Monster of the Day #3522

Monster of the Day #3522

Corman obviously slowed down a bit once he started making his Poe films, although 'slow down' is relative in his case. In 1962 he directed four films; the one Vincent Price-lacking Poe film (and unsurprisingly, the least popular) The Premature Burial, his famous racial drama The Intruder, famously remembered as the one film Corman…
Monster of the Day #3521

Monster of the Day #3521

Oops, posted this early. Consider it tomorrow's (the 30th) MotD. In 1959 Gene Corman, Roger's brother, produced a low budget monster movie called Beast of Haunted Cave. It was written by Corman's pal and regular coworker Charles B. Griffin. Two years later, in 1961 (yes, it's right, I used a calculator), Roger decided that…
Monster of the Day #3520

Monster of the Day #3520

(It was weirdly difficult to find a good still of Audrey Jr.) 1960 saw Roger Corman direct two of his most famous pictures. Yesterday, we talked about Fall of the House of Usher, Corman's first Poe film. However, maybe as a lark, or just to prove he could stlll do it, Corman decided to…
Monster of the Day #3519

Monster of the Day #3519

Oh, well, back to work today. Roger Corman, following having directed (not even counting films he produced) 23 movies in six years, moved into the futuristic new decade of the 1960s. Sensing the market was shifting, he went to AIP, who was generally spending two hundred thousand for a pair of black and white…
Monster of the Day #3518

Monster of the Day #3518

Roger Corman got super lazy in 1959, directing only three films that year. What a slugabed. I mean, he directed 20 films in the four years prior to that. One of the 1959 films was one of his classics, though, A Bucket of Blood, starring Dick Miller and setting the making of the satirical…
Monster of the Day #3517

Monster of the Day #3517

1958 saw Corman expanding his range a bit, to sometimes dubious results. Aside from his Viking epic he made Teenage Caveman, with the weirdly suave Robert Vaughn (shades of George Hamilton playing Evel Kneivel) at 26 playing the titular hero. The film has a Rod Serling twist at the end. Was there a (presumably…
Monster of the Day #3516

Monster of the Day #3516

After producing / directing eight films in 1957, Roger Corman took a break. He only directed five films that year, and only also produced three of those. What a slacker. (Although he also produced Night of the Blood Beast, which he didn't direct.) I think he spent the time he wasn't directing two films…
Monster of the Day #3515

Monster of the Day #3515

The Devil you say. Is there a weirder indie genre film of the '50s than Roger Corman's The Undead? The fact that Corman knew he could make money with this film--because he wouldn't have made it otherwise--proves that he respected his audience more than most of those toiling in the same fields. We watched…
Monster of the Day #3514

Monster of the Day #3514

So here we get Corman's take on a giant monster movie. As you might expect from a Corman cheapie, the script is extremely weird. This is mostly remembered, of course, for Paul Blaisdell's fantastic giant crab prop. Happy Friday, everyone. Watch something stupid this weekend. Also, Watch Party tonight. Wheeee!