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FREE HOW I MADE A HUNDRED MOVIES IN HOLLYWOOD AND NEVER LOST A DIME PDF Roger Corman | 254 pages | 01 Sep 1998 | The Perseus Books Group | 9780306808746 | English | Cambridge, MA, United States How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime by Roger Corman Roger Corman borna filmmaker with several hundred films to his credit, has rightly been called the "King of the B Movies. Since Corman has operated successful independent film production and distribution companies. Roger Corman's childhood gave few clues that, in later years, he would create hundreds of low-budget films that would make him one of Hollywood's best-known directors. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 5,the first child of European immigrants William and Ann Corman; his brother Gene who also became a producer was born 18 months later. As a child Corman was more interested in sports and building model airplanes than in film. William Corman, an engineer, was forced to take a huge pay cut during the Great Depression that began in The family moved to the "poor side" of Beverly Hills, California, while Corman was in high school. He became fascinated with the stories of Edgar Allan Poe asking for a complete set of Poe's works as a giftbut he planned to become an engineer like his father. After graduating from high How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, Corman studied engineering How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime Stanford University and participated in the Navy's officer training program. InCorman graduated from Stanford and, after several months of unemployment, took an engineering job. He realized immediately that How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime was not the work for him, and quit the first week. Through a family friend he was hired as a messenger at Twentieth Century Fox. His lifelong career in the film industry had begun, to be interrupted only briefly inwhen he became irritated with studio bureaucracy and spent a year studying and traveling in Europe. While working in Hollywood as a literary agent after returning from Europe, Corman also began to write screenplays. He sold his first screenplay, Highway Dragnet, to Allied Artists in and also became the film's associate producer. The next year Corman used the money he made from this work to finance his first independently produced film, The Monster from the Ocean Floor. Monsters, aliens, supernatural villains, and other frightening characters almost always lay at the heart of Corman's films. During the next five years Corman produced or directed more than 30 films for American International Pictures AIPsometimes completing six or more films per year. He also branched out into gangster films, as in 's Machine Gun Kelly starring Charles Bronson ; westerns, beginning with 's Five Guns West ; and teen-oriented films, with flimsy plots but catchy titles like Teenage Doll and Rock All Night Always looking for ways to cut costs, Corman frequently acted in these films when more actors were needed, and others on the set also pitched in to play characters or trade jobs when necessary. As pointed out by Greg Villepique in Salon, Corman also injected a great deal of slightly bizarre wit into his films. For instance, when the evil coed in 's Sorority Doll is discovered beating up one of the pledges, she protests, "All I did was spank her a little. In Corman directed one of his best- known horror classics, A Bucket of Blood. Walter Paisley a character who returns in later Corman films is a busboy in a beatnik coffeehouse, who discovers a hidden "talent" for sculpture when he coats a neighbor's dead cat in plaster. When there is a demand for more of his work, he takes the obvious Corman route and human "sculptures" start to appear as people in the neighborhood also start to disappear. A Bucket of Blood, shot in only five days, introduced a decade of similar films from Corman. He followed up with The Little Shop of Horrorsin which the main human character Seymour Krelboin, an assistant in a florist shop, takes second billing to Audrey Jr. Audrey Jr. After rehearsing for three days, Corman completed filming in a mere two days, perhaps a record for a feature film. Init also was adapted into an award-winning stage musical. Based on the success of Bucket and Little Shop, Corman found himself in an unusual position. AIP gave him larger budgets and he was able to spend more time shooting his films. He embarked on some of his most famous films, a series based on How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime and poems by Edgar Allan Poe and starring Vincent Price. For Masque, Corman reused elaborate castle sets from the historical epic Beckett. The film's cinematographer, Nicholas Roeg, created a surrealistic atmosphere that he later used in his own films, such as Don't Look Now. After The Raven was completed, Corman decided to reuse the castle sets for another quick film before tearing them down, and got Karloff to stay for two more days to shoot The Terror, costarring Jack Nicholson and How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime by Nicholson and Francis Ford Coppola. However, it took several months after Karloff's departure to piece together the film; Corman called it the longest production of his career, but also said it was "a classic story of how to make a film out of nothing. During the civil unrest of the late twentieth century, Corman an acknowledged liberal nevertheless remained devoted to the apolitical film subjects that had made him famous. In his Salon article, Villepique discussed one of the only films in which Corman explored a political subject. Corman himself went to the Deep South to shoot the film, and used local residents as film extras without revealing how critical the film was of civil rights opponents. He and his crew just managed to finish the film before being ordered out of town by the local police. The Intruder was a failure in theaters, even after he gave it a new name more typical of his films, I Hate Your Guts! Some of Corman's other films of the s focused on characters who later became stereotypes of that decade's lifestyles. The Wild Angels was one of the first films to look at "biker" culture; it featured little-known actors Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra. Another low-budget production, The Wild Angels was extremely violent for its time. Other notable Corman films of the s and early s included Voyage to the Prehistoric PlanetBloody Mamastarring Shelley Winters as the mother of an outlaw gang, and Women in Cages Corman, whose films still were considered low-budget but now often cost two million dollars, became increasingly frustrated with what he considered the wastefulness and excessive interference of the major Hollywood studios. Inhe established New World Pictures, which immediately turned a profit and soon became the country's largest independent film distribution company. But the profits from these films also enabled New World to distribute art films by noted directors such as Francois Truffault and Federico Fellini. In Corman decided to stop distributing films so that he could devote more attention to producing them. He sold New World and set up a new company, Concorde-New Horizons, which devoted itself largely to producing horror and martial arts films for distribution to theaters and a cable television series, "Roger Corman Presents. He continues to provide his fans with installments of Alien Avengers and other films with the typical Corman features. Despite his nickname, "King of the B Movies," Corman's films nevertheless have received critical acclaim in addition to their ongoing popularity with filmgoers. Perhaps one of the most distinguished features of Corman's long career has been his ability to recognize young screen talent. Corman has retained a fondness for the early horror films that established his career. By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Please set a username for yourself. People will see it as Author Name with your public flash cards. Biography Roger Corman Facts Roger Corman borna filmmaker with several hundred films to his credit, has rightly been called the "King of the B Movies. Early Films Set Pattern While working in Hollywood as a literary agent after returning from Europe, Corman also began to write screenplays. Founded Independent Film Companies Corman, whose films still were considered low-budget but now often cost two million dollars, became increasingly frustrated with what he considered the wastefulness and excessive interference of the major Hollywood studios. Periodicals Entertainment Weekly, May 19, Forbes, April 15, Encyclopedia of World Biography. Copyright The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Link to this page. Roger Corman. In YourDictionary. Roger Corman Images. Home Reference Biography Roger Corman. Also Mentioned In. Penrose Roger rodger rogernomics jolly-rogers. Join YourDictionary today. Roger Corman Facts The lowest-priced brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging where packaging is applicable. Packaging should be the same as what is found in a retail store, unless the item is handmade or was packaged by the manufacturer in non-retail packaging, such as an unprinted box or plastic bag. See details for additional description. Hardback or softcover, if you are into movies you need to buy a copy of this, read it, set it aside for a year, then read it again-- it will seem like a whole new book with some time to mature in your mind.

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