A Bucket of Blood
Dir: Roger Corman
1959
*****
A Bucket of Blood is overlooked as the horror/comedy masterpiece that it is. Not only is it an honest, undiscriminating portrayal of the many facets of beatnik culture, including art, dance and style of living, it is also a brilliant satire of Roger Corman's own films and teen films of the 1950s. I think it was a first – another reason why Corman should be regarded as one of the greatest film makers who has ever lived. It also features the first appearance of Walter Paisley. A Bucket of Blood was the first of three collaborations between Corman and Charles B. Griffith in the comedy genre, followed by The Little Shop of Horrors (which was shot on the same sets as A Bucket of Blood) and Creature from the Haunted Sea. One night after hearing the words of Maxwell H. Brock (Julian Burton), a poet who performs at The Yellow Door cafe, the dimwitted, impressionable, busboy Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) returns home to attempt to create a sculpture of the face of the hostess Carla (Barboura Morris). He stops when he hears the meowing of Frankie, the cat owned by his inquisitive landlady, Mrs. Surchart (Myrtle Vail), who has somehow gotten himself stuck in Walter's wall. Walter attempts to get Frankie out using a knife, but accidentally kills the cat when he sticks the knife into his wall. Instead of giving Frankie a proper burial, Walter covers the cat in clay, leaving the knife stuck in it. The next morning, Walter shows the cat to Carla and his boss Leonard (Antony Carbone). Leonard dismisses the oddly morbid piece, but Carla is enthusiastic about the work and convinces Leonard to display it in the café. Walter receives praise from Will (John Brinkley) and the other beatniks in the café. An adoring fan, Naolia (Jhean Burton), gives him a vial of heroin to remember her by. Naively ignorant of its function, he takes it home and is followed by Lou Raby (Bert Convy), an undercover cop, who attempts to take him into custody for narcotics possession. In a blind panic, thinking Lou is about to shoot him, Walter hits him with the frying pan he is holding, killing him instantly. Meanwhile, Walter's boss discovers the secret behind Walter's "Dead Cat" piece when he sees fur sticking out of it. The next morning, Walter tells the café-goers that he has a new piece, which he calls "Murdered Man". Both Leonard and Carla come with Walter as he unveils his latest work and are simultaneously amazed and appalled. Carla critiques it as "hideous and eloquent" and deserving of a public exhibition. Leonard is aghast at the idea, but realizes the potential for wealth if he plays his cards right. The next night, Walter is treated like a king by almost everyone, except for a blonde model named Alice (Judy Bamber), who is widely disliked by her peers. Walter later follows her home and confronts her, explaining that he wants to pay her to model. At Walter's apartment, Alice strips nude and poses in a chair, where Walter proceeds to strangle her with her scarf. Walter creates a statue of Alice which, once unveiled, so impresses Brock that he throws a party at the Yellow Door in Walter's honor. Costumed as a carnival fool, Walter is wined and dined to excess. After the party, Walter stumbles towards his apartment. Still drunk, he beheads a factory worker with his own buzzsaw to create a bust. When he shows the head to Leonard, the boss realizes that he must stop Walter's murderous rampage and promises Walter a show to offload his latest "sculptures". At the exhibit, Walter proposes to Carla, but she rejects him. Walter is distraught and now offers to sculpt her, and she happily agrees to after the reception. Back at the exhibit, however, she finds part of the clay on one figure has worn away, revealing Alice's finger. When she tells Walter that there is a body in one of the sculptures, he tells her that he "made them immortal", and that he can make her immortal, too. She flees, he chases, and the others at the exhibit learn Walter's secret and join the chase. Walter and Carla wind up at a lumber yard where Walter, haunted by the voices of Lou and Alice, stops chasing Carla, and runs home. With discovery and retribution closing in on him, Walter vows to "hide where they'll never find me". The police, Carla, Leonard, Maxwell, and the others break down Walter's apartment door only to find that Walter has hanged himself. Looking askance at the hanging, clay-daubed corpse, Maxwell proclaims, "I suppose he would have called it "Hanging Man" ... his greatest work." Never before has a film been so horrific, macabre and funny. Corman and Griffith developed the idea for producing a satirical black comedy horror film about the beatnik culture after American International Pictures approached Corman to direct a horror film with a $50,000 budget, a five-day shooting schedule and leftover sets from Diary of a High School Bride. Corman accepted the challenge but later said he was uninterested in producing a straightforward horror film. Griffith later claimed Corman was very uneasy at the idea of making a comedy "because you have to be good. We don't have the time or money to be good, so we stick to action.” Griffith says he talked Corman around by pointing out that since the film was made for such a little amount of money over such a short schedule, he could not fail to make money. Corman says that the genesis of the film was an evening he and Griffith "spent drifting around the beatnik coffeehouses, observing the scene and tossing ideas and reactions back and forth until we had the basic story.” The director says by the end of the evening they developed the film's plot structure, partially basing the story upon Mystery of the Wax Museum. According to actor Antony Carbone, "The production had a kind of spirit of 'having fun,' and I think Corman realized that while making the film. And I feel it helped him in other films he made, like The Little Shop of Horrors - he carried that Bucket of Blood 'idea' into that next film.” Actor Dick Miller was unhappy with the film's low production values. Miller was as stating that, “If they'd had more money to put into the production so we didn't have to use mannequins for the statues; if we didn't have to shoot the last scene with me hanging with just some gray make-up on because they didn't have time to put the plaster on me, this could have been a very classic little film. The story was good; the acting was good; the humor in it was good; the timing was right; everything about it was right. But they didn't have any money for production values ... and it suffered”. He is absolutely right but the film is much better than I think he realised. Miller has portrayed Walter Paisley seven times in total, A Bucket of Blood being the first. He would play a character with the same name (it is never confirmed whether it is the same person) nearly twenty years later in another Corman production, Hollywood Boulevard, directed by Allan Arkush and Joe Dante. Dante cast Miller as another character named Walter Paisley in the 1981 film The Howling. This time, Paisley is the owner of an occult bookshop. Two years later, the name popped up again for another Miller character, the owner of a diner in the third segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie. 1986's Chopping Mall featured a janitor named Walter Paisley, and the 1994 made-for-TV remake of Shake, Rattle and Rock! had Miller playing a character named Officer Paisley. Officer Paisley also appeared in Night of the Creeps. The theatrical marketing campaign was brilliant as it emphasized the comedic aspects of the film's plot, proclaiming that the audience would be "sick, sick, sick—from laughing!", a reference to cartoonist Jules Feiffer's popular Village Voice comic strip. So the film's poster consists of a series of comic strip panels humorously hinting at the film's horror content. I’m not sure the critics or audiences of the day really got the satirical nature of the film and looking at it now it was clearly ahead of its time. The last scene is pretty powerful, perhaps unfairly overlooked due to the low-budget production. It has since become a cult hit – like all great films ahead of their time. Dick Miller is one of the actors of all time and Corman is one of the greatest film makers of all time, end of story. The only terrible thing about the film was the promotion it had during its opening week: "If You Bring In A Bucket Of Blood To Your Local Theater's Management (Or Ticket Booth), You Will Be Given One Free Admission". As you can imagine, it didn't pan out too well for the poor cinema staff.

The Masque of the Red Death
Dir: Roger Corman
1964
****
1964's The Masque of the Red Death is the penultimate film in Roger Corman's series of adaptations based on the work of macabre romanticist Edgar Allen Poe. The film's script incorporates the story of the title as well as Poe's short story Hop-Frog and Torture by Hope that was written by French Symbolist Auguste Villiers de LiLsle-Adam. Anyone who thinks Corman is simply a B-movie director should look no further (and should also watch the excellent documentary Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel). The literature probably influenced the movement itself but I've always seen Corman's The Masque of the Red Death to be at the origins of Giallo. It's very hard not to compare the reds used here to the ones used frequently by Dario Argento. Once again, Corman can be considered a trend-setter and while his work could be compared to the Hammer Horrors of the time, he certainly made them up their game and a bit of a resurgence in the studio's production followed. However, as beautifully filmed and well written as it is, I wonder if it would have been as great without the brilliant Vince Price. His Devil-worshiping Prince Prospero is one of his best ever villains, a suitably chilling performance for a terrifying character. I can see why Corman was worried people would compare this film to Bergman's The Seventh Seal but he does keep to the source material, there are familiarities but both films are very different. The Seventh Seal Chess scene is one thing and the closing scene with the Red Death and the little Girl are quite another. A visually rich horror with awesome performances.

Battle Beyond the Stars

Dir: Jimmy T. Murakami

1980

*****

Based on the Seven Samurai, which was later remade into The Magnificent Seven, Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars is a continuation of a timeless story and the 'Seven' legacy. From Ancient Japan, to the Wild West and into space, there is a uniquely pleasing progression to Akira Kurosawa's story that seems to highlight the trends of the time each is set. 1980 saw the huge increase in popularity of the sci-fi genre, largely thanks to 1977's Star Wars. Corman had wanted to make a space-opera for some time and once more hired a young John Sayles (The Brother From Another Planet) to write the script. Corman's film, although loved by a huge cult fan-base, are often mocked for their slap-dash approach but Battle Beyond the Stars was by far the most ambitious film of his at this point. It's really good too (many disagree), but when you look at the cast, the amazing characters, the fact that Sayles wrote it, that a young James Cameron was responsible for the special effects and the great James Horner wrote and performed the score, it really isn't surprising. At the time, a Hollywood trade paper reported that John Wayne was set to star and the film would be directed by Ingmar Bergman, either it was a joke by the editor or a stunt by Corman's publicist (both could be true), it's clear that Corman was something of a joke in the industry, something he would always take with a pinch of salt but also very unfair. The film's spaceship was made out of old McDonalds packaging it's true but it also looked great (so much so Corman reused it several times in later films) and it is all part of the charm anyway. It always seemed fitting to bring the story into the future and I can't fault the story at all. Okay, so it's not quite as great as the originals but I love it just as much. One thing I would argue to the death is that the seven in question are far more interesting in this version than the previous two film. Once more a civilization of farmers (called the Akir - named after Kurosawa) seek the help of mercenaries to defeat an evil raider who regularly pillages their home planet. The lead raider is played by the brilliant John Saxon and a young Richard Thomas ('Goodnight John-Boy') plays a young pilot who goes in search of brave warriors to help save his planet from being turned into a star unless demands are met. With the help of his talking spaceship, he encounters Doctor Hephaestus, a robot specialist on life support and his daughter Nanelia. When the Doctor tried to force him to mate with his daughter, he escapes with Nanelia in tow. He then meets Space Cowboy played by the charismatic George Peppard. Peppard was almost cast in The Magnificent Seven, so this was his way of playing the part that got away. Robert Vaughn plays an assassin on the run, pretty much exactly the same character he plays in The Magnificent Seven but with way more lines and a much better script. They are joined by a race of clones that share a group consciousness named Nestor who agree to join them but only for entertainment purposes and not for payment. On their way back to the planet they meet and recruit Saint Exmin of the Valkyrie Warriors (played by the scantily clad Sybil Danning) and a reptilian slaver named Cayman (of all things) played by Morgan Woodward. Sure it's a little dated and it has its faults but I'm extremely fond of it. It's a Roger Corman classic, perfection is in the imperfections and I'll be totally honest here, I'd watch it over Star Wars any day of the week and as a child, I did!

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
Dir: Alex Stapleton
2011
****
At last Roger Corman gets the credit he deserves. The man is a pioneer, without him cinema wouldn't be what it is today, after all, you can't have A-movies without B-movies! Everyone comes together to sing his praises and so they should, most of them owe him their careers, most noticeably Jack Nicholson who actually breaks down in tears while talking of his friend, in one of the most surprising and genuinely touching moments in film I've seen for a while. It's not all B-movie nonsense though, with films like The Intruder and the fact he helped directors like Fellini, Kurosawa and Bergman get their films shown in the US, he was a serious figure in the history of film making and cinema, always fighting for what he believed in. Sure he missed out on some big successes but mostly it's because people have been ripping off his ideas for decades, something he seems to be doing in return but that's Hollywood folks! Genuine legend.

Last Woman on Earth
Dir: Roger Corman
1960
****
The budget was low and the film copy is awful. The copy I watched was really grainy and that was the new enhanced edition! All that and a bit of over-acting aside, it's a great story. The idea is very clever and solid, it's more intriguing than many films of its ilk that have been made since and I'm sure this has been a huge influence on directors that have worked since in this genre. That is Roger Gorman's legacy, his films were all great ideas made on a small budget, others came with money and ripped him off. Still, this is definitely one of the better of its kind and it is unfair to write it off or overlook it for simply being a 'B-Movie'.

The Intruder
Dir: Roger Corman
1962
****
The next time you hear someone say that Roger Corman is a hack then you should point out this film to them (and also the brilliant documentary 'Corman's World' while you're at it). Apart from low budget slashers, fibreglass monster movies and awesome Exploitation films, Corman also made films of great importance and not just important to cinema. The Intruder is a film that challenged the outcry following school desegregation in the South of America in the late 1950s. The decision was very unpopular at the time with the streets awash with anti-black campaigning, violence and racist hatred. It's fair to say the deep south showed its true colours. It is a sad chapter in history in that sense but also an important part of our developing history which will hopefully lead to civil rights for all. Back in 1961 though, tension was still high. Corman made a bold film about the bigotry just 4 years after desegregation which took some guts when you look at the levels of hatred and violent ignorance that stood as a real threat. Thankfully it's a good film too and not just a Nobel attempt. William Shatner is perfect in the role as 'The Intruder', his acting style really helped develop the two-faced charming but hateful character. Could this also be the first real look at the idea of 'The Devil in a suit'? Answers on a postcard history/Cinema experts....