Roger Corman

Roger Corman
Author: Mark Thomas McGee
Publisher:
Total Pages: 266
Release: 1997
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN:

Best remembered for his 60s Vincent Price/Edgar Allan Poe films and other cult classics, Corman dabbed in anything for a quick buck. But his films were often highly innovative and exciting. Each is covered here in depth; a biography of Corman is included, along with bios of his stock players--all profusely illustrated.

Roger Corman

Roger Corman
Author: Constantine Nasr
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2011-09-13
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1617031674

Roger Corman (b. 1926) is known by many names-craftsman, artist, maverick, schlockmeister, mini-mogul, mentor, cheapskate, and King of the B's. Yet his commitment to filmmaking remains inspired. He learned his craft at the end of the studio system, only to rebel against Hollywood and define himself as the true independent. And the list of directors and producers who learned under his tutelage--Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme, and many more—is astonishing. Collected here are many of the most honest and revealing interviews of his epic career, several of which have never been seen in print. Roger Corman: Interviews brings into focus a life committed to the entertaining art of motion pictures. Corman's rare talent combined artistic drive with business savvy, ensuring a successful career that was constantly in motion. At a remarkable pace more akin to silent movies than modern Hollywood, he directed over fifty films in less than fifteen years, some entertaining (Not of This Earth), trendsetting (The Wild Angels), daring (The Intruder), workmanlike (Apache Woman), stylized (The Masque of the Red Death) and even profound (X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes). In a single year, Corman famously shot a cult classic in two and a half days (The Little Shop of Horrors), reinvigorated the American horror film with a dash of Poe and Price (House of Usher)--and still turned out a few more films shot across the globe. Recently awarded an honorary Oscar for his lifetime contribution to cinema, the self-made Corman has created a legacy as a defining filmmaker.

The Cinematography of Roger Corman

The Cinematography of Roger Corman
Author: Pawel Aleksandrowicz
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2016-09-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1443810061

Roger Corman is an ambiguous artistic figure. On the one hand, he is notorious for shooting and producing his films quickly, cheaply and with blatant disregard for safety measures, which, together with his ability to issue a dozen new films every year and his impressive filmography, have earned him the titles of “shlockmeister” and “the King of the B’s” among film journalists. On the other hand, he became the youngest American director to be given a film retrospective at the prestigious Cinématèque Française in Paris, one of his directorial efforts – House of Usher – was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him with an Academy Honorary Award “for his rich engendering of films and filmmakers.” This book investigates this duality and explores whether Corman is indeed a shlockmeister or an artist whose works are worthy of the highest cinema awards. The scope of analysis is limited to his directorial efforts “only” – still encompassing 50 features – excluding the 400 films he produced. The methodology adopted here is based on the auteur theory in its structuralist version by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Peter Wollen, and focuses on three areas of interest: work ethic – personal elements in the films, personal control over and commitment to the production process outside direction; themes – topics and concerns common for many of the films regardless of the genre; and style – recurring stylistic motifs and elements in the camerawork, editing, and framing.

The New Poverty Row

The New Poverty Row
Author: Fred Olen Ray
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 248
Release: 1991-01-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780899506289

Since cinema's earliest beginnings, there has been friction between producers and directors. Shady accounting practices, which favored the distributors at the expense of the filmmakers, were all too common, causing many filmmakers to form independent companies to make and distribute their own product. This book examines six such low-budget exploitation companies--Associated Distributors Productions, Filmgroup, Hemisphere Pictures, American General Pictures, Independent-International Pictures, Dimension Pictures, and the author's own American-Independent Productions. A brief history of each company, laced with quotes from the company's principals, is presented, followed by a filmography that lists all known credits for that company.

The Reel Middle Ages

The Reel Middle Ages
Author: Kevin J. Harty
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2015-08-13
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476608431

Those tales of old--King Arthur, Robin Hood, The Crusades, Marco Polo, Joan of Arc--have been told and retold, and the tradition of their telling has been gloriously upheld by filmmaking from its very inception. From the earliest of Georges Melies's films in 1897, to a 1996 animated Hunchback of Notre Dame, film has offered not just fantasy but exploration of these roles so vital to the modern psyche. St. Joan has undergone the transition from peasant girl to self-assured saint, and Camelot has transcended the soundstage to evoke the Kennedys in the White House. Here is the first comprehensive survey of more than 900 cinematic depictions of the European Middle Ages--date of production, country of origin, director, production company, cast, and a synopsis and commentary. A bibliography, index, and over 100 stills complete this remarkable work.

The Vampire Book

The Vampire Book
Author: J Gordon Melton
Publisher: Visible Ink Press
Total Pages: 945
Release: 2010-09-01
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1578593506

The Ultimate Collection of Vampire Facts and Fiction From Vlad the Impaler to Barnabas Collins to Edward Cullen to Dracula and Bill Compton, renowned religion expert and fearless vampire authority J. Gordon Melton, PhD takes the reader on a vast, alphabetic tour of the psychosexual, macabre world of the blood-sucking undead. Digging deep into the lore, myths, pop culture, and reported realities of vampires and vampire legends from across the globe, The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead exposes everything about the blood thirsty predator. Death and immortality, sexual prowess and surrender, intimacy and alienation, rebellion and temptation. The allure of the vampire is eternal, and The Vampire Book explores it all. The historical, literary, mythological, biographical, and popular aspects of one of the world's most mesmerizing paranormal subject. This vast reference is an alphabetical tour of the psychosexual, macabre world of the soul-sucking undead. In the first fully revised and updated edition in a decade, Dr. J. Gordon Melton (president of the American chapter of the Transylvania Society of Dracula) bites even deeper into vampire lore, myths, reported realities, and legends that come from all around the world. From Transylvania to plague-infested Europe to Nostradamus and from modern literature to movies and TV series, this exhaustive guide furnishes more than 500 essays to quench your thirst for facts, biographies, definitions, and more.

Cheap Tricks and Class Acts

Cheap Tricks and Class Acts
Author: John Johnson
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1996
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780786400935

Reveals the behind-the-scenes production secrets of the Hollywood films of the 1950s.

100 American Horror Films

100 American Horror Films
Author: Barry Keith Grant
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2022-03-24
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1839021446

"[A] well-plotted survey." Total Film In 100 American Horror Films, Barry Keith Grant presents entries on 100 films from one of American cinema's longest-standing, most diverse and most popular genres, representing its rich history from the silent era - D.W. Griffith's The Avenging Conscience of 1915 - to contemporary productions - Jordan Peele's 2017 Get Out. In his introduction, Grant provides an overview of the genre's history, a context for the films addressed in the individual entries, and discusses the specific relations between American culture and horror. All of the entries are informed by the question of what makes the specific film being discussed a horror film, the importance of its place within the history of the genre, and, where relevant, the film is also contextualized within specifically American culture and history. Each entry also considers the film's most salient textual features, provides important insight into its production, and offers both established and original critical insight and interpretation. The 100 films selected for inclusion represent the broadest historical range, and are drawn from every decade of American film-making, movies from major and minor studios, examples of the different types or subgenres of horror, such as psychological thriller, monster terror, gothic horror, home invasion, torture porn, and parody, as well as the different types of horror monsters, including werewolves, vampires, zombies, mummies, mutants, ghosts, and serial killers.

Historical Dictionary of American Cinema

Historical Dictionary of American Cinema
Author: M. Keith Booker
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 655
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1538130122

One of the most powerful forces in world culture, American cinema has a long and complex history that stretches through more than a century. This history not only includes a legacy of hundreds of important films but also the evolution of the film industry itself, which is in many ways a microcosm of the history of American society. Historical Dictionary of American Cinema, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 600 cross-referenced entries covering people, films, companies, techniques, themes, and subgenres that have made American cinema such a vital part of world culture.

America Noir

America Noir
Author: David Cochran
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2016-06-21
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1588345505

In America Noir David Cochran details how ten writers and filmmakers challenged the social pieties prevalent during the Cold War, such as the superiority of the American democracy, the benevolence of free enterprise, and the sanctity of the suburban family. Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone featured victims of vast, faceless, bureaucratic powers. Jim Thompson's noir thrillers, such as The Grifters, portrayed the ravages of capitalism on those at the bottom of the social ladder. Patricia Highsmith, in The Talented Mr. Ripley, placed an amoral con man in an international setting, implicitly questioning America's fitness as leader of the free world. Charles Willeford's pulp novels, such as Wild Wives and Woman Chaser, depicted the family as a hotbed of violence and chaos. These artists pioneered a detached, ironic sensibility that radically juxtaposed cultural references and blurred the distinctions between “high” and “low” art. Their refusal to surrender to the pressures for political conformity and their unflinching portrayal of the underside of American life paved the way for the emergence of a 1960s counterculture that forever changed the way America views itself.