Roger Corman – Exclusive Interview

Horror.com got the heads-up that Buena Vista Home Entertainment (owned by Disney) will debut the first collection of classic titles from the newly acquired film library of the legendary cult movie producer/director Roger Corman. They’re kicking it all off with Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, Death Race 2000 and Big Bad Mama, each available as new Special Edition DVDs which hit the shelves last Tuesday (December 13). 

Hard-hitting, fast-paced and riveting, these three cult-classic films embody Corman’s famous filmmaking style and mark the early film appearances of Hollywood talents David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, Tom Skerritt and Angie Dickinson.  These releases are the first of several planned under the newly created “Roger Corman Early Films Banner”, and include exciting newly produced bonus features such as all-new commentaries from the film’s original stars.

Check out our exclusive interview with one of the true masters of horror.

Staci Layne Wilson/Horror.com: Hi Roger, how are you?

RC: Very good.

Well, I’ve got to say, I cannot believe that Buena Vista Home Entertainment has gotten the distribution rights for over 400 movies. I didn't know there were that many available still!

RC: Well it's a little strange. What it amounted to is that we had our own home video distribution company but the majors are growing so strong that over the past year I've seen our share diminish a little bit and so I decided on the basis of "if you can't beat'em, join'em" that I should join with a major studio. We let it be known that we were interested both for our library and for our future films.

We got offers from just about every major and to our great surprise Disney, that is Buena Vista, was the top bidder. Actually they weren't the top bidder, they were the second from the top bidder. But we met with their people and we were so impressed with them ... they were very pleasant, very friendly, enthusiastic, and very efficient that we decided to go with them. I slightly agree with you... I didn't think about it that much but if I had with all our R-rated films I'd have put Disney as the last company in Hollywood we end up with.

 [laughing] Right. But they do such an amazing job on the discs. I've been reviewing DVDs for years now and they put out the best product as far as the extras and additional release material and things like that.

RC: Yes, they're very good.

I did notice that you have new audio commentary on some of these movies like Rock 'n' Roll High School and Death Race 2000. What's it like to go back and revisit that and talk about things that happened on the movie? Do you remember that well?

RC: I didn't remember that well and I thought this was going to be a chore. We did Death Race, Rock 'n' Roll High School and also Big Bad Mama and it turned out to be rather entertaining. I did Death Race with Mary Woronov who was in it and Rock 'n' Roll High School with Mary Woronov and also Allan Arkush did a commentary separately. On Big Bad Mama I was with Angie Dickinson. It ended up we were sort of laughing and joking and remembering different things. They remembered things that I didn't remember and it turned out to be just sort of an entertaining hour and a half on each picture.

Those are always the best kind in my opinion. I love those ones that are sort of have some perspective on them.

RC: Yes.

For those that are not familiar with these movies, why did you pick these first four? I mean, was there something about them to be the first ones out there like the pioneers?

RC: They were planned jointly. This is why I like being with Disney, Buena Vista, because we work jointly on them. And as I say, the plan is to distribute our new films as well as our library films. So we picked one new film, Dinocroc, which was on the Sci-fi channel last year. It made it's debut there and got the highest rating of the year for the Saturday night features and we felt that one would be and it did extremely well overseas so we felt that would be a good feature to lead with on our new films. And from our library we thought we would pick three entirely different types of films... a science fiction film, a gangster film and a rock 'n' roll film. It was interesting to go back and look at them and realize that... I knew there was humor in all of them, Rock 'n' Roll was a comedy all the way, but there was more humor in Big Bad Mama and Death Race 2000 than I remembered.

I know that Big Bad Mama was like one of the movies that Quentin Tarantino says he loves. So what's it like, I mean, kind of knowing this legacy that you have?

RC: It's nice. I don't want to overstate it. I don't want to state too highly the importance of these films but I think the significance is really part of the American Independent movement in the last half of the 20th century and, hopefully, in the beginning of the 21st. I think there's a certain energy, a certain originality to them, a certain audacious, rebelliousness to the films. I think a great many of them have lasted longer than we would have expected for precisely that reason.

Did you ever think that they would be preserved forever on DVD? Now everybody can see all the movies, good and bad.

RC: Yes, good and bad. I had not. I thought originally they would be simply a theatrical release and then shown a little bit on television. I figured they might last 10 or 15 years on television getting lower and lower ratings and eventually fade away. What happened was cable television came up and gave us something new. Then home video, first VHS lengthened it and now DVD.

DVD has the added advantage, particularly as we get into high definition, that theoretically they will last forever. Film as we know fades and has to be restored and most low budget films are not going to be restored because the restoration process is more expensive probably than the commercial worth of the films. But now that they have gone to DVD you're simply a group of Xs and Os or whatever and theoretically they are now immortal. Which may or may not be a good thing.

That's right [laughing]. I mean AIP obviously whenever we see that we think of Roger Corman. But the other day I was watching cable and caught an AIP film that you, I don't think, had anything to do with, Riot On Sunset Strip?

RC: Oh yes. That was written by Bob Thom who is a good friend of mine who wrote Bloody Mama that I did for AIP. I was never actually a partner in AIP. I made the first film they distributed, a film strangely called The Fast and The Furious. I sold the title to Universal and they reused it.

Oh wow. So that's how that works. I see a lot of different movies with the same titles.

RC: They had even more success with it than I did. So I made a number of films but I was never their only filmmaker.

One thing I have to ask you about since I've had the good fortune to talk to you before; it's kind of off topic — but maybe not because Buena Vista might be releasing it on DVD — I've got my fingers crossed. Frankenstein Unbound.

RC: Now Frankenstein Unbound is a strange picture because it was reedited by 20th Century Fox for reasons that I don't totally understand so it's not exactly the way I made the film. But it's owned by 20th Century Fox so if it goes to DVD, it will go through them.

Well I certainly hope they do. I would love to see your Director's Cut but I have to say I love that movie. It's one of my all time favorites.

RC: Oh well very good. I'm pleased to hear that.

You've got the best-looking Frankenstein on film, I think, since the original. I loved him. I thought he was terrific. And of course The Tomb of Ligeia is another one of my favorites.

RC: Oh that was an early script of Robert Towne whose gone on to great heights.

What's your personal favorite out of the first group?

RC: None, particularly... maybe Death Race 2000. Because you try to be original but you can't be original all the time. And that one at least I think for once we had something original. The concept of an automobile race in the future from New York to New Los Angeles in which the drivers are scored by how fast they can drive and how many pedestrians they can kill. I do not believe that's been done before.

I've got to say that the combination of David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone, I can definitely see that, but Mary Woronov... where does she fit into the story there?

RC: She's one of the drivers. David was out of town and Sly was working so they weren't available. They were the two lead drivers and Mary playing Calamity Jane the western driver was one of the other key drivers in the race.

Do you know what is coming up next on your DVD slate with Buena Vista?

RC: I'm not certain it will depend on how the first ones do, and I'm very happy to say that they're doing somewhat better than expected. The original plan had been to release them in groups of four like the first ones in which there might be one new one and then 3 of what we call the classics. I think they're going to release them faster than anticipated because of what seems to be the success of the first group. I'll be back in Los Angeles over the weekend and we'll probably decide then what the next group will be.

[end]