1970 - Gas-s-s-s, Roger Corman's final film for American Internation Pictures.

Not going to spend a lot of time on this one.  Gas-s-s-s was the final film Corman made for American International Pictures (AIP).   Corman was unhappy with AIP after they cut several scenes which he felt were important to the film.  From the looks of what's left Corman did not direct some masterpiece.  The film is an unfunny mess of situations and characters.

The basic premise is interesting enough, a gas from a government laboratory has escaped and his killed everyone over 25.  This leaves a bunch of kids in charge of the country and probably the world.  The film could have been a jumping off point for some pointed satire about the state of the country but the so called comedy scenes never seem to work.  

The film has a Corman in-joke with the appearance of a character who is apparently Edgar Allen Poe on a motorcycle, a call back to Corman's Poe films for AIP.  That's about as clever as the film gets.  Roger  Corman has spent a lot of time trying to explain why the film failed, (studio interference, to intellectual, the black humor that runs throughout the film) but the reality is the film just never worked.

Written by George Armitage, the running time is 79 minutes

1958 - TEENAGE CAVE MAN - another Corman quicky

Not the worst film ever made as stated by its star Robert Vaughn but you can tell that Roger Corman  knocked this epic out in a few days.

Vaughn looking like one of the best groomed cavemen in the movies.  Sulks around for about an hour with a goofy bow and arrow that he invents.  He and his fellow cavemen are searching for food.  It seems that across the river is a lush land of fruit and vegetables but caveman law will not allow anyone to go there

Naturally Vaughn, not only being a caveman is also a rebel caveman as well.  So off he goes across the river where he encounters a monster.  The monster is a typical low budget Corman touch and provides the twist ending to this epic.

 

Cheaply made, the film has the major virtue of being barely over an hour in its running time.

65 minutes, written by one of Corman's regular writers, R. Wright Campbell .

1990 - FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND, Roger Corman's final film

Roger Corman attempted to make the same kind of film he had been directing his entire life a fast paced horror/science fiction film with a little social commentary.  Corman chose a book Frankenstein Unbound by an author Brian Aldiss, which apparently is a reinterpretation of the Frankenstein story.

The cast is certainly one of the better one's for a Corman movie.  Raul Julia, Bridget Fonda and John Hurt.  Unfortunately the script and story don't really come together. The plot is about a scientist in the future traveling back in time where he meets the real Dr. Frankentstein and his monster with the usual monster mayhem that results.

During the film there are certain scenes that remind me of the old Roger Corman but for the most part the film seems to lack his old style and panache.  Sure there's plenty of blood and guts and violence but the whole thing has a certain been there done that before quality to it

85 minutes.

1956 - IT CONQUERED WITH WORLD another Roger Corman sci-fi quicky

Roger Corman must have knocked this one out in about a day and 1/2.  Corman clearly borrowed from The Day The Earth Stood Still and Invaders from Mars.  Stealing from other movies never bothered Roger Corman very much if he could make a couple of bucks.  

Watching this epic one can't help thinking that they sure didn't put much thought into the monster from the planet Venus.  This think looks like an out of control zucchini with lobster claws.  The flying rubber bat creatures aren't that bad but Corman should have learned a lesson from Val Lewton, "don't show the monster.

The cast is fairly decent.  Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef and Beverly Garland are actually fairly sincere delivering some of the dialog that includes lines like, "I made it possible for you to come here... I made you welcome to this Earth... You made it a charnel house."

Definition:  charnel house -  "A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a place filled with death and destruction." 

71 minutes, written by Lou Rusoff and Corman's go to screenwriter Charles B. Griffith.

1961 - CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, Roger Corman cheapie from the 60's naturally.

Filmed  in 1959 released in 1961 Corman shot this thing in 5 days and that's about all you need to know.

Supposedly a "horror comedy"  the film is certainly some kind of horror with imitations of Humphrey Bogart by one of the leads, a bizarre introductory sequence which has something to do with spies and of course the appearance of the creature about halfway through the film.

The film is under 90 minutes and has a couple of laughs but pretty bad overall even for a low budget Corman film.

You can watch it so you can say you watched it.  That's about it.

75 minutes.

1963 - THE TERROR, Roger Corman's legendary horror flick

Roger Corman's film was shot on leftover sets from The Raven as they were being torn down.  Corman had Boris Karloff signed for three days of work and shot all of his scenes first.  This film seems more like a challenge for Corman to see what he could get away with than an actual horror movie.

The Terror is loaded with lots of stock footage from other AIP films and many of the shots are just the actors walking across sets photographed with a wide angle lens.

The behind the scenes antics are probably more interesting than the actual film.  Corman shot for a few days, Francis Ford Coppola filmed the on location beach scenes at the Big Sur, Jack Nicholson directed, Monty Hellman directed and possibly the writers Leo Gordon and Jack Hill might have filmed some scenes.

 

The film is a mess but short.

81 minutes.

1960 - LAST WOMAN ON EARTH, Corman science fiction cheapness

Roger Corman's end of the world science fiction epic is an early Corman film all the way.  In essence, the cast has 3 people in it.

Shot on location in Puerto Rico along with 2 other films back to back and apparently in about 3 days this film looks pretty cheap.  However it is shot almost entirely on location and you have to give Corman his due not a lot of directors could film this fast and have a fairly decent end product

Corman's film also wants to tantalize the viewer from the opening credits with the slow pan of a nude female to the promise of some type of menage a trois developing between the woman and the 2 men.  Unfortunately this is the early 1960's and even for a cheap exploitation film it's more tease than action.

 The film is very short it doesn't require a lot of investment in your time or emotional energy.

71 minutes,  written by Robert Towne.

1963 - X THE MAN WITH X RAY EYES - interesting AIP/Roger Corman science fiction film

Bringing it in under 90 minutes, Roger Corman shows what a little imagination and cleverness can do on a low AIP budget. 

Ray Milland past his leading man days  is the scientist who develops a drug that gives him X-Ray vision.  As silly as it sounds the premise plays out pretty well.  The film has it's small purpose in examining the situation of a man who invents a drug to give him a wider spectrum of vision but finds that it doesn't necessarily contribute to the betterment of mankind.

Since this is a Corman/AIP film, we do get the expected scene of Milland at a swinging 1960's party using his X-ray vision to stare at naked women dancing at a party, well as naked as you can get for a 1963 film anyway.

The film has a kind of biblical conclusion to it with Milland stumbling into a revival meeting in Nevada confronting the members with his vision of the universe.

Overall, pretty well done.

79 minutes

1957 - NOT OF THIS EARTH, Roger Corman, science fiction, cheap production = entertaining

Paul Birch is an alien from another planet here to see if he can enslave the human race and drain them of their blood for his alien race.  Birch has weird eyes that can zap people dead or hypnotize them into submission. 

The always smiling in interviews, Roger Corman, blasted this one out probably fairly quickly shooting with no budget and on location.  As with a lot of Corman cheapies, Not Of This Earth isn't half bad.

The film also stars Beverly Garland, who shows up in a lot of these early Corman films, and must have been his girlfriend or something at the time.  Corman also has bits for Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze, who I guess are supposed to be the comedy relief in the film. However the real comedy relief is a goofy monster/mosquito that Birch unleashes towards the end of the film. 

What this film has going for it is Paul Birch, the guy looks a little short in stature, but he definitely has that "Man in Black" look down and he's certainly a lot more interesting than a lot of this film.

67 minutes.

1961 - THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM the 2nd in Corman's Edgar Allen Poe series

Roger Corman's close but no cigar adaptation of this Edgar Allen Poe story.  For a film with really bright bright colors, Corman managed to work up a lot of atmosphere with the creepy castle, hidden passages and of course the thunderstorm stuff he sticks in the film. 

Probably the real auteur of The Pit and the Pendulum,  is the screenwriter Richard Matheson who had to take a Poe story which as I recall is about 4 pages long or so with no plot or characters and flesh it out for about 80 minutes not an inconsiderable achievement.  Matheson was probably one of the most important fantasy/science fiction writers in entertainment, he wrote for the original Twilight Zone series and the original Star Trek series.  He was also the writer for one of Spielberg's better films Duel.  Matheson was the original author of I am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Somewhere in Time, The Night Stalker, and let's not forget to throw in an episode of The Girl From UNCLE.

Truth be told the acting is not so hot.  Most of the performers sound pretty stiff and stilted  the exception being Vincent Price who overacts pretty shamelessly.

Obviously everything leads up to the famous slice the guy in half with the razor sharp pendulum scene at the end of the film and it's still pretty effective for an early 60's film. 

Corman's about three years away from making his artsy fartsy Poe films,  The Masque of the Red Death and The Tomb of Ligela.

85 minutes.

1966 - THE WILD ANGELS, Roger Corman's well made biker film

Roger Corman's anti-establishment film is about sticking it's middle finger up at southern California society for 90 minutes or it's a metaphor of what happens when the id is unleashed.  Whatever it is, this is a very well directed and photographed film.

 

Anti heroes to the nth degree, the Hell's Angels aren't above picking a fight with a group of Hispanics just to show how racist they are or having an all out orgy during a church funeral.  The rampant display of Nazi symbols and memorabilia they wear throughout the film contributes to their scary anti everything persona.

 

With the exception of Bruce Dern who's  dead for half of the film, the acting is not so hot.   Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra are probably a little to clean cut to be hanging out with this bunch but at least Fonda's got the snear down and the image of him and Sinatra riding down the road is iconic.  He summons up the film's theme in his speech at Bruce Dern's funeral:

"We want to be free! We want to be free to do what we want to do! We want to be free to ride. And we want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man. And we want to get loaded. And we want to have a good time! And that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna have a good time. We’re gonna have a party."

The funeral orgy in the northern California church is something to see, Corman shoots it close with a hand held camera in wide screen.  It gives the whole scene an interesting unsettling effect.   Another bizarre scene has Fonda caressing his bike while on the soundtrack you can hear two cats screwing.

From the beginning of the film with Fonda riding his bike past a series of ugly oil well pumps covering the California landscape to the existential ending, this is possibly one of the best films made about the 1960's.  Written by Charles B Griffith the running time is 93 minutes.