Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 24. Roger Corman

Episode Date: November 10, 2014

Legendary B-movie king ROGER CORMAN has produced and directed over 400 films, giving early career breaks to actors like Robert De Niro, Sandra Bullock, Bruce Dern, Charles Bronson and Dennis Hopper and helping to launch the directing careers of Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich (among others). Gilbert and Frank phoned Roger in his Hollywood home to learn more about his life and fabled career, including where/how he first met longtime friend and collaborator Jack Nicholson, why the Hell's Angels threatened to murder him AND take him to court, and why "a monster should always be bigger than a leading lady." Plus: "The Beast with (not quite) a Million Eyes"! Roger experiments with LSD! Peter Lorre messes with Boris Karloff's head! The "acceptable level of insanity"! And the enduring mystery of "The Terror"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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One member said, I would recommend my therapist 1,000 times over. She has truly changed my life. Another member said, the day after my first session, my friends and family said I sounded like myself again for the first time in weeks. You deserve to invest in your well-being. Visit BetterHelp.com to see what it can do for you. That's BetterHelp.com. This episode is sponsored by Cards Against Humanity's 10 days or whatever of Kwanzaa. You give Cards Against Humanity $15 and they'll send you 10 mystery gifts for the 10 days or whatever of Kwanzaa. Space is limited to the first 250,000 people who sign up at HolidayBullshit.com. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast

with my co-host Frank Santopadre. with my co-host Frank Santopadre. Today, we'll be joined by a man who's made over 400 films as a producer and a director. A man who helped jumpstart the careers of... Are you ready for this? Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, James Cameron,

Robert Towne, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, and Robert De Niro. Ladies and gentlemen, the king of the B-movies, Roger Corman. Xero, spelled X-E-R-O, is the online accounting software and platform for your small business. With Xero, it doesn't matter if your small business is brick and mortar or online. That's because Xero was born in the cloud and built in the cloud. This means that you can manage your accounting anytime, anywhere from your Mac, PC, iOS, or Android device. Sign up for a free 30-day trial at xero.com slash podcast to manage your invoicing and get paid faster, get an instant view of your cash flow, track your expenses on the go,

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zero randomly selects five people a month who have signed up to receive a mystery box of goodies. Zero plus from a company that already swears by zero. Zero beautiful accounting software. Okay, if you liked low-budget B-movies about outlaw biker gangs, giant sea serpents, man-eating plants, women in prison, teenage cavemen, loads of violence, and hot girls in skimpy clothing or no clothing at all. And if you don't like that, I don't want to know you. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome genuine Hollywood legend, the one, the only, Roger Corman. Well, that was a pretty subtle introduction. I hope I can keep up with that level of intellectualism.

We're all about intellectualism, Roger. Now, you have introduced some of the biggest names. And, you know, if someone doesn't know who you are, and I'd be ashamed if they didn't, you have introduced two show business, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Donovich, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, James Cameron, Robert Towne, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonder, Bruce Stern, Dennis Hoppe, Talia Shires, Sandra Bullock, and Robert De Niro. One or two others, but I think we'll settle for those for the moment. but I think we'll settle for those for the moment.

Now, how did you first get into movie making? Well, it started when I was an engineering student at Stanford, and I was writing for the Stanford Daily, and I found out the critics for the Daily got free passes to all the theaters in Palo Alto. So I thought, I like to see pictures for not paying, and so I wrote a couple sample reviews. They took me on as a critic, and then I started to really examine and analyze the films in order to write the reviews, And I essentially became hooked. I thought this is much more fascinating than I realized just watching films casually.

And I decided to move from engineering to filmmaking. And you were reading scripts at one point. Yes, I was a story analyst at 20th Century Fox, which is a sort of overblown way of just saying a reader. And one movie that you helped get made was The Gunfighter starring Gregory Peck. Yes. And so what happened to you there that soured you on that job? Well, what happened, the story editor said, Roger, you've knocked every project we've sent

you to analyze. And I said, well, I'm the youngest guy in the department. And the reason I knock them is because they're no good. You send me all the bad stuff, send me something good, and I'll praise it. And they sent me a script called The Big Gun, which was a very good Western, and I thought this could fit because I knew they had a commitment with Gregory Peck, and they were looking for a Western for him.

So I did an editorial job of a little bit of rewriting and one thing or another. And somebody else got a bonus for my work. So I quit and went to Europe on the GI Bill to get away from Hollywood and, frankly, just to go to Europe and look around. just to go to Europe and look around. Now, is that Gregory Peck movie the one where one of the biggest controversies with the studio was that he wore a mustache in it? Yes. They didn't want him.

They wanted him to be clean-shaven. But if you look at pictures of the time, you see that probably the majority of men wore mustaches. And I've forgotten who were the producer and director, but both the producer and the director and Peck all felt he should wear a mustache. And the studio executives finally said, okay, they didn't want to make an issue of it. And I think it was very good because it lent a sense of realism, which was lacking, as we know, in some films. And so, Roger, at that point, you're disenchanted with the movie business and your experience in it. Get us from there, from walking away from Fox to making your own films. get us from there, from walking away from Fox to making your own films.

Well, when I came back, I went briefly to Oxford on the GI Bill, and then I came back, and I got a job as a literary agent. And I wanted to write, so in my spare time I was writing, and I wrote a script, put a different name on it, and as a literary agent, sold my own script. And I explained what happened to the head of the literary agency and paid him his 10% commission. He laughed. He said, okay, I understand. And I then said to the producer of the film, as part of the deal, said to the producer of the film, as part of the deal, I will work for nothing for you as an assistant,

but I would like to get an associate producer credit. And again, he figured, why not? He had somebody unpaid working on the picture, but credits are very important in Hollywood, so I knew that at the end of this, I officially had on the screen a writer credit and a producer credit. And I took the money from the sale of the script, raised a little bit of money from various friends of mine, a grand total of $12,000, and then I had some deferments and I made the film a film I called It Stalked the Ocean Floor for $12,000 plus some deferments which built it up to $27,000

and I sold it to a little distribution company they thought my title was too arty and they changed the title to Monster from the Ocean Floor and that launched my career. The film was successful.

I produced one more film, The Fast and the Furious, a picture about sports car racing, and I did very well with that title because the picture was successful, and I made money. And later on, a few years ago, Universal was looking for a title for a car racing picture they had starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. And they heard about my old title, The Fast and the Furious. So I sold them the title. So I scored twice. Now, I heard that on the Fast and the Furious you bought up a bunch of used cars, raced them, and

banged them up, and then basically hosed them off and returned them. Everything is correct except hosing them off and returning them. I essentially wrecked them. I sold them for junk. Roger, do I have this correct that you did several jobs on Monster from the Ocean Floor,

that you were the producer, the assistant director, the driver, and the grip, and you did a little bit of everything? I did everything, including the truck driver. I drove the truck, and the representative from the Teamsters came out to see the shoot. Of course, he wanted to have a Teamsters truck driver, and he was talking to me. He said, who's the truck driver? And I said, I am. And he laughed, and he said, you're the first producer truck driver I've ever heard of.

He said, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make you an honorary member of the Teamsters for this picture because I know you don't have any money. But you have to have a Teamster on the next picture. And I said, that's a fair deal. And from then on in, I was with the Teamsters. And from then on in, I was with the team. Now, I heard an interview with some people who worked on a few of your films where you would look at the script and take a pencil and scribble notes on it. And one of the notes was maybe able to use a bare breast shot.

For a little while, that was true, and not at the beginning. First, you couldn't have nudity until, I think, around the late 1960s, when the rating system with R ratings came in. And we had R-rated films, made a number of R-rated films that were successful, but that didn't really last that long. They were successful because they were just R-rated. They were never anything more than that. We never did any X films or anything like that.

They were successful because they were new, and then it sort of faded off. and we haven't had an R-rated film or a film with nudity for a long time. I think what it amounts to is they get so much on the Internet, there's hardly any point in putting it in a film anymore. Roger, tell us about working for American International Pictures, for AIP, and how that started. Well, it started with my second picture. After Monster from the Ocean Floor, as I said, I made The Fast and the Furious, and I could see the trap for the producer. You put up your money, you sent the picture out for distribution, and over maybe six months or a year, you got your money back, and you could make another film. And I felt that this was a system that really meant you were not working for a long period of time.

And I had offers from a number of the smaller distribution companies. And American International was just starting. And they came to me, and Jim Nicholson and Sam Markoff ran the company. And they were very enthusiastic, and I liked them. And I said, here's what I'll do. I've got offers from established companies, but if you can do this, if you can raise enough money so that I'll give to you for distribution the Fast and the Furious, and you give me my negative cost back, you pay me back what I've got, I'll invest in it, and then I'll ride with you for the profits.

But I'll have my money back, and let's make a three-picture deal. So I do that three times, and each time I get my money back as soon as I finish the picture, and then I gamble for the profits. And that started American International and me, and it turned out to be a very successful formula for all of us. Now, I heard, and I hope this is true, on one of your films they were shooting outside and it became evening and they called back to you and said we don't have enough lights and you said well your cars have headlights don't they yes it actually it actually is true you know, the funny thing was I had a very good crew. And I just met different people like them.

And everybody was good. I would hire back. And over a period of three or four films, I had a crew, including a couple of guys, who were Academy Award winners. And when they didn't have anything to do on a big picture, they would work for me. I had an Academy Award cameraman saying, all right, pull the Buick up, put on the brights with the Buick, move the Oldsmobile over there just with the dim lights.

And he was an Academy Award lighting cameraman lighting a car with the headlights, lighting a picture with the headlights, lighting a picture with the headlights. That's great. Do you remember other things like that that you did during your movies, like real money-saving special effects? We did all kinds of things. For instance, we never bothered with permits. You know, you pay the city for the permit and they want you to have a policeman out there.

I have no idea why. Either they think they're going to protect you from being robbed or they're going to protect the public from you attacking the public. But whatever, all of this is nonsense. We went out there without permits without policemen or anything else and just shot and if somebody came by which occasionally a policeman did we said we were students uh from ucla film school just shooting a student film so and and didn't you give them directions that if the police did come or there was any tension, just run for it? Well, it was something like that. Actually, yes.

The way you phrase it, yes. What I essentially said was just sort of fade into the crowd. You know, put the camera away and get lost. But I think essentially run for it is a better way to describe it. How many pictures did you make for AIP? I made a lot of films for them. I made probably around 40 films, I think, maybe a little more than that. Including Jack Nicholson's debut film, The Crybaby Killer?

Yeah, I made that one for Allied Artists. Oh, for Allied Artists. But then I did a number of films for AIP with Jack, including a picture called The Trip, which was about an LSD experience. It starred Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Dennis Hopper. And Jack wrote the script for that. Jack was actually a very good writer. He could have had a career as a writer if his career as an actor hadn't taken off. Now, what always strikes me when I watch Jack Nicholson in one of your early films

is that here's Nicholson, legend internationally known film star and when I watch him in those movies those early movies I think I want to take him aside and go you know you have no career in acting well a lot of people felt that he At one time, I was almost his source of income. He had done four or five films for me, and other people weren't hiring him. And I never understood why, because he was clearly a good actor. started working, and he was playing co-star roles in low-budget films and so forth. And Easy Rider was the film, which is sort of a follow-up to my picture, The Wild Angels, about a motorcycle gang. And again, it starred our usual guys, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson. And that's the picture that really made him a star. Is it true, speaking of Wild Angels,

is it true that George Chakiris was cast, but he couldn't ride a bike? He couldn't ride a motorcycle? And then you went with Peter Fonda because he could ride? Yes, exactly. I didn't want to do what they did in all of these things. The guy jumps on the motorcycle in the close shot, and then when you cut to the long shot, and the stunt driver drives the motorcycle away.

I really wanted the picture to be as real as possible, and I wanted to be able to show the leading man or one of the other character actors get on the bike and actually drive the bike away. their character actors get on the bike and actually drive the bike away. For a few shots, we did have stunt drivers, but they were for sort of semi-dangerous shots. Everything else, I insisted that all of the actors be able to ride a bike. And how did you first meet Jack Nicholson? I met him in an acting class, as I said. I went to Stanford as an engineer,

and I started as a writer, then produced two films, saw what the directors were doing. I thought, well, I can do that. And I started directing. And maybe the engineering background or something, I thought that I learned the technical aspects, working with the camera, editing, all of that, and the directing, that I felt I'd learned that fairly quickly, but I didn't really know enough about working with actors. So I enrolled in a method acting class in Hollywood, and Jack was in that class. And it was clear that as soon as I saw him work, I realized, I think he was only 18 or 19 at the time,

that it was clear that he was a very, very talented actor. Now, in The Beast with a Million Eyes... Yes. I heard that they filmed it and completed the movie, and everyone sort of liked it,

but then they came to the realization that they didn't have a beast with a million eyes. That's pretty much correct. We had a beast with a million eyes, but one thing, it didn't have a million eyes, and it wasn't much of a beast. And I did the picture for AIP, so that was the only picture on which I said, okay, you're supposed to give me a certain amount of money. Give me a couple of thousand dollars more, and I can put in a better beast. So the beast never reached a million eyes, but at least it reached some sort of acceptability.

Now, I heard at one point they tried taking an old tea kettle and punching a bunch of holes in it and putting a light inside it. That was a myth. Somebody said that. I forgot who said. You know, all kinds of stories build up, and very often, the story is better than reality.

Let me ask you, going back to the trip for a second, Roger, the film was about LSD, and you decided, what, at a certain point, that you had to know your subject matter a little better? Exactly.

Really, I was a very conscientious director. I was working on short money and short budgets, but I was trying to do the best I could. And I thought, I can't direct a picture, produce and direct a picture about LSD unless I take it. And I was sort of the straightest guy in a fairly wild crowd, so when people found out that I was going to take LSD, and we went up to Big Sur because I'd heard you should go to a beautiful place to experience it, we had a cavalcade of cars going up to Big Sur,

and we actually had to schedule who would be taking LSD. It was like a film schedule, and who would not, so there'd be somebody always sort of straight to make certain somebody didn't do something dangerous or harmful. Now, I heard a quote about you that was that Roger Corman could negotiate a film on a payphone shoot it in the booth and finance it with

the money out of the chain slot it's a great story I wish it were true but it's a you know what should I say? There is a realm of thought behind it that is somewhat similar to what I did. Obviously, I couldn't do that, but I kind of like that story.

And I heard Jack Nicholson said, occasionally, Roger Corman could accidentally make a good movie. But I was never in it. Actually, Jack was in a couple of good films. I was actually being treated rather well by the critics for making low-budget films. It really started with a picture. He talked about the people who started with me, an actor that most of the young people that are watching this are listening to this.

I wouldn't know Charlie Bronson. I did a picture called Machine Gun Kelly that I shot in 10 days, and Charlie was his first lead. And the film was nicely reviewed and made money in the United States. But the French critics, the new wave critics in France, liked American genre films. And they gave it really great reviews. And the picture was a bigger success in Europe than it was in the United States. And the picture was a bigger success in Europe than it was in the United States.

And Charlie went to first France and then Italy. And on the basis of Machine Gun Kelly, he became a European star before he came back here. He was an international star based in Paris and Rome, and then eventually came back to Hollywood as a full-fledged European star. And that's the movie that ends with, I think, a real-life quote from Machine Gun Kelly. Yes, that's true. I had done some research about Kelly. Kelly was public enemy number one, and the FBI had him surrounded, and they expected him to fight to the finish. And instead, he threw down his gun, walked out of this cabin where they had him surrounded in the woods, and surrendered.

And the head of the FBI unit, whatever he was, said, Kelly, we didn't expect you to surrender. We thought you'd fight all the way. Why did you surrender? And he said, I knew you'd kill me if I fought. And I built the whole script around that, that Kelly was not as tough as people thought he was. And what was Bronson like to work with back then?

Bronson was delightful to work with. His reputation is, and it's true, he is a very tough guy. He was a semi-pro boxer at one time, picking up a little money just in fight clubs and things like that. He really was tough, but he was an intelligent and sensitive actor, and I think that's one of the reasons he became a star. It was clear when you saw him on the screen, you were looking at a genuinely tough guy, but he was a very sensitive actor, which went against type, and that's what I think surprised people.

And that's what I think surprised people. And you worked with, well, I mean, in the Edgar Allan Poe movies, you worked with Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Vincent Price. And Basil Rathbone. Yes. Yes. Vincent, of course, was our major star. Vincent was the lead in each of the pictures.

And again, I was very fortunate. This first of the full pictures was the fall of the House of Usher. I'd been making 10-day pictures in black and white, and I convinced AIP. On this one, I convinced them to give me some more money, and I would shoot three weeks in color. And I felt I was in the big time. I had, for the first time, three weeks, and I had some good sets built by a good art director who was a friend of mine, Danny Haller.

And I was very fortunate in that we had a good script from Dick Matheson, and Vincent read the script, and although we didn't have enough money to pay his usual salary, we paid him most of his usual salary and a percentage of the profits, and the film did well, and we went on to make a number of full pictures. Now, I heard Peter Lorre at that point didn't take any of it seriously and was making up his own dialogue as he went along. He took it seriously, but he'd been trained in the Stanislavski method in Berlin, working with Bertolt Brecht, which involved a lot of improvisation. So he was working very seriously, but he was improvising lines. And this caused a little bit of a problem with Boris Karloff.

Boris came to me on the morning of the second day, and he said, Roger, I come here, I come on the set I'm prepared I learn all my lines and then Peter is throwing lines at me that aren't in the script so I sort of stopped shooting not for long for about 10 minutes and Peter and Vincent and Boris and I all had coffee. And I explained to Boris that Peter liked to improvise and that he should be a little bit loose and go along with him. And I said to Peter, what you're doing is great, I love it, which I did, but you've got to stay a little closer to the script.

You fell in love with Poe as a kid, right, Roger? And this is why you had a lifelong affair with his work. Yes, I think I was in junior high school, and I think it was some English class assignment that I read of the whole House of Usher. And I asked my parents for the complete works of Poe for Christmas. They were delighted. I could have asked for a shotgun or something. They were delighted to give me a book.

And I've also heard quotes about you that you were known as the king of the cult film and the pope of pop cinema. Yes, I've been called many things. Pope of pop cinema is one of the things I liked the best. There are other things we will not repeat here that I didn't like so much. Tell us a little bit about working with Basil Rathbone, too, in Tales of Terror, one of my favorites. Oh, yes.

Basil Rathbone had been a major star. He was fairly old at that time, and he was a little bit weak. He was fragile, and he had some difficulty in learning his lines, so I had to be very careful and treat Basil, which I always did with all actors, with great respect. But I had to be very attentive and sensitive to the fact that he was quite old and couldn't do some of the things that were written in the script. But he was very good. He was a brilliant actor.

And I heard Nicholson was thrilled to be working with Laurie Karloff and Rathbone and Price. Yes, because he was just getting started. People were just beginning to recognize him as an actor. And they liked him because they recognized that he was a good young actor. And he learned a lot working with them. They went out of their way, particularly Vincent, to help him and to give him advice.

We have to talk a little bit, Roger, about the terror, which is a favorite of Gilbert's and mine, and we were watching the wonderful documentary about you. And, of course, Jack Nicholson is talking about how the film, how he defies anyone to understand the plot. Yeah, I heard the writers didn't understand. Well, what happened was this. The picture was only made because it rained on a Sunday when I had planned to play tennis. I was sitting around my house, and I had nothing to do.

So I called Leo Gordon, and I had a week still to go to shoot the Raven. And I thought, what I can do, I can write, I came up with Leo with a storyline for the Terror on Sunday. And I said to him, write around, I think, 30 pages or so during this week, and I'll come back on Monday, Tuesday of the next week and shoot those 30 pages in two days because that's all the money I had, and then I'll stop,

and you can write the rest of the script, and I'll shoot the rest of the picture, which is what we did, and it starred Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson. And Boris shot the two days, and that was all he was in in the picture. And I said to Jack, it'll be you and Boris for two days, but for the rest of the picture, it's just going to be you and some other actors, and you will be the star of the picture.

Now, I was signed with the various guilds, and I didn't have the money to direct the rest of the picture myself, and I shot on now and then when I had a little money. So my ace assistant, Francis Coppola, shot a couple of days, and then he got a job, I think, at Warner Brothers, and then a month or so later I had a couple of days, and then he got a job, I think, at Warner Brothers. And then a month or so later, I had a little more money, and Monty Hellman shot some of it. Jack Hill, finally the last day of shooting, Jack Nicholson came to me and said, Raj, every idiot in town has directed part of this film. Let me direct the last day.

So I said, okay, Jack, you might as well direct the last day. The problem was every director had a different interpretation of the script, and when we cut it all together, it did not necessarily make sense. But by that time, I was shooting another pole picture, and I had a set. So I kept the crew for an hour late one night, and I brought in Jack and Dick Miller. And I had Jack throw Dick up against the wall of this new castle and say, I've been lied to ever since I've come to this castle. Now tell me what's really been going on.

At which point Dick explains all of this stuff that didn't make any sense at all. I've come to this castle. Now tell me what's really been going on. At which point Dick explains all of this stuff that didn't make any sense at all. But he wrote enough so it almost made sense. Weirdly enough, some critics have really tried to examine and work out the themes that are in the script. That scene of Dick Miller explaining the movie is one of the most strained and ridiculous. It goes on for like an hour and a half, it feels like. Yes, the thing goes on and on

with all these weird things. And actually, we ended up in which Boris Karloff played the Baron von Lepp, who owned the castle that Jack came to. And the picture actually seemed a little bit dull to me by the time. Not only did it not make much sense, it seemed a little dull when it was over. So I made up a whole subplot, and I shot, I think, one scene to fit it, in which he was not the Baron Von Lep.

He was an imposter who had killed the Baron Von Lep and taken his place to give us a surprise ending. And just so we can repeat, so I can make sure I have this right. The only reason this movie got made is because you wanted to play golf that day. Tennis. What? Tennis. Tennis.

You wanted to play tennis. Right. And it rained. Exactly. So you figured, ah, I'll make a movie. Right. Movies have been made for stranger reasons than that. And speaking of the Nicholson pictures, we have to mention Little Shop of Horrors, Roger. It was an original story.

What had happened, I had noticed that in some of my horror films, after the audience would scream at the horror scenes, there would be a little bit of laughter. And I wondered, why are they laughing? I thought that scene worked pretty well. Everybody screamed. And I thought, you know, there's something between horror and laughter.

And the laughter is a little bit of a relief from the shock of the horror. So Little Shop of Horrors I made as a sort of a joking experiment. As I say, we shot it in two days, actually two days and a night, in which I put together comedy and horror to see if they would work. And the film sort of became a cult film that kept playing year after year, midnight screenings and college campuses and so forth. Then it became a Broadway musical,

and the thing still keeps going after all these years. It had to make you laugh when it became a Broadway musical. Yeah, that surprised me a little bit. I probably should have, I got a little percentage of the profits. I probably should have negotiated harder on that one, but I was still thinking of it more as a joke than anything else. And one of your quotes in making a science fiction film is that the monster

should be bigger than the leading lady. Yes, and that came from my engineering background. I did a picture called, let me see what was the title, It Conquered the World, and the monster had come from one of those giant planets out in the far reaches of the solar system, Jupiter or something like that, Saturn. And from my studies in physics, I knew that a giant planet would have very heavy gravity.

And a giraffe, for instance, could not exist on a planet like that because it couldn't stand against the power of the gravity. Anything living would be more like a turtle built low to the ground to withstand the gravity. So I had this creature built. I was trying to be accurate from the standpoint of physics and be physically correct. So I had this low creature there, Beverly Garland, who was a leading lady, very hip and very funny. The morning of shooting, I was having coffee, and she walked over to the creature,

and she knew I was looking at her, and she looked down at it and kicked it and said, so you've come to conquer the world, eh? Take that. And he kicked it again. And I immediately knew I was right from a standpoint of physics. But from a standpoint of psychology, I was wrong. The monster had to be bigger than Beverly. And so this is the most thought, it sounds like, that you ever put into a movie. Say that again.

This sounds like the most thought that you ever put into a movie. Well, I always try within the budget, you know, to do what I could. I figured I'm limited by the size of the budget and the shortness of the shooting schedule, but I'm not limited by my imagination or what I can come up with. So I always worked very hard on the scripts to try to do as well as I could. Now, can you describe, because I can't, can you describe what that monster looked like? It was very strange, and models had been made of it for this reason.

I said to Chuck Hanawalt, the key grip, and Dick Rubin, the head prop man, I want you to take this creature. I was going to shoot it right away, but I'll wait until after lunch. I want this thing built up to 10 or 12 feet tall. So what it was, the mouth and the eyes were all very low because that was the way the creature had been designed, and they didn't have time to rebuild that. So they built sort of a towering head above the eyes.

And it looked very, I will say, it looked a little strange. So it was like, I remember it having like a tiny face and a giant head around it. That was it exactly. Now, you tried to make a more meaningful film at one time than The Creature from the Ocean Floor and Beast with a Million Eyes. And you did a movie starring William Shatner. Yes. It was Bill Shatner's first film. He'd come out from New York where he'd been not necessarily a star, but a successful actor on Broadway.

And I did The Intruder, which was about racial integration in the South. This was in 1960 when schools in the South were being integrated. 1960 when schools in the South were being integrated. The picture went to a couple of film festivals, won a couple of minor film festivals, and got great reviews. I remember, give me just a second, one of the New York papers said, The Intruder is a major credit to the entire American film industry.

It was the first film I ever made that lost money. I felt I was too serious with that film. It was nice to win a couple of prizes at festivals and get the good reviews, but I felt I'm not here to lose money on the films. So I

went back a little bit to what I'd been doing before. Now, I heard in a last-ditch attempt to get people in to see the movie, it changed the title. Yes, there was a drive-in owner in the South who was a friend of mine who said he could put, because the film had a Southern background,

I don't remember the title. He put some exploitation title. I think the title that got re-released as is I Hate Your Guts. That's right. That's what it was. And the film did a little business in the drive-in, but it wasn't enough to break even. Weirdly enough, I shot the picture in 1960, lost money, but when Bill Shatner and I did a narration, and we sent it out on a DVD in, I think, 2002 or 2003 or something like that,

with the DVD release in the year 2003-something, we finally got our money back. Now, I heard it was really dangerous shooting that film down south. Yes, we had death threats. We were run out of several towns by the police. It was a very difficult film to shoot. The final sequence we were shooting in southern Missouri. I wanted to be, for some reason I felt if I was in Missouri, a midwestern state, I would have some safety. But if I was what they call the boot heel of Missouri, down by the Mississippi River, I would have southern accents because there were mostly local people playing,

the townspeople, and I'd have the look of the south. It turned out I did have the look of the south, but unfortunately I had the feeling of the south and that we had a very tough Ku Klux Klan scene, which was the final scene of the picture, and we'd already been threatened because the people said

they were going to kill us. We shot that scene. It was a scene at night. We were staying at a motel. We packed our bags from the motel, shot that scene, and when I said, print it for the last shot, we just

jumped in our cars and didn't go back to the motel. We drove straight to St. Louis. Were you trying to keep the locals and the police from finding out what the picture was about, what your intentions were, Roger? We let them know roughly what it was. We rewrote a few scenes in the picture to sort of tone them down a little bit. in the picture to sort of tone them down a little bit.

So people knew what the picture was about, but they didn't know quite how tough it was. Now, I actually remember meeting you when your book came out, How I Made a Hundred Movies and Never Lost a Dime. And right after I got that book, somehow I was at an event and ran into you. And I said, oh, I just got your book. I haven't read it now. And you said to me, I'm just glad you bought the book.

I don't give a damn whether you read it or not. Yes. It would have been nice to read it, but it was even nicer to pay the money for the book. This is why you're my hero. Roger, speaking of dangerous shoots, I just want to go

back to Wild Angels for a second. You hired actual Hell's Angels. Yes, we were working with the Angels, playing themselves in the gang. Actually, they threatened to kill me. I remember what happened. The first picture was a giant success. Nobody realized in any way that it was going to make as much money as it did. realized in any way that it was going to make as much money as it did.

I was told up until that time it was the most successful low-budget picture ever made. The record was broken a couple of years later by Easy Rider. But at any rate, it was a huge success. And they announced that they were suing me for a million dollars on the basis that I had played them, portrayed them as an outlaw motorcycle gang, whereas in reality, they were a social group dedicated to the spreading of technical information about motorcycles. Now, that got a lot of publicity, that statement. And then they announced, and they got a lot of publicity, that that statement and then they are not just in the cattle publicity that they were going to kill me and for the leader of the angels called me i remember remember almost word for

word in picture this is in the early nineteen sixties and i still remember he said hey man we're gonna snuff you out and i said look i don't you already announced that uh... you're going to kill me. Now, if I slip and fall in the bathtub, the police are going to come after you because you've already stated you're going to kill me.

On the other hand, you're also suing me for a million dollars. How do you expect to collect the million dollars if you kill me? expect to collect the million dollars if you kill me. My advice to you is forget the momentary pleasure of snuffing me out and go for the million dollars. He said, yeah, man, that's right. That makes sense. That's what we're going to do. That's a great story. Wonderful. Someone else, we're going to go through some of the directors and some of the people who you gave a start to, Roger, but Peter Bogdanovich, is it true the first Bogdanovich film that he directed for you had no dialogue and was added later?

No, it wasn't that. I had bought a couple of Russian science fiction films because science fiction was very popular in Russia at that time, and they were making really big, elaborate science fiction films. And he shot a couple of additional scenes to tie the picture together. And we tried to pretend that, since I didn't want to pay for sound, that the actors used mental telepathy. But when I saw how it worked out, I said, we better put some dialogue in here. And I heard that you actually got Ron Howard.

You wanted him to star in a film, and he wanted to direct. Yes. What happened was we did this car crash picture called Eat My Dust. And he starred in it, and he had a percentage of the profits. And again, some of these films really made a lot of money. And Monday morning, because it opened on Friday, and we already knew Friday night because we got to Grosses the first night that we had a success.

But Monday morning, we were sort of calculating everything and booking new theaters and everything. And I called him, and I said, Ron, I want you to know you're going to do very well with this picture. This is a big success. And he said, I already know that. I checked myself and I've been waiting for your call. I want to come in and talk to you. I said, come on in, Ron. And he came in and he said, whenever an actor stars in a picture and it's a big success and they want him for a sequel and i assume you want a sequel uh he asked for more money i will not ask for more money i'll do the picture for

the same salary and the same profit percentage and i'll do one other job for nothing and i said what is that he said i'll direct the picture and said, Ron, you always look like a director to me. And he directed the picture. It was his first picture. He starred in and directed it. And that was Grand Theft Auto, which was a big success for us. And just like Fast and the Furious, I collected twice on that because a video game company stole the title and made a lot of money with Grand Theft Auto and I sued them and collected. Grand Theft Auto made money

for me twice. Now, I heard at one point Ron Howard started complaining to you about that there wasn't enough money on the picture and not enough extras. Yes, that's true. There was one scene at a demolition derby, and he wanted a bigger crowd. And I said, this is all the money I got. And I remember I said, I'm trying to think, this was so long ago.

I said, Ron, if you do a good job on this picture, you will never work for me again. Great story. So the best thing you could offer him was to never work on another Roger Corman film. No, we've been good friends. As a matter of fact, there's a possibility that we may remake Eat My Dust on a bigger budget, and he will produce it.

He won't direct it, but he and I will co-produce it. Now, you made some films recently for the SyFy channel. Yes. Can you give us some of those titles? Well, it started off when, let me see, I did a science fiction picture about recreating

the DNA of a crocodile, and I called it Dynacroc. And the Sci-Fi Channel heard about it, and they called me. It was Tom Vitale. He was the head of the Sci-Fi Channel. He said he'd heard about it.

He'd like to see it, because he might be interested in buying it. And he did, and he bought it. And it did very well, so he asked for more, and I did a number of them. Each picture seemed to get a crazier and crazier title.

We went through Super Gator, Dino Shark, Piranha Conda, and finally they called me one time and they said, Roger, you've come up with the titles on every film. This time we've got a title. And I said, what is it? And they said, Sharktopus, do you want to make it? And I said,

no. And I said, why don't you want to make it? And I said, which I actually believed, I said, you can go up to a certain level of insanity with these titles, and the audience is with you. But if you go over what I might call the acceptable level of insanity, the audience turns against you. And I think Sharktopus is above the acceptable level of insanity. One thing led to another. I made the picture highest rating of the year for the Sci-Fi Chat. So we then made a second Sharktopus film, and that got a giant rating. And we're now in the process of making a third one.

Was that Sharktopus versus Terracuda? That was Sharktopus versus Terracuda. It was it. Sharktopus versus Terracuda. Came out this summer. We're trying to think of another creature. We haven't yet come up with a title yet. Now, I also heard that back then, guys like you and Sam Arcoff would have a title first, and whichever title worked the best, you'd write a movie around it. Yes, occasionally, not often. Generally, we had an idea for the picture and came up with a title,

but every now and then, that's true. We did have a title, and we wrote the picture around the title. Roger, let's talk about your relationships with some of the people you started in the business. Joe Dante, Bogdanovich we mentioned. We have to mention Martin Scorsese. And is it true that you approached Martin Scorsese, came to you with Mean Streets, and you said you could make it but only as a blaxploitation picture? It's partially true. He had directed his first Hollywood picture for me,

a picture called Boxcar Earth, which was a very good picture, and he had this picture that he wanted to make that he had written himself called Main Streets, and he asked if I would finance it, and I said, well, I don't really have enough money, but if this were a black film, I think I could raise the money. And he said, and he was right, he said, it can't be,

because black films were very popular at that time. And he said, you know, it's really written with an Italian. It's based upon, in part, my youth in the Italian neighborhood of New York. It has to be an Italian film. Here's one I have to ask you. On one of your films, you would have the cameraman chase after fire trucks and ambulances that just happened to be going by. Yes, we didn't chase after them, but we photographed them and used them because I knew that kind of footage could be used in action films, and we did do that. I just want to ask you quickly, Roger, too, about some of the acting work that you did

for your protégés. I mean, audiences might know you from Godfather II. You're one of the senators that's grilling Michael Corleone. I know he was a bad guy as soon as he walked in the room. You did. You're in The Howling, you're in Apollo 13, Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia. Do you have any fond memories of these acting parts? Yes, I do, because they were all done for directors who were friends of mine. They were always two- or three-day roles. I didn't have the time for a longer role,

and I think they thought I didn't have the ability to carry a longer role. So it was just sort of getting together and having fun. I just have good memories of the whole thing. And how did you feel about getting that honorary Oscar a couple years ago? Because Demi and Joe Dante and Tarantino and Peter Fond and so many of your friends came out to salute you. It must have been very moving. I was very pleased. I'd gotten a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame a few years earlier, which I thought was fine.

But I never expected to get an Academy Award. I was really surprised. These were the Lifetime Achievement Awards, which are given at the Governor's Ball. So you're not surprised at the time. You're told you're going to get one. And I remember they called me after a meeting of the board of directors of the academy and said they just voted to give me an academy award. That truly surprised me. I never expected to get that. Well, this is one of those interviews that I wish could go on for like another month.

So many things I want to talk to you about. Maybe we can do it again. Oh, I'd love to. And I remember hearing a quote Scorsese said in your films, there was no need for taste. What is Art School of Horror is about real quickly?

That's a low budgetbudget film I did with the San Francisco Art University. They gave me one of those honorary PhDs, and I looked at some of the work done by the students, and I thought, you know, this is really quite good. And I talked to Diane Baker, who's the head of the school, and I said, if I gave the students a little money for their senior project, would they like to make a feature film? And she talked to the students, and they said yes, and she agreed. So they made this little film. We took the title slightly from Little Shop of Horrors, Art School of Horrors, and it's a horror film with comedy and shot in an art school, so they were able to just shoot it in their own

school, and they didn't have to spend any money on sets. Wonderful. It's a little like a little callback to Bucket of Blood. Right. I'm going to wrap up in a second. Your movie, The Last Woman on Earth. Oh, yes. Was that the one with Robert Towne playing, writing and acting? Yes.

He wrote the picture and we were to shoot two pictures in Puerto Rico. And he hadn't finished the script. And I didn't have very much money and I knew he was a good actor. He had been to the same acting class that Jack Nicholson and I were in. So I said, you've got to come to Puerto Rico and while I'm shooting the first picture,

you have to finish shooting this script and since I don't have any money in the budget, you're going to play the young leading man and write the script. And this was a movie where Since I don't have any money in the budget, you're going to play the young leading man. It follows right to script. And this was a movie where everyone died because the oxygen was sucked out of the earth. It's an atomic bomb, right? And then these scuba divers who weren't around for that popped their heads up just as the oxygen came back.

That's right. I love that picture. And one story, I'm sorry, I've got to ask you, and then we'll wrap up. When Dick Miller first came to you, he said he wanted to be a writer. And I heard you said, I don't need any writers, I need actors. Yes, and he was a good actor, and he played, he actually did write one script for me at a later date, but he did, I don't know, it must be 20, 30 films we've done together over the years. And I heard he said you cast him as an Indian, and in the same movie, cast him as a cowboy, and he wound up shooting and in the same movie cast him as a cowboy and he wound up shooting himself

in the movie. We had the Indians fighting against the cowboys. I didn't have very many extras. So I put him in the front I think as a cowboy and then when I reversed the camera and photographed the Indians, I put him in the back

dressed as an Indian. Nobody ever noticed that it was the same guy. Fantastic. My hero, Roger Corman. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with the great, legendary Roger Corman, a man who makes Ed Wood films look positively high-tech.

Roger, thanks for doing this. We really appreciate it. Very good. I've had a good time and I thank you very much. Oh, thank you so much. Very good. Good night. Cards Against Humanity. This episode is sponsored by Cards Against Humanity's 10 Days. Or whatever of Kwanzaa.

You give Cards Against Humanity $15 and they'll send you 10 mystery gifts for the 10 days or not ever of Kwanzaa. Space is limited to the first 250,000 people who sign up at holidayullshit.com. If you like listening to comedy, try watching it on the internet. The folks behind the Sideshow Network have launched a new YouTube channel called Wait For It. It's got interviews with comedians like Reggie Watts, Todd Glass, Liza Schleichinger. Schleichinger, I've been friends with her for 10 years. One of the funniest people out there, and I still have a hard time with the last name, Liza.

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