Roger Corman
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- DirectorWyott OrdungStarsAnne KimbellStuart WadeDick PinnerJulie, an American on vacation in Mexico, spots a giant, one-eyed amoeba rising from the ocean, but when she tries to tell the authorities, no one believes her. She finally teams up with a marine biologist in an attempt to destroy it.First of a series of nine sci-fi cheapies made by Corman throughout the 1950s, many made with the aid of monster maker Paul Blaisdell (see my separate list for this guy by tapping on See all my lists to your right). The others were The Beast With a Million Eyes, The Day the World Ended, and It Conquered the World (all 1955, with Blaisdell), Not of This Earth and Attack of the Crab Monsters (both 1957), War of the Satellites and Teenage Caveman (both 1958) and The Wasp Woman (1959). Cost and quality decrease chronologically, but The Wasp Woman is so tawdry and dishonest it holds a special place in my heart...
- DirectorsJohn IrelandEdward SampsonStarsJohn IrelandDorothy MaloneBruce CarlisleA trucker framed for murder breaks out of jail, takes a young woman hostage, and enters her sports car in cross-border road race hoping to get to Mexico before the police catch him.Corman gets everybody's attention and his career in cheapies begins in earnest with this competent melodrama, which became a major movie franchise in the 2000s.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsJohn LundDorothy MaloneMike ConnorsDuring the Civil War, the Confederacy pardons five criminals and sends them into Comanche-territory to recover Union-seized Confederate gold and capture a Confederate turncoat.First of four B-westerns made by Corman in the '50's. The others were Apache Woman, Oklahoma Woman, and Gunslinger.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsDick MillerRussell JohnsonAbby DaltonCloud Nine, the local teen hangout, has been taken over by a pair of escaped killers, who hold the local teens hostage. The bartender realizes it's up to him to save the kids.Corman's single attempt to cash in on the rock movie phenomenon otherwise dominated by Sam Katzman features some cool stuff with the Platters but is mostly about a tedious stagebound hostage melodrama.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsCharles BronsonSusan CabotMorey AmsterdamThe criminal exploits of Public Enemy number 1, George 'Machine-Gun' Kelly, during the 1930s.Corman's first of two contributions to AIP's gangster cycle stars a young Charles Bronson in the title role and features an uncharacteristically anti-climactic ending, accurate and innovative but hardly commercial. The other is I, Mobster, also 1958, starring Steve Cochran of White Heat in a fictional morality tale about a murderous, ladder-climbing lout.
- DirectorBernard L. KowalskiStarsRichard BakalyanJune KenneyRobert KnappInstead of working for a living, Duke and Freddie steal auto accessories and sell to a fence. While Duke is out driving with his girl Peg, she tries to dissuade him from a life of crime. Angered, he taunts her with another girl, Janice, who has driven up alongside him, and they have a race. A motorcycle policeman who is chasing them is killed when he crashes into Janice's car, and she is held. Duke, who has driven off, paints his black car light blue to escape detection. Janice learns his license number, and in fear of being discovered, Duke kills her. Duke coerces Peg to leave town with him, committing holdups along the way. Realizing his luck will not hold out, but unwilling to surrender, Duke sends Peg back and remains alone in an abandoned roadside fruit stand, awaiting his fate.Corman's single j.d. movie.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsVincent PriceMark DamonMyrna FaheyUpon entering his fiancée's family mansion, a man discovers a savage family curse and fears that his future brother-in-law has entombed his bride-to-be prematurely.The first of Corman's series of gothic horrors and Edgar Allan Poe adaptations.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsJonathan HazeJackie JosephMel WellesA clumsy young man working at an impoverished flower shop discovers that the strange plant he has been nurturing has an insatiable appetite for blood, forcing him to kill to feed it.His memorable comedy horror, later a musical!
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsWilliam ShatnerFrank MaxwellBeverly LunsfordA charismatic "social reformer" rallies the white populace of a Southern town to oppose school integration, but he soon finds himself in a situation that he cannot control.Typical of the IMDB to list one of Corman's most well-known and significant films under a different title. It is, of course, The Intruder, starring William Shatner, back in the days when he was an actor. This condemnation of racism in America's former slave country (and made there) was a perilous shoot, and is reputedly the only Corman film ever to lose money.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsPeter FondaNancy SinatraBruce DernThe "Angels", a San Pedro motorcycle gang, party their way through the Coachella Valley while searching for a bike stolen from them by Mexicans, clashing with police along the way.First of a series of biker movies, a genre rapidly added to by numerous other cheapskates.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsJason RobardsGeorge SegalRalph MeekerAl Capone's Valentine's Day surprise for the rival Bugs Moran gang in 1929 Chicago.Corman returned to gangsters with two functional and paint-by-numbers historically based projects, this, and Capone in 1975. Far more fun was the wild Bloody Mama in 1970 with Shelley Winters, another true story that launched a flurry of down and dirty authentically filmed gangster films to simultaneously ride on the back of and discredit the stupidly glossy and gussied up Bonnie and Clyde.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsPeter FondaSusan StrasbergBruce DernA disillusioned TV-commercial director is guided by his friend through an LSD trip, during which he evaluates his identity and his relationships with women.Corman's attempt to make sense of the burgeoning drugs culture of the '60s. Dated and daft.
- DirectorStephanie RothmanStarsElaine GiftosKaren CarlsonBrioni FarrellSexy young nurses apply special therapy in their daily rounds.
- DirectorJack HillStarsRoberta CollinsPam GrierJudith BrownBeautiful female prisoners are abused in a Philippine prison until five of them plot an escape by taking the evil female warden hostage with reluctant help from two male fruit vendors.
- DirectorSteve CarverStarsMargaret MarkovPam GrierLucretia LoveWhen the Romans force a group of sex slaves to become gladiatrices, two such fighters - a Nubian dancer and a Gaulish priestess - form an alliance to lead the others in rebellion.
- DirectorJonathan DemmeStarsJuanita BrownErica GavinRoberta CollinsIn a women's prison, a group of inmates band together to combat the repressive and abusive policies of the crippled female warden and the corrupt prison doctor.
- DirectorSteve CarverStarsAngie DickinsonWilliam ShatnerTom SkerrittCircumstances force a tough single mother and her two daughters into a life of crime and they quickly become outlaws on the run, picking up partners along the way, and traveling to different states, pursued by the law.
- DirectorPaul BartelStarsDavid CarradineSylvester StalloneSimone GriffethIn a dystopian future, a cross country automobile race requires contestants to run down innocent pedestrians to gain points that are tallied based on each kill's brutality.
- DirectorMichael MillerStarsYvette MimieuxTommy Lee JonesLisa CopelandA wrongfully imprisoned young woman accused of murdering the guard who assaulted her escapes from jail and becomes a fugitive.It was fashionable at the time of the Bi-Centennial to show the darker side of America in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, and this deeply cynical and dark road movie is a fairly typical example of the mood, 1970--1976. Some very cool and powerful films were made pre-Rocky/Rambo, and this is one of the best.
- DirectorRon HowardStarsRon HowardNancy MorganElizabeth RogersA rich girl steals her dad's Rolls Royce and heads off to Las Vegas to get married, but her angry parents, a jealous suitor, and a bunch of reward-seekers are determined to stop her.In 1977, Corman decided that as much as his audience liked tits and guns, they liked seeing cars get smashed up more. A huge amount of metal was twisted in the late-'70s thanks to a spate of apparently survivable car crash/car chase movies like this one, usually accompanied by frantic, hsit-kicking country boy music.
- DirectorsAllan ArkushNicholas NiciphorRoger CormanStarsDavid CarradineClaudia JenningsRichard LynchFuturistic Science Fiction about a sport to the death, using "destructocycles".Cheap sci-fi junk set in dystopian and/or destroyed future worlds devolved into wild anarchy proliferated in the late-'70s and early '80s, and this is a fairly typical example of the crop that didn't come from Italy... They were very easy to make on a shoestring, as they always took place in make-do, makeshift societies inhabited by people dressed in (very few) rags. The wealthy bad guys usually lived with coloured lights and Greco-Roman clothes and furnishings.
- DirectorJoe DanteStarsBradford DillmanHeather Menzies-UrichKevin McCarthyWhen flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal.The first and best of the multitude of low-budget Jaws rip-offs, recently returned to with a vengeance in the 2000s thanks to the miracles of CGI. Great fun, even with the shoddy effects of the 1970s.
- DirectorLewis TeagueStarsPamela Sue MartinRobert ConradLouise FletcherAfter being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a naïve farm girl moves to Chicago, where she becomes trapped in a vicious cycle of prostitution and crime abetted by John Dillinger.
- DirectorsAllan ArkushJoe DanteStarsP.J. SolesVincent Van PattenClint HowardRamones fanatic and delinquent Riff Randell battles it out with the strict new principal of Vince Lombardi High School, Miss Togar, with help from the Ramones.Corman cuts himself a slice of the nostalgia craze with this surprisingly tame Grease/Animal House combo. P.J. Soles of Carrie stars with the Ramones (!).
- DirectorsJimmy T. MurakamiRoger CormanStarsGeorge PeppardRobert VaughnRichard ThomasA farm boy recruits a band of outlaws to save the planet Akir from dark forces that threaten to wipe them out from the face of the universe. A battle stretching beyond the stars begins here.Corman leapt enthusiastically onto the Star Wars bandwagon with this reboot of The Magnificent Seven, having apparently observed that all these films started by first ripping off westerns. A few more followed in a similar vein, but not as many as planned, as everybody was flooding the market with this stuff.
