Obits like this one list just some of the movies that we had because of Roger Corman…and the long list of important filmmakers and actors who got their starts working for bad money in (sometimes) bad movies with bad budgets. Some of those films are dated, particularly in their treatment of women but there are plenty to form a solid legacy. If you programmed a Roger Corman Film Festival, you could easily fill a theater with delighted movie lovers.
The films speak for themselves. I especially love the original Little Shop of Horrors…though I think I loved it more before everyone discovered it and it was turned into a stage musical and a big-budget movie. Once upon a time, it was a cult classic and those who discovered it came to it with low expectations and thus were delighted.
I met Roger Corman twice. Once was when I helped out a bit with a documentary a friend was producing about him and his work. Some years later, I wrote a screenplay that was optioned — twice! — but never filmed. When things fell through the second time, a person involved with that aborted attempt sent it to Corman who read it and liked it but not enough to buy it. Instead, he asked me in and offered me a screenplay to rewrite for him. The script turned out to be dreadful, the money offered was insulting and the whole thing was non-union — three good reasons to decline, which I did.
But I enjoyed my one long meeting with Mr. Corman who turned out to be a very interesting man with no delusions about his place in the industry. What he was producing was product, pure and simple, and he may have had a more realistic assessment of his marketplace than any producer I met with higher aspirations. I'm sorry he didn't offer me a project I could have accepted because there was much to be learned from the man. I'm sure people will be watching Roger Corman productions for a long, long time.