Roger Corman, 'King of the B's,' to receive honorary lifetime achievement Oscar

Corman (center)  IMDb.com 

Roger Corman, King of the B’s, is getting an Oscar. The Associated Press reports that the eighty-three year old filmmaker will be the recipient of an honorary lifetime achievement by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Bear in mind that the lifetime of achievement in question includes Corman’s role in providing the debut opportunities for directors including Francis Ford Coppola (“Dementia 13”), Peter Bogdanovich (“Targets”), Martin Scorsese (“Boxcar Bertha”), Joe Dante (“Piranha”), James Cameron (“Piranha II: The Spawning”), Jonathan Demme (“Caged Heat”) and Ron Howard (“Grand Theft Auto”).

 Screenwriter/director John Sayles also worked as a writer for Corman on numerous movies, including “Piranha,” “Alligator” and “Battle Beyond the Stars.”

Unlike Alfred Hitchcock, who always made a cameo appearance in his own films, Corman has made many cameo appearances in films directed by his former employees. You’ll spot him, if you look quick, in “The Godfather, Pt. II,” “The Howling,” and “Apollo 13,” just to name a few. They usually put him in a suit and tie.
 

Poster for "The Terror"  Photo:  www.classic-horror.com

Corman also provided significant career breaks to actors unknown at the time, including Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Dennis Hopper, Talia Shire and Robert DeNiro.

Nonetheless, Corman’s own work as a director ought to be recognized. In a day when movies invariably look like they cost less than actually did, Corman’s stock in trade was making movies look like they cost more than they did. Eventually international film critics, took note of Corman’s style, mood and sophisticated humor, even in his horror movies.  It would be interesting to know what the cost-conscious director and producer thinks of the huge budgets some of his former proteges have spent on their later movies.  Cameron's upcoming "Avatar," for example, is reported to have cost nearly half a billion dollars.

Corman has made action films, comedies, biker flicks.  He distributed Ingmar Bergman movies in the US at drive-ins.  But he's probably best known for his filmings of various Edgar Allan Poe stories at American International Pictures including “House of Usher” (1960), “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1961), “The Premature Burial” (1962), “Tales of Terror” (1962), “The Raven” (1963), “The Masque of Red Death” (1964), and “The Tomb of Ligeia” (1964). All of these except “The Premature Burial” starred Vincent Price.
 

Vincent Price in "House of Usher"  Photo: www.imdb.com

After the film version of “The Raven” was completed, Corman claims he realized he still had some shooting days left before the rented sets had to be returned, and so made another film, “The Terror” (1963) which was largely shot from a draft screenplay commissioned and written over the weekend. Corman shot the interiors on “The Terror,” with additional, unbilled work being done by other directors including star Jack Nicholson and Francis Ford Coppola.

Footage from “The Terror” figures prominently in Bogdanovich’s directorial debut, “Targets,” part of the price Bogdanovich had to pay to get Corman to produce the movie. Boris Karloff, who co-starred in “The Terror,” as well as “The Raven,” whose leftover sets prompted the production of “The Terror,” stars in “Targets” as an aging horror movie actor.

Corman has always hated waste. The spectacular fire sequence which climaxes “House of Usher” got used in other, later films, at a time when Corman admits he did not foresee people renting more than one of these films in a weekend. The same, falling, flaming rafters do pop up in at least “Tomb of Ligeia.” And he liked to work fast. His record appears to be the original “Little Shop of Horrors,” shot in three days.

Corman’s an American original, who appears to be the most surprised at receiving an Oscar, even an honorary one. But when you consider all the Oscars won by his proteges, you have to think he ought some gold on his mantle as well.