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In a filmmaking career
that has spanned over 30 years,

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my next guest is the man responsible
for such cinematic classics

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as "The House of Usher,"
"Wild Angels,"

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"The Monster
from the Ocean Floor,"

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"The Attack
of the Crab Monsters."

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Please welcome Roger Corman.

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Low-budget movies in those days-
it wasn't like today.

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Nobody was really trying
to make them good.

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There was the real emphasis
on the price.

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Roger Corman has made more
than 200 motion pictures in his career,

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most of them
for extremely low budget.

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He's produced
around 150-175 films.

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He made so many movies.
In 1957, he directed 10 movies.

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Most people
don't get to do that.

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He made 250 movies
and never lost a dime.

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Okay, this is not
a $20-million movie.

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You know, this is
a $1.93 science fiction movie.

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We knew these were made
fast and cheap,

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and we also knew that taste
was out of the question.

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There was no need for taste.

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The way Disney movies, you know,
bring out the child in all of us,

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you know,
so can exploitation.

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Sometimes he'll give the notes
right on the script

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and you get little
marginal references like

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"Breast nudity possible here?"
Question mark.

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The goal was, Roger said,
"Every motorcycle that runs,

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And then when it stops running,
blow it up."

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Aah!

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He said, "Your job,
if the cops come,

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is to pick up the camera
and run."

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I said, "We're in the middle
of the desert.

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What do you mean,
there is no water?"

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It's a Roger Corman movie, you know.
There's no water.

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One take on everything.

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That's just the way he worked.

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You know, you didn't
argue with him.

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And we were delighted
to be working.

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It doesn't matter
if people are happy.

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It doesn't matter if you have a permit.
None of it matters.

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You know, the only thing that counts
is what you get inside the frame.

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He's still around,
making pictures

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in his 30$ and he's--
I just saw him the other day.

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He hasn't changed at all.

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One, two, three.

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- And action!

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One, two, three.

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I'm in the water
with a giant creature on my arms...

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...pumping blood out, chomping on
a beautiful girl in a bikini.

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I mean, it's the essence
of Roger Corman cinema.

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We feel that the monster

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should kill somebody
fairly early

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and then at regular intervals
through the picture.

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The first kill should be
quite shocking.

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The other kills can be
a little bit less shocking

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as we build up.

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And then of course the climax-

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everything goes,
blood all over the screen.

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Roger had made
two previous movies

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for the Syfy channel
that did very well for them.

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And he said, "Okay, Frances
it's 'Dino-shark.'

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You know what that is."

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And of course I say,
"Yes, I know what that is.

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It's a giant shark."

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"Yes, but not too much like 'Jaws."'
"No, of course not."

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- 122-Charlie, take three.
- Marker.

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"Dinoshark" is about a shark

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that is unloosed
because of global warming

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from an avalanche
north of Alaska...

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That's your killer.

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It hasn't eaten
in 150 million years

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and it's hungry.

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...and somehow mysteriously

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makes its way south
to Puerto Vallarta

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and pretty much terrorizes

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everybody and everything
in sight.

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You know, that whole world

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is just so different from
the "Entertainment Weekly" world

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or the Academy Award world.

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The Golden Globes
don't even hear about these things.

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You know, these pictures-
they just go someplace else.

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And there's an incredible
number of people

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that want to see a picture
just like this.

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The Paradise Village
location

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also had some accommodation
for actors and crew and so on.

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So that's always been one of those
little tricks up Roger's sleeve-

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how he can do what he does
on a budget.

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Roger always said, you know,
"You could make 'Lawrence of Arabia'

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for a half a million dollars.

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You just don't leave the tent."

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If you could imagine

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Knott's Berry Farm set on a beach,

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but the only people in the park
were senior citizens,

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no rides, but it had
a theme-park-like atmosphere,

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that is what we have
affectionately dubbed

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Paradise Prison.

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Who is two minutes
from being ready for what?

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At first I thought
it was maybe some kind of

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electromagnetic field that doesn't
allow the walkie-talkie service.

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I need a radio
that works.

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But it turns out
that we just bought,

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you know,
children's walkie-talkies.

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This is full-on
guerilla-style filmmaking.

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I mean, you know, we're sort of
running and gunning

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and stealing locations
and driving boats

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- where they shouldn't be driven.
- Go, go, go, get out!

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Oh, my God.

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At one point they wanted
somebody to get in this water...

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- Action!
- ...to get attacked by something.

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Well, it turns out there was actually
things to get attacked by.

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Not that this wasn't obvious.

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There was a giant sign
that said "Crocodiles."

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Should she be there?

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Well, that's where she was
in the wide shot.

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- The way this will be cut, it'll work.
- Okay. All right.

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You wouldn't think of the movies,
if you met him,

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that he'd have done
all these movies-

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very polite, very--
almost British.

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He really came across, I felt,

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as more like an English
film professor, you know.

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I expected him to be teaching
at Oxford or Cambridge

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rather than kind of making
all of these

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kind of violent exploitation movies
that he had made.

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I thought he'd be more like
Lee J. Cobb, let's say,

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or somebody a little--
where they're smoking a cigar

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and pounding
on the desk and--

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"You kids get in there
and do that work," and, you know--

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and actually
he's very eloquent,

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elegant and precise,

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cool-headed,
from what I saw,

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and very, very different
from the type of person

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you'd think would be behind
these pictures like "Teenage Cave Man."

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The difference between

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the image you present
to the world

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and what is going on inside,
in your unconscious mind,

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is significant.

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I've been told
that my image is

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I'm just sort of an ordinary
straight guy.

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Clearly my unconscious mind

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is some sort of
a boiling inferno there.

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Like most kids,
I was interested in films

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essentially all my life.

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I graduated from Stanford University
in California in engineering.

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I worked four days
as an engineer and quit.

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The only job I could get in films

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was a messenger
at 20th Century Fox.

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And I worked my way up from that
to become a story analyst.

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I read scripts,
commented on them,

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and handed in a synopsis
of the script or the novel

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or whatever had been proposed
with my opinion.

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As the youngest reader,
I was given

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frankly the most hopeless
scripts to cover.

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And the story editor said,

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"Roger, you have never
recommended one script."

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And I said, "You've never given me
a script that's worth recommending."

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So they sent me a script

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which was the first thing
I'd ever read at Fox

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that I thought was really
any good at all.

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And I made a number
of notes on it.

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The picture became "The Gunfighter"
starring Gregory Peck.

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And the story editor
got a bonus for my notes.

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And I got no recognition
for the fact

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that a number of my ideas
were used in the script.

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This became a big hit for Fox.

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You would have thought he would have
had some acknowledgment.

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This caused him to leave Fox
and become what he is today.

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After "The Gunfighter,"

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he corralled some money
from our parents

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and some of his money
and a few friends',

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got an enormous number
of deferments

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and made his first film--
"Monster from the Ocean Floor."

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And that was basically

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the beginnings of Roger Corman.

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I was the producer,
the assistant director and everything.

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I would drive the truck
to the location

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and unload everything I could
by myself.

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And I would save about an hour

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on the crew salary
every morning.

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The second picture I made

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was a picture called
"The Fast and the Furious."

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It was about road racing and of course
had very, very little money.

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Roger went to
some sports car dealerships

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and borrowed sports cars.

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And we took the Windshields off them
and actually raced them.

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And then we'd clean them up
and take them back.

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Roger was just so inane
at the time

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and was trying
to do it himself

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and was starting
to run out of money.

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If you don't understand money
in the movie business,

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it's like an artist
who doesn't understand paint.

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Roger told me,
"Well, I understand paint.

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If I got to thin her up with turpentine
or there's no picture,

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why, she gets thinned up a little.

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That's all there is to it."

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I could see the problem
for the independent.

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You raised the money.
You made the picture.

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And then you had to wait
for the picture to earn its money back

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before you could make
another picture.

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But Sam Arkoff
and Jim Nicholson

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were starting a new company-
American International.

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And they made me an offer
for "The Fast and the Furious"

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to start their company with.

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I said, "I want
a three-picture deal

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in which I'm guaranteed
my money back.

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As soon as I finish one film,

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I go to the next one
using the guarantee."

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And that essentially
started me

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on a regular basis
of making films

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and started
American International.

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Don't call me "squaw."

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You're a dirty apache squaw.

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I'm gonna kill you.

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Your people did that--
raiding, thieving, killing.

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I was very famous
for fighting with the girls.

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This was "Apache Woman."

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Joan Taylor and I did
a knife fight in the street.

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And this is Dick Miller
in the background

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where he belonged.

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A friend of mine,
Jonathan Haze, said,

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"Well, maybe I'll introduce you
to Roger Corman and he can help you."

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We went down there.
He said, "What do you do?"

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I said, "I'm a writer."

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He said, "We don't need
any writers right now."

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He says, "I need actors."
I said, "I'm an actor."

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He says, "You want to play
an Indian for me?"

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At the end I got killed.

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Roger said, "How would you like
to play a cowboy for me?"

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I said, "Oh, are we going
to another picture?"

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He says,
"No, no, this picture."

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I said, "Oh, God. Okay."

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I wound up killing myself
in the last scene.

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I don't know
what the budgets were,

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but they were really low.

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We shot them in seven days,
so that gives you an idea.

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And that's everything,
including special effects

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or anything else, you know.

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Some weren't all that great, and Roger'd
be the first guy to tell you that.

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I never had the opportunity
to go to film school.

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My student work
was being shown on the screen.

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And some of it wasn't quite as good
as it might have been,

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but I was learning
all the time.

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Beat it, I said.
You're on a battlefield.

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I know that better than you do,
Sergeant. How well are you doing?

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00:14:03,009 --> 00:14:05,353
Half my men are dead.
Nothing can stop that thing.

244
00:14:05,378 --> 00:14:06,880
Call off your troops.

245
00:14:13,820 --> 00:14:15,663
It's as if these films
were being made

246
00:14:15,688 --> 00:14:17,759
on your street corner,
in a way.

247
00:14:17,790 --> 00:14:20,930
They weren't encumbered
by having to deal with "art"

248
00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:22,962
with a capital A-R-T.

249
00:14:22,995 --> 00:14:26,169
They just weren't-- I mean,
they're art in another way.

250
00:14:34,073 --> 00:14:36,576
I learned fairly quickly

251
00:14:36,609 --> 00:14:39,453
how to handle the camera,
what to do with editing,

252
00:14:39,479 --> 00:14:41,481
but I didn't know enough
about acting,

253
00:14:41,514 --> 00:14:44,518
and I felt I should simply
take a class.

254
00:14:44,550 --> 00:14:46,621
And that was where I met
Jack Nicholson.

255
00:14:46,652 --> 00:14:49,690
He came into the class
with that little smile,

256
00:14:49,722 --> 00:14:53,067
and everybody's as serious
as a heart attack, you know.

257
00:14:53,092 --> 00:14:55,936
He had-- when I was
first working for him,

258
00:14:55,962 --> 00:14:58,272
he told me he had
12 companies,

259
00:14:58,297 --> 00:15:01,870
the contracts of which
were all in his back pocket.

260
00:15:01,901 --> 00:15:04,436
I mean, he was
a one-man band.

261
00:15:04,437 --> 00:15:06,713
Don't make me.

262
00:15:06,739 --> 00:15:08,946
Don't be a fool, kid.

263
00:15:08,975 --> 00:15:11,182
You think I would carry
a real gun?

264
00:15:15,248 --> 00:15:18,957
As a matter of fact, the first picture
Jack Nicholson starred in

265
00:15:18,985 --> 00:15:21,556
was for me-- a picture called
"The Cry Baby Killer"

266
00:15:21,587 --> 00:15:24,591
about a kid who takes
a drive-in hostage.

267
00:15:24,624 --> 00:15:27,332
It's coming. Can't you get him
to be quiet until it comes?

268
00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:29,897
I hadn't really
worked at all before.

269
00:15:29,929 --> 00:15:32,569
Then I got a lead in the movie.
I thought, "Oh, this is it.

270
00:15:32,598 --> 00:15:36,068
I'm here.
I'm gonna be big," you know.

271
00:15:36,102 --> 00:15:39,208
Then I didn't even get an interview
for the next year.

272
00:15:39,238 --> 00:15:42,481
Look, Carole was a swell girl
until Manny got his hands on her.

273
00:15:42,508 --> 00:15:44,488
You mean, till she wanted
Manny's hands on her.

274
00:15:44,510 --> 00:15:45,682
Listen, Fred...

275
00:15:45,711 --> 00:15:48,419
"Cry Baby Killer"
was just humiliating...

276
00:15:48,447 --> 00:15:51,428
...but good for me.

277
00:15:51,451 --> 00:15:54,455
Hey, Roger's the only guy
who hired me for about 10 years.

278
00:15:54,487 --> 00:15:58,230
Teenagers-- never had 'em
when I was a kid.

279
00:15:58,257 --> 00:16:01,636
The word "teenager" didn't
really exist until the '50s.

280
00:16:01,661 --> 00:16:03,766
If you look at the '40s and '30s,

281
00:16:03,796 --> 00:16:05,901
their idea of a teenage movie
was "Andy Hardy."

282
00:16:05,932 --> 00:16:07,775
Hey, Betsy.

283
00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:09,780
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
What do you think's happened?

284
00:16:09,802 --> 00:16:11,941
- What do you think's happened?
- What? Well, tell me what.

285
00:16:11,971 --> 00:16:14,679
Cynthia won't go to the dance and
I don't know why and I don't want to.

286
00:16:14,707 --> 00:16:16,118
Times were changing.

287
00:16:16,142 --> 00:16:19,248
- Dave!
- Okay, Johnny.

288
00:16:19,278 --> 00:16:22,919
The major studios
didn't really understand

289
00:16:22,949 --> 00:16:26,897
the audience was looking for
a different type of film.

290
00:16:26,919 --> 00:16:30,628
If we were going to make pictures
about young people,

291
00:16:30,656 --> 00:16:33,193
I'd have picked a young guy
like Jack Nicholson.

292
00:16:33,226 --> 00:16:35,638
But you're through
breaking the law.

293
00:16:35,661 --> 00:16:39,131
Sarge, I don't break the law.
I make my own.

294
00:16:39,165 --> 00:16:42,840
Roger really realized
that young people at that time

295
00:16:42,869 --> 00:16:45,145
really liked movies
where teenagers

296
00:16:45,171 --> 00:16:47,276
were in trouble
with the authorities.

297
00:16:47,306 --> 00:16:49,912
He had found an audience
that you didn't have to go

298
00:16:49,942 --> 00:16:52,923
through the studio system
to reach.

299
00:16:52,945 --> 00:16:55,448
Not only was he a rebel
from Hollywood

300
00:16:55,481 --> 00:16:59,588
in that he did it all himself and did it
outside of the studio system,

301
00:16:59,619 --> 00:17:04,068
but there was an edge of rebellion,
you know, to the movies.

302
00:17:07,360 --> 00:17:09,306
You make it
as disreputable as possible

303
00:17:09,328 --> 00:17:11,239
so that the parents
wouldn't want them to see it

304
00:17:11,264 --> 00:17:12,834
and that they feel
that when they go there,

305
00:17:12,865 --> 00:17:14,674
they're doing
something transgressive,

306
00:17:14,700 --> 00:17:16,873
and you've got an audience.

307
00:17:16,903 --> 00:17:18,644
You're making
outlaw movies, basically.

308
00:17:18,671 --> 00:17:20,344
And Roger has always
been an outlaw.

309
00:17:20,373 --> 00:17:23,286
Let go of me. you big ape!

310
00:17:24,710 --> 00:17:26,781
Now beat it, smart boy,
and don't come back

311
00:17:26,812 --> 00:17:28,758
or I'll break your head.

312
00:17:28,781 --> 00:17:30,727
Break whose head,
you phony Frenchman?

313
00:17:30,750 --> 00:17:33,196
You ain't so tough.
Took this moose-head to throw me out

314
00:17:33,219 --> 00:17:35,893
I've always been
anti-establishment.

315
00:17:35,922 --> 00:17:38,232
I spent two years in the Navy.

316
00:17:38,257 --> 00:17:42,205
Those were the worst
two years of my life.

317
00:17:42,228 --> 00:17:46,370
I came very close to setting the record
for the most demerits,

318
00:17:46,399 --> 00:17:50,245
because I felt
if they set up a rule,

319
00:17:50,269 --> 00:17:52,909
I really must break that rule.

320
00:17:52,939 --> 00:17:55,385
Roger understood

321
00:17:55,408 --> 00:17:58,719
the need for audiences
to identify with rebellion.

322
00:17:58,744 --> 00:18:01,156
Beating the system-
that's cathartic,

323
00:18:01,180 --> 00:18:03,387
you know, defining yourself
on your own terms.

324
00:18:03,416 --> 00:18:05,396
These things are elemental.

325
00:18:05,418 --> 00:18:08,865
They're all what we go through
during those rites of passage.

326
00:18:10,556 --> 00:18:12,263
I think that he understood
that when he was dealing

327
00:18:12,291 --> 00:18:14,237
with those basic experiences
and feelings

328
00:18:14,260 --> 00:18:17,104
that he was talking
to a young audience.

329
00:18:17,129 --> 00:18:19,040
We know he always had
something up his sleeve.

330
00:18:19,065 --> 00:18:21,807
He was more irreverent.
He was more hip--

331
00:18:21,834 --> 00:18:23,575
very hip, very cool.

332
00:18:23,603 --> 00:18:25,810
"A Bucket of Blood" is a really good
example of parody

333
00:18:25,838 --> 00:18:28,341
of the hip scene,
the beat scene in LA.

334
00:18:28,374 --> 00:18:30,820
Walter, you've done
something to me,

335
00:18:30,843 --> 00:18:34,052
something deep down
inside of my prana.

336
00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:35,923
I have?

337
00:18:35,948 --> 00:18:38,519
Oh, Walter,
I want to be with you.

338
00:18:38,551 --> 00:18:40,155
You're creative.

339
00:18:40,186 --> 00:18:42,894
Almost all of Roger's pictures
has a little edge to them.

340
00:18:42,922 --> 00:18:45,869
They were--
they just bordered on

341
00:18:45,892 --> 00:18:49,897
something sacrosanct,
that you shouldn't touch this,

342
00:18:52,064 --> 00:18:54,806
And that's usually
what pulled the picture through.

343
00:18:55,801 --> 00:18:57,144
Feed me.

344
00:18:57,169 --> 00:18:59,376
I'm sorry, pal.
I'm fresh out of blood.

345
00:18:59,405 --> 00:19:00,645
Talk to somebody else.

346
00:19:00,673 --> 00:19:02,209
I'm hungry.

347
00:19:02,241 --> 00:19:04,152
I don't care what you are.

348
00:19:04,176 --> 00:19:07,419
Can't you see I'm knocked out?
I just killed a man.

349
00:19:07,446 --> 00:19:08,948
I'm a murderer.

350
00:19:08,981 --> 00:19:10,688
He was always pushing.

351
00:19:10,716 --> 00:19:13,094
Roger's idea at the time

352
00:19:13,119 --> 00:19:15,599
was to cut down
the time of shooting.

353
00:19:15,621 --> 00:19:17,897
So now his ambition

354
00:19:17,924 --> 00:19:20,165
was to make a film in two days.

355
00:19:20,192 --> 00:19:23,401
Now no Novocain.
It dulls the senses.

356
00:19:23,429 --> 00:19:26,069
It was work. I mean, we would
get there early in the morning

357
00:19:26,098 --> 00:19:28,942
and we'd just start
grinding out these scenes.

358
00:19:28,968 --> 00:19:30,845
One day was half the movie.

359
00:19:33,272 --> 00:19:36,151
Oh, my God,
don't stop now.

360
00:19:36,175 --> 00:19:38,280
Roger had borrowed
all the dental equipment

361
00:19:38,311 --> 00:19:40,313
from his personal dentist

362
00:19:40,346 --> 00:19:42,622
and they hadn't bolted it
down to the floor.

363
00:19:46,385 --> 00:19:50,128
We banged into this big dental shit
and it started to fall over.

364
00:19:50,156 --> 00:19:52,762
And Roger cut the camera
and ran out

365
00:19:52,792 --> 00:19:54,772
and saved the dental equipment.

366
00:19:54,794 --> 00:19:57,866
To hell with the scene.

367
00:19:57,897 --> 00:20:01,606
I can truly say I've never
enjoyed myself so much.

368
00:20:01,634 --> 00:20:04,547
I'd have terrible experiences
going into the theater

369
00:20:04,570 --> 00:20:07,278
with movies that I had made
in that period with Roger,

370
00:20:07,306 --> 00:20:10,583
'cause, you know, they were kind of--
a lot of them were grim.

371
00:20:10,609 --> 00:20:13,852
- Bye.
- Bye now.

372
00:20:14,847 --> 00:20:18,624
By mistake he actually made
a good picture every once in a while.

373
00:20:18,651 --> 00:20:20,494
I was never in it,

374
00:20:20,519 --> 00:20:23,888
but that was as much my fault
as the next guy's.

375
00:20:35,634 --> 00:20:37,636
By the beginning
of the '60s

376
00:20:37,670 --> 00:20:41,777
I began to have confidence
in my ability

377
00:20:41,807 --> 00:20:45,050
to master the craft.

378
00:20:45,077 --> 00:20:47,785
At least

379
00:20:47,813 --> 00:20:51,090
she has found peace now.

380
00:20:51,117 --> 00:20:52,824
Has she?

381
00:20:52,852 --> 00:20:54,729
We'd never miss a Poe movie.

382
00:20:54,754 --> 00:20:58,167
They were riveting and stylish

383
00:20:58,190 --> 00:21:00,192
and hip and funny.

384
00:21:08,701 --> 00:21:10,806
And we couldn't wait
for the next one.

385
00:21:10,836 --> 00:21:12,747
And of course with Roger,
you didn't have to wait very long.

386
00:21:12,772 --> 00:21:14,718
The next one was gonna come out,
like, a month later.

387
00:21:14,740 --> 00:21:17,914
Do you know where you are,
Bartolome?

388
00:21:18,911 --> 00:21:21,357
The pit

389
00:21:21,380 --> 00:21:22,950
and the pendulum.

390
00:21:22,982 --> 00:21:25,986
The Poe movies
were huge for me,

391
00:21:26,018 --> 00:21:27,520
especially "The Pit
and the Pendulum."

392
00:21:27,553 --> 00:21:29,555
They had this TV campaign

393
00:21:29,588 --> 00:21:33,092
where the blade was coming down,
you know, and just kind of-- whew.

394
00:21:33,125 --> 00:21:36,334
And, oh, my God, it was-
and I rushed.

395
00:21:36,362 --> 00:21:39,036
In fact, that's probably the first time
that a TV campaign

396
00:21:39,065 --> 00:21:41,136
made me go to the movie.

397
00:21:45,738 --> 00:21:47,240
They were so successful,

398
00:21:47,273 --> 00:21:49,981
I ended up making
six Edgar Allan Poe films.

399
00:21:52,011 --> 00:21:53,513
The artistry of the films

400
00:21:53,546 --> 00:21:55,822
really developed
into the Poe pictures:

401
00:21:55,848 --> 00:21:57,589
"The House of Usher,"
"The Pit and the Pendulum,"

402
00:21:57,616 --> 00:22:00,153
and "The Tomb of Ligeia,"
which is my favorite.

403
00:22:00,186 --> 00:22:02,860
She desecrates the earth
in which she lies.

404
00:22:13,232 --> 00:22:15,872
A nervous contraction,

405
00:22:15,901 --> 00:22:17,744
nothing more.

406
00:22:17,770 --> 00:22:19,477
He was a name
that we'd go like--

407
00:22:19,505 --> 00:22:20,882
I must say
like a Hitchcock film.

408
00:22:20,906 --> 00:22:22,283
We'd go see a Roger Corman.

409
00:22:22,308 --> 00:22:24,151
They wanted me
to make more,

410
00:22:24,176 --> 00:22:27,555
but by that time I said, "Enough.
I'm starting to repeat myself."

411
00:22:27,580 --> 00:22:30,618
We played it for a little bit of humor
in some of the later pictures,

412
00:22:30,649 --> 00:22:32,492
particularly "The Raven."

413
00:22:32,518 --> 00:22:34,623
I was doing "The Raven."

414
00:22:37,156 --> 00:22:40,262
And he said,
"Jack, look, these sets

415
00:22:40,292 --> 00:22:42,636
are gonna be up
over the weekend,

416
00:22:42,661 --> 00:22:46,074
so I can use
the same sets for free.

417
00:22:46,098 --> 00:22:48,942
I'm gonna have somebody
write something."

418
00:22:48,968 --> 00:22:50,504
And he went
and he got a guy who wrote

419
00:22:50,536 --> 00:22:53,244
63 pages of just dialogue.

420
00:22:53,272 --> 00:22:56,810
To this day, no one knows
the plot of "The Terror."

421
00:22:56,842 --> 00:22:59,948
It was very strange. I mean,
we played the weirdest characters.

422
00:22:59,979 --> 00:23:03,426
I played a guy
that was an assistant to a witch.

423
00:23:03,449 --> 00:23:06,191
In the beginning of the film,
I'm a deaf-mute.

424
00:23:06,218 --> 00:23:08,494
And then halfway through
the film, they decided

425
00:23:08,521 --> 00:23:10,296
that they didn't have
an ending for the film.

426
00:23:10,322 --> 00:23:11,824
They'd better make me talk.

427
00:23:11,857 --> 00:23:14,133
I can say no more.
There is great danger.

428
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:16,834
Find Eric.
Eric knows.

429
00:23:16,862 --> 00:23:19,502
Dick played a livery butler

430
00:23:19,532 --> 00:23:21,011
with a New York accent.

431
00:23:21,033 --> 00:23:23,172
And you'll see
in the picture now--

432
00:23:23,202 --> 00:23:26,342
God forbid, I don't want
to encourage anyone to see it--

433
00:23:26,372 --> 00:23:29,285
I throw Dick Miller
up against this door.

434
00:23:29,308 --> 00:23:30,480
Where's the baron?

435
00:23:30,509 --> 00:23:32,750
We must get to him.
He's locked himself in the crypt.

436
00:23:32,778 --> 00:23:35,315
And Dick Miller
now tries to explain

437
00:23:35,347 --> 00:23:38,260
the entire picture in one speech.

438
00:23:38,284 --> 00:23:40,924
The baron did return that night
to find Eric with the baroness

439
00:23:40,953 --> 00:23:42,227
and he did kill her.

440
00:23:42,254 --> 00:23:43,790
But there was a struggle,
and in the fight

441
00:23:43,822 --> 00:23:45,927
it was not Eric who died,
but the baron.

442
00:23:45,958 --> 00:23:47,403
I killed the baron.

443
00:23:49,895 --> 00:23:52,774
'Cause there is-- there's no story
actually arrived at.

444
00:23:52,798 --> 00:23:55,176
Various directors shot the film.

445
00:23:55,201 --> 00:23:58,876
Francis Coppola started
and shot some sequences at Big Sur,

446
00:23:58,904 --> 00:24:01,475
but then got an opportunity
at a major studio.

447
00:24:01,507 --> 00:24:04,386
Sol had Monte Hellman
shoot for a while.

448
00:24:04,410 --> 00:24:06,686
Monte then got another job

449
00:24:06,712 --> 00:24:09,283
and I think--

450
00:24:09,315 --> 00:24:10,817
I've forgotten all the directors.

451
00:24:10,849 --> 00:24:12,419
There were four or five directors,

452
00:24:12,451 --> 00:24:15,489
including finally Jack Nicholson
shot some scenes himself.

453
00:24:15,521 --> 00:24:17,626
And eventually
I went in for an hour

454
00:24:17,656 --> 00:24:20,899
and shot the final tie-in shots
and finished the picture.

455
00:24:20,926 --> 00:24:23,600
It is a somewhat
confusing picture.

456
00:24:36,842 --> 00:24:38,844
Oh, man, God.

457
00:24:38,877 --> 00:24:42,154
Hopeless, all of it.

458
00:24:42,181 --> 00:24:46,926
I think he wanted to be taken
seriously as a filmmaker

459
00:24:48,988 --> 00:24:51,161
monster movies
and sci-fi movies.

460
00:24:51,190 --> 00:24:55,297
Perhaps it's not so much
that he wanted critical acclaim,

461
00:24:55,327 --> 00:24:59,173
but he wanted some depth,
some feeling,

462
00:24:59,198 --> 00:25:01,474
some reason
for making a movie.

463
00:25:01,500 --> 00:25:04,003
I wanted to do something
a little bit different.

464
00:25:04,036 --> 00:25:06,038
And I'd read the book
"The Intruder,"

465
00:25:06,071 --> 00:25:09,348
which was about the integration
of the schools in the South.

466
00:25:09,375 --> 00:25:11,446
And I wanted to make
that picture.

467
00:25:11,477 --> 00:25:15,254
I was very much in favor
of integration.

468
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,159
I showed the screenplay
to American International

469
00:25:18,183 --> 00:25:20,185
and said, "This will be
my next picture."

470
00:25:20,219 --> 00:25:23,792
To my real surprise, they said
they didn't want to make it.

471
00:25:23,822 --> 00:25:25,824
And they'd never said no.

472
00:25:25,858 --> 00:25:28,964
I took it to Allied Artists.
They said no.

473
00:25:28,994 --> 00:25:31,804
Everybody said no, so I said,
"All right, I'll make it myself."

474
00:25:31,830 --> 00:25:35,539
So my brother and I
produced it in the South.

475
00:25:36,602 --> 00:25:39,640
"He was a leader of men,
but he was evil.

476
00:25:39,672 --> 00:25:42,118
He was a stranger,
but he brought lust and love,

477
00:25:42,141 --> 00:25:44,781
rape and hate
to this quiet Southern town.

478
00:25:44,810 --> 00:25:46,721
He was the intruder."

479
00:25:46,745 --> 00:25:50,249
This is not the reason
we made this film.

480
00:25:50,282 --> 00:25:53,627
It is the exact opposite

481
00:25:53,652 --> 00:25:56,531
of what we intended
this film to be.

482
00:25:56,555 --> 00:26:00,628
It was not and is not
an exploitation film.

483
00:26:00,659 --> 00:26:04,539
This picture was the first film
that Roger could actually make

484
00:26:04,563 --> 00:26:06,736
a statement
about his personal feelings

485
00:26:06,765 --> 00:26:09,177
as opposed to doing
the Poe films

486
00:26:09,201 --> 00:26:12,546
or the films that were just
exploitation, drive-in films.

487
00:26:14,606 --> 00:26:16,882
Playing the lead
was the new young actor

488
00:26:16,909 --> 00:26:20,049
making his first film--
Bill Shatner.

489
00:26:20,079 --> 00:26:23,822
All I knew was that it was
a wonderful part

490
00:26:23,849 --> 00:26:26,295
and it was a wonderful
opportunity for me

491
00:26:26,318 --> 00:26:28,559
at an early point in my career.

492
00:26:28,587 --> 00:26:31,090
The character I played
was based on a real person.

493
00:26:31,123 --> 00:26:34,070
He was a white supremacist
from New York City

494
00:26:34,093 --> 00:26:38,269
and went down into the South
to rabble-rouse

495
00:26:38,297 --> 00:26:42,712
and tries to stop
the integration of a school.

496
00:26:42,734 --> 00:26:46,682
I mean, they've got 10 niggers
enrolled already in the school.

497
00:26:46,705 --> 00:26:48,480
And they're starting Monday.

498
00:26:48,507 --> 00:26:51,044
Yes, I know.
Do you think it's right?

499
00:26:51,076 --> 00:26:52,953
No, I sure don't.

500
00:26:52,978 --> 00:26:54,582
Neither does nobody.

501
00:26:54,613 --> 00:26:56,115
But it's the law.

502
00:26:56,148 --> 00:26:58,025
Whose law?

503
00:26:58,050 --> 00:27:01,259
What is difficult
for people to understand now--

504
00:27:01,286 --> 00:27:05,359
"separate but equal"
was the law of the land.

505
00:27:05,390 --> 00:27:07,631
That meant water fountains,

506
00:27:07,659 --> 00:27:09,764
that meant restaurants,

507
00:27:09,795 --> 00:27:11,433
it meant schools

508
00:27:11,463 --> 00:27:14,171
that were totally segregated.

509
00:27:14,199 --> 00:27:17,578
It was the height
of the integration wars.

510
00:27:20,472 --> 00:27:23,419
It became very apparent
once we were down there

511
00:27:23,442 --> 00:27:26,423
that people held
polar opposite views

512
00:27:26,445 --> 00:27:28,288
of what was right
and what was wrong.

513
00:27:30,149 --> 00:27:32,151
Take it easy, nigger.
You're not going anywhere.

514
00:27:32,184 --> 00:27:33,959
- What's the trouble?
- Are you looking for trouble?

515
00:27:33,986 --> 00:27:35,693
No, sir. We're on our way
to the house.

516
00:27:35,721 --> 00:27:37,132
"Just on our way to the house."

517
00:27:37,156 --> 00:27:40,137
I didn't tell people
what the subject matter is,

518
00:27:40,159 --> 00:27:42,730
but the title-- "Intruder," you know.

519
00:27:42,761 --> 00:27:45,742
And with the track record
of Roger, all the films,

520
00:27:45,764 --> 00:27:48,506
I mean, they naturally thought
it was a horror film

521
00:27:48,534 --> 00:27:50,605
or something in that genre.

522
00:27:50,636 --> 00:27:55,312
It was only as everything
started to unfold

523
00:27:55,340 --> 00:27:58,014
and they saw exactly
what was happening-

524
00:27:58,043 --> 00:28:00,580
I mean, people were
driving us out of locations.

525
00:28:00,612 --> 00:28:02,614
We had to change motels.

526
00:28:02,648 --> 00:28:05,424
I mean, it got to be
very heavy down there.

527
00:28:05,451 --> 00:28:08,660
Hey, are you really gonna make him
go to the white school tomorrow?

528
00:28:08,687 --> 00:28:10,894
Why, I'm not making him go.

529
00:28:10,923 --> 00:28:12,425
Am I. Joey?

530
00:28:12,457 --> 00:28:15,336
- No, Ma.
- Well, it's too bad I ain't old enough.

531
00:28:15,360 --> 00:28:17,271
I wouldn't be scared,
that's all.

532
00:28:17,296 --> 00:28:18,536
Who's scared?

533
00:28:18,564 --> 00:28:20,566
We were having
our lives threatened

534
00:28:20,599 --> 00:28:23,079
to make a film about integration.

535
00:28:23,101 --> 00:28:27,447
Roger displayed
such courage under fire.

536
00:28:27,472 --> 00:28:30,112
And Gene Corman,
his brother-

537
00:28:30,142 --> 00:28:32,383
such courage to make the film.

538
00:28:32,411 --> 00:28:34,413
There was such animosity

539
00:28:34,446 --> 00:28:37,325
and the experience of hatred

540
00:28:37,349 --> 00:28:41,195
that I think we realized
we had a bigger problem.

541
00:28:41,220 --> 00:28:43,666
I think we were more naive

542
00:28:43,689 --> 00:28:47,034
than we should have been
at that point in time.

543
00:28:47,059 --> 00:28:50,302
You were alone with a white girl

544
00:28:50,329 --> 00:28:52,741
in the basement of the school,

545
00:28:52,765 --> 00:28:55,405
but you didn't try to do anything?

546
00:28:55,434 --> 00:28:58,643
Is that what you expect us
to believe, nigger?

547
00:28:58,670 --> 00:29:01,412
- Well, speak LIP!

548
00:29:02,808 --> 00:29:05,687
We felt we should
definitely expose our audience

549
00:29:05,711 --> 00:29:07,384
to this kind of material,

550
00:29:07,412 --> 00:29:10,188
because this is what
was going on in America

551
00:29:10,215 --> 00:29:12,593
and somebody
had to say, "Stop.

552
00:29:12,618 --> 00:29:15,189
This is not the American way."

553
00:29:15,220 --> 00:29:18,201
It was a lie-- everything,

554
00:29:18,223 --> 00:29:21,534
everything I said
about Joey, all of it.

555
00:29:26,031 --> 00:29:29,069
You were gonna kill this boy.
You know it and I know it.

556
00:29:29,101 --> 00:29:32,139
Making films
is a dedication.

557
00:29:32,170 --> 00:29:34,081
You have to be possessed.

558
00:29:34,106 --> 00:29:36,177
At some point there,
I realized

559
00:29:36,208 --> 00:29:39,087
that they had mortgaged
their home for that film.

560
00:29:39,111 --> 00:29:42,149
That, perhaps, was the most
admirable thing of all,

561
00:29:42,181 --> 00:29:44,661
because it's one thing
to be cavalier

562
00:29:44,683 --> 00:29:46,685
about spending money
that isn't yours,

563
00:29:46,718 --> 00:29:50,632
but to be so adamant

564
00:29:50,656 --> 00:29:55,503
as to put your house
on the line,

565
00:29:55,527 --> 00:29:57,973
that's-- that's extraordinary.

566
00:29:57,996 --> 00:30:00,135
We aren't gonna give up now,

567
00:30:00,165 --> 00:30:02,145
not now.

568
00:30:02,167 --> 00:30:04,340
No, sir, not ever.

569
00:30:07,839 --> 00:30:11,480
I'd set up the sneak preview
with Pacific Theaters.

570
00:30:11,510 --> 00:30:14,252
It was almost a riot
in the theater.

571
00:30:14,279 --> 00:30:17,123
People were screaming,
"Communist!"

572
00:30:17,149 --> 00:30:18,719
And one of the ushers

573
00:30:18,750 --> 00:30:20,730
or one of the people
who worked at the theater

574
00:30:20,752 --> 00:30:22,789
came up to me,
pinned me against the wall,

575
00:30:22,821 --> 00:30:26,564
said, "You're a Communist.
You don't belong in this country."

576
00:30:26,592 --> 00:30:30,904
The picture was
a wonderful commercial

577
00:30:30,929 --> 00:30:32,875
failure.

578
00:30:32,898 --> 00:30:36,573
I started to say
"a wonderful critical success,"

579
00:30:36,601 --> 00:30:38,080
but I got confused.

580
00:30:38,103 --> 00:30:42,745
But I'll leave the confusion there
because it's all wound up in my mind.

581
00:30:42,774 --> 00:30:46,779
It sort of gets me in the stomach
when I talk about it.

582
00:30:46,812 --> 00:30:49,622
This is the only film

583
00:30:49,648 --> 00:30:51,924
that I don't think
we ever made money on.

584
00:30:51,950 --> 00:30:55,295
And yet it was our best film.
We were ahead of the time.

585
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:59,598
It made me rethink
my method of making pictures.

586
00:30:59,624 --> 00:31:02,332
And I felt the public

587
00:31:02,361 --> 00:31:06,571
really is the ultimate arbiter

588
00:31:06,598 --> 00:31:08,874
of your film.

589
00:31:08,901 --> 00:31:12,007
If there's something
you really want to do--

590
00:31:12,037 --> 00:31:14,278
in Roger's case
it's making movies-

591
00:31:14,306 --> 00:31:15,979
then you keep on doing it.

592
00:31:16,008 --> 00:31:18,818
Every time you fail,
you just keep on.

593
00:31:18,844 --> 00:31:21,051
I thought,
I should go back

594
00:31:21,079 --> 00:31:23,286
to a more commercial
type of film."

595
00:31:23,315 --> 00:31:26,819
I was starting to learn
method acting technique.

596
00:31:26,852 --> 00:31:29,992
There was what was known
as the text and the subtext.

597
00:31:30,022 --> 00:31:32,332
The text is the written script,

598
00:31:32,357 --> 00:31:34,234
what you were saying.

599
00:31:34,259 --> 00:31:36,739
The subtext
is what you mean,

600
00:31:36,762 --> 00:31:38,764
what you really feel,

601
00:31:38,797 --> 00:31:41,334
that causes you
to say these words.

602
00:31:41,366 --> 00:31:43,368
And I felt

603
00:31:43,401 --> 00:31:47,577
I should make
my subject matter the text,

604
00:31:47,606 --> 00:31:50,246
which will be
a commercial text,

605
00:31:50,275 --> 00:31:52,653
but my theme,

606
00:31:52,678 --> 00:31:54,919
my message,
what is important to me,

607
00:31:54,946 --> 00:31:57,017
should be the subtext,

608
00:31:57,049 --> 00:31:59,791
so the audience will get
what they paid their money to see.

609
00:31:59,818 --> 00:32:04,233
I think he consciously
was looking

610
00:32:04,256 --> 00:32:08,762
to contemporary events, news,

611
00:32:08,794 --> 00:32:11,929
for inspiration for material
to make a movie.

612
00:32:11,930 --> 00:32:14,308
AIP said, "All right,
what do you want to make?"

613
00:32:14,333 --> 00:32:17,075
I said, "There's a phenomenon
in the country right now--

614
00:32:17,102 --> 00:32:20,174
the Hells Angels,
the outlaw motorcycle gangs.

615
00:32:20,205 --> 00:32:23,345
I want to make a picture
about the Hells Angels."

616
00:32:23,375 --> 00:32:25,912
And they agreed instantly.

617
00:32:27,312 --> 00:32:30,987
Roger offered me $125 a week

618
00:32:31,016 --> 00:32:35,192
to work as his assistant
on the picture.

619
00:32:35,220 --> 00:32:39,532
And he said I could take
Polly with me.

620
00:32:39,558 --> 00:32:43,335
His reputation was,
you know, complicated,

621
00:32:43,361 --> 00:32:45,773
because I kept hearing
that he was a millionaire.

622
00:32:45,797 --> 00:32:48,038
And I thought he was
pretty eccentric, you know,

623
00:32:48,066 --> 00:32:49,841
'cause he didn't live
like a millionaire.

624
00:32:49,868 --> 00:32:53,111
But I had little interest
in his movies, to be honest,

625
00:32:53,138 --> 00:32:55,812
because I was a big snob
and I only liked Fritz Lang

626
00:32:55,841 --> 00:32:57,582
and Howard Hawks
and John Ford.

627
00:32:57,609 --> 00:33:00,055
The star of the picture
was George Chakiris

628
00:33:00,078 --> 00:33:02,080
who'd won an Oscar
for "Westside Story."

629
00:33:04,850 --> 00:33:06,830
The phone rang
in my house here

630
00:33:06,852 --> 00:33:10,197
in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills,
and it was Roger.

631
00:33:10,222 --> 00:33:11,724
He said,
"We have a problem."

632
00:33:11,757 --> 00:33:14,897
I said, "George can't ride."
He said, "How do you know?"

633
00:33:14,926 --> 00:33:17,702
I said, "Because I know George.
He can dance, but he can't ride.

634
00:33:17,729 --> 00:33:20,039
You need a biker."
"Do you ride?"

635
00:33:20,065 --> 00:33:23,137
I said, "Oh, yeah, Roger, I ride.

636
00:33:23,168 --> 00:33:24,875
I'll do it."

637
00:33:24,903 --> 00:33:26,439
I said, "Who's gonna
play my part?"

638
00:33:26,471 --> 00:33:28,508
He said, "Bruce Dem."
I said, "Great. I know Dernsy."

639
00:33:28,540 --> 00:33:30,781
We just had, like, eight actors,

640
00:33:30,809 --> 00:33:33,585
and the rest were all extras.

641
00:33:33,612 --> 00:33:36,786
But the extras made the movie,
because they had the machines

642
00:33:36,815 --> 00:33:38,624
and they were
what the movie was about.

643
00:33:38,650 --> 00:33:40,652
And they were real
Hells Angels guys.

644
00:33:40,685 --> 00:33:42,790
They were terrible.
They were frightening.

645
00:33:42,821 --> 00:33:44,823
We all rode our bikes

646
00:33:44,856 --> 00:33:47,063
down the 2, in the desert.

647
00:33:47,092 --> 00:33:49,094
And he filmed it along the way.

648
00:33:49,127 --> 00:33:51,971
But he didn't get a police escort
or anything like that.

649
00:33:51,997 --> 00:33:54,944
He got no permits.
We just did it.

650
00:33:54,966 --> 00:33:58,209
It was the beginning
of what you know now

651
00:33:58,236 --> 00:34:00,978
as real guerrilla filmmaking.

652
00:34:01,006 --> 00:34:04,783
You know, Roger's a guy
who's not gonna miss an opportunity

653
00:34:04,809 --> 00:34:07,813
to take advantage
of every single thing he can shoot.

654
00:34:07,846 --> 00:34:10,224
At one point, there was supposed
to be a kind of a fight

655
00:34:10,248 --> 00:34:14,094
between the Hells Angels
and the townies.

656
00:34:14,119 --> 00:34:16,121
We didn't have enough townies,
so Roger turns to me

657
00:34:16,154 --> 00:34:19,135
and he says,
"You run in there, be a townie."

658
00:34:19,157 --> 00:34:22,866
So I run in,
and within seconds,

659
00:34:22,894 --> 00:34:25,932
the Angels were beating
the shit out of me.

660
00:34:29,501 --> 00:34:31,572
All I did was go right down
to the ground

661
00:34:31,603 --> 00:34:34,174
and just prayed for "Cut!"

662
00:34:34,206 --> 00:34:37,847
When work was over,
you never saw Roger.

663
00:34:37,876 --> 00:34:41,790
He didn't go to dinner.
He didn't-- you didn't know what he did.

664
00:34:41,813 --> 00:34:44,953
As close as we were to him
on that picture,

665
00:34:44,983 --> 00:34:47,224
and we were literally
his only friends-

666
00:34:47,252 --> 00:34:49,254
I mean, not that nobody
liked him,

667
00:34:49,287 --> 00:34:53,599
but he was just-- didn't reach out
toward friendship.

668
00:34:53,625 --> 00:34:56,572
And he remained mysterious.

669
00:34:56,595 --> 00:34:58,597
But tell me,

670
00:34:58,630 --> 00:35:01,076
just what is it
that you want to do?

671
00:35:03,635 --> 00:35:05,637
Well, we want to be free.

672
00:35:05,670 --> 00:35:08,412
We want to be free
to do what we want to do.

673
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,886
We want to be free to ride.

674
00:35:10,909 --> 00:35:12,684
We want to be free
to ride our machines

675
00:35:12,711 --> 00:35:14,713
without being hassled
by The Man.

676
00:35:14,746 --> 00:35:17,590
- And we want to get loaded.

677
00:35:17,616 --> 00:35:19,562
- Yeah!
- I second the motion.

678
00:35:19,584 --> 00:35:21,723
I remember asking him,

679
00:35:21,753 --> 00:35:25,291
oh, about the third or fourth day
of the "Wild Angels"-

680
00:35:25,323 --> 00:35:28,793
I said, "How many of these things
have you done?"

681
00:35:28,827 --> 00:35:31,307
He said, "This is my 100th."

682
00:35:34,332 --> 00:35:36,608
This is 42 years ago,

683
00:35:36,635 --> 00:35:40,208
and this was his 100th movie
he directed.

684
00:35:40,238 --> 00:35:42,809
Oh, my God.

685
00:35:42,841 --> 00:35:46,152
The film was really
an incredible success.

686
00:35:46,178 --> 00:35:48,988
It was the biggest-grossing
independent film

687
00:35:49,014 --> 00:35:50,994
ever made at that time.

688
00:35:51,016 --> 00:35:53,292
"The Wild Angels"
was a tremendous success.

689
00:35:53,318 --> 00:35:55,161
It was a huge hit.

690
00:35:55,186 --> 00:35:58,099
It galvanized the whole
underground culture.

691
00:35:58,123 --> 00:36:00,694
And that changed
his persona

692
00:36:00,725 --> 00:36:04,969
and changed the perception
of Peter Fonda.

693
00:36:04,996 --> 00:36:06,907
I thought,
"This is wonderful.

694
00:36:06,932 --> 00:36:09,936
This is saving me from becoming
the next Dean Jones for Disney,"

695
00:36:09,968 --> 00:36:12,949
which is what my agents thought-
that I should be that.

696
00:36:12,971 --> 00:36:15,577
Roger felt that
I had helped him

697
00:36:15,607 --> 00:36:17,780
and contributed
something to it.

698
00:36:17,809 --> 00:36:19,686
And he called me
and he said,

699
00:36:19,711 --> 00:36:21,691
"Would you like to direct
your own picture?"

700
00:36:21,713 --> 00:36:24,523
And I said, "Yes."
He said, "All right.

701
00:36:24,549 --> 00:36:26,825
We have a Russian
science fiction picture.

702
00:36:26,852 --> 00:36:29,162
And AIP will buy it,
but they won't buy it

703
00:36:29,187 --> 00:36:31,098
unless I put some women in it.

704
00:36:31,122 --> 00:36:35,264
There's no women in it.
It's all men walking around Venus."

705
00:36:35,293 --> 00:36:37,466
"But what am I supposed
to do, Roger?"

706
00:36:37,495 --> 00:36:40,476
He said, "Look at the picture and
just decide where to put the women."

707
00:36:40,498 --> 00:36:42,808
"Okay, sure."

708
00:36:42,834 --> 00:36:45,838
"We've got Mamie Van Doren
and she'll be one of the women.

709
00:36:45,871 --> 00:36:48,215
Get a couple of other women
and just put them in the picture.

710
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:50,241
And no sound.
Don't write any dialogue.

711
00:36:50,275 --> 00:36:52,016
I don't want to pay
for sound."

712
00:36:52,043 --> 00:36:54,990
And I had to explain to Mamie
that there would be no dialogue.

713
00:36:55,013 --> 00:36:56,583
She said,
"Then what do we do?"

714
00:36:56,615 --> 00:36:59,391
I said, "You look meaningfully
atone of the other girls.

715
00:36:59,417 --> 00:37:01,727
And then the other girl
will immediately react.

716
00:37:01,753 --> 00:37:03,699
So you look at her
and the other girl goes...

717
00:37:03,722 --> 00:37:05,827
and goes."

718
00:37:05,857 --> 00:37:08,804
"Telepathy, Mamie-
it's telepathy."

719
00:37:11,263 --> 00:37:13,675
We cut this thing together,

720
00:37:13,698 --> 00:37:15,541
screened it for Jim Nicholson
and he said,

721
00:37:15,567 --> 00:37:17,604
"What the fuck is this about?

722
00:37:18,903 --> 00:37:21,509
What are they doing?
They keep looking and then the other--"

723
00:37:21,540 --> 00:37:23,281
"It's telepathy, Jim."

724
00:37:23,308 --> 00:37:25,754
"It's bullshit."
He says, "I don't know what--"

725
00:37:25,777 --> 00:37:27,723
Roger says,
"You have to put voices in."

726
00:37:27,746 --> 00:37:30,750
Meriama, Wearie...

727
00:37:30,782 --> 00:37:34,252
"Go get the shells." "Yes."

728
00:37:34,285 --> 00:37:37,494
Ptera is a false god.

729
00:37:39,257 --> 00:37:41,897
Roger is the kind of person
who says-

730
00:37:41,927 --> 00:37:43,531
"Do you know how to swim?"
"No."

731
00:37:43,561 --> 00:37:46,201
And throws you in the water.
And if you learn to swim

732
00:37:46,231 --> 00:37:49,235
because you don't want
to drown, you're fine.

733
00:37:49,267 --> 00:37:51,611
And if you drown,
that's the end of that.

734
00:37:54,205 --> 00:37:56,242
I think he was alert

735
00:37:56,274 --> 00:38:00,120
that this was a time when things
were beginning to change.

736
00:38:00,145 --> 00:38:02,887
Certainly there weren't
movies being made

737
00:38:02,914 --> 00:38:06,020
reflecting the changes
in the thinking of young people.

738
00:38:06,051 --> 00:38:08,361
And I think that Roger
was alert to that.

739
00:38:08,386 --> 00:38:12,732
What was going on
really was revolutionary.

740
00:38:15,060 --> 00:38:18,041
I smoked pot at work.

741
00:38:18,063 --> 00:38:21,738
- Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll.
- It was blowing up.

742
00:38:21,766 --> 00:38:23,439
Vietnam.

743
00:38:25,336 --> 00:38:28,317
I thought it was
the end of America.

744
00:38:31,643 --> 00:38:35,090
I looked at this guy
in a cardigan sweater

745
00:38:35,113 --> 00:38:38,151
talking about mayhem
in the streets.

746
00:38:40,385 --> 00:38:43,093
I was probably
the straightest guy

747
00:38:43,121 --> 00:38:45,123
in a fairly wild movement.

748
00:38:45,156 --> 00:38:49,070
His political views
were becoming increasingly left,

749
00:38:49,094 --> 00:38:51,802
as he said at the time,
"almost Communist,"

750
00:38:51,830 --> 00:38:53,332
which always
makes me laugh,

751
00:38:53,365 --> 00:38:55,208
because of course
I don't buy that for a minute,

752
00:38:55,233 --> 00:38:57,941
but I understand what he means.

753
00:39:08,947 --> 00:39:11,951
For someone who seems
so square on the outside,

754
00:39:11,983 --> 00:39:15,294
he was actually a very interesting,
cool, hip director.

755
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:17,596
I may have felt
at the beginning of the '60s

756
00:39:17,622 --> 00:39:20,626
that I was an underdog,
but as we got into the '60s,

757
00:39:20,658 --> 00:39:23,036
I thought, "Hey,
I'm with the new movement."

758
00:39:25,063 --> 00:39:28,237
By now
Roger and I are in sync.

759
00:39:28,266 --> 00:39:30,872
Hey, the man's supporting
my whole life.

760
00:39:30,902 --> 00:39:32,939
How could I not be
in sync with him?

761
00:39:32,971 --> 00:39:36,714
He asked me to write
"The Wild Angels,"

762
00:39:36,741 --> 00:39:39,915
'cause I was writing by then.

763
00:39:39,944 --> 00:39:42,515
I said, "Roger, you know,
we're pals in this.

764
00:39:42,547 --> 00:39:45,824
Can't you just pay me
a little more than scale?"

765
00:39:45,850 --> 00:39:48,922
If he'd just said,
"All right, scale plus $5,"

766
00:39:48,953 --> 00:39:50,557
I would have relaxed.

767
00:39:50,588 --> 00:39:53,797
No. And I didn't write it.

768
00:39:53,825 --> 00:39:57,898
To write "The Trip," though,
he finally said, "All right."

769
00:40:06,337 --> 00:40:09,750
Cut. It's good here.
How was it for second camera?

770
00:40:09,774 --> 00:40:11,811
- Fine here.
- Okay, print it.

771
00:40:11,843 --> 00:40:16,349
When I decided
to make "The Trip" about LSD,

772
00:40:16,381 --> 00:40:20,022
I felt as a director
I cannot make a film about LSD

773
00:40:20,051 --> 00:40:22,190
without trying LSD.

774
00:40:22,220 --> 00:40:25,292
Initially the idea was that

775
00:40:25,323 --> 00:40:28,236
I would take notes
on Roger's trip.

776
00:40:28,259 --> 00:40:30,261
I think he believed
that he would be able

777
00:40:30,295 --> 00:40:33,401
to coherently dictate
notes to me.

778
00:40:35,266 --> 00:40:37,507
How high are you, man?
Can you tell that?

779
00:40:37,535 --> 00:40:39,742
Listen, I think--

780
00:40:41,873 --> 00:40:43,648
I'm afraid.

781
00:40:44,776 --> 00:40:46,983
There's nothing
to be afraid of, man.

782
00:40:47,011 --> 00:40:51,050
I had had a wonderful trip,
a spectacular trip.

783
00:40:51,082 --> 00:40:54,757
I felt, to be fair, I had to have
some experiences

784
00:40:54,786 --> 00:40:57,494
of people who'd had bad trips.

785
00:40:57,522 --> 00:41:00,765
Luckily, Jack Nicholson
was a very good writer

786
00:41:00,792 --> 00:41:02,863
and he knew LSD.

787
00:41:02,894 --> 00:41:04,669
'Cause I was special talent.

788
00:41:04,696 --> 00:41:08,508
Only he and I had actually
taken LSD at the point.

789
00:41:08,533 --> 00:41:11,946
I never did it for fun--
too strong.

790
00:41:11,970 --> 00:41:14,712
I mean, a lot of my friends did,
but, baby, I mean,

791
00:41:14,739 --> 00:41:19,552
what, you want to confront
the face of God literally for fun?

792
00:41:19,577 --> 00:41:21,079
Come on.

793
00:41:21,112 --> 00:41:23,023
I'm Peter Fonda.

794
00:41:23,047 --> 00:41:25,049
We've just finished
making a movie

795
00:41:25,083 --> 00:41:28,792
dealing with the most talked-about
subject of the day-- LSD.

796
00:41:30,922 --> 00:41:32,663
I honestly believe
that it will be

797
00:41:32,690 --> 00:41:34,966
today's most talked-about
motion picture.

798
00:41:34,993 --> 00:41:37,337
Roger's a serious moviemaker.

799
00:41:37,362 --> 00:41:40,468
He wanted to make
a serious film about LSD,

800
00:41:40,498 --> 00:41:42,978
which had just changed
the culture forever, really.

801
00:41:43,001 --> 00:41:44,810
That's what the movie
is about.

802
00:41:47,272 --> 00:41:49,809
The artistry of the films
really developed.

803
00:41:49,841 --> 00:41:51,980
By the time he did "The Trip,"
he really had a sense

804
00:41:52,010 --> 00:41:54,422
of pushing the power
of the image.

805
00:41:54,445 --> 00:41:56,652
What he hit upon in that picture
was interesting,

806
00:41:56,681 --> 00:41:59,355
particularly if you see it
in the full aspect ratio

807
00:41:59,384 --> 00:42:02,456
because it just cuts through
time and space.

808
00:42:02,487 --> 00:42:05,468
It becomes really a beautiful
kind of cinematic montage

809
00:42:05,490 --> 00:42:07,834
and achieves a kind of poetry.

810
00:42:10,995 --> 00:42:15,466
AIP were really concerned
that this was a pro-drug movie

811
00:42:15,500 --> 00:42:17,776
and they would lose money
because of that.

812
00:42:17,802 --> 00:42:20,078
It's easy now.

813
00:42:20,104 --> 00:42:22,607
Wait till tomorrow.

814
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,553
Yeah, well,
I'll think about that tomorrow.

815
00:42:25,576 --> 00:42:29,217
Arkoff and Nicholson
changed the ending

816
00:42:29,247 --> 00:42:32,228
on the picture
without telling Roger.

817
00:42:32,250 --> 00:42:33,820
They froze frame

818
00:42:33,852 --> 00:42:37,390
and did an optical
of broken glass on that.

819
00:42:40,258 --> 00:42:42,260
What is power?
You understand?

820
00:42:42,293 --> 00:42:44,928
He created these guys.

821
00:42:44,929 --> 00:42:46,909
This set me up,

822
00:42:46,931 --> 00:42:49,104
because in "Easy Rider,"
the first thing we do

823
00:42:49,133 --> 00:42:52,774
is we buy junk in Mexico,
smuggle it across the border,

824
00:42:52,804 --> 00:42:55,307
get a lot of money,
put it in the tank, off we go.

825
00:43:04,916 --> 00:43:08,386
"Easy Rider"
came out of my films

826
00:43:08,419 --> 00:43:10,365
"The Wild Angels"
and "The Trip."

827
00:43:10,388 --> 00:43:13,130
Peter Fonda starred
in both pictures

828
00:43:13,157 --> 00:43:16,138
and Dennis Hopper
costarred in "The Trip."

829
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,107
That whole thing
came from Roger to me--

830
00:43:19,130 --> 00:43:20,632
take The Establishment on.

831
00:43:20,665 --> 00:43:22,667
And since they had never
made a picture,

832
00:43:22,700 --> 00:43:25,408
they wanted me to be
the executive producer.

833
00:43:25,436 --> 00:43:28,508
And I said, "Fine."
And I took the idea to AIP

834
00:43:28,539 --> 00:43:30,212
because "The Wild Angels"
and "The Trip"

835
00:43:30,241 --> 00:43:31,743
had been very successful.

836
00:43:31,776 --> 00:43:35,690
And in one
unfortunate meeting,

837
00:43:35,713 --> 00:43:39,718
one of the executives at AIP
said to Dennis,

838
00:43:39,751 --> 00:43:43,790
"if you fall more than one day
behind schedule,

839
00:43:43,821 --> 00:43:46,267
we want the right
to replace you."

840
00:43:46,290 --> 00:43:50,136
I could see that Dennis and Peter
were really mad.

841
00:43:50,161 --> 00:43:52,300
And I said, "I can't
put that pressure on Hoppy.

842
00:43:52,330 --> 00:43:54,970
That's not fair."
And Roger agreed.

843
00:43:54,999 --> 00:43:56,808
And I said
to this executive,

844
00:43:56,834 --> 00:44:00,839
"He worked perfectly with me
on 'The Trip'

845
00:44:00,872 --> 00:44:03,910
and I am positive
he can do this."

846
00:44:03,941 --> 00:44:08,481
And that was not
a good thing to say.

847
00:44:10,281 --> 00:44:12,227
A number of things happened

848
00:44:12,250 --> 00:44:14,696
and the picture moved over
to Columbia.

849
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:17,199
And AIP and I

850
00:44:17,221 --> 00:44:19,963
lost our percentage
of the profits

851
00:44:19,991 --> 00:44:24,838
on one of the most successful
independent pictures ever made.

852
00:44:27,031 --> 00:44:29,910
Oh.

853
00:44:29,934 --> 00:44:33,245
Oh, what am I gonna do now?

854
00:44:33,271 --> 00:44:36,480
When I went to Cannes
with "Easy Rider"...

855
00:44:36,507 --> 00:44:37,679
Oh, my head.

856
00:44:37,709 --> 00:44:40,053
...my character
came on the screen

857
00:44:40,077 --> 00:44:43,524
and the movie exploded
in that audience.

858
00:44:43,548 --> 00:44:46,791
It just went ka-pow
like it does in rock 'n' roll.

859
00:44:46,818 --> 00:44:50,891
I'm the only person
who ever in real life felt,

860
00:44:50,922 --> 00:44:53,402
"Holy shit,

861
00:44:53,424 --> 00:44:55,426
I'm a movie star"-

862
00:44:55,460 --> 00:44:57,462
do you know what I mean?
--and knew.

863
00:44:57,495 --> 00:44:59,270
So that's what the change
felt like.

864
00:44:59,297 --> 00:45:01,299
I experienced it right here.

865
00:45:06,304 --> 00:45:09,478
Roger, if you paid me
over minimum,

866
00:45:09,507 --> 00:45:11,817
you would have had
"Easy Rider."

867
00:45:15,746 --> 00:45:19,489
"Easy Rider" was
the beginning of the new Hollywood.

868
00:45:19,517 --> 00:45:23,727
It's hard to imagine
the new Hollywood

869
00:45:23,754 --> 00:45:25,859
without Roger Corman.

870
00:45:25,890 --> 00:45:27,995
So many people started
with Roger-

871
00:45:28,025 --> 00:45:30,528
Francis Coppola
and Bobby De Niro

872
00:45:30,561 --> 00:45:33,838
and Jack Nicholson.
And the list goes on and on.

873
00:45:33,865 --> 00:45:36,675
At the end of the '60s
Hollywood was so desperate.

874
00:45:36,701 --> 00:45:38,510
They didn't know
what to do.

875
00:45:38,536 --> 00:45:40,573
And the young
Roger Corman alumni

876
00:45:40,605 --> 00:45:43,211
were there to step
into the breach.

877
00:45:43,241 --> 00:45:46,188
Jack's career took off.

878
00:45:46,210 --> 00:45:48,212
And Peter and Dennis
got deals

879
00:45:48,246 --> 00:45:50,419
at Universal
to make their movies.

880
00:45:50,448 --> 00:45:54,919
Well, those are all offshoots
of the University of Corman.

881
00:45:54,952 --> 00:45:57,023
Roger was in a perfect position,

882
00:45:57,054 --> 00:46:01,025
having discovered and cultivated
Francis Coppola, Bogdanovich,

883
00:46:01,058 --> 00:46:03,265
so many other people like that.

884
00:46:03,294 --> 00:46:05,103
I always wondered
why Roger couldn't take

885
00:46:05,129 --> 00:46:07,234
that next step
with those guys.

886
00:46:07,265 --> 00:46:10,371
You had to take that leap. You had to
go from high school to college

887
00:46:10,401 --> 00:46:12,278
or you had to go from college
to grad school.

888
00:46:12,303 --> 00:46:14,909
It was a jump
that Roger never really took.

889
00:46:14,939 --> 00:46:16,941
And that's the one place

890
00:46:16,974 --> 00:46:19,215
that Roger left out of his mix.

891
00:46:19,243 --> 00:46:22,713
And that's why
he's constantly being insulted

892
00:46:22,747 --> 00:46:26,194
by people calling him
the King of the Bs, right?

893
00:46:33,724 --> 00:46:35,726
Roger was never
taken seriously.

894
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:39,765
He was a schlockmeister
and a guy who did drive-in movies.

895
00:46:39,797 --> 00:46:41,799
He never really got his due,
I don't think.

896
00:46:41,832 --> 00:46:44,574
I mean, even "The Intruder,"
which is one of his best pictures,

897
00:46:44,602 --> 00:46:47,583
it was a movie that was hardly ever
seen anywhere when it came out.

898
00:46:47,605 --> 00:46:50,779
Every year
at the Academy Awards,

899
00:46:50,808 --> 00:46:54,221
they give out
a Lifetime Achievement Award.

900
00:46:54,245 --> 00:46:57,488
How they can not have gotten
to Roger Corman by now

901
00:46:57,515 --> 00:46:59,517
is disgusting.

902
00:46:59,550 --> 00:47:02,053
And I don't know that they ever will,
because they'd say,

903
00:47:02,086 --> 00:47:04,088
"Well, what are the great movies
he made?"

904
00:47:04,121 --> 00:47:05,930
I guess this proves there are

905
00:47:05,957 --> 00:47:08,096
as many nuts in the Academy
as anywhere else.

906
00:47:08,125 --> 00:47:10,731
ls Roger worried about
being underappreciated?

907
00:47:10,761 --> 00:47:13,970
If he is, I'm going over there
tomorrow night.

908
00:47:19,904 --> 00:47:22,407
Shark! Shark!

909
00:47:27,912 --> 00:47:29,357
Help!

910
00:47:31,415 --> 00:47:33,417
Cut, cut, cut.

911
00:47:34,519 --> 00:47:37,193
Roger Corman isn't
doing it for the awards.

912
00:47:37,221 --> 00:47:40,691
The fans recognize him.
The filmmakers recognize him.

913
00:47:40,725 --> 00:47:42,898
We know who he is
and we appreciate him.

914
00:47:42,927 --> 00:47:44,929
And I don't think he needs
some statue

915
00:47:44,962 --> 00:47:47,738
from some organization that never
liked his movies in the first place

916
00:47:47,765 --> 00:47:49,244
to come out and say,
"We love you."

917
00:47:51,636 --> 00:47:55,243
From my viewpoint,
everything is going extremely well.

918
00:47:55,272 --> 00:47:57,775
Observing Roger, however, now

919
00:47:57,808 --> 00:48:00,345
as actor/producer...

920
00:48:00,378 --> 00:48:03,985
Kevin, you're aware they're putting
a mic on the girl who's not in the shot?

921
00:48:04,015 --> 00:48:06,291
Maybe the kit should be
just a couple of inches there

922
00:48:06,317 --> 00:48:07,887
so you don't step over it.

923
00:48:07,919 --> 00:48:10,593
No, wait until
she comes here. Stop.

924
00:48:10,621 --> 00:48:14,034
It'll be after they say "Action!"
because the camera's on her

925
00:48:14,058 --> 00:48:16,937
and it's going to come around
and see...

926
00:48:18,663 --> 00:48:20,665
Okay, and we're out of the shot.

927
00:48:22,433 --> 00:48:25,346
He is always noticing
what needs to be fixed,

928
00:48:25,369 --> 00:48:28,316
what is the problem,
but that's the nature of producing.

929
00:48:28,339 --> 00:48:30,341
Okay, so I'm looking here.

930
00:48:30,374 --> 00:48:34,288
And on action, you say,
"There's someone here to see you."

931
00:48:34,312 --> 00:48:35,484
Rolling sound.

932
00:48:35,513 --> 00:48:38,187
You would think
that a man who makes so many films

933
00:48:38,215 --> 00:48:40,422
kind of doesn't really care
about each individual film,

934
00:48:40,451 --> 00:48:42,556
but I think Roger
for each of his movies-

935
00:48:42,586 --> 00:48:44,088
they're like his children,
you know.

936
00:48:44,121 --> 00:48:45,828
And he loves
every single one of them.

937
00:48:45,856 --> 00:48:47,927
And he's so engaged
in every single one of them.

938
00:48:47,959 --> 00:48:51,202
And, you know, the last time
I had lunch with him,

939
00:48:51,228 --> 00:48:53,731
you know, he had to hurry away
'cause he was going back

940
00:48:53,764 --> 00:48:55,607
to the cutting room
of "Minotaur."

941
00:48:55,633 --> 00:48:58,170
And it's like,
"You know, Roger..."

942
00:48:58,202 --> 00:49:00,204
They're really-

943
00:49:00,237 --> 00:49:03,081
it's just way too much time
spent on Iva.

944
00:49:03,107 --> 00:49:05,951
They're working on her makeup
all the time.

945
00:49:05,976 --> 00:49:07,887
Explain who she
should put it on.

946
00:49:07,912 --> 00:49:10,756
They can't do this stuff
for every shot.

947
00:49:10,781 --> 00:49:13,591
I'll never forget Julie.
She was, like, amazing.

948
00:49:13,618 --> 00:49:15,564
She was talking about
redecorating her house.

949
00:49:15,586 --> 00:49:18,123
And then she had a child in a crib.

950
00:49:18,155 --> 00:49:19,828
She was raising children,
you know.

951
00:49:19,857 --> 00:49:21,768
And here she was-
she was known

952
00:49:21,792 --> 00:49:24,204
to do movies even cheaper
than Roger Corman.

953
00:49:24,228 --> 00:49:26,538
I mean, this woman
was amazing.

954
00:49:26,564 --> 00:49:29,340
The first film that I produced,
I didn't think of it as producing.

955
00:49:29,367 --> 00:49:30,675
I didn't put a name to it.

956
00:49:30,701 --> 00:49:32,908
I just thought,
"Oh, this needs to be organized."

957
00:49:32,937 --> 00:49:36,350
Roger did sit with me
for about 45 minutes

958
00:49:36,373 --> 00:49:38,853
and go through what's needed-
the cast,

959
00:49:38,876 --> 00:49:40,947
the crew,
and what the positions were

960
00:49:40,978 --> 00:49:44,391
and a way in which
to shepherd production through.

961
00:49:44,415 --> 00:49:47,862
But then I thought, "Well, he'll be
there every day and I could--"

962
00:49:47,885 --> 00:49:50,422
No, he wasn't
really available.

963
00:49:50,454 --> 00:49:54,402
And there was
this sense I had of,

964
00:49:54,425 --> 00:49:56,735
"He just thinks
I can do this?"

965
00:49:56,761 --> 00:49:59,207
And then I just did it.

966
00:49:59,230 --> 00:50:02,939
But he will recognize
in someone

967
00:50:02,967 --> 00:50:05,447
that he thinks they can do
whatever it is.

968
00:50:05,469 --> 00:50:08,075
And then he just walks away

969
00:50:08,105 --> 00:50:11,007
and they do it.

970
00:50:11,008 --> 00:50:14,012
I first met Julie
when she answered an ad

971
00:50:14,045 --> 00:50:17,049
for a job as my assistant.

972
00:50:17,081 --> 00:50:20,255
I offered her the job.
She turned down the job,

973
00:50:20,284 --> 00:50:22,992
but she agreed
to have dinner with me.

974
00:50:23,020 --> 00:50:26,627
We began dating and we also
began working together.

975
00:50:26,657 --> 00:50:30,104
Roger had by then
asked me to marry him

976
00:50:30,127 --> 00:50:32,733
and I had said yes. And then he
went off to the Philippines

977
00:50:32,763 --> 00:50:34,800
and I didn't hear
from him for a week.

978
00:50:34,832 --> 00:50:38,507
So I was like,
"I wonder what that means."

979
00:50:38,536 --> 00:50:41,779
So I called him and said,
"Are we still getting married?"

980
00:50:41,806 --> 00:50:43,717
He said, "Oh, yes.
Did you pick a date?"

981
00:50:43,741 --> 00:50:48,121
And I said,
"Well, I was thinking of December

982
00:50:48,145 --> 00:50:49,852
or maybe later
in the spring."

983
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:52,326
"Oh, definitely December.
Sooner-- better, right?"

984
00:50:52,349 --> 00:50:54,727
I said, "Okay.

985
00:50:54,752 --> 00:50:56,732
I just wonder
why you didn't call me."

986
00:50:56,754 --> 00:50:59,030
Well, he didn't call me because
it was a long-distance call,

987
00:50:59,056 --> 00:51:01,058
so it wouldn't have
occurred to him.

988
00:51:01,091 --> 00:51:03,697
But anyway, you know,
getting to know each other.

989
00:51:03,727 --> 00:51:07,140
All right now, everybody, reach
for the nightgown of the Lord.

990
00:51:07,164 --> 00:51:09,166
- Reach.

991
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:11,202
Anybody moves-- you're dead.

992
00:51:11,235 --> 00:51:13,306
Roger had done
"Bloody Mama"

993
00:51:13,337 --> 00:51:15,214
with Shelley Winters
and Bobby De Niro.

994
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:17,719
And, you know, it was
a great success for AIP.

995
00:51:17,742 --> 00:51:20,882
And AIP wanted another
woman gangster movie.

996
00:51:20,911 --> 00:51:23,517
And so I found this book.

997
00:51:23,547 --> 00:51:25,049
It was the story of a woman

998
00:51:25,082 --> 00:51:27,585
who'd been something
of a tramp, a hobo,

999
00:51:27,618 --> 00:51:30,189
had ridden the boxcars
of the rail roads

1000
00:51:30,221 --> 00:51:32,326
of the United States
during the Depression.

1001
00:51:32,356 --> 00:51:35,496
It was her story as a rebel,

1002
00:51:35,526 --> 00:51:38,234
as a pre-feminist, as it were,

1003
00:51:38,262 --> 00:51:40,264
and as an outlaw.

1004
00:51:40,297 --> 00:51:42,937
"Boxcar Bertha"
the first picture

1005
00:51:42,967 --> 00:51:46,437
that Julie worked on with me
as co-producer.

1006
00:51:46,470 --> 00:51:49,917
It was also the first picture
that Marty Scorsese directed.

1007
00:51:49,940 --> 00:51:53,149
I met him and he said, "Look, I have
a sequel to 'Bloody Mama.'

1008
00:51:53,177 --> 00:51:56,681
It's called 'Boxcar Bertha.'
Would you be interested in doing it?"

1009
00:51:56,714 --> 00:51:58,489
I said, "Absolutely,"
you know.

1010
00:51:58,516 --> 00:52:01,725
And "Bloody Mama"
actually had De Niro in it, see?

1011
00:52:01,752 --> 00:52:03,754
By the time we got
to Camden, Arkansas,

1012
00:52:03,788 --> 00:52:07,861
Marty had sketched
every shot of the picture,

1013
00:52:07,892 --> 00:52:11,533
which was all over the walls
of his motel room.

1014
00:52:11,562 --> 00:52:13,803
I took out all these drawings,
about 500.

1015
00:52:13,831 --> 00:52:16,607
And he looked at the first
20 or 30 or something.

1016
00:52:16,634 --> 00:52:19,478
And then he looked, he said, "Did you
do this for the entire picture?"

1017
00:52:19,503 --> 00:52:21,414
I said, "Yeah."
He said, "All right."

1018
00:52:21,438 --> 00:52:23,475
He put it away
and he left.

1019
00:52:23,507 --> 00:52:25,248
Run, Bertha!

1020
00:52:27,378 --> 00:52:29,380
God damn that bitch.

1021
00:52:32,049 --> 00:52:34,256
The thing that Roger hated was

1022
00:52:34,285 --> 00:52:36,287
when Sam Arkoff came in--

1023
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:39,164
'cause he needed Sam because
the budget was too big for him.

1024
00:52:39,189 --> 00:52:41,726
And then Sam
kind of took over

1025
00:52:41,759 --> 00:52:44,035
and masterminded the release

1026
00:52:44,061 --> 00:52:46,302
in a way that Roger
didn't like.

1027
00:52:46,330 --> 00:52:48,742
And Roger said,
"I'm never gonna do this again."

1028
00:52:48,766 --> 00:52:51,337
And that's when he formed
New World

1029
00:52:51,368 --> 00:52:54,781
and he went back to making
$25,000 movies

1030
00:52:54,805 --> 00:52:56,842
and worked his way
back up again

1031
00:52:56,874 --> 00:53:00,913
just simply so that nobody
could tell him, you know,

1032
00:53:00,944 --> 00:53:04,983
how he should cut his movie
or how he should release it.

1033
00:53:05,015 --> 00:53:07,017
Roger somehow

1034
00:53:07,051 --> 00:53:09,429
is fueled by

1035
00:53:09,453 --> 00:53:11,330
outwitting, I would say,

1036
00:53:11,355 --> 00:53:13,801
even more than
rebelling against, authority.

1037
00:53:13,824 --> 00:53:15,497
He was that way with AIP.

1038
00:53:15,526 --> 00:53:19,269
I think, actually, it brings out
his creativity and his drive.

1039
00:53:19,296 --> 00:53:21,298
It just seems
to fire him up

1040
00:53:21,332 --> 00:53:23,903
to just show them

1041
00:53:23,934 --> 00:53:26,744
that he will do it himself.

1042
00:53:26,770 --> 00:53:29,842
He doesn't need them to tell him
how to do it or what to do.

1043
00:53:29,874 --> 00:53:33,947
I decided to start a small
production/dtstrtbution company,

1044
00:53:33,978 --> 00:53:38,358
a little bit the way AIP
had started in the late 1950s.

1045
00:53:38,382 --> 00:53:40,293
Roger is a brilliant producer

1046
00:53:40,317 --> 00:53:42,092
in terms of knowing
what the market is,

1047
00:53:42,119 --> 00:53:45,157
anticipating the trends
and then capitalizing on them.

1048
00:53:45,189 --> 00:53:47,260
He was a trendsetter for years.
I mean, he--

1049
00:53:47,291 --> 00:53:49,328
in the '60s
he set every trend.

1050
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:53,035
He has the idea-

1051
00:53:53,063 --> 00:53:55,236
the original idea
for almost all the films

1052
00:53:55,266 --> 00:53:57,906
that are produced
by New World Pictures.

1053
00:53:57,935 --> 00:54:00,472
He had a somewhat
finite audience.

1054
00:54:00,504 --> 00:54:03,007
They weren't expecting things
to be held over.

1055
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:06,078
You know, things played for
two weeks in the grindhouses

1056
00:54:06,110 --> 00:54:08,147
and a couple weeks
at the drive-in

1057
00:54:08,178 --> 00:54:10,021
and then a new thing came in.

1058
00:54:10,047 --> 00:54:11,788
But within that,
you were gonna have

1059
00:54:11,815 --> 00:54:13,954
a very loyal audience
of young people.

1060
00:54:13,984 --> 00:54:16,897
Hollywood Boulevard-
the street where starlets are made.

1061
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:19,127
On Monday
Candy came to Hollywood.

1062
00:54:19,156 --> 00:54:21,033
On Tuesday she lost
her blouse.

1063
00:54:21,058 --> 00:54:23,868
On Thursday she massacred
300 rebel soldiers.

1064
00:54:23,894 --> 00:54:26,602
On Friday she found out
the bullets were real.

1065
00:54:26,630 --> 00:54:29,338
On Saturday
she married Godzilla.

1066
00:54:29,366 --> 00:54:31,778
By Sunday she was a star.

1067
00:54:31,802 --> 00:54:34,749
Things happen fast
on Hollywood Boulevard.

1068
00:54:34,772 --> 00:54:36,080
Rated R.

1069
00:54:36,106 --> 00:54:38,108
♪ Hello, Hollywood. ♪

1070
00:54:39,977 --> 00:54:42,548
The fact that the rating system came
in was a tremendous change.

1071
00:54:42,579 --> 00:54:44,081
Now you were allowed to do
things in movies

1072
00:54:44,114 --> 00:54:45,559
that you hadn't been
allowed to do before.

1073
00:54:45,582 --> 00:54:47,061
You were allowed to show things.

1074
00:54:53,290 --> 00:54:56,464
What they did to her
in Jackson County was a crime.

1075
00:54:58,629 --> 00:55:00,939
Yvette Mimieux.

1076
00:55:00,964 --> 00:55:03,604
"Jackson County Jail,"

1077
00:55:03,634 --> 00:55:05,944
where the cops
make their own laws

1078
00:55:05,970 --> 00:55:07,847
and the only way out
is murder.

1079
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:11,815
We're cop killers.

1080
00:55:11,842 --> 00:55:16,154
There are '70s exploitation pictures
that are really out there.

1081
00:55:16,180 --> 00:55:17,488
I mean, they have plot twists

1082
00:55:17,514 --> 00:55:19,221
that are like, "Whoa,
I didn't see that coming.

1083
00:55:19,250 --> 00:55:21,355
I didn't think people did that
in the movies."

1084
00:55:21,385 --> 00:55:23,365
Woman was made for man

1085
00:55:23,387 --> 00:55:25,799
to hunt.

1086
00:55:25,823 --> 00:55:28,429
Roger certainly took
amazing advantage of that.

1087
00:55:28,458 --> 00:55:31,268
Hunters competing for the game.

1088
00:55:31,295 --> 00:55:34,833
Set your sights
on the tastiest game,

1089
00:55:34,865 --> 00:55:37,345
from New World Pictures.

1090
00:55:37,368 --> 00:55:39,439
Roger's operation

1091
00:55:39,470 --> 00:55:43,077
is an exploitation operation
on almost every level.

1092
00:55:43,107 --> 00:55:47,146
He exploits directors.
He exploits writers.

1093
00:55:47,177 --> 00:55:51,319
He exploits people in the crafts
who are trying to get established.

1094
00:55:51,348 --> 00:55:54,488
But we are also
exploiting Roger.

1095
00:55:54,518 --> 00:55:56,498
I think he had a lot of fun

1096
00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:58,329
working with these
young people.

1097
00:55:58,355 --> 00:56:00,562
And so it was often known
as, you know,

1098
00:56:00,591 --> 00:56:02,537
the Corman school
of filmmaking.

1099
00:56:04,928 --> 00:56:06,999
The first time I met Roger,

1100
00:56:07,031 --> 00:56:09,534
this crazy
Roger Corman-y thing happened

1101
00:56:09,566 --> 00:56:12,137
where he said, "Okay,
you can write press releases.

1102
00:56:12,169 --> 00:56:14,479
Do you think you could write
a screenplay?"

1103
00:56:14,505 --> 00:56:17,111
And this had never
really occurred to me,

1104
00:56:17,140 --> 00:56:19,677
but I said, "Yes."

1105
00:56:19,710 --> 00:56:21,781
And he said,
"Let me explain.

1106
00:56:21,812 --> 00:56:23,814
I'm starting a new company.

1107
00:56:23,847 --> 00:56:25,849
It's called
New World Pictures.

1108
00:56:25,883 --> 00:56:29,296
I need a bunch of pictures
to go into the works very soon."

1109
00:56:29,319 --> 00:56:31,094
He wanted a nurse movie,

1110
00:56:31,121 --> 00:56:34,364
but he also wanted to crossbreed it
with a prison movie.

1111
00:56:34,391 --> 00:56:36,837
Four American nurses, snatched

1112
00:56:36,860 --> 00:56:39,636
from their work
in a foreign hospital,

1113
00:56:39,663 --> 00:56:41,665
jumped in the jungle,

1114
00:56:41,698 --> 00:56:44,679
caught between
a kill-crazed revolutionary

1115
00:56:44,701 --> 00:56:46,703
and a sex-crazed major.

1116
00:56:46,737 --> 00:56:49,741
Roger says, "Exploitation pictures
don't need plots.

1117
00:56:49,773 --> 00:56:51,844
But they need sensational things

1118
00:56:51,875 --> 00:56:54,116
like girls shooting
Filipinos out of trees.

1119
00:56:56,413 --> 00:56:58,256
That works."

1120
00:57:01,251 --> 00:57:03,231
In New World--
they very often go back

1121
00:57:03,253 --> 00:57:05,358
and add action to a picture.

1122
00:57:05,389 --> 00:57:07,494
'Cause you'll see
how a rough cut plays,

1123
00:57:07,524 --> 00:57:10,232
and Roger almost always
wants you to add

1124
00:57:10,260 --> 00:57:12,672
another chase
or at least another explosion.

1125
00:57:12,696 --> 00:57:15,108
♪ Rock, rock, rock, rock,
rock 'n' roll high school ♪

1126
00:57:15,132 --> 00:57:17,373
♪ Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock 'n' roll
high school. ♪

1127
00:57:20,971 --> 00:57:22,882
"Rock 'N' Roll High School"-

1128
00:57:22,906 --> 00:57:26,410
the school where the students rule.

1129
00:57:26,443 --> 00:57:29,049
Could your school be next?

1130
00:57:29,079 --> 00:57:32,117
We knew the genre notes
that we had to hit.

1131
00:57:32,149 --> 00:57:34,060
And if we hit those notes,

1132
00:57:34,084 --> 00:57:37,119
what we put in between those notes
was entirely up to us.

1133
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:38,758
"Grand Theft Auto"

1134
00:57:38,789 --> 00:57:41,599
is a love story

1135
00:57:41,625 --> 00:57:43,866
with cars.

1136
00:57:43,894 --> 00:57:45,430
Also it's a comedy...

1137
00:57:47,931 --> 00:57:49,171
...with car crashes.

1138
00:57:49,199 --> 00:57:51,008
"Grand Theft Auto,"

1139
00:57:51,034 --> 00:57:54,174
directed by and starring
Ron Howard.

1140
00:57:54,204 --> 00:57:55,740
Well, hell.

1141
00:57:55,773 --> 00:57:58,447
We had a very limited number
of extras that we were allowed to have

1142
00:57:58,475 --> 00:58:02,753
at the big demolition derby
climactic action scenes.

1143
00:58:02,780 --> 00:58:05,784
And I called Roger

1144
00:58:05,816 --> 00:58:09,286
asking for more extras
to fill out the stands,

1145
00:58:09,319 --> 00:58:11,492
'cause, I said, "This is supposed
to be this huge event.

1146
00:58:11,522 --> 00:58:14,628
There's a big riot at the end.
You know, 75 extras

1147
00:58:14,658 --> 00:58:16,968
is gonna fill exactly, you know,

1148
00:58:16,994 --> 00:58:20,965
1/10 of the stands.
It's gonna look cheesy."

1149
00:58:20,997 --> 00:58:23,944
And he said no.
And he could see I was dejected.

1150
00:58:23,967 --> 00:58:25,378
And he smiled

1151
00:58:25,402 --> 00:58:27,575
and he put his hand on my shoulder
in a kind of fatherly way.

1152
00:58:27,604 --> 00:58:30,847
And he said, "Ron, here's what
you need to understand.

1153
00:58:30,874 --> 00:58:34,617
You do a good job for me
on my terms

1154
00:58:34,645 --> 00:58:36,647
on this movie,

1155
00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:39,024
and you never have
to work for me again."

1156
00:58:39,049 --> 00:58:41,393
And, well, I didn't.

1157
00:58:41,418 --> 00:58:43,420
I certainly wish

1158
00:58:43,453 --> 00:58:48,061
that Roger would move out
of the formula film--

1159
00:58:48,092 --> 00:58:49,867
the exploitation film.

1160
00:58:49,893 --> 00:58:53,363
I guess that he just feels that as long
as he's investing his own money

1161
00:58:53,397 --> 00:58:55,070
that he wants it to be surefire.

1162
00:59:00,570 --> 00:59:03,517
In "Death Race"
at the very beginning behind us,

1163
00:59:03,540 --> 00:59:05,315
there's a city of the future.

1164
00:59:05,342 --> 00:59:07,788
And it is so obviously
a painting.

1165
00:59:07,811 --> 00:59:09,791
It's almost a cartoon.

1166
00:59:09,813 --> 00:59:12,191
And I said that to him
and he said,

1167
00:59:12,216 --> 00:59:14,992
"People come to my pictures
looking for camp.

1168
00:59:15,018 --> 00:59:17,225
And I'm going to give it to them."

1169
00:59:31,201 --> 00:59:33,374
If he just violated
this rule of his

1170
00:59:33,403 --> 00:59:35,280
of never making a movie

1171
00:59:35,305 --> 00:59:38,184
that cost more than $1 million,
you know,

1172
00:59:38,208 --> 00:59:40,279
and make one for $1.5 million
or $2 million--

1173
00:59:40,310 --> 00:59:42,381
I said, "Look, all your pictures
make money.

1174
00:59:42,412 --> 00:59:44,289
None of them
go through the top."

1175
00:59:44,314 --> 00:59:45,816
And he said,
"Yeah, that's true."

1176
00:59:45,849 --> 00:59:47,954
And then he went over
and turned off the air conditioner.

1177
00:59:47,984 --> 00:59:49,861
Sometimes the movies
were really dreadful

1178
00:59:49,886 --> 00:59:52,366
and you had to just sort of camp
them up and make fun of them.

1179
00:59:52,389 --> 00:59:54,198
- "Cover Girl Models."
- And we did-- by the time

1180
00:59:54,224 --> 00:59:57,398
we got to "Cover Girl Models,"
we were doing outrageous ad lines-

1181
00:59:57,427 --> 00:59:59,805
you know, "They don't need
clothes to strike a pose";

1182
00:59:59,830 --> 01:00:02,333
"They're always overexposed
but they're never underdeveloped"--

1183
01:00:02,366 --> 01:00:04,312
to the point where the pictures
looked like jokes.

1184
01:00:04,334 --> 01:00:05,972
They didn't look like
they were real movies.

1185
01:00:06,003 --> 01:00:08,176
They're like movies
in the front of "Tropic Thunder."

1186
01:00:08,205 --> 01:00:10,014
They just didn't look real.

1187
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:12,748
But the audiences never minded.
They were happy.

1188
01:00:15,812 --> 01:00:18,793
The limitations of a low-budget film
can work positively

1189
01:00:18,815 --> 01:00:20,692
in terms of getting
something spontaneous.

1190
01:00:20,717 --> 01:00:22,719
There's no time for rehearsal.

1191
01:00:22,752 --> 01:00:26,393
There's no time for
extended discussions

1192
01:00:26,423 --> 01:00:28,596
of motivation and character
and so forth.

1193
01:00:28,625 --> 01:00:31,902
And indeed there aren't many characters
or motivations in any of the films.

1194
01:00:34,097 --> 01:00:37,169
You'll never be a star now,
you little cunt.

1195
01:00:44,141 --> 01:00:46,212
The great thing about
working for Roger was

1196
01:00:46,243 --> 01:00:47,847
that every possible obstacle

1197
01:00:47,878 --> 01:00:49,653
to making a movie
was thrown in front of you.

1198
01:00:49,679 --> 01:00:51,317
Beverly Hills police.

1199
01:00:51,348 --> 01:00:52,952
And if you could figure out
a way to get around them,

1200
01:00:52,983 --> 01:00:54,291
you could make your movie.

1201
01:00:54,318 --> 01:00:56,264
At the end credits
of "Hollywood Boulevard,"

1202
01:00:56,286 --> 01:00:58,288
that background shot
was shot

1203
01:00:58,322 --> 01:01:00,393
while the camera crew
was hiding in the bushes

1204
01:01:00,424 --> 01:01:02,267
and I was talking
to the Beverly Hills police

1205
01:01:02,292 --> 01:01:05,501
and explaining that I was just
out here admiring the scenery.

1206
01:01:05,529 --> 01:01:09,602
And they said, "Well, get back
in your car and drive down the hill."

1207
01:01:09,633 --> 01:01:12,045
It's not as bad as John Davis
and having to spend the night in jail

1208
01:01:12,068 --> 01:01:14,070
while making "Fly Me," though.

1209
01:01:14,104 --> 01:01:17,517
I think when he called Roger
and he said, "I'm in jail,"

1210
01:01:17,541 --> 01:01:20,385
I think Roger said, "Well, you know,
that's a good experience.

1211
01:01:20,410 --> 01:01:22,048
You should learn from this."

1212
01:01:22,079 --> 01:01:24,355
Blossom, honey.

1213
01:01:25,782 --> 01:01:29,423
You philandering,
fornicating bastard,

1214
01:01:29,453 --> 01:01:32,593
you went off with that skinny honky
for two days

1215
01:01:32,622 --> 01:01:35,228
and gonna come back here
and call me honey?

1216
01:01:35,258 --> 01:01:36,794
Now wait a minute,
Blossom, honey.

1217
01:01:36,826 --> 01:01:40,273
I told you I was gonna cut it off
if you tried to pull that shit on me.

1218
01:01:42,499 --> 01:01:44,342
We called it "make do."

1219
01:01:44,367 --> 01:01:47,348
You know, whatever you can do
to make do, that's what we did.

1220
01:01:47,370 --> 01:01:50,408
And from it,
I lived through my stunts.

1221
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:53,546
I look back at it--
would I do them again?

1222
01:01:53,577 --> 01:01:56,922
Yes, but more
padding on the head.

1223
01:02:00,050 --> 01:02:02,826
Not a lot of women
wanted to do stunts.

1224
01:02:04,020 --> 01:02:06,022
All right, everybody,
back 'em up.

1225
01:02:06,056 --> 01:02:08,127
And they couldn't handle guns.
They were afraid of guns.

1226
01:02:08,158 --> 01:02:09,398
Sit down on the floor.

1227
01:02:10,894 --> 01:02:13,500
Where do you want
to be buried, nigger?

1228
01:02:15,165 --> 01:02:18,169
And it's Miss Nigger
to you.

1229
01:02:18,201 --> 01:02:20,875
And there weren't a lot
of women who wanted to be

1230
01:02:20,904 --> 01:02:23,680
tossed around the room
or thrown over a cliff.

1231
01:02:23,707 --> 01:02:25,744
And he said,
"Let's keep her doing movies.

1232
01:02:25,775 --> 01:02:28,756
She loves to do crazy stuff.
Let's set her on fire."

1233
01:02:28,778 --> 01:02:31,691
You know, "How many cars
can she crash today?"

1234
01:02:31,715 --> 01:02:34,719
They loved that.

1235
01:02:34,751 --> 01:02:38,563
He could talk you into, you know,
buying some sand in a desert.

1236
01:02:38,588 --> 01:02:40,727
Hey, and it'll taste good, too.

1237
01:02:40,757 --> 01:02:42,759
I'm like, "Excuse me,

1238
01:02:42,793 --> 01:02:44,932
did I just buy
this glass of sand from Roger?"

1239
01:02:44,961 --> 01:02:47,464
"The Final Comedown"--

1240
01:02:47,497 --> 01:02:50,205
this year's heaviest
motion picture.

1241
01:02:50,233 --> 01:02:52,941
Baby, I'm not bitter.
I was bitter 350 years ago.

1242
01:02:52,969 --> 01:02:55,950
I'm violent, you hear me,
God damn it? Violent!

1243
01:03:03,380 --> 01:03:05,451
Get hip to this year's winner--

1244
01:03:05,482 --> 01:03:08,463
the fight you've been dying for.

1245
01:03:10,754 --> 01:03:13,701
Rated R, it's a mother.

1246
01:03:13,724 --> 01:03:15,135
Dig it.

1247
01:03:15,158 --> 01:03:18,503
I did bring "Mean Streets"
first to Roger.

1248
01:03:18,528 --> 01:03:21,270
And it was the beginning
of the Blaxploitation pictures.

1249
01:03:21,298 --> 01:03:24,108
And he said, "So the story
is interesting and everything.

1250
01:03:24,134 --> 01:03:25,943
It's really interesting.
I can give you

1251
01:03:25,969 --> 01:03:28,108
a couple hundred thousand
dollars to do it,

1252
01:03:28,138 --> 01:03:30,709
but if you could swing
a little bit

1253
01:03:30,740 --> 01:03:33,949
and make it black,

1254
01:03:33,977 --> 01:03:36,389
it might be--
we might have something here."

1255
01:03:36,413 --> 01:03:39,326
So I thought about it.
I said, "Okay, let me think about it."

1256
01:03:39,349 --> 01:03:42,523
I wouldn't say no.
I always say yes to these things.

1257
01:03:42,552 --> 01:03:44,259
And I walked out and realized
my heart sank

1258
01:03:44,287 --> 01:03:46,790
because I realized,
no, they're Italian-Americans.

1259
01:03:46,823 --> 01:03:49,827
That's the part of the cultural thing.
It's Sicilians and Neapolitans

1260
01:03:49,859 --> 01:03:52,806
and ancient code that goes back
to the medieval times.

1261
01:03:52,829 --> 01:03:54,706
You're a fucking jerk-off.

1262
01:03:54,731 --> 01:03:58,406
And I'll tell you
something else, Mikey-

1263
01:03:58,435 --> 01:04:00,312
I fuck you right
where you breathe,

1264
01:04:00,336 --> 01:04:04,045
'cause I don't give two shits
about you or nobody else.

1265
01:04:05,809 --> 01:04:08,153
I said, "That's-- totally not.
I'm not gonna be able to do it."

1266
01:04:08,178 --> 01:04:11,057
But because of "Boxcar Bertha"

1267
01:04:11,081 --> 01:04:13,652
and because of the group
that worked on the film,

1268
01:04:13,683 --> 01:04:16,027
I learned how to make the picture
within a certain amount of time.

1269
01:04:16,052 --> 01:04:18,760
And we were able
to take the same principles

1270
01:04:18,788 --> 01:04:22,167
that we applied to "Boxcar Bertha"
and use them for "Mean Streets."

1271
01:04:22,192 --> 01:04:24,672
We wound up shooting
most of it in Los Angeles

1272
01:04:24,694 --> 01:04:28,197
because we had that crew and the
Corman crew knew how to work.

1273
01:04:31,668 --> 01:04:34,342
Roger's own
personal taste in pictures

1274
01:04:34,371 --> 01:04:36,681
is very different from the type
of pictures that he makes.

1275
01:04:36,706 --> 01:04:38,708
And also his taste
in directors

1276
01:04:38,742 --> 01:04:40,744
tends towards
Antonioni and Bergman.

1277
01:04:40,777 --> 01:04:43,257
Most of our films are domestic.

1278
01:04:43,279 --> 01:04:46,852
However, we do distribute
a number of foreign films--

1279
01:04:46,883 --> 01:04:48,794
Bergman, Fellini, Truffaut,

1280
01:04:48,818 --> 01:04:50,729
now Kurosawa
and a number of others.

1281
01:04:50,754 --> 01:04:52,529
Roger had a lot of connections

1282
01:04:52,556 --> 01:04:54,035
and he had his own
distribution company.

1283
01:04:54,057 --> 01:04:57,630
And when the majors
started to give up on foreign films,

1284
01:04:57,661 --> 01:05:01,973
Roger talked people like
Ingmar Bergman and Fellini into--

1285
01:05:01,998 --> 01:05:03,944
"I can get your picture
on screens

1286
01:05:03,967 --> 01:05:05,674
that have never run
a movie of yours,

1287
01:05:05,702 --> 01:05:07,943
because I have
a different audience

1288
01:05:07,971 --> 01:05:09,575
and a different way
of selling the movie."

1289
01:05:09,606 --> 01:05:11,108
And they all
signed off on it.

1290
01:05:11,141 --> 01:05:15,214
Ingmar Bergman was a seminal
influence on Roger as a director.

1291
01:05:15,245 --> 01:05:17,247
"Cries and Whispers"
did extremely well

1292
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:19,658
and Ingmar Bergman
was very pleased.

1293
01:05:19,683 --> 01:05:22,493
And then Roger being Roger,
he had the idea

1294
01:05:22,519 --> 01:05:25,762
to distribute it
in drive-ins.

1295
01:05:25,789 --> 01:05:27,200
And that's what he did.

1296
01:05:27,224 --> 01:05:30,205
No one else had ever been able to do
that before, and probably not since.

1297
01:05:30,226 --> 01:05:31,796
That was something new
for Roger,

1298
01:05:31,828 --> 01:05:34,399
to have such prestige people
associated with him.

1299
01:05:34,431 --> 01:05:36,308
And it just went from there.

1300
01:05:36,333 --> 01:05:38,335
Roger, when he formed
New World Pictures,

1301
01:05:38,368 --> 01:05:40,974
was the first company
that was completely bifurcated.

1302
01:05:41,004 --> 01:05:44,383
In other words, in one direction
they were doing exploitation films,

1303
01:05:44,407 --> 01:05:46,080
but in the other direction
they were doing

1304
01:05:46,109 --> 01:05:48,487
the best foreign-language films
that were out there at that time.

1305
01:05:48,511 --> 01:05:50,422
The money is secondary

1306
01:05:50,447 --> 01:05:51,892
in that particular area.

1307
01:05:51,915 --> 01:05:55,692
It's because I feel these films
should get

1308
01:05:55,719 --> 01:05:59,132
to a larger audience
than they do.

1309
01:05:59,155 --> 01:06:01,157
The new Fellini--

1310
01:06:01,191 --> 01:06:03,467
"Amarcord."

1311
01:06:05,795 --> 01:06:08,139
The company
is building very rapidly,

1312
01:06:08,164 --> 01:06:10,440
which takes a lot of time.

1313
01:06:10,467 --> 01:06:13,277
My wife and I have had
three children

1314
01:06:13,303 --> 01:06:14,907
in three consecutive
summers,

1315
01:06:14,938 --> 01:06:16,781
which takes
a certain amount of time.

1316
01:06:16,806 --> 01:06:18,808
We would go home
in the evening

1317
01:06:18,842 --> 01:06:21,186
and talk about
the problems of the day.

1318
01:06:21,211 --> 01:06:22,747
Then there got to be a time

1319
01:06:22,779 --> 01:06:25,885
when we, like, just didn't talk about
what had happened during the day.

1320
01:06:25,916 --> 01:06:29,261
But it got to be
a little embarrassing

1321
01:06:29,285 --> 01:06:32,357
because Roger didn't really know
what all I was doing

1322
01:06:32,388 --> 01:06:34,334
and I didn't really know
what all he was doing.

1323
01:06:34,357 --> 01:06:36,701
And I said, "Look, Roger,
it's very embarrassing

1324
01:06:36,726 --> 01:06:39,366
when people say,
'What movies is Roger making?'

1325
01:06:39,396 --> 01:06:42,309
and I don't know.
You know, it is our company,

1326
01:06:42,332 --> 01:06:44,573
but there's what you're making
and what I'm making."

1327
01:06:44,601 --> 01:06:46,945
And so he said,
"Well, I'll tell you what I'm making."

1328
01:06:46,970 --> 01:06:48,677
He said,
"I'm making 12 films."

1329
01:06:48,705 --> 01:06:52,152
And he couldn't remember
the last two.

1330
01:06:52,175 --> 01:06:55,645
So he said, "Well, whatever they are,
I'm gonna cancel them."

1331
01:06:55,678 --> 01:06:57,817
You had made
a statement to the press

1332
01:06:57,847 --> 01:06:59,884
that you were getting out
of exploitation films

1333
01:06:59,916 --> 01:07:02,920
and into higher-budget films.
What brought you back into it?

1334
01:07:02,952 --> 01:07:05,762
In my last years
as a director,

1335
01:07:05,789 --> 01:07:08,895
I was climbing out of
the low-budget field

1336
01:07:08,925 --> 01:07:10,666
and was doing
more expensive films,

1337
01:07:10,693 --> 01:07:12,934
but when I started
my own company,

1338
01:07:12,962 --> 01:07:15,670
which was financed
essentially out of my own savings,

1339
01:07:15,699 --> 01:07:18,270
I was forced back
to low-budget films

1340
01:07:18,301 --> 01:07:20,474
because those were
all I could afford.

1341
01:07:20,503 --> 01:07:23,109
New World has had several
profitable years

1342
01:07:23,139 --> 01:07:25,949
and we're now starting
to make more expensive films

1343
01:07:25,975 --> 01:07:27,921
and we're climbing
once more.

1344
01:07:27,944 --> 01:07:30,049
Roger's had such success
with New World Pictures

1345
01:07:30,079 --> 01:07:32,184
in the past couple of years
that now

1346
01:07:32,215 --> 01:07:34,286
people are dying to invest
in his movies.

1347
01:07:34,317 --> 01:07:37,890
And if a script is going around town
which has his endorsement on it

1348
01:07:37,921 --> 01:07:40,731
and a promise that he will distribute
it, you're in fabulous shape.

1349
01:07:40,757 --> 01:07:43,567
There's an old story about

1350
01:07:43,593 --> 01:07:46,164
the producer with a successful
Broadway play.

1351
01:07:46,196 --> 01:07:48,369
And his friend comes to him
and says,

1352
01:07:48,398 --> 01:07:50,503
"Here's the way we can fix
the second act."

1353
01:07:50,533 --> 01:07:54,913
And the producer says,
"Never -- around with a winner."

1354
01:07:54,938 --> 01:07:57,714
Roger came bounding
up the stairs.

1355
01:07:57,741 --> 01:08:00,483
And he said,

1356
01:08:00,510 --> 01:08:03,081
"Ron, you're here.
Have you heard the news?"

1357
01:08:03,113 --> 01:08:05,389
I said, "No."
"Great news:

1358
01:08:05,415 --> 01:08:07,486
'Grand Theft Auto'--"

1359
01:08:07,517 --> 01:08:10,088
which was a very successful
movie for him--

1360
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:12,691
"'Grand Theft Auto'
just sold to CBS.

1361
01:08:12,722 --> 01:08:15,828
It's the first time we've ever
sold a movie to the networks-

1362
01:08:15,859 --> 01:08:18,635
for $1.1 million."

1363
01:08:18,661 --> 01:08:20,663
And I said,
"Well, that's great, Roger."

1364
01:08:20,697 --> 01:08:22,836
He said, "It's fantastic.

1365
01:08:22,866 --> 01:08:26,370
That makes your 7.5%
look awfully good."

1366
01:08:26,402 --> 01:08:29,008
'Cause I had a little profit
participation in "Grand Theft Auto."

1367
01:08:29,038 --> 01:08:30,915
I said, "Yeah, it does."
He said,

1368
01:08:30,940 --> 01:08:34,979
"it makes my 92.5%
look goddamn wonderful."

1369
01:09:39,742 --> 01:09:42,951
There is
a creature alive today.

1370
01:09:42,979 --> 01:09:45,323
It lives to kill--

1371
01:09:47,116 --> 01:09:49,528
a mindless eating machine.

1372
01:09:49,552 --> 01:09:52,158
It is as if God

1373
01:09:52,188 --> 01:09:54,190
created the devil

1374
01:09:54,223 --> 01:09:56,225
and gave him jaws.

1375
01:10:01,097 --> 01:10:03,134
The blockbuster movie
of the summer is "Jaws,"

1376
01:10:03,166 --> 01:10:04,839
the tale of a murderous
white shark...

1377
01:10:04,867 --> 01:10:07,370
The record-breaking box office
receipts created by "Jaws"...

1378
01:10:07,404 --> 01:10:10,078
- ...the movie "Jaws."
- Some people who have seen it

1379
01:10:10,106 --> 01:10:12,017
are now seeing phantom sharks
every time...

1380
01:10:12,041 --> 01:10:14,248
- Steven Spielberg...
- "Time Magazine" seldom...

1381
01:10:14,277 --> 01:10:18,054
- When that movie was released...

1382
01:10:18,081 --> 01:10:21,961
See it
before you go swimming.

1383
01:10:21,985 --> 01:10:24,363
When Steven Spielberg
made "Jaws,"

1384
01:10:24,387 --> 01:10:28,927
he took a very Cormanesque idea-
you know, the killer shark.

1385
01:10:28,958 --> 01:10:30,960
I mean, it doesn't get
any more Corman than that--

1386
01:10:30,994 --> 01:10:34,203
killer shark eating naked girls
as they go skinny-dipping.

1387
01:10:34,230 --> 01:10:37,643
Once people got a taste
of movies like "Jaws,"

1388
01:10:37,667 --> 01:10:40,580
they really didn't want
the drive-in movies anymore.

1389
01:10:40,603 --> 01:10:41,946
They stopped going

1390
01:10:41,971 --> 01:10:43,712
They wanted
to go to the theaters

1391
01:10:43,740 --> 01:10:45,777
and be part of some
cultural phenomenon

1392
01:10:45,809 --> 01:10:48,119
that everyone was talking about
and everyone was going to see.

1393
01:10:48,144 --> 01:10:51,455
And it wasn't about
taking your girl to the drive-in.

1394
01:10:51,481 --> 01:10:53,483
And then everything
kind of changed

1395
01:10:53,516 --> 01:10:56,395
- on the day "Star Wars" came out.
- Yeah.

1396
01:10:56,419 --> 01:10:59,332
We went to an 11:00 show
right over at the Chinese

1397
01:10:59,355 --> 01:11:00,857
and it was extraordinary.

1398
01:11:00,890 --> 01:11:02,892
- When these lines appeared...
- Yeah.

1399
01:11:02,926 --> 01:11:05,270
...everybody was astounded.
I mean, they couldn't understand.

1400
01:11:05,294 --> 01:11:07,535
"Jaws"-- it was like, okay,
it's a best-seller and we sort of know

1401
01:11:07,564 --> 01:11:09,908
that's gonna make a lot of money.
But "Star Wars" came from nowhere.

1402
01:11:09,933 --> 01:11:13,039
And all of a sudden
this gigantic change happened.

1403
01:11:13,069 --> 01:11:15,071
It was just like
the "Easy Rider" change.

1404
01:11:15,104 --> 01:11:18,347
It was like going to a revival meeting.
That first screening just was amazing.

1405
01:11:25,848 --> 01:11:28,590
When I saw "Star Wars"

1406
01:11:28,618 --> 01:11:31,360
I said, "This is a threat to me

1407
01:11:31,387 --> 01:11:34,994
because it means
that the major studios

1408
01:11:35,024 --> 01:11:38,198
are beginning to understand
what we've been doing

1409
01:11:38,227 --> 01:11:41,504
for $100,000 or so

1410
01:11:41,531 --> 01:11:45,673
and they're now doing it
for multi-millions of dollars.

1411
01:11:45,702 --> 01:11:49,514
And it's going to be
very difficult for us to compete."

1412
01:12:10,860 --> 01:12:13,932
I felt the major studios

1413
01:12:13,963 --> 01:12:16,534
are hitting straight into

1414
01:12:16,566 --> 01:12:18,978
what has been
my bread and butter

1415
01:12:19,001 --> 01:12:21,345
for 20 years

1416
01:12:21,371 --> 01:12:24,875
and also the staple
of many of my compatriots.

1417
01:12:37,186 --> 01:12:39,689
"Jaws" and then "Star Wars"

1418
01:12:39,722 --> 01:12:42,635
set a whole new standard.

1419
01:12:42,658 --> 01:12:44,535
I mean, just the bar
got set higher.

1420
01:12:44,561 --> 01:12:45,972
You couldn't really get away

1421
01:12:45,995 --> 01:12:48,066
with doing cheap
science fiction films anymore.

1422
01:12:48,097 --> 01:12:50,976
I hated "Star Wars."

1423
01:12:51,000 --> 01:12:54,140
If "Star Wars" doesn't make
a ton of cabbage,

1424
01:12:54,170 --> 01:12:56,548
you know,
we'd still be having

1425
01:12:56,572 --> 01:13:00,748
these weird green flashing lines
going across the screen.

1426
01:13:00,777 --> 01:13:03,724
All these guys are coming
from film school.

1427
01:13:03,746 --> 01:13:07,284
We're all coming from,
"Let us get a job."

1428
01:13:08,618 --> 01:13:10,564
He did it first
with horror pictures,

1429
01:13:10,587 --> 01:13:13,431
with science fiction pictures
which he did for no money

1430
01:13:13,456 --> 01:13:17,768
and, you know, quickly
and unpretentiously.

1431
01:13:17,794 --> 01:13:19,865
That's who we are today.

1432
01:13:19,896 --> 01:13:21,898
And I miss
the Roger Corman versions.

1433
01:13:21,931 --> 01:13:25,879
What we see now is the tent poles
of the studios.

1434
01:13:25,902 --> 01:13:28,815
The summer
and Christmas tent poles

1435
01:13:28,838 --> 01:13:31,682
are very often films
that could have been done

1436
01:13:31,708 --> 01:13:35,383
by Roger Corman
at a much smaller budget.

1437
01:13:35,411 --> 01:13:38,654
But those are the films now
that are attracting

1438
01:13:38,681 --> 01:13:40,752
the top filmmakers
and the biggest budgets.

1439
01:13:40,783 --> 01:13:44,925
And what has the wonderful
revolution done

1440
01:13:44,954 --> 01:13:47,025
for independence
of filmmaking?

1441
01:13:47,056 --> 01:13:50,594
Well, we make 12 circuses a year
and very few movies.

1442
01:13:50,626 --> 01:13:53,971
When you read that a picture cost
$35 million to make,

1443
01:13:53,996 --> 01:13:55,498
what do you think
of that cost?

1444
01:13:55,531 --> 01:13:57,408
Actually I think it's wrong.

1445
01:13:57,433 --> 01:14:01,813
I think the artist should be able
to express himself

1446
01:14:01,838 --> 01:14:04,079
for less money than that.

1447
01:14:04,107 --> 01:14:07,054
And the businessman should be able
to invest his money better.

1448
01:14:07,076 --> 01:14:09,647
I think from both an artistic
and a commercial standpoint,

1449
01:14:09,679 --> 01:14:12,091
it is wrong to spend that much money.
And in addition,

1450
01:14:12,115 --> 01:14:14,891
I think there are better things to do
with the money in our society.

1451
01:14:14,917 --> 01:14:16,590
- For example?
- You could-

1452
01:14:16,619 --> 01:14:18,621
for $30 million or $40 million,

1453
01:14:18,654 --> 01:14:20,759
which is what some of these films
are costing,

1454
01:14:20,790 --> 01:14:23,999
you could rebuild a portion
of the slums of a city,

1455
01:14:24,027 --> 01:14:25,802
- just as one example.
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

1456
01:14:25,828 --> 01:14:27,865
So you think it's obscene
to spend that much money.

1457
01:14:27,897 --> 01:14:29,376
Yes, I would use
that word.

1458
01:14:29,399 --> 01:14:31,675
Once the "Star Wars"
juggernaut thing happened

1459
01:14:31,701 --> 01:14:33,942
and the idea that everything
had to be an event movie,

1460
01:14:33,970 --> 01:14:35,972
it just became difficult.
The business changed.

1461
01:14:36,005 --> 01:14:38,144
He ended up having to go
direct to video with a lot of the stuff.

1462
01:14:38,174 --> 01:14:41,314
There's just 100 billion shelves
with 100 billion DVDs

1463
01:14:41,344 --> 01:14:43,654
and it's very hard to stick out.

1464
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:45,751
He switched over to making
slasher movies.

1465
01:14:45,782 --> 01:14:48,695
And that was a very limited genre,
so it was harder

1466
01:14:48,718 --> 01:14:51,699
to make something that was
interesting in that genre.

1467
01:14:51,721 --> 01:14:54,759
I met him at a dinner party
in New York in the early '30s.

1468
01:14:54,791 --> 01:14:57,032
And I said, "Aren't you
gonna do any more?

1469
01:14:57,059 --> 01:14:58,470
Are you gonna
direct a few more?"

1470
01:14:58,494 --> 01:15:01,134
He said, "I don't think so.
The whole scene is changing-

1471
01:15:01,164 --> 01:15:02,871
screwdrivers going
into people's heads.

1472
01:15:02,899 --> 01:15:05,539
It just doesn't-- it doesn't--
I don't belong there anymore."

1473
01:15:05,568 --> 01:15:08,742
I think he's become more obscure.

1474
01:15:08,771 --> 01:15:10,944
And I think that's too bad,
because I think

1475
01:15:10,973 --> 01:15:14,386
he really has a very important
legacy in Hollywood.

1476
01:15:14,410 --> 01:15:16,617
When a lot of his stuff
went straight to DVD,

1477
01:15:16,646 --> 01:15:20,219
I think he lost a little bit
of his mystique and cachet.

1478
01:15:20,249 --> 01:15:23,230
If you walked up to any

1479
01:15:23,252 --> 01:15:26,358
20, 25-year-old film buff

1480
01:15:26,389 --> 01:15:29,302
and asked if they knew
who Roger was,

1481
01:15:29,325 --> 01:15:32,135
I think unfortunately
they probably don't.

1482
01:15:32,161 --> 01:15:35,938
Gosh, I mean,
how many other people

1483
01:15:35,965 --> 01:15:39,674
have made 400--
335 movies, you know?

1484
01:15:39,702 --> 01:15:42,740
If he hadn't done
seven million other pictures,

1485
01:15:42,772 --> 01:15:44,809
he'd have
the same reputation

1486
01:15:44,840 --> 01:15:47,252
as any of the other artistes.

1487
01:15:47,276 --> 01:15:49,654
Are the people with whom
you've worked over the years

1488
01:15:49,679 --> 01:15:51,716
still friendly with you?
Do they like you?

1489
01:15:51,747 --> 01:15:53,727
Do they call you on the phone
now and again and say,

1490
01:15:53,750 --> 01:15:55,229
"Hi, Roger.
How is it going?"

1491
01:15:55,251 --> 01:15:58,095
I think so. I still talk with them.
Careers move in different directions,

1492
01:15:58,120 --> 01:15:59,793
but most of them
are still friends of mine.

1493
01:15:59,822 --> 01:16:02,462
They use words with you like,
forgive me, "the schlockmeister."

1494
01:16:02,492 --> 01:16:04,199
Does that bother you
when they say those things?

1495
01:16:04,227 --> 01:16:05,297
- Yes.
- Does it?

1496
01:16:05,328 --> 01:16:07,638
- Yeah, it bothers me, right.
- It should. You're just trying...

1497
01:16:07,663 --> 01:16:09,734
Roger Corman
made it okay for all of us

1498
01:16:09,766 --> 01:16:11,336
to make exploitation movies.

1499
01:16:11,367 --> 01:16:13,313
He showed that you
shouldn't be embarrassed.

1500
01:16:13,336 --> 01:16:15,976
There's nothing wrong with you
for loving a movie like "Piranha."

1501
01:16:16,005 --> 01:16:18,315
That it doesn't mean
that you're stupid

1502
01:16:18,341 --> 01:16:21,015
for loving a movie that seems like
a stupid exploitation movie.

1503
01:16:21,043 --> 01:16:23,523
And that a lot of these films
are very smart,

1504
01:16:23,546 --> 01:16:25,287
made with lots
of intelligence

1505
01:16:25,314 --> 01:16:27,658
and that it's okay
to have fun at the movies.

1506
01:16:27,683 --> 01:16:29,685
I think it's very important

1507
01:16:29,719 --> 01:16:32,723
to let the generation of today
know who he is.

1508
01:16:32,755 --> 01:16:36,430
We all-- we knew it
almost 40 years ago.

1509
01:16:36,459 --> 01:16:40,601
So it's time to reintroduce him
as a director,

1510
01:16:40,630 --> 01:16:43,076
but also what he represents
of American entertainment.

1511
01:16:43,099 --> 01:16:46,046
He represents
a side of Hollywood

1512
01:16:46,069 --> 01:16:48,640
sort of unto his own,
you know.

1513
01:16:48,671 --> 01:16:50,582
You know, there are a lot of
Samuel Goldwyns,

1514
01:16:50,606 --> 01:16:53,587
a lot of Irving Thalbergs.
There's really only one Roger Corman.

1515
01:16:53,609 --> 01:16:55,452
That style of filmmaking,

1516
01:16:55,478 --> 01:16:58,357
that attitude,
that approach to filmmaking

1517
01:16:58,381 --> 01:17:01,116
really is unparalleled.

1518
01:17:03,653 --> 01:17:06,896
You know, I know it's right
to have the tie hand-tied,

1519
01:17:06,923 --> 01:17:09,267
but frankly the pre-tied ties

1520
01:17:09,292 --> 01:17:11,738
look better
because they're perfect.

1521
01:17:11,761 --> 01:17:15,140
I guess the whole idea is
if it's slightly imperfect,

1522
01:17:15,164 --> 01:17:17,405
it's considered to be
handmade.

1523
01:17:17,433 --> 01:17:19,435
Yes.

1524
01:17:19,468 --> 01:17:21,277
There's delight in disorder.

1525
01:17:21,304 --> 01:17:23,306
Right.

1526
01:17:30,680 --> 01:17:32,626
Now...

1527
01:17:35,852 --> 01:17:38,162
- There you go.
- Okay.

1528
01:17:56,138 --> 01:17:59,415
We're gonna give the Lifetime
Achievement Award

1529
01:17:59,442 --> 01:18:01,046
to Roger Corman.

1530
01:18:01,077 --> 01:18:02,750
And they've asked me
to be part of it.

1531
01:18:03,746 --> 01:18:06,192
I got to call him.
And I said to him,

1532
01:18:06,215 --> 01:18:08,422
"The board of governors
of the Motion Picture Academy

1533
01:18:08,451 --> 01:18:10,590
has voted to give you
an honorary Oscar

1534
01:18:10,620 --> 01:18:12,463
for your life achievement."

1535
01:18:12,488 --> 01:18:14,559
And there was silence.
He wasn't--

1536
01:18:14,590 --> 01:18:17,901
He goes, "Excuse me?
That's unbelievable."

1537
01:18:18,928 --> 01:18:21,602
The funny part is, of course,
that Roger is,

1538
01:18:21,630 --> 01:18:24,236
you know, the ultimate
fierce independent.

1539
01:18:24,267 --> 01:18:26,804
So I told him, "Yes," I said,

1540
01:18:26,836 --> 01:18:29,874
"I know when you get up there, you're
really gonna stick it to The Man."

1541
01:18:36,679 --> 01:18:39,819
Roger, if you could stand,

1542
01:18:39,849 --> 01:18:42,329
I'd like to offer you a toast.

1543
01:18:42,351 --> 01:18:45,491
For all your

1544
01:18:45,521 --> 01:18:47,694
progressive influence

1545
01:18:47,723 --> 01:18:49,725
in our medium

1546
01:18:49,758 --> 01:18:51,760
and for our industry,

1547
01:18:51,794 --> 01:18:54,638
it's our honor
to salute you tonight, Roger.

1548
01:18:54,663 --> 01:18:57,270
- Hear, hear.

1549
01:18:58,300 --> 01:19:00,906
The Academy thanks you.

1550
01:19:00,936 --> 01:19:03,382
Hollywood thanks you.

1551
01:19:03,406 --> 01:19:06,649
Independent filmmaking
thanks you.

1552
01:19:06,675 --> 01:19:08,712
But most importantly,

1553
01:19:08,744 --> 01:19:11,156
for all the wild, weird,

1554
01:19:11,180 --> 01:19:14,457
cool, crazy moments you've put
on the drive-in screens,

1555
01:19:14,483 --> 01:19:18,556
the movie lovers of the planet
Earth thank you.

1556
01:19:23,793 --> 01:19:27,673
He is one of the finest
personages in our field.

1557
01:19:27,697 --> 01:19:31,110
Roger, please come up
to accept your Oscar.

1558
01:19:52,121 --> 01:19:54,123
Needless to say,
I'm delighted

1559
01:19:54,156 --> 01:19:57,160
to accept this Oscar
personally,

1560
01:19:57,193 --> 01:20:00,970
but I'd also like to accept it
on behalf of my wife Julie,

1561
01:20:00,997 --> 01:20:02,997
- who's been my--

1562
01:20:06,535 --> 01:20:09,982
--my producing partner
for many years.

1563
01:20:10,006 --> 01:20:13,180
I think that to succeed
in this world

1564
01:20:13,209 --> 01:20:15,348
you have to take chances.

1565
01:20:15,377 --> 01:20:20,190
I believe the finest films
being done today

1566
01:20:20,216 --> 01:20:22,856
are done by the original,

1567
01:20:22,885 --> 01:20:24,887
innovative filmmakers

1568
01:20:24,920 --> 01:20:26,922
who have the courage

1569
01:20:26,956 --> 01:20:29,402
to take a chance
and to gamble.

1570
01:20:29,425 --> 01:20:31,427
So I say to you.

1571
01:20:31,460 --> 01:20:33,701
Keep gambling.
Keep taking chances.

1572
01:20:33,729 --> 01:20:36,175
- Thank you.

1573
01:20:47,676 --> 01:20:52,216
When I think of sort of
sublime moments

1574
01:20:52,248 --> 01:20:55,229
in my professional life,

1575
01:20:55,251 --> 01:20:59,165
I think of winning
an Academy Award,

1576
01:20:59,188 --> 01:21:01,190
and right next to it

1577
01:21:01,223 --> 01:21:03,999
is the wrap party
for "Grand Theft Auto."

1578
01:21:04,026 --> 01:21:07,269
Actually everybody
grab for it.

1579
01:21:07,296 --> 01:21:09,298
I'd always dreamed
of making a movie

1580
01:21:09,331 --> 01:21:11,208
and Roger let me
make a movie.

1581
01:21:11,233 --> 01:21:13,679
And not only did I make it,

1582
01:21:13,702 --> 01:21:15,978
I loved it more
than I ever dreamed I might.

1583
01:21:16,005 --> 01:21:18,815
Is this sort of like the way you get
an honorary degree at Harvard?

1584
01:21:18,841 --> 01:21:20,445
Am I an honorary member

1585
01:21:20,476 --> 01:21:23,218
of the Roger Corman
school of filmmaking?

1586
01:21:23,245 --> 01:21:25,020
You know, I don't know.

1587
01:21:25,047 --> 01:21:27,755
I'm actually a little tongue-tied
when I'm with Roger.

1588
01:21:29,318 --> 01:21:31,320
I just have-

1589
01:21:31,353 --> 01:21:33,924
you know, we're completely
different kind of people.

1590
01:21:33,956 --> 01:21:36,266
And I have such
respect for him.

1591
01:21:36,292 --> 01:21:38,294
You know,
every once in a while

1592
01:21:38,327 --> 01:21:40,329
Roger would come
to my rescue pretty much,

1593
01:21:40,362 --> 01:21:42,968
you know, when things were-
nothing was happening.

1594
01:21:44,533 --> 01:21:47,707
My husband left me
and the phone stopped ringing,

1595
01:21:47,736 --> 01:21:50,615
but the only person
who called me was Roger.

1596
01:21:52,608 --> 01:21:55,680
And he said, "You can direct
a picture any time you want.

1597
01:21:55,711 --> 01:21:58,419
I'll produce it for you."

1598
01:21:58,447 --> 01:22:02,293
So he's the only person
who called me.

1599
01:22:04,386 --> 01:22:07,731
We'll put them
on our Facebook pages.

1600
01:22:07,756 --> 01:22:09,758
I mean, there's nobody in there

1601
01:22:09,792 --> 01:22:14,070
that he didn't
in the most important way support.

1602
01:22:14,096 --> 01:22:17,043
He was, you know,
my main connec--

1603
01:22:17,066 --> 01:22:19,478
my lifeblood

1604
01:22:19,501 --> 01:22:22,004
to whatever I thought
I was gonna be

1605
01:22:22,037 --> 01:22:24,540
as a person.

1606
01:22:24,573 --> 01:22:26,951
And, you know,
I hope he knows

1607
01:22:26,976 --> 01:22:29,388
that this is not
all hot air.

1608
01:22:29,411 --> 01:22:31,823
I'm gonna cry now.

1609
01:22:34,016 --> 01:22:36,997
Not just me,
who's very sentimental,

1610
01:22:37,019 --> 01:22:40,330
but these other people
also love him.

1611
01:22:44,727 --> 01:22:46,673
Sorry.

1612
01:22:57,940 --> 01:23:02,286
Mike, I've just
gotten off the phone with Syfy.

1613
01:23:02,311 --> 01:23:05,690
They're very worried
about the climax of the script.

1614
01:23:05,714 --> 01:23:08,991
They believe
the Mayan dance sequence

1615
01:23:09,017 --> 01:23:11,623
in the jungle is not big enough.

1616
01:23:11,654 --> 01:23:14,328
I'm going to make the stage bigger

1617
01:23:14,356 --> 01:23:17,860
and bring in almost a Mayan village
rather than a temple.

1618
01:23:17,893 --> 01:23:21,238
He wants
to stay in the game.

1619
01:23:21,263 --> 01:23:23,869
To some extent, he does see

1620
01:23:23,899 --> 01:23:26,175
making movies as a game,

1621
01:23:26,201 --> 01:23:28,203
a game that you can
win or lose.

1622
01:23:28,237 --> 01:23:30,581
And staying in
means that you're winning.

1623
01:23:31,807 --> 01:23:33,684
These are for "Splatter."

1624
01:23:33,709 --> 01:23:35,950
- Oh, for "Splatter," okay.
- Yes.

1625
01:23:35,978 --> 01:23:39,289
He really epitomized what's wonderful
about the American dream-

1626
01:23:39,314 --> 01:23:41,123
that you can succeed
no matter what.

1627
01:23:41,150 --> 01:23:43,187
Even if you fail,
you can reinvent yourself.

1628
01:23:49,258 --> 01:23:52,034
If you love it
and you're allowed to keep working,

1629
01:23:52,061 --> 01:23:54,268
or you have the energy
to keep working, as Roger does,

1630
01:23:54,296 --> 01:23:56,037
there is no retirement age.

1631
01:23:56,065 --> 01:23:57,976
No one kind of gives you
your gold watch

1632
01:23:58,000 --> 01:24:00,105
and tells you to go home
because your career's over.

1633
01:24:04,039 --> 01:24:06,041
Let's go back.

1634
01:24:06,075 --> 01:24:09,682
Cut on the frame
after she exits the shot--

1635
01:24:09,712 --> 01:24:12,716
bam! right there.

1636
01:24:14,950 --> 01:24:17,260
There's an Arab maxim,
which is,

1637
01:24:17,286 --> 01:24:20,096
"The dogs bark,
but the caravan moves on."

1638
01:24:20,122 --> 01:24:22,500
And this is Roger to me,
as the caravan, you know.

1639
01:24:22,524 --> 01:24:24,299
He's making the decision
and moving forward.

1640
01:24:24,326 --> 01:24:25,896
And you're saying,
"But wait a minute,

1641
01:24:25,928 --> 01:24:28,033
you haven't thought about
what the actors will think.

1642
01:24:28,063 --> 01:24:30,009
And what about if the truck
isn't available?"

1643
01:24:30,032 --> 01:24:32,911
"We're gonna shoot this
here now."

1644
01:24:59,661 --> 01:25:03,871
Consider yourselves officially enrolled
in Rock 'n' Roll High School.

1645
01:25:03,899 --> 01:25:06,573
The facilities are yours.
Do whatever you want.

1646
01:25:38,133 --> 01:25:39,703
What the hell?

1647
01:26:27,683 --> 01:26:29,890
- Sir.
- Excuse me, I'm on the phone.

1648
01:26:29,918 --> 01:26:32,524
- The piranhas.
- What about the goddamn piranhas?

1649
01:26:32,554 --> 01:26:34,227
They're eating
the guests, sir.

1650
01:27:20,435 --> 01:27:23,973
Hey, quiet. Quiet, everybody.
Listen. Quiet.