Book: Roger Corman

2 OUT OF 4 STARS

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WHAT IT’S ABOUT?

Written by Alain Silver and James Ursini, this book takes a deeper look into the films directed by Roger Corman from 1959 through 1970. In that short amount of time Corman made 60 films, and had his producing fingers in even more. Through the years he worked with on screen legends like Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro, as well as helped future filmmakers get their start (Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard). With a compilation of quotes about each film from Corman himself, Silver and Ursini take you on a journey through every low-budget Corman film ever made.

WHAT I LEARNED

I sat down with ROGER CORMAN: METAPHYSICS ON A SHOESTRING with the knowledge that Corman directed such classic horror films such as THE RAVEN and THE WASP WOMAN, films that were famous because they were so bad they were good. I’m not saying I classified Corman up there with Ed Wood, oh no, but the notion I had stepping into this was Corman was a director of schlock films. His films were remembered for the performances by Vincent Price, low budgets and over acting, and of course, generally featuring the weird and the bizarre. So what did I learn?


First, the guy was a low budget filmmaking genius. Out of all the movies he’s ever made, he only lost money on one of them (which ironically enough, was also his most critically acclaimed film). That’s impressive! The guy was making something like 3 or more movies a year, and that was just as director- not to mention writer and producer of many, many more.


Corman jump started many successful filmmakers in his day, and was the man behind THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, a film that went on to be a hit broadway show and an even bigger hit movie years later. He also touched all genre’s, whether he was doing a biker movie (THE WILD ANGELS), a war movie (SKI TROOP ATTACK), a wester (THE GUNSLINGER), sci-fi (X: THE MAN WITH X RAY EYES), horror (THE UNDEAD) or teenage exploitation (ROCK ALL NIGHT), his enthusiasm never faltered. I’ve never known of any other director before or since that has hit so many different kinds of movies.






IS THE BOOK ANY GOOD?

Silver and Ursini presents each film with cast and crew information, the year it came out, and how much it cost to make (accompanied by large, glossy B&W photos of each movie). From there it jumps into examining, dissecting and analyzing every last little detail of the movie with
excruciating slowness. It’s not that I didn’t like going this in-depth for each film, but it’s done in such a way that makes the storyline and therefore the movie somewhat confusing. As I hadn’t seen every movie discussed here, I found myself lost trying to following the story and analyzing it at the same time. What would have worked better for me would be a quick synopsis of each film before going through the movie in great detail.





The film is then rhetorically studied, discussing what Corman meant here, how he was
foreshadowing stuff there, and what the movie ‘really’ was about under the surface. I would have liked to have seen some ‘behind-the-scenes’ tidbits about how they did some scenes, or why they cast who in what part, and not strictly based on the story that was
unfolding on screen.


Which brings me to the best part. At the end of each films’ analysis, there’s a blurb from Corman himself, who talks about what it was like doing this particular movie, or tells a story that happened during the making of. This was the best part of the entire book for me. The guy’s entertaining and interesting to listen to, and the things he went into about each picture are things that I found to be the most insightful about the film itself (and not the in-depth analysis).

THE VERDICT

METAPHYSICS ON A SHOESTRING is a great tool for following the film career of a film legend. Every film he directed is analyzed, every film he wrote and co-directed is discussed, and every film he produced is listed. While the film analysis goes a little too in-depth for me (these were low-budget schlocky films, not the best movies ever made- come on!), I’d even go as far to say that each analysis was dry and down right boring (I ended up skimming about half of them).


Corman’s comments on each of his directorial efforts is definitely worth a read, and by far the best part of the book. This would be a great reference for those of you who study film and have the option to write about the early years of horror, or classic American filmmaking. For everyone else, I’d suggest flipping through it at the bookstore, or borrowing it from the library. If you’re a Corman freak, then of course this puppy’s a buy for the home-library, as I doubt any book goes into as much detail about each of Corman’s films as this one.




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