Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel Page #3

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anti-establishment.

I spent two years in the Navy.

Those were the worst

two years of my life.

I came very close to setting the record

for the most demerits,

because I felt

if they set up a rule,

I really must break that rule.

Ron Howard:

Roger understood

the need for audiences

to identify with rebellion.

Beating the system--

that's cathartic,

you know, defining yourself

on your own terms.

These things are elemental.

They're all what we go through

during those rites of passage.

I think that he understood

that when he was dealing

with those basic experiences

and feelings

that he was talking

to a young audience.

We know he always had

something up his sleeve.

He was more irreverent.

He was more hip--

very hip, very cool.

"A bucket of blood" is a really good

example of parody

of the hip scene,

the beat scene in la.

Walter, you've done

something to me,

something deep down

inside of my prana.

I have?

Oh, Walter,

i want to be with you.

You're creative.

Almost all of Roger's pictures

has a little edge to them.

They were--

they just bordered on

something sacrosanct,

that you shouldn't touch this,

and he did it anyway.

And that's usually

what pulled the picture through.

Feed me.

I'm sorry, pal.

I'm fresh out of blood.

Talk to somebody else.

I'm hungry.

I don't care what you are.

Can't you see I'm knocked out?

I just killed a man.

I'm a murderer.

He was always pushing.

Roger's idea at the time

was to cut down

the time of shooting.

So now his ambition

was to make a film in two days.

Now no novocain.

It dulls the senses.

Haze:
It was work. I mean, we would

get there early in the morning

and we'd just start

grinding out these scenes.

One day was half the movie.

Oh, my god,

don't stop now.

Roger had borrowed

all the dental equipment

from his personal dentist

and they hadn't bolted it

down to the floor.

We banged into this big dental sh*t

and it started to fall over.

And Roger cut the camera

and ran out

and saved the dental equipment.

To hell with the scene.

I can truly say I've never

enjoyed myself so much.

Nicholson:
I'd have terrible experiences

going into the theater

with movies that I had made

in that period with Roger,

'cause, you know, they were kind of--

a lot of them were grim.

- Bye.

- Bye now.

By mistake he actually made

a good picture every once in a while.

I was never in it,

but that was as much my fault

as the next guy's.

Corman:
By the beginning

of the '60s

I began to have confidence

in my ability

to master the craft.

At least

she has found peace now.

Has she?

Jonathan demme:

We'd never miss a poe movie.

They were riveting and stylish

and hip and funny.

And we couldn't wait

for the next one.

And of course with Roger,

you didn't have to wait very long.

The next one was gonna come out,

like, a month later.

Do you know where you are,

bartolome?

The pit

and the pendulum.

Howard:
The poe movies

were huge for me,

especially "the pit

and the pendulum."

They had this TV campaign

where the blade was coming down,

you know, and just kind of-- whew.

And, oh, my god, it was--

and I rushed.

In fact, that's probably the first time

that a TV campaign

made me go to the movie.

They were so successful,

I ended up making

six Edgar Allan poe films.

Scorsese:

The artistry of the films

really developed

into the poe pictures:

"The house of Usher,"

"the pit and the pendulum,"

and "the tomb of ligeia,"

which is my favorite.

She desecrates the earth

in which she lies.

A nervous contraction,

nothing more.

Scorsese:
He was a name

that we'd go like--

I must say

like a Hitchcock film.

We'd go see a Roger corman.

Corman:
They wanted me

to make more,

but by that time I said, "enough.

I'm starting to repeat myself."

We played it for a little bit of humor

in some of the later pictures,

particularly "the raven."

Nicholson:

I was doing "the raven."

And he said,

"Jack, look, these sets

are gonna be up

over the weekend,

so I can use

the same sets for free.

I'm gonna have somebody

write something."

And he went

and he got a guy who wrote

68 pages of just dialogue.

To this day, no one knows

the plot of "the terror."

It was very strange. I mean,

we played the weirdest characters.

I played a guy

that was an assistant to a witch.

In the beginning of the film,

I'm a deaf-mute.

And then halfway through

the film, they decided

that they didn't have

an ending for the film.

They'd better make me talk.

I can say no more.

There is great danger.

Find Eric.

Eric knows.

Haze:

Dick played a livery Butler

with a New York accent.

Nicholson:
And you'll see

in the picture now--

god forbid, I don't want

to encourage anyone to see it--

I throw dick Miller

up against this door.

Where's the baron?

We must get to him.

He's locked himself in the crypt.

And dick Miller

now tries to explain

the entire picture in one speech.

The baron did return that night

to find Eric with the baroness

and he did kill her.

But there was a struggle,

and in the fight

it was not Eric who died,

but the baron.

I killed the baron.

It's the only film

that I'd defy anybody to--

'cause there is-- there's no story

actually arrived at.

Corman:

Various directors shot the film.

Francis coppola started

and shot some sequences at big sur,

but then got an opportunity

at a major studio.

So I had monte hellman

shoot for a while.

Monte then got another job

and I think--

I've forgotten all the directors.

There were four or five directors,

including finally Jack Nicholson

shot some scenes himself.

And eventually

i went in for an hour

and shot the final tie-in shots

and finished the picture.

It is a somewhat

confusing picture.

Oh, man, god.

Hopeless, all of it.

I think he wanted to be taken

seriously as a filmmaker

because up until then

he'd been making

monster movies

and Sci-Fi movies.

Perhaps it's not so much

that he wanted critical acclaim,

but he wanted some depth,

some feeling,

some reason

for making a movie.

I wanted to do something

a little bit different.

And I'd read the book

"the lntruder,"

which was about the integration

of the schools in the south.

And I wanted to make

that picture.

I was very much in favor

of integration.

I showed the screenplay

to American international

and said, "this will be

my next picture."

To my real surprise, they said

they didn't want to make it.

And they'd never said no.

I took it to allied artists.

They said no.

Everybody said no, so I said,

"all right, I'll make it myself."

So my brother and i

produced it in the south.

"He was a leader of men,

but he was evil.

He was a stranger,

but he brought lust and love,

rape and hate

to this quiet Southern town.

He was the intruder."

This is not the reason

we made this film.

It is the exact opposite

of what we intended

this film to be.

It was not and is not

an exploitation film.

This picture was the first film

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