Disposable Lit Reviews

Da Capo Press, 1990/1998
237 pp.
ISBN 0-306-80874-9

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Nobody’s got a reputation for cheap like Roger Corman. But then, consider who he’s being compared against: Studio system execs who overhire, overspend, and lose their investment as often as not. Maybe the difference is that Corman has always produced his movies like a small businessman, amortizing investment and minimizing costs to protect a return. He’s not cheap; he’s efficient.

Corman’s autobiography, written from hours of interviews with co-author Jim Jerome, is a fascinating look into the mind and career of a moviemaker who consistently turned a profit. (Not that the title is absolutely true — he did have a couple of movies which lost money, as he candidly admits, but they were so few that his bottom line remained well-cushioned.) Beginning with his childhood, his entry into the motion-picture world as a first-time producer with a first-time director, through his career in the director’s chair, and to his position as head of a succession of profitable production companies, Corman does what he does best: Concentrates on entertainment value. Interspersed throughout are interview snippets with co-workers, cast and crew, production partners, and others with firsthand knowledge of his personality and work habits. There’s enough minor criticism in those review segments to give the impression that, instead of being cherry-picked positive comments, the interviewees all honestly respected Corman’s filmmaking style.

Corman’s philosophy has always been simple: Entertain people. If you’re doing that on a limited budget (and Corman always limited his budgets, even at the height of success, simply because he knew that after a certain point, dollars thrown at a production simply don’t translate into better entertainment), you don’t use your money on personal artistic vision: You just give the people what they want. Corman discovered he had good instincts for what people would pay to see, so he followed those instincts, keeping his production company small so that it could remain flexible and responsive to him, to the market, and to the realities of production. This is the man who shot Little Shop of Horrors in two days simply to prove it could be done.

But despite the self-assurance that his career strongly implies, Corman does show peeks of vulnerability here, wondering in hindsight if he could have been as successful (by whatever criteria you prefer) if he had emphasized Art a bit more in respect to Commerce. It’s the kind of introspection you don’t expect from a man whose reputation is grounded on doing it “his way.”

My only complaint with the book is that it’s too old. First published in 1990, it ceases with the sale of New World and the formation of Concorde. That means that the last two decades plus of his career are missing (he’s eighty years old this year, and still cranking out product), the time period during which most of us have gotten to know him through Concorde/New Horizon’s direct-to-video feature output. There are other books on Corman that have appeared in the invervening years, but I’m hoping that, during one of his brief and fidgety stabs of retirement, Corman finds it profitable to work toward a second edition, or Volume 2. Remember, Roger, sequels have a built-in audience.

Nathan Shumate