Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers

by Beverly Gray

A pioneer of independent cinema, Roger Corman is a fascinating study in contrasts. As the original King of the Exploitation Film, he has filled his movies with images of blood-sucking vampires, rampaging biker gangs, vigilante strippers, and abducting aliens, all while producing each of his four-hundred-plus films on a shoestring budget and making a profit on nearly every one. In the process, Corman became the role model for today's independent filmmaker. This guru with a vision has also demonstrated an uncanny eye for talent, being among the first to recognize and employ the abilities of Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, John Sayles, and James Cameron to name but a few. Through interviews with eighty of Corman's friends and associates and photographs, Beverly Gray takes you behind the cameras and into the heart of Cormanville for a firsthand, insider's look at the man and the mogul, providing a compelling private and public perspective on this soft-spoken giant of the cinema.

Genres: Biography, Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Biography Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2000

About the author

After completing my doctorate in Contemporary American Fiction at UCLA, I surprised everyone (including myself) by taking a job with B-movie maven Roger Corman. At the legendary New World Pictures, I edited scripts, wrote publicity material, cast voice actors, and tried my hand at production. One highlight was coming up with the twist ending to a cult classic, Death Race 2000. Later, as story editor at Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons Pictures, I oversaw the development of 170 low-budget features. I’ve written six produced screenplays, and played several cameo roles (in all of which I kept my clothes on).

Since leaving Corman’s employ, I have been active as a journalist, while also teaching screenwriting workshops through UCLA Extension. My first book, Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, made its debut in the #4 slot on the Los Angeles Times’ hardcover non-fiction bestseller list. Three years later, I published Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon . . . and Beyond. I followed this with the first expanded paperback edition of the Corman bio, tastefully retitled Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. A third edition, available as both an ebook and a paperback, brings the Corman saga into the present day.

My newest, most exciting project yet is Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation. Its publication in November 2017 coincides with the 50th anniversary of this landmark film, which is beloved by Baby Boomers for capturing their view of the adult world that in 1967 they were newly poised to enter.

I live in Santa Monica, California. When not doting on my family, I focus on my popular blog, “Beverly in Movieland,” which covers movies, moviemaking, and growing up Hollywood-adjacent. Find it at www.beverlyinmovieland.com

Reviews

[David Sodergren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining glimpse into the mind of King of the B Movies Roger Corman. I wish it focused more on the films, especially the legendary 1970s New World era, but that's just me.

I listened to the audiobook, and I have to say the quality was highly variable. The first chapter in particular is almost unlistenable, with the narrator adopting a voice so robotic I honestly thought it was AI generated. Things settle down considerably, and the narrator finds her voice. The first epilogue, however, is horrendous, with every second line seemingly re-recorded with noticeable hiss in the background. It's a shame, and slightly marred my enjoyment.

[Sadie Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish this book was more indepth and thoughtful. There's a lot of interesting tidbits, and Corman is an inherently interesting subject, but its super disorganized, rambling and repetitive. Surprisingly little discussion of the actual films too

[Neil Sarver · Rating 3 out of 5]

In fairness, this is probably a solid 3 1/2 stars, and I'd have almost certainly have happily rounded that up if I'd read it 20 years ago. It's well researched, rounded and readable. If you're new to the subject, it would be an excellent starter work. And here when processing his passing, it was a nice way to remember his career.

[F.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining enough biog, although I’m sure a truly epic Corman book will eventually arrive.

[David Groves · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up this Roger Corman biography. I didn’t expect such a well-written book and such an insight into human nature. But this book reads fast, mainly because it’s so masterfully put together. Put simply, this woman knows this material like the back of her hand, and no wonder, since she worked as Corman’s assistant for 10 years. She’s an insider. And apparently, Corman hates her for telling it like it is.

Reading about Roger Corman is like reading about America. For this engineer-turned-producer-turned-director, it’s all about the money. He does have other thoughts now and then, sometimes an artistic thought (as in House of Usher), sometimes a political thought (as in 1967’s The Wild Angels), sometimes a countercultural thought (as in 1969’s Gas-s-s-s!), sometimes an anti-racist thought (as in 1962’s The Intruder), but he mostly thinks about how to squeeze the most money out of a production.

It’s the details that get to me. To keep costs down on 1959’s Beast from Haunted Cave, Corman tells everyone in town that they’re all UCLA students shooting a student film and begs for and gets discount pricing on motel rooms, food, onscreen extras, whatever. Director Adam Simon takes the job directing a Jurassic Park ripoff Carnosaur because it has a $3 million budget, but then three weeks before shooting, it shrinks to $850,000, and Simon knows that was Corman’s plan all along, that he used the $3 million figure to convince him to do it.

Corman promises various talent (directors, actors, writers) a share of the profits, but unless they have it in writing, it later comes to, “Oh, I was joking,” or “I didn’t say that.” And he’s always stepping in at the last minute to make a film more commercial by cutting in another ax murder (as he did in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dementia 13) or naked bodies or shots of cocaine (as he did in The Final Comedown), and invariably screwing up the plot. One Corman henchman talks about the sex aspect of an upcoming film by saying, “We’ve got to get some girls in here who’ll take ‘em out and let ‘em breathe,” and he wasn’t talking about puppies.

This book is rich in anecdotes. I’ve just read a few dry biographies, including those of Raymond Chandler, Douglas MacArthur, Harry Truman, Nicholas I, and Stalin, and none of them come alive like this book. When Corman is making the sci-fi movie Space Raiders (1984), a space vehicle unexpectedly comes out lavender, and he gets mad and rants: “There are no fags in space!”

Still, you have to remember that Corman’s schlock studio churned out movies that inspired many (X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, The Intruder, Little Shop of Horrors) and gave many great young filmmakers their start, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, Nicolas Roeg, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Robert Towne, Paul Bartel, and Peter Bogdanovich. Lots of prominent actors worked with Corman, too, including Jack Nicholson, William Shatner, Diane Ladd, Bruce Dern, Dennis Hopper, Robert De Niro, David Carradine, Peter Fonda, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Nancy Sinatra, and Sandra Bullock.

While reading this biography, I discovered a great way to enhance the experience. I would read for a half-hour in the morning, then go down to the computer and watch the movies I’d just read about online. Apparently, Corman has sold the rights to much of his inventory to YouTube, including a pre-“Star Trek” appearance by William Shatner in a movie called The Intruder (1962), and even the classic Little Shop of Horrors.

I’ve been screwed by crass capitalists in my own career—who hasn’t—and so the book held a kind of personal fascination for me. It explained what businessmen are thinking when they focus on the bottom line to the exclusion of everything else. Even further, it also provides glimpses into Corman’s personal life, showing how he suffered for those decisions by enduring life with two neglected children who rebelled by stealing company cars, breaking into the company offices and leaving behind lots of broken glass, stealing their parents’ credit cards and living large, getting kicked out of prestigious schools, and leaving their parents to clean up the mess they left behind. One sees it as the price that Corman paid for his monomaniacal focus on money money money and damn the consequences.
And one also gets a glimpse into how the stellar oldest Corman child got educated. If only I’d been sent to the best private schools in the country, had my college entrance essays read by and improved by my father’s hired writers, and been offered to run a movie studio just out of college.

There’s also a new section called “The Internet Years,” covering 2004 (when the book was originally published) to 2013 (when the updated book was published), as Roger moved into new media, including the Internet, Netflix distribution, the Sundance Film Festival, Showtime, a multiple-endings experiment, Roger’s old age, and the end of some stories that hadn’t concluded by 2004. It’s always satisfying to read what finally happened to projects and people. And she finds more stingy anecdotes, such as film festivals sending Roger a first-class ticket to attend and Roger always cashing them in, pocketing the difference, and flying coach. You end up just shaking your head.

I've read a lot of biographies in recent years, including Hank Williams, Nicholas II, Douglas MacArthur, Raymond Chandler, Ernest Hemingway, Josef Stalin, Walter Annenberg, and Kim Philby, and this book is better than all those.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

After all the great movie posters I wanted to know more about the man behind. This is his quintessential biography: the early years, a gentleman and scholar, American International Pictures, his rise, angels and acid, New World Pictures, Piranhas and more fish, some black and white photos (I especially liked that with Vincent Price as a king), Concorde, sex, surprise and videotape, fast forward, winding down, his filmography and his school of film. Great summing up of the major stages in his life. There could have been more photos, so it was a bit dry for the greatest b-movie maker ever. Really recommended!

[Andrew Tollemache · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very informative biography by a woman who worked for Corman during the 1980s. Gray details how Roger Corman managed to thrive as a B-movie film producer through 6 decades of tumultuous changes in the film industry. Of note is how many modern Hollywood icons like Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, JIm Cameron, Ron Howard etc etc etc came out of working for Corman early in their careers

[Pablo]

Lo cuenta una antigua empleada (doctora en literatura!) de Corman: tiene cariño, anécdotas y un retrato ambivalente, no necesariamente favorable (aunque sí haya cierto afecto). Es interesantísimo, claro

[Lana Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Reviewed the audio version)

I quite enjoyed this unofficial biography of Roger Corman. He's made some of my favorite movies over the years, and I am often squealing in delight when one I haven't seen comes on a streaming service or late night cable channel. He's a fascinating individual, and hearing quotes from the people who worked most closely with him really offered an inside point of view which sets this apart from simply a straight biography.

However, I will admit to slight disappointment in that it didn't cover his movies in as much detail as I wanted. I'm not sure what I was expecting because it's a biography, not just a movie listing with cute little facts. What WAS extremely fascinating was often the mindset behind the Corman productions. Not just the little stories about troubles or amusing tales, but why movies were chosen, how people rose in the company, how people came to direct (the story behind Cameron's rise on Battle Beyond the Stars stuck out to me in particular), and so on which really added to the book. It truly is unique.

I couldn't give the audio five stars, though it is very easy to listen to, because in the beginning the narrator was pretty rushed with hardly any pauses between sentences. That, and you can tell where they made additions or corrections as the sound quality changes here and there. Very soon after the beginning though, the narrator finds her stride and has a very pleasant voice, suited perfectly for the audio book, and the corrections are few.

Overall, if you are a Roger Corman or movie fan, I highly suggest getting this book or audio book. It was a great listen.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some fun pieces of insight into AIP/New World/Concorde, but it mostly reads like a gossip magazine. Gray includes perfunctory criticisms of Corman, but you can tell this book was never going to present the real picture. I did enjoy a number of quotes that were attributed to Corman and associates throughout and there were some nice figures provided about sales, budgets, and marketing if you're looking at doing scholarly work on Corman or American exploitation film.

[Christophlaw80 · Rating 4 out of 5]

fun read. apparently Corman wasn't too happy with the tea spilled with this book, but personally speaking, I think he comes off as more of a money man than a man striving to be any sort of artist. He seemed to have the audience's pleasure and making a profit his sole desires and the pics of Peter Fonda in the book from back in the day, hubba hubba.

[Maarten Van Krimpen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not spectacular, but definitely worth a read. I liked the fact that Corman isn't treated as the second coming of Jesus and that there's also some - albeit well researched - criticism on him. I loved to read on how movies as Carnosaur and Stripped to Kill were made.