Review No.48: Corman's World: The Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

As we are already at review 48 you will realise by now that I am massive fan of the movies so whenever a documentary pops up about film-making I'm the first to want to watch it. That's especially true of Corman's World the story of exploitation film director Roger Corman a man who is best known for making films for very little money but who also gave a lot of famous faces their big breaks. Corman is a man who does love film-making even if it all looks a bit tacky he still understands the business and the themes of his films. There are a large number of talking heads on hand all of whom worked with Corman in some way with Jack Nicholson being the most predominant figure throughout the film having been directed by the man in his first ever film and famously appearing in The Little Shop of Horrors. It then goes on to look at his popular Edgar Allen Poe adaptations and his film The Intruder which starred William Shatner as a white supremacist who goes to a Southern town to argue against segregation. The Intruder was a film which Corman and his brother were both proudest of but it was one the only Corman vehicle that lost money. It also looked how inspired the new Hollywood through his film The Wild Angels which starred Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper it led them to make Easy Rider alongside Nicholson. Most of the directors that he hired to helm some of his pictures, including Scorsese on Boxcar Bertha and Ron Howard on Grand Theft Auto, appear to wax lyrical about his influence on their career. The film finishes with Corman still working on films for the Sci-Fi Channel and accepting his long-overdue Lifetime Achievement Oscar.

As I said I love films about film-makers and Roger Corman is certainly one of the most prolific film-makers around. I love how he built his company up from the ground-floor after a brief spell in the studio system he realised what sort of films he wanted to make and how he could go about making them. There is another side to Corman though the one who didn't want to be seen just as the B-Movie king and that is shown here in some depth especially when discussing The Intruder. His other big pet peeve was the arrival of Star Wars and Jaws films made by those who went to film school rather than those who simply learnt their craft while working on movie sets. There are though plenty of great directors from Francis Ford Coppola to Jonathan Demme to Joe Dante who all owe a great debt to Corman for giving them the start they needed. This is a film about a man who enjoys the film-making process and I enjoyed watching him explain to me why he loved it so much as his passion more than shone through during the film.

Verdict: A film about something I love told through the eyes of someone who loves it too this has to get an 8/10