Director Roger Corman spending time on the set with his friend and frequent star, Vincent Price
Known to some as the “King of the B-Movies”, producer, director, and all-around movie-maker Roger Corman has had a busy career lasting almost six decades. From Attack of the Crab Monsters and Teenage Caveman in the 1950s, to the upcoming film Dance with a Vampyre, Corman has played a part in making almost 500 movies, to which he will modestly add he “never lost a dime”
Little Shop of Horrors, made in 1960, was a film that was shot in two days using leftover sets, and it has gone on to inspire a big-budget Hollywood re-make and a successful Broadway musical. The Angie Dickinson gangster-style bootlegging movie Big Bad Mama was a drive-in theater smash in 1974, and in 1980 Battle Beyond the Stars allowed Corman to blend elements of Star Wars with The Magnificent Seven, and give special effects genius James Cameron his first major film credit.
In November of 2012, Corman followed German actor Udo Kier in becoming the second-ever recipient of a "Lofty" Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Tucson's Loft Cinema. That occasion gave Mark McLemore a chance to talk with the legendary filmmaker, starting with some perspective on what Corman considers to be the audience's contribution to making a truly successful film...
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A theatrical poster for the low-budget Roger Corman science fiction thriller "Not Of This Earth" ( 1957)
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