Tag: Roger Corman

Roots of ALIEN: A pre-pre-PROMETHEUS Triple Feature

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If you’re excited about the promos for the Ridley Scott science fiction movie coming out this summer, Prometheus… it might be a good time to visit some of the films that have been mentioned over the years as the inspirations for ALIEN, and it just so happens they’re all pretty short and all available on Netflix streaming – a perfect weekend triple bill.

Bigger Than Life‘s Sci-Fi Twin

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No one with eyes and a brain could seriously dispute Nicholas Ray’s role as the primary auteur of Bigger Than Life. All you need to do is watch Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause and Bigger Than Life back-to-back to see that both films are the work of the same filmmaker, sharing a nearly identical approach to performance (pushed [...]

Have a Blaisdell Halloween!

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Paul Blaisdell (July 21, 1927 – July 10, 1983) was a science fiction illustrator (The Ant Men, above), a special effects artisan, and an inspired designer of imaginative costumes and props for a series of low-budget horror, monster, and sci-fi films released by American International Pictures and Allied Artists in the 1950s. He was the [...]

Quotation of the Day – La Belle Captive

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La Belle Captive (1983) is an erotic noir mystery by Alain Robbe-Grillet, the screenwriter of Last Year at Marienbad. It is also quite tongue-in-cheek. The following three images which appear in succession in the film capture something of the movie’s fetishistic flavor. If the last shot reminds you of the orgy sequence in Kubrick’s Eyes [...]

Cosmic Kharma in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

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Check out the latest issue of Film Comment, containing an excellent, though regrettably short, piece by Richard Combs praising the formal achievement of Roger Corman’s The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967). “About time,” says I. Though film historians occasionally cite The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre as an effective genre piece – it is almost a [...]

The Halloween Wish List DVD Set: Roger Corman

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In this drab time when new classic title DVD releases are almost nonexistent, one has to wonder, are the studio DVD people just asleep at the wheel, or–more likely–do they just know nothing about movies made before 1985 that aren’t Singing in the Rain or Casablanca? Well, I’m here to shout into the wind: Release [...]

JPL is RIP

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If you’re a fan of the films of Otto Preminger, Roger Corman, or Mario Bava – or, like me, all three – you will be saddened to learn of the death earlier this week of John Phillip Law, who was an iconic presence in the films of all three directors. For Preminger, he played a [...]

Hazel Court (1926-2008)

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Most fondly remembered for the two films she did for Terence Fisher – The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) – and the three films she did for Roger Corman – Premature Burial (1962), The Raven (1963, above), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964). This stunning English [...]

Halloween Special – 31 Essential Horror Films

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Boris Karloff in “The Wurdalak” episode of Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (1963) This is my ranked list of 31 Essential Horror Films culled from Ed Hardy, Jr.’s 183 Official Nominees for the 31 Flicks That Give You the Willies List. In keeping with the parameters of Ed’s poll, my primary criterion for inclusion and ranking [...]

CHARLES B. GRIFFITH (1930-2007)

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WROTE: Attack of the Crab Monsters; Not of this Earth; The Undead (in iambic pentameter); It Conquered the World; Teenage Doll; Rock All Night; A Bucket of Blood; Little Shop of Horrors (also acted, and provided the voice of Audrey Jr., the man-eating plant); Creature From the Haunted Sea; The Wild Angels; Death Race 2000. [...]

Catherine Corman, Joseph Cornell, and Rose Hobart

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When I first saw Rose Hobart (excerpted above) back in the 1970s, it was a revelation to me. Its maker, Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), was an American surrealist who specialized in collages and “assemblages” – open-faced boxes in which he arranged images and various found objects. Cornell’s Rose Hobart (1936) was an assemblage of another kind, [...]

Farewell to Curtis Harrington (1928-2007)

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Curtis Harrington was something of a role model for me, if only because he moved so gracefully through so many barriers that seem impenetrable to others, the barriers between amateur and professional, between critic and artist, between avant-garde and mainstream. A true film buff, he was just as likely to be seen in the audience [...]

Film Composer Confusion – The Two Steins

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I have a confession to make. Since reading the obituary of film composer Herman Stein who passed away on March 15th of this year, I finally realized that he and film composer Ronald Stein were not the same person. They weren’t even related! Herman Stein (1915-2007) was a staff composer for Universal Pictures in the [...]

Corman on TCM

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Okay, we’ve all seen Roger Corman’s The Terror and A Bucket of Blood, right? Since both films are in the public domain, they are readily available on DVD. (Amazon.com will sell you The Terror for as little as 1 cent – I kid you not!) However, unlike the common DVD versions, the versions that will [...]

Poe, Poe, Poe

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There is absolutely no connection between the James Poe who wrote Attack! (discussed immediately below) and the Edgar Allan Poe who inspired Roger Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum (illustrated immediately above). Except, of course, that James Poe was briefly married to The Pit and the Pendulum’s beautiful star, Barbara Steele. But seriously, if you [...]

Great Blog Topic – Monologues

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Edward Copeland at The House Next Door has written a great post concerning film monologues. After considering what makes a great film monologue, he describes in detail 5 stellar examples. Rather than repeat Copeland’s examples, I thought I’d cite some personal favorites. Not surprisingly, they all result from a synthesis of great actors, first-rate screenwriting, [...]

Another Day, Another List

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RECOMMENDED READING: In the September/October 2006 issue of Film Comment, writer/director Paul Schrader’s article on, “The Film Canon – What Constitutes a Cinematic Masterpiece.” This lengthy, absorbing essay has something for everyone. For the film theorist – a discussion of why there is or should be a film canon, and what criteria should be employed [...]