ROGER CORMAN (April 5th, 1926 – May 9th, 2024) – Many words have already been said about the passing of this film industry legend and I’m sure many, many more are yet to be said. From the 1950s to the current year – and with projects still in production – Roger William Corman was a Hollywood fixture.
I’m in no way qualified to give a comprehensive overview of the impact of this entrepreneur or his influence on some of the biggest directors, producers and actors in American cinema. Most people at first think you’re exaggerating when you mention the exhaustive list of people who figuratively learned at the knee of this Grand Old Man or who were given their first shot via a Corman Production. Often in one of his B movies!
Roger was never known as someone who lacked talent, he was just in it for the money most of the time, and therefore kept his budgets tight and his schedules tighter. From 50s monster movies to Raging Youth films to whatever horror trends were ascendant to big-screen soap operas that could be more explicit with their content, Roger Corman was there, raking in bucks and working with future giants of the industry.
Francis Ford Coppola, John Carpenter, James Cameron, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Joe Dante and countless others got some of their earliest directing experiences on Corman productions. Screenwriters like Robert Towne got early “real industry work”, as did actors like Jack Nicholson, Sally Kirkland, Bruce Dern, Sylvester Stallone, Pam Grier, Peter Fonda, etc. When you watch just about any theatrical release from America made over the last several decades the chances are at least one of the professionals involved got their start working on a Corman picture. Continue reading
In that classically campy serial Gene Autry played a singing cowboy who saves the world from an advanced underground civilization that comes complete with killer robots who wear cowboy hats. 
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