Fall 2006
64 pages tabloid-sized
This is the special issue that grew and grew, just like Audrey Jr. in Little Shop of Horrors. Made in honour of Roger Corman’s 80th year, this mammoth publication is ESR’s biggest project to date. Over 100 reviews are included, to celebrate the amazing career of the legendary producer-director, who for over 50 years has thrilled drive-in patrons and home video renters alike with his innumerable genre films, all capitalizing on whatever trends were the order of the day, almost all made on notoriously low budgets.
Roger Corman’s career has been a veritable film school for people before and behind the camera…. everyone from Jack Nicholson to Martin Scorsese, from Francis Ford Coppola to Peter Fonda, all paying their dues on their ways to stardom. This volume also examines Corman’s films in relations to genre trends of their day, and with a socio-cultural perspective. The Roger Corman Scrapbook relives the cheapjack films of the 50s, the Poe pictures of the 60s, the New World movies of the 70s, and even offers a fair balance of films from his much-maligned period at Concorde, from the 80s to the present. We even throw in a DVD of Creature from the Haunted Sea… perhaps his wackiest film ever (and I know that’s some catalogue).
Here is a complete rundown of the films reviewed, featuring contributions by Will Sloan, David Faris, Leo Walsh and Greg Woods.
SECTION ONE: MAVERICK FOR HIRE
A Producer is Born
Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954); The Fast and the Furious (1954)
Roger Goes West
Five Guns West (1955); The Oklahoma Woman (1955); Gunslinger (1956)
Space Age Corman
The Day the World Ended (1955); It Conquered the World (1956); Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), Not of This Earth (1957); War of the Satellites (1958); Teenage Caveman (1958)
Teen Beat
Teenage Doll (1957); Rock All Night (1957); Sorority Girl (1957); Carnival Rock (1957)
On the Lam: Part One
I, Mobster (1958); Machine Gun Kelly (1958)
Cheap Thrills
Swamp Women (1956); The Undead (1957); Ski Troop Attack (1960); The Wasp Woman (1959); Last Woman on Earth (1960); X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (1963)
The Intruder (1961)
The Chuck Griffith Trilogy
Bucket of Blood (1959); Little Shop of Horrors (1960); Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)
Roger Goes to Europe
Atlas (1961); Dementia 13 (1963); The Young Racers (1963)
Poe-try
House of Usher (1960); The Pit and the Pendulum (1961); Tales of Terror (1962); Premature Burial (1962); Tower of London (1962); The Haunted Palace (1963); The Raven (1963); Masque of the Red Death (1964); Tomb of Ligeia (1964); The Terror (1963); Targets (1968)
On the Lam: Part Two
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967); Bloody Mama (1970)
Counterculture
The Wild Angels (1966); The Trip (1967); Gas-s-s-s, Or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It (1970)
SECTION TWO: A NEW WORLD
Friendly Nurses
The Student Nurses (1970); Private Duty Nurses (1971)
Women in Prison
The Big Doll House (1971); The Big Bird Cage (1971); The Arena (1973); Caged Heat (1974)
Blaxploitation
The Final Comedown (1972); TNT Jackson (1976)
On the Lam: Part Three
Boxcar Bertha (1972); Big Bad Mama (1974)
Ripping Up Roads
Death Race 2000 (1975); Eat My Dust! (1976); Grand Theft Auto (1977)
Jackson County Jail (1976)
Hollywood Boulevard (1976)
Roger Goes to the Art House
Cockfighter (1974); I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977); Saint Jack (1979)
Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)
Fish Stories
Piranha (1978); Humanoids from the Deep (1980)
Space Pulp
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980); Forbidden World (1982); Space Raiders (1983)
The Last Gasp
Suburbia (1984); Love Letters (1984)
SECTION THREE: NEW HORIZONS
Sword and Sorcery
Deathstalker (1983); Barbarian Queen (1985)
On the Lam: Part Four
Big Bad Mama II (1987); Daddy’s Boys (1988)
Overexposed
The Drifter (1988); Naked Obsession (1990)
Franchises
Slumber Party Massacre II (1987); Bloodfist (1989)
Spoofs
Munchies (1987), Transylvania Twist (1989)
Apocalyptic Follies
Crime Zone (1988); The Terror Within (1988); Dune Warriors (1990)
Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
Corman Family Values
A Cry in the Wild (1990); The Skateboard Kid (1993)
Comic Books
The Fantastic Four (1994); The Black Scorpion (1995); Vampirella (1996)
Bride of Cheap Thrills
Brain Dead (1990); Carnosaur (1993); Hellfire (1995); Under Oath (1997); Wolfhound (2002)
Book Reviews
How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, by Roger Corman; The Films of Roger Corman: Brilliance on a Budget, by Ed Naha; Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, by Beverly Gray
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