THE FINAL FRONTIER
Remembering the King of the Bs
“I’VE HEARD MYSELF DESCRIBED as Hollywood’s longest-established rebel,” said Roger Corman, reflecting on a prolific career in cult filmmaking, one that saw him become a champion and mentor to the likes of James Cameron, Joe Dante and Francis Ford Coppola.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a lifelong affinity for fantastic cinema. “I became a critic for the university newspaper,” he told SFX in 2008. “Now I had to really analyse the films that I liked… I started thinking, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
Abandoning a career in engineering, Corman sold his first screenplay in 1954. Disappointed by the resulting movie, Highway Dragnet, he raised $12,000 to produce his own shot at a hit, Monster From The Ocean Floor (1954). As a producer and director for exploitation kings AIP, Corman went on to create a colourful run of B-pictures from It Conquered The World (1956) to Teenage Caveman (1958) and The Wasp Woman (1959). Made at breakneck speed on shoestring budgets, these were hyperbolic, high-concept entertainments, unashamedly targeting America’s teens.
Corman’s horror-comedy classic The Little Shop Of Horrors arrived in 1960, the same year he launched his memorable series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations with House Of Usher. Lurid and macabre, these gothic confections were a perfect fit for velvety star Vincent Price. Corman set up his own company, New World
GUDRUN URE 1926-2024
Scottish actress best known for playing the title role in ITV children’s show Supergran.
Pictures, in 1970, going on to produce such popular genre titles as Death Race 2000 (1975) and Battle Beyond The Stars (1980). He returned to directing after a two-decade hiatus wth 1990’s Frankenstein Unbound.
Corman kept working into his nineties, producing such gleefully self-aware schlock as the Sharktopus franchise for Syfy. In 2009 he received a lifetime achievement Oscar for his tireless support of films and filmmakers. Not bad for the self-professed “Orson Welles of the Z movie”.
DON PERLIN 1929-2024
American comic book writer and artist, cocreator of Moon Knight and Bloodshot.
