFEN AND BROWN, a World War I epic about famed German aerial ace The Red Baron and the Canadian pilot who shoots his down Roy Brown. There are grand themes, as Corman sought to make a statement on the futility of war, the end of chivalry, and the mechanized savagery of what was to be “the last war”. The film looks good, shot in Ireland, with exciting aerial footage, but despite all the outer trappings VON RICHTOFEN AND BROWN is still a Corman drive-in movie.

John Philip Law also looks good as Baron Manfred von Richtofen, the aristocrat/warrior who became the feared Red Baron. Law was always great to watch, whether as the blind angel in BARBARELLA, the black-clad supervillain in DANGER: DIABOLIK, sexy Robin Stone in…

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Roger Corman’s Bloody Valentine: THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE (20th Century-Fox 1967)

Posted on June 14, 2017 by gary loggins

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Low budget auteur Roger Corman had visited the gangster genre twice before, with 1958’s MACHINE GUN KELLY (featuring Charles Bronson in the title role) and I, MOBSTER (starring noir vet Steve Cochran ). Nine years later, Corman produced and directed THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE, with major studio backing, star power, and a million dollar budget. It’s still a Roger Corman film though, which means it’s a helluva lot of fun!

We’re in 1929 Chicago (as narrator Paul Frees tells us), a time of lawlessness, bootlegging, and mob killings on a daily basis. Two rival factions are battling to control the Windy City: the Southside gang led by ‘Scarface’ Al Capone (Jason Robards) and his Northside enemy ‘Bugs’ Moran ( Ralph Meeker ). Moran sends his top hood Peter Gusenberg (George Segal) to muscle in on Capone’s rackets, but when Big Al’s mentor Patsy is gunned down by Moran’s assassins, the crime boss goes…

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Happy Birthday Vincent Price: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (AIP 1960)

Posted on May 27, 2017 by gary loggins

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I’ve covered Vincent Price’s film work 17 times here, which must be some kind of record. Can you tell he’s one of my all-time favorite actors? Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was born May 27, 1911 in St. Louis, Missouri. The elegant, eloquent Price was also an avid art collector and gourmet cook of some note. He’s justifiably famous for his film noir roles, but Price etched his name in cinematic stone as one of filmdom’s Masters of Horror.

Price starred in his first fright film way back in 1940 with THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS . But it wasn’t until 1953’s 3-D outry HOUSE OF WAX that he became tagged as a horror star. Later in that decade, he made a pair of gimmicky shockers for director William Castle ( THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL , THE TINGLER), and in 1960 began his collaboration with Roger Corman on movies based (loosely, mind you) on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The first…

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A Movie A Day #123: Dillinger and Capone (1995, directed by Jon Purdy)

Posted on May 10, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

1934. Chicago. The FBI guns down a man outside of a movie theater and announces that they have finally killed John Dillinger. What the FBI doesn’t realize it that they didn’t get Dillinger. Instead they killed Dillinger’s look-alike brother. The real John Dillinger (played by Martin Sheen) has escaped. Over the next five years, under an assumed name, Dillinger goes straight, gets married, starts a farm, and lives an upstanding life. Only a few people know his secret and, unfortunately, one of them is Al Capone (F. Murray Abraham). Only recently released from prison and being driven mad by syphilis, Capone demands that Dillinger come out of retirement and pull one last job. Capone has millions of dollars stashed away in a hotel vault and he wants Dillinger to steal it for him. Just to make sure that Dillinger comes through for him, Capone is holding Dillinger’s family hostage.

This film, which was produced by Roger Corman, combines two popular but probably untrue rumors, that Dillinger faked his own death and that Al Capone had millions of dollars stashed somewhere in Chicago. Though the two never met in real life (and moved in very different criminal circles), the idea of bringing Dillinger and Capone together sounds like a good one. Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Sheen and Murray are both miscast in the lead roles, with Sheen especially being too old to be believable as the 40 something Dillinger, and the script never takes advantage of their notoriety. In this movie, Dillinger could just as easily be any retired bank robber while Capone could just as easily be any unstable mob boss. In classic Corman fashion, more thought was given to the title than to the story.

One things that does work about the movie is the supporting cast, which is full of familiar faces. Clint Howard, Don Stroud, Bert Remsen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Catherine Hicks, Maria Ford, and Martin Sheen’s brother, Joe Estevez, are all present and accounted for. Especially be sure to keep an eye out for Jeffrey Combs, playing an FBI agent who suspects that Dillinger may still be alive. He may not get to do much but he’s still Jeffrey Combs.

A Movie A Day #98: Crime Zone (1989, directed by Luis Llosa)

Posted on April 15, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Welcome to the future. To quote Leonard Cohen, it is murder.

The police state of Soleil is engaged in perpetual war with the nation of Frodan. In Soleil, being rich means living a life of carefree decadence while the poor struggle to survive from day to day. Criminals are routinely executed on live TV and the government forces women to work as prostitutes, servicing only the rich and powerful. When Bone (Peter Nelson) and Helen (Sherilyn Fenn) meet, they break the law by falling in love. Desperate to escape to the legendary paradise of Frodan, Bone and Helen accept an offer from the mysterious Jason (David Carradine). If Bone and Helen agree to commit a series of crimes, Jason will help them escape Soleil. Bone and Helen soon become the two most wanted criminals in Soleil but Jason may not be what he seems.

David Carrdine’s performance is typically strange and Crime Zone has a few interesting ideas but the main reason to see the movie is because of the performance of a pre-Twin Peaks Sherilyn Fenn. As Helen, Sherilyn Fenn is sexy, tough, and always better than the material that she was given to work with.

Executive produced by Roger Corman, Crime Zone was an ambitious project that did not have the budget necessary to reach the heights of Blade Runner, Mad Max, A Clockwork Orange, or any of the other dystopian science fiction films that it tried to rip off. Crime Zone was filmed, on location, in Peru but that mostly for a budgetary reasons. Since almost the entire movie was shot on cramped and dark sound stages, it could have just as easily been filmed in West Baltimore. To its credit, Crime Zone has more on its mind than a lot of the movies that Corman executive produced in the 1980s but the main reason to see it will always be Sherilyn Fenn.

A Movie A Day #64: Gunslinger (1956, directed by Roger Corman)

Posted on March 5, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

gunslinger_poster Welcome to Oracle, Texas. It’s a dusty little town in the old west. Marshal Scott Hood (William Schallert) may uphold the law but everyone knows that the town is actually run by Erica (Allison Hayes), the owner of the local saloon. Erica knows that a railroad may be coming to town so she comes up with a plan to buy all the land around Oracle. She sends her lackey, Jake (Jonathan Haze), to each landowner. Jake buys the land then murders the landowner so that he can get the money back.

When Scott is gunned down by two outlaws, his widow, Rose (Beverly Garland), takes over as temporary marshal. Rose has two weeks until the new marshal arrives but that is just enough time for nearly everyone in town to get killed. It starts when Rose orders Erica to close her saloon at three in the morning. Erica loses the epic catfight that follows so she hires her former lover, Cane Miro (John Ireland), to come to town and kill Rose. Cane is more interested in killing the town’s mayor (Martin Kingsley), a former Confederate who abandoned Cane and his brothers to Union forces during the Civil War. Even more complications arise when Cane and Rose fall in love.

Roger Corman has described Gunslinger as being his most miserable experience as a director. He filmed it in six days and it rained for five of them, causing cameras and lights to sink into the mud. Both Allison Hayes and Beverly Garland were injured during filming, with Hayes breaking her arm after falling off a horse and Garland spraining her ankle while running down the stairs of the saloon. During the filming of an outdoor love scene, both Ireland and Garland were attacked by fire ants.

Gunslinger is usually savaged by reviewers and it was featured on an early episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. But how can any film be that bad if it features an epic cat fight between Beverly Garland and Allison Hayes? Gunslinger is proof that Beverly Garland and Allison Hayes were actress who could make something entertaining out of even the least inspiring material. Garland gives a serious, heartfelt performance while Hayes goes all out as evil Erica. Years before he played Seymour in Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors, Jonathan Haze is intensely weird as Jake. As with many Corman films, part of the fun is watching for members of the Corman stock company, like Dick Miller and Bruno VeSota, in small roles. Gunslinger may not be a classic but I like it.

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A Movie A Day #52: Overexposed (1990, directed by Larry Brand)

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Someone is stalking soap opera star, Kristin (Catherine Oxenberg). She is receiving frightening notes and her coworkers are dying. Who is after her and what does it have to do with a tragic fire at a birthday party? Is it one of her jealous co-stars? Is it her duplicitous boyfriend (David Naughton)? Is it the stranger (William Bumiller) that she’s having an affair with? Or is it the obsessed fan (Karen Black)? Detective Morrison (Larry Brand) is on the case!

The return of Detective Morrison (played, again, by the film’s director) makes Overexposed a sequel to The Drifter. (Both films were directed by Brand and executive produced by Roger Corman). Morrison has much more to do in Overexposed than he did in The Drifter so maybe the plan was to launch a low-budget franchise of Detective Morrison movies. It didn’t happen, because Overexposed is much less interesting than The Drifter. The spoiled and rich Kristin is never a likable character and the movie’s real star was Oxenberg’s busy body double, Shelley Michelle.

Overexposed does have a few good scenes, including death-by-acidic-facial-cream. The best thing about movie is Karen Black, who brilliantly delivered a monologue about why she loves television. It doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the movie but Karen Black knocked it out of the park. The monologue ends with Karen Black paying homage to The Mod Squad by shouting out, “Solid!”

Overexposed was forgettable but Karen Black?

Karen Black was solid.