Original subtitles

[Insects chirping]

[Cheers and applause]

[Indistinct conversations]

[Cheers and applause]

♪

♪

♪

[Cheers and applause]

-Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Las Vegas, Nevada,

at the West Wind Drive-In.

[Cheers and applause]

Yeah. It's going to be a beautiful night.

It's going to be all about love.

Jimmy, give me a beat.

Oh, yeah, that's some sleazy lounge. I like that.

Joe, take the bass for a walk.

Yeah, that's a good walk.

Levi, finger some chords for me.

Oh, yeah. He's finger-blasting.

Yuki, tap on that colander with that stick.

He's got a colander with a stick.

♪ Hey, everybody, have you heard the news yet? ♪

♪ Joe Bob is back in town ♪

Thank you so much.

♪ He's over in Las Vegas ♪

♪ Hanging around, watching creepy movies ♪

♪ So come on down to ♪

♪ "Joe Bob's Last Drive-In Show" ♪

Thank you so much.

♪ Blood, beasties, boobies, and more, yeah ♪

♪ "Joe Bob's Last Drive-In Show" ♪

♪ It's a spooky good time with monsters and ghosts ♪

♪ Crazy, kooky fun with the world's greatest host ♪

Yeah.

♪ "Joe Bob's Last Drive-In Show" ♪

-♪ It's gonna be legendary ♪

-♪ "Joe Bob's Last Drive-In Show" ♪

-♪ It's gonna be very scary ♪

-♪ "Joe Bob's Last Drive-In Show," yeah ♪

Let's go. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

Darcy the Mail Girl and Joe Bob Briggs!

[Cheers and applause]

Yeah!

-Alright. Thank you, John.

Welcome to the

2023 World Drive-In Movie Festival and Jamboree.

[Cheers and applause]

Okay.

[All chanting "Joe Bob!"]

[All chanting "Darcy!"]

Thank you. -Alright.

Welcome to the 2023

World Drive-In Movie Festival and Jamboree.

We're at the beautiful West Wind Las Vegas Drive-in

out here on the Mojave Desert,

where nothing grows except cactus and casinos.

And this is the second night of the Jamboree,

and as I look out over all these cars

and these pods of mutants, I see many of you

still haven't finished the firstnight of the jamboree.

So, a guy just asked me,

"Why don't you keep showing movies

during the daytime, Joe Bob?"

So indicating that, you know,

the Las Vegas Chamber of Cannabis

is doing a very great job here.

I -- You think I made that up?

There actually is a Las Vegas Chamber of Cannabis.

That's what they call it.

And speaking of cannabis, welcome Darcy the Mail Girl.

She's with me here tonight. [Cheers and applause]

Darcy is a veteran of Vegas, as I am.

You came out -- I came -- I first came out here to Vegas

to do a magazine article on Wayne Newton.

But why did you come out here, Darcy?

-I came to dance. -Oh, really?

And because, you know, you made a fortune dancing, right?

-I don't know about a fortune,

but I definitely made more money here than anywhere else.

-Okay. Were you one of those Vegas girls

that they asked to blow on the dice at the craps table?

-I was, and I hate that. -Why?

Too much responsibility, right? -Yes!

-Everybody gets mad at you if you throw the dice wrong.

-Okay, well, I'm sure nobody got mad at you

for throwing the dice wrong.

-Oh, my God. They got so mad. You have no idea.

-Alright, well, the reason we're here tonight

is that in the year 1953,

a black-and-white film -- actually, a film noir

called "Highway Dragnet" opened nationwide.

And the title sequence

is all Fremont Street of downtown Las Vegas,

where drifters and con men and cops and beautiful,

conniving women all mixed together

in what turns out to be a chase movie,

with the Las Vegas P.D.

in hot pursuit of this suspected killer,

who leads them all the way to the Salton Sea.

Y'all know where the Salton Sea is?

Okay, well, the movie takes place from here,

from Las Vegas, to the Salton Sea,

which is near Riverside, California.

So, the writer and the producer of "Highway Dragnet"

was Roger Corman, and that was the beginning

of a 70-year career in Hollywood.

And tonight, we're celebrating that career,

and Roger will be with us here later tonight,

along with his movie-producer wife, Julie Corman,

an amazing filmmaker in her own right,

for a program that we are calling

"Roger Corman's first 70 years in Hollywood."

And somebody -- You know, this is really kind of hard

for me tonight, because somebody counted up,

how many people I've interviewed in my life.

Much of my life was as a journalist.

And, you know, so, how many people

have I formally interviewed,

you know, so that I could write about them?

And it's well over 2,000 people,

including a couple of presidents and a lot of famous movie stars

and business leaders and priests and gangsters and athletes

and guys on death row and guys living in penthouses in Monaco.

And one thing journalism teaches you

is that most people are not that impressive, you know?

And human nature being what it is,

you know, the more money you have

and the more power you get and the more fame you have,

the more you get cut off from reality

and you start living in your own little world.

And the hardest thing in the world

is to be both successful

and connected to the here and now

and connected to the other people in the world.

Roger Corman is one of those connected, successful people.

There are probably three people out of that 2,000

that I am truly in awe of,

and Roger Corman is at the top of that list.

And -- [Cheers and applause]

Yeah. Roger Corman --

I'm going to talk about him before he gets out here,

because it'd be embarrassing if I tried

to talk about him while he's here.

Roger Corman is first and foremost a producer,

and there are not many producers left in the world.

Have you noticed, when you go to the theater,

there's sometimes 10 or 15 people in the credits

that have the word "producer" in their title, you know?

Executive producer, associate producer,

line producer, supervising producer, co-producer,

coordinating producer, field producer.

And what does that usually mean?

It means the movie had no producer, you know?

It means it had no creative force

on the business side of the movie.

Several people did various jobs,

but they were all like CPAs working in a factory, right?

Now, when Roger received his honorary Academy Award

a few years back, he gave a tidy little acceptance speech

in which he said, "Film is a compromised art form.

It's 50% business and 50% art."

And Roger's special talent

is that he's a great manipulator of the business half

of that equation, turning it into art.

He makes the business part art, as well.

Now, everybody loves to tell stories

about how cheap Roger is, and they're all true.

You know, how he made 700 movies and he never lost money,

how he once lit a car-chase scene

by having all the crew park their cars along the highway

and point their headlights at the roadway.

He found an unused set in a studio

and decided to make a movie in two days

just so he could use that set.

That movie was, by the way, "The Little Shop of Horrors,"

you know?

So, they tell the story of how the title creature in

"The Beast with a Million Eyes" had about 10 eyes

and it was about 18 inches tall

and it was built in a day and shot in 10 minutes.

You know, but all of these decisions

are the decisions of a producer who's being an artist.

Roger Corman used his own money for all of his films.

He would take the proceeds from his last movie,

use it to finance his next movie or his next two movies,

and all those stories that start out,

"Let me tell you how cheap Roger Corman is"

are stories about decisions that got that movie made,

and they got it made at a price point

that made future movies possible.

And of all the stories ever told

about mercenary Hollywood producers --

and I've heard them all -- the one story I have never heard

is that somebody got stiffed by Roger.

He paid for everything. He just didn't pay very much.

And, so, he paid the least that the market would allow.

Now, the other thing that has made

Roger a great producer over the years

is that he has a complete, 100%

understanding of the artistic side of film.

He actually started as a film critic.

He was -- While he was a student at Stanford University.

He's a great director.

He's a great -- He's an expert on camera.

He's an expert on lenses. He's a first-rate editor.

He knows how to get a script into shape.

And he can work in either direction.

He can take an existing script and make it better.

He has a great eye for talented writers, though.

He had some of the best writers in Hollywood

working for him before they were --

before anybody knew they were the best writers in Hollywood.

He can also take the bare bones of an idea

and turn it into a motion picture.

When the Russians launched Sputnikin 1958,

he called up American International Pictures

and he said, "Give me the money, and I'll have a satellite movie

in theaters in two months."

And he did that, and the result was the movie

"The War of the Satellites," a hit movie.

It was a big hit.

It was scripted by three people, but those three people were,

of course, closely shepherded by Roger,

who was telling them what he wanted in the movie.

He's not a writer, but he knows writing.

He's not an actor, but he knows acting.

And, in fact, he enrolled in the famous

method-acting classes of Jeff Corey

just so he would better understand the acting craft.

He hates wasted words and wasted images.

And it's not uncommon for Roger to watch a rough cut of a movie

and say, "This is a good movie.

Now let's take 10 minutes out of it

and make it into a greatmovie."

And so tonight, we are going to watch two Roger Corman movies.

The first movie is a 1959 horror-comedy called

"A Bucket of Blood" that --

[Cheers and applause] Yeah.

Y'all all seen "A Bucket of Blood"?

[Cheers and applause] Yeah.

He also directed this movie.

And the second movie is a 1983 sword-and-sorcery

extravaganza called "Deathstalker."

And that movie -- Most people don't know this.

That movie exists only because of numerous very complicated

business decisions made by Roger as head of New World Pictures.

And that was Roger's groundbreaking,

innovative distribution company in the '70s and '80s.

And at the time, he had a deal with the largest back lot

and the largest studio in Argentina,

and that's how "Deathstalker" got made.

Let me talk about "A Bucket of Blood" for a minute.

"A Bucket of Blood" is a damn near perfect movie,

and, partly, that's the result

of the Charles B. Griffith screenplay.

Charles B. Griffith was

Corman's go-to screenwriter for several years,

though the first --

I would say Charles Griffith was the screenwriter

through the first three phases of Roger Corman's career.

Low-budget Westerns.

That's what -- That's the first stuff that Roger made.

He made like five of them in a row.

Low-budget monster movies,

and then low-budget wild-youth movies, you know?

So, Charles Griffith's first movie for Roger

was called "Gunslinger" in 1956

with John Ireland and Beverly Garland.

And then he wrote "It Conquered the World,"

"Attack of the Crab Monsters," "Not of This Earth,"

"Rock All Night," "Teenage Doll."

And then Roger entered kind of a transitional period

where instead of just following the popular genres of the day,

he started following his own personal interests.

And one of those personal interests

was the Beat generation,

the beatniks, the poets, and the vagabonds

who traveled from Greenwich Village

to San Francisco,

to the coffee bars of Venice, California,

back when Venice, California, was kind of a rundown,

neglected neighborhood full of flophouses

and dive bars and stuff.

So, it was a time when names

like Ferlinghetti and Kerouac and Ginsberg and Burroughs

were ripping apart the worlds of literature

and music and nonfiction and poetry

and they were speaking in this new, hip vernacular.

And, of course, Roger started going to these beatnik

cafés and clubs and hangouts,

because Roger was always fascinated by anything new,

anything that was in the headlines,

anything groundbreaking.

And "A Bucket of Blood" was what he and Charles B. Griffith

came up with as the ultimate parody

of the whole Beat generation.

And that's just exactly what it is.

But what's great about it is,

it's kind of an accurate portrayal

of what those beatnik coffeehouses were really like.

And the opening poem in this movie,

accompanied by jazz saxophone,

which is -- that's the way they did poetry in the beatnik era.

They thought that -- That thing didn't continue

after the beatniks.

They thought free-form poetry and jazz saxophone

together was the future of poetry.

Anyway, that thing is so spot-on accurate

that I could never again look at that actor, Julian Burton,

without thinking of him as Maxwell Brock,

the existential Beat poet in this movie.

He is so obnoxious that he almost steals the movie.

But the key to his performance

is the beautiful writing of Charles B. Griffith.

But I'll talk more about that as we go through the movie.

And the film is perhaps the best evocation

ever put on film of what it was like

to be a beatnik in the 1950s,

even though it's totally making fun of that scene.

And as satirical movies go, it's one of the best ever made.

It shot in five days, using just two or three sets.

And it is a masterpiece.

Do you like this movie, Darcy?

-Oh, yeah. It's hilarious.

-The beatniks were -- I think they were sort of --

I would call them proto-hippies.

They were early hippies. -Yeah, they brought the weed.

-Yeah, they did. That's true.

They brought the weed into our culture,

you know, back when it was dangerous

to bring the weed, actually.

-I mean, it can still be dangerous to bring the weed.

-Well, I mean, hard prison time, you know,

especially I grew up in Texas.

In Texas, you'd get life in prison

just for possession back in the --

-Did they have beatniks in Texas?

-Well, probably not.

I mean, in 1959, the beatniks would get beat up.

So, no, the beatniks wouldn't be safe in Texas in 1959.

-I think the places that you mentioned

are still the safest for weed.

-California and New York? -Yeah.

-I would say Colorado is probably the safest place.

-Or Oregon. Oregon. -Oregon?

-Washington. Washington's good.

-See, now I'm wondering, is -- Now I'm wondering,

is weed safe here in Nevada?

-Yeah! -They say "yes."

-Okay. You know that for sure, though.

-I mean, would you doubt me?

-No, I would never doubt you on weed.

-It's totally safe. Go for it. -Alright.

-Well, I'm gonna call you later, then.

-Get in line, baby. -Okay. "A Bucket of Blood."

This is the sensitive story of a dimwitted,

impressionable busboy in a beatnik café,

who somehow infuses the pretentious poetry

of the pseudo-intellectuals into his life

and accidentally becomes a locally famous artist

whose creations are worth thousands of dollars,

until the secret of his life-like, death-like art

becomes revealed and he has to make one last desperate move

to capture the woman of his dreams.

Sure, we've seen it before,

but have we seen it with a surreal jazz score

that courses through the mean streets of Southern California

like a send-up of every film noir of the 1950s?

I think not.

So let's look at those drive-in totals and get started.

We have... [Cheers and applause]

We have...

Driving Academy Award nominations

for Barboura Morris as Carla

for being the unsuspecting object of desire

and for saying, "Walter, there's a body in that statue,"

Antony Carbone as club owner Leonard de Santis,

who discovers Walter's secret

but doesn't try all that hard to stop him,

Julian Burton as beatnik poet Maxwell H. Brock

for encouraging Walter's art and for saying,

"I will talk to you of art,

for there is nothing else to talk about,

for there is nothing else.

Life is an obscure hobo bumming a ride on the omnibus of art."

The fantastic Dick Miller as --

[Cheers and applause] Yeah.

As Walter, the busboy-turned-murderous artiste

for saying, "You said I'm a genius,

I don't want to be a busboy no more"

and "I know what it's like to be ignored."

And, of course, Roger Corman

for being the original exploitation filmmaker.

Four stars. Joe Bob says, "Check it out."

And you know the one thing that the beatniks had

that did not get passed down to the hippies?

-Bad poetry? -No, no.

No, actually, the hippies also had bad poetry.

That's not what I was thinking about.

-Jazz? -Yeah, jazz.

That's exactly right.

The hippies were there at the dawn of album rock.

So, you know, rock 'n' roll. So no jazz for the hippies.

But that's not what I was thinking of.

I was thinking of the beret.

They all wore those fucking berets.

I mean, nobody has ever looked good in a beret, you know?

Even French people, who know how to wear a beret, so...

-I don't know. I like a beret.

-Really? What's the purpose of a beret?

It's not a real hat.

-It makes you look cool.

-No, it doesn't. It makes you look like a dork.

-Like a French dork.

-Yeah, the worst kind of French dork.

You know, they were Americans. Why were they aping the French?

Why were the beatniks always aping the French,

in criticism and berets and everything?

-I think French people were cooler in 1959.

-No, they weren't.

-Why do you pick on the French so much?

-Because they wear berets, Darcy. They wear berets, so...

-Okay, I think it was originally a military thing, right?

-You know what? Like sailor hats?

-Yeah. I don't know.

-They wore berets like sailor hats?

-The Green Berets -- they're not dorky.

-Actually, that's true.

Army Special Forces wears berets.

You're right.

You know, the only guys that ever made

the beret a macho thing, so...

-So you're admitting you're wrong.

-I wouldn't go that far.

[Laughter] -I tried.

[Cheers and applause]

♪

-I will talk to you of art...

[Saxophone plays] ...for there is nothing else

to talk about.

For there is nothing else.

Life is an obscure hobo

bumming a ride on the omnibus of art.

Burn gas, Buggies,

and whip your sour cream of circumstance.

And hope.

And go ahead and sleep your bloody heads off.

Creation is,

all else is not.

What is not creation is graham crackers.

Let it all crumble to feed the creator.

The artist is,

all others are not.

A canvas is a canvas.

Or a painting.

A rock is a rock or a statue.

A sound is a sound.

Or is music.

♪

A creature is a creature.

Or an artist.

♪

Where are John, Joe, Jake, Jim, Jerk?

Dead, dead, dead.

They were not born before they were born.

They were not born.

Where are Leonardo, Rembrandt, Ludwig?

Alive, alive, alive.

They were born.

Bring on the multitude with a multitude of fishes.

Feed them to the fishes for liver oil.

Nourish the artist,

stretch their skins upon an easel

to give him canvas.

Crush their bones into a paste

that he might mold them.

Let them die.

And by their miserable deaths

become the clay within his hands.

He might form an ashtray

or an ark.

For all that is comes through the eye of the artist.

The rest are blind fish swimming in the cave of aloneness.

Swim on, you mortal and muddling, maddened fools.

And dream that one bright and sunny night,

some artist will bait a hook and let you bite upon it.

Bite hard and die.

In his stomach,

you are very close to immortality.

[Music fades out]

-Walter?

Walter, what are you doing here?

-I'm just looking at Carla's picture.

-Do I pay you to look at pictures?

Go on, get to work. -I was just looking.

-There are empty cups all over the place.

Clear them out.

-You shouldn't be so rough on him, Leonard.

-What do you say, Walter? -Hi.

[Upbeat jazz plays]

♪

-I think I'll cut.

♪

♪

-This man. How you makin'? -Fine, man. How about you?

-Good enough.

[Phone dings]

[Telephone rings]

-Valdez, vice.

-Yeah, Lacroix checking in.

Lou took over a couple of minutes ago.

-Anything new at the door?

-Well, nothing you can pound nails in,

a couple of hustlers.

One of them short, fat, brunette named Skinny.

The other one was short also.

She was bleached and skinny.

-Name her Fat. -Probably. I didn't get it.

They didn't give any pictures, though.

Guess you can keep an eye on them.

-Okay. Any hits?

-Well, Jerry Sacks looked like he was straight.

I'm sure he's on it anyway.

Didn't see any pushers around the place.

Lou said he'd check out on Jerry

and sound him out later if he gets any higher.

I guess that's about it.

-Okay, Art.

Go on home and get a good night's sleep, you fink.

-Okay. So long.

-Everyone listened to my new poem,

but do you think they really heard it?

-I heard it, Mr. Brock.

-Thank you, Walter. I'm sure you did.

-"Bring on the multitude with a multitude of fishes.

Feed them to the fishes for liver oil,

to nourish the artist."

-That was word for word. -Is it? I've forgotten.

-You mean you don't remember your own poem?

-I refuse to say anything twice.

Repetition is death.

-Oh. Got it.

-When you repeat something, you are reliving a moment,

wasting it, severing it from the other end of your life.

I believe only in new impressions,

new stimuli, new life.

-I thought you believe that life is an obscure hobo

bumming a ride on a -- -I do believe that, Walter,

but I also believe creative living.

To be uncreative, you might as well be in your grave.

Or in the Army.

-They tried to draft me once.

I couldn't pass the test.

[All chuckle]

-Walter, Leonard's looking at you.

-Jesus, my God.

-Walter has a clear mind.

One day, something will enter it, feel lonely,

and leave again.

-[Chuckles] That's too much. -Max.

-Yes, cats, yes.

If you want to know how beatniks live,

William and me will show you.

We'll introduce you to some wild ones.

You may even discover an artist of your own.

-And how much is that going to cost us?

-What cost? A couple of bucks.

You want to meet some beatniks, don't you?

-Oh, no. It's the artists. I'm just crazy about artists.

-All that is comes through the eye of the artist.

The rest are just blind fish swimming in a cave of aloneness.

-Oh, you must be an artist.

And working as a busboy, too.

-Feed him that he will be satisfied.

The artist is, all others are not.

-That's most intriguing. Are you a painter?

-Well, no, I work --

I'm working on something that's not ready yet.

-What is it, man? Finger painting?

-Draw me a picture of a house, Walter.

Make some smoke coming out of the chimney.

-Well, I am working on something. I'll show you soon.

-Walter.

-Is he, uh...

[Chuckles]

♪

♪

-You get a good look, kid?

Go on home.

♪

♪

♪

♪

-Oh, hello, Mrs. Swickert.

-Oh, Walter, you look awful pale.

What'd you have to eat tonight?

-I had a salami sandwich, Mrs. Swickert.

-Oh, if you were my son.

Why don't you let me fix you a nice bowl of soup?

Won't take but a minute. -Oh, it's okay.

I-I can fix myself something.

Besides, I got something important to do.

-Oh, oh, say, Walter, did you see anything

of Frankie tonight when you went out?

-I didn't see him at all.

-Well, if you do, tell him I got a nice,

fresh piece of halibut for him.

-Tell him that?

I mean, do you think he'll understand?

He's only a cat. -[Scoffs]

Good night, Walter.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Cat meows in distance]

♪

[Cat meows louder]

Frankie?

♪

Canvas is a canvas or a painting.

A rock is a rock or a statue.

A sound is a sound or it's music.

♪

♪

Come on.

Be a nose.

♪

Be a nose.

[Cat meowing]

[Meowing continues]

Frankie, shut up!

Oh, what's the matter, Frankie?

How'd you get yourself stuck in a wall?

Wait a minute. I'll get you out. [Meowing continues]

[Cat screeches]

Frankie?

Frankie?

You all right, Frankie?

♪

♪

Oh, Frankie.

Oh, Frankie.

♪

Oh, Frankie.

I'm sorry.

♪

Poor Mrs. Swickert.

♪

She had a nice fresh piece of halibut for you.

♪

I'll give you to her in the morning.

♪

Repetition is death, Frankie.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Crying]

[Cheers and applause]

-Whoo! -Yeah!

-Whoo!

-Alright. You guys love Dick Miller?

-Yeah!

-That is the great character actor Dick Miller

as Walter Paisley.

He was so memorable in this role

that multiple directors over the years not only hired

Dick Miller, but constantly used the name

Walter Paisley in other stories and other films.

If you recall, Jim Wynorski's "Chopping Mall"

uses -- you know?

He just plays the janitor in that.

But Dick Miller is the janitor who gets electrocuted.

But the janitor's name is...Walter Paisley.

They always used that name.

Dick Miller was actually a very versatile actor.

He could do a lot of things, but he spent most of his life

playing kooks and oddballs and misfits.

And even when he played the police chief or the professor,

there was always something a little off about him.

But the camera loved him.

And this was sort of the beginning of the crazy,

put-upon persona that Dick Miller would do

for really off and on for the rest of his life.

But I can't pass up the opportunity

to talk about Julian Burton,

who plays Maxwell, the pretentious poet.

He is just hilarious in his commitment

to the part of that pseudo-intellectual,

you know, holding court in the beatnik café.

And Julian Burton --

he would have a long career in television.

He worked well into the 1980s before he retired from acting.

He actually became a psychologist and a therapist.

But he's another one of those talents

that Roger Corman discovered early in his career

and destined to be a veteran character actor,

used by many directors in many shows.

This film is just 67 minutes long,

and, yet, it is a fully realized story

and, in many respects, a very complex story.

One of the conversations that I had with Roger Corman

back in the '80s, I remember him saying

that the ideal length of a movie is 78 minutes.

He would say -- He actually said 78.

And his reasoning was this.

If you go to 79 minutes, you need five film cans

to ship the 35-millimeter film around the country.

So, at 78 minutes, you just need four cans,

so you have saved 20% on your shipping costs.

So he would sometimes shave an 80-minute movie back to 78

just for that very practical producer's reason.

Now, a by-product of that decision,

the 78-minute movie is much more likely to get a TV sale,

than an 80-minute movie,

because there's more time for commercials,

and it can be used both in a 90-minute spot

and a 120-minute spot on television,

where you have to leave room for commercials.

But that really was not Roger's reason.

Roger was more practical than that.

He always cut things down to the essentials.

Okay, let's get back to these worlds of opposites.

It's really -- There's really just two places in this movie,

The Yellow Door coffeehouse bustling with apparent life

and the lonely apartment of Walter Paisley.

And let's see what surprises await

in this wonderful movie.

Alright, roll the film.

All right.

Darcy, I've never seen you drink coffee -- ever.

Have you ever been in a coffeehouse? Do you ever...

-I've been to a coffeehouse. I don't like coffee.

-Really? The beatniks -- I mean..

-Sorry. -Coffee is really cool now,

but the beatniks were the first to make coffee cool,

you know, to make it special.

Of course, that was at the same time

they were making heroin cool, so it's a --

-I'm not a big fan of heroin either. Sorry.

-Okay. Well, let's hope not. -Sorry. I love my weed.

-You would not have made a very good beatnik, Darcy, because --

-I don't think I've really even heard of a female beatnik.

-That's actually a good point. Why do you think that is?

Why do you think that we don't know any big female beatniks?

-I don't know. Because it was the '50s?

I don't know. -Carolyn Cassady.

Carolyn Cassady was a female beatnik artist,

probably the model for -- She may have been the model

for the Carla character in this movie.

-Yeah, but she's, like -- She's a "girlfriend," you know?

-That's true.

But she had her own paintings, though.

Joyce Johnson. Joyce Johnson is another one.

If you read the books about the Beat generation,

they always say Joyce Johnson was --

-Who dated several beatniks.

-[Laughs] That's true.

Alright, well, it was kind of a boys' club, wasn't it?

-It kind of was, yeah. -Alright.

Thank God things have changed today, so...

-Thank God. They're so different.

-Okay, let's not go there,

because I know where you're going with that.

-Anytime you want to go there, we can go there.

-Okay. Well, right now, we're not going to go there, so...

-I think that's a good choice. -Alright. Okay. I know.

[Cheers and applause]

♪

-Let them die.

And by their miserable deaths,

become the clay within his hands,

that he might form an ashtray or an ark.

Pray that you might be his diadem, gold, glory,

paint, clay.

That he might take you in his magic hands

and wring from your marrow wonders.

-Where are John, Joe, Jim, Jerk?

♪

♪

Dead, dead, dead.

♪

♪

Hi, Carla.

-Oh, Walter, what are you doing here so early?

-Well, I brought something. I think you'll like it.

-Take that stuff to the laundromat, Walter.

-Huh? -Don't mind him.

What have you got? -It's a thing I made.

-Walter.

-You like it? -What's he got?

-Oh, come look at this, Leonard.

-Where'd you get that, auction? -I made it.

-You made that? -I said I did, didn't I?

-Walter, it's very good.

-Honest? -Honest.

-What's it called?

-"Dead Cat."

-"Dead Cat"? That's its name?

-Sure.

-Well, it sure looks dead enough.

-Y-You want to buy it?

-Buy it? That thing?

Scare people out of the place.

-Don't be silly. It's tremendous.

Look at the detail.

The anatomy is perfect.

Look at the expression on its face.

-How come you put a knife into it?

-I didn't mean to.

-Just got carried away, huh?

Well, alright.

I'll tell you what I'll do.

I'll put it in the corner of the alcove.

If it sells, we'll split 50/50.

Okay? -Sure.

Does this mean I'm an artist?

-Maybe so, if you can do other things, as well.

-All that is comes through the eye of the artist.

-Yeah, you're a real artist now.

Now go in back and scrub down those garbage cans.

March now.

-You really like it?

-We like it. Now go on.

[Upbeat jazz plays]

[Laughter, indistinct conversations]

-Did you see my cat?

-What's the matter? You lose him?

♪

-How do you like my cat?

-You make this thing, man? -Uh-huh.

-It's crazy. [Inhales deeply] Crazy.

-You want to buy it?

-Who, me, man? I'm tapped.

♪

-He likes my cat. -Get to work.

♪

♪

-Hey, hey, Walter, come here a minute.

♪

Hey, congratulations, man.

-Walter, you're famous. -I saw your cat.

-Did you like it, Mr. Brock? -You may call me Maxwell.

-Now, how'd you do it, Walter?

-Oh, I just took some clay and fixed it up.

-[Laughs]

-Attention. Attention, everyone!

As you pass through these yellow portals,

I am sure you noticed on your right a small clay figure

and assumed this transfixed effigy

to be the work of a master sculptor.

And, indeed, so it is.

That master sculptor is in our midst.

He is none other than Walter Paisley,

our very own busboy,

whose hands of genius have been carrying away

the empty cups of your frustrations.

Mark well this lad.

His is the silent voice of creation.

Within the dark, rich soil of humility,

he blossoms as the hope of our nearly sterile century.

[Applause]

-Beautiful, Maxwell.

-Bring me an espresso, Walter.

-Maxwell, really beautiful. -Thank you.

-Man, you are in. -Oh, Walter. You're wonderful!

[Overlapping talking]

This is my man. Yes, yes.

Listen, man, you got a pen, huh? This is my man.

-Hey, Pops, what's happenin'?

-Making a big scene for Walter.

-Who'd he shoot? -He made a cat.

Out of clay.

-See you around. -Yeah. Later.

[Indistinct chatter]

-Will somebody clear this table, please?

-This is my man.

-Will somebody clear this table?

[Chatter continues]

-Did you hear them, Mr. de Santis?

They all like my cat. -Yeah. Very good.

Now, look, Walter, you must be tired.

Why don't you take the rest of the night off?

-Oh, I don't -- -No, no, no, no.

You got it coming.

Besides, you're creating an incident,

and when people are applauding, they don't order coffee.

So go on home and work on something.

Make another cat.

-Well, I haven't got another cat.

-Well, just go to the movies.

Please, Walter, go. -Alright, Mr. de Santis.

Good night. -Good night, Walter.

-Walter. Walter, wait a minute.

-Oh, hello, Naolia.

-Walter, I dug it.

-My cat?

-It was the most wonderful, wildest,

like, wiggiest thing I've ever seen.

Walter, you've done something to me.

Something deep down inside of my prana.

-I have?

-Oh, Walter, I want to be with you.

You're creative.

You've got a hot light bulb glowing inside of you,

and I want to be warmed by it.

-Gee, that's nice of you, Naolia.

-Walter, take me away from here.

Take me away to some cool blue place

and gas me.

-I can't. I gotta go home.

-Oh, and I'll go home with you.

-Oh, no, Mrs. Swickert wouldn't like that.

She's my landlady.

-Isn't there anything I can do for you?

-I don't think so, Naolia.

-Oh, Walter. I can't let you just split like this.

I've got to do something.

I've got to contribute.

-You don't have to do anything.

-Wait.

Wait. There is one thing I can do.

One little thing.

Don't leave, Walter.

I want to give you something.

Something that'll make you remember me.

Put it in your pocket.

Now go, Walter.

Don't look back. Just go.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-"Can I have your autograph, Mr. Paisley?"

Why, certainly, my good woman.

[Chuckles]

Everybody likes my cat.

You want to buy my statue, mister?

$10,000?

Okay.

♪

Gee, I'll be famous.

And then I can ask Carla, and she'll say yes.

I know she will.

♪

[Knock on door]

♪

-Hello, Walter. -Oh, hi.

You're Lou, ain't you?

I seen you down at Yellow Door plenty.

Come on in. I was just making some pancakes.

You can have some if you like.

Did you see my cat? -Yeah, I saw your cat.

I also saw that chick lay these on you.

-Oh, that was Naolia. She's a nice girl.

She's kind of strange, though.

I guess she figures I get headaches or something.

-Okay, Walter, who's your connection?

-Connection? -Yeah, connection.

Who do you score from? Where do you buy your horse?

-Horse?

-Horse, junk, white stuff, heroin.

-Is that what that is? I never seen any of that before.

I always thought that was expensive.

-Yeah, Walter, that can be real expensive.

-Gee, well, wasn't that nice of Naolia

to give me that expensive horse?

-Walter. -Huh?

-Police officer. -[Gasps]

You're, like, an undercover man.

-You're under arrest, Walter.

-Under arrest for what? -Possession of narcotics.

-Who, me? What are you talking about?

-Walter, I got you cold. Now you just come along quietly.

-I didn't do nothing.

And Naolia give me those. I didn't ask her for them.

I didn't even know what was in that.

-Alright. Alright. You can tell them that downtown.

Now let's go.

-I ain't going no place with you.

-Walter, do I have to point this at you?

-Y-You're gonna shoot me. No! Don't shoot me!

-Walter, just relax. -No, you're gonna shoot me.

-Now, just relax. -No, don't shoot me!

-Just shut up, Walter! -No, you're gonna shoot me!

Don't shoot! [Body thuds]

♪

[Knock on door]

-Walter?

[Knock on door] Walter!

Walter!

Are you all right?

I thought I heard you shouting a minute ago.

[Pan clatters]

Walter!

[Clattering]

What's all the noise in here?

-Noise, Mrs. Swickert? What noise?

-Don't tell me I didn't hear a racket.

Are you sure you're all alone?

-I'm always alone, Mrs. Swickert.

-Walter, have you been talking to yourself again?

-Well, I-I guess maybe I have, Mrs. Swickert.

Somebody's got to.

-Walter, you know, what you need is a girl.

She doesn't have to be pretty.

Just so long as she takes good care of you.

-Well, I can take real good care of myself, Mrs. Swickert.

-Yeah, I can see that. Look at this pad.

It's terrible. Why don't you ever clean it up?

And when did you change these sheets last?

They look like they're alive.

-Mrs. Swickert, I got to meet some friends

in a little while and I got to take a shower.

-Well, why don't you clean up this stuff?

Oh, please, Mrs. Swickert. -What's the matter with you?

-[Breathing heavily]

♪

♪

♪

♪

-I didn't mean to hurt you, Lou.

[Sniffles] But if you would have shot me,

you'd be mopping up my blood now.

[Blood dripping]

I can't help it if I got scared and hit you.

I didn't mean it.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

♪

"I didn't know you had it in you, Walter.

♪

How'd you do it?"

♪

I just took some clay and fixed it up.

♪

"Go home and make something, Walter.

Make another cat."

♪

But I haven't got another cat.

[Cheers and applause]

-Whoo!

-Say "Hi!"

-Okay. And, so, Walter's first

human victim -- with a frying pan, no less --

is the narc played by Bert Convy,

who would go on to mostly a television career

as the kind of guy -- You would expect Bert Convy

to guest-host on "The Love Boat" or something,

which is exactly what he did seven times.

So, one thing you almost never find

in a Roger Corman film is bad acting.

This movie is probably the signature role

of Dick Miller's career,

although I don't think he realized it at the time,

because it was very early in his career.

But it was just another Corman film

for most of the people working on it.

It was a quick and easy paycheck.

They didn't even talk about it that much.

But the fast pace and the sharp writing

and the perfect depiction of that culture,

it all combined to make it a minor masterpiece,

in my opinion.

One thing Roger always had going for him throughout his career

is that he was always the most likable person in the room.

He was very charming, and people wanted to work for him.

He has a bright smile and a charming manner

and a wonderful sense of humor

and he was always honest, you know?

There was a story that Roger told me that --

You know, I'm not going to say who this story is about.

I'm going to tell this story before Roger gets out here.

Because there was a notable actor

in the Corman stock company

who made several pictures in the '50s,

and he continued to work for Roger well into the '60s.

And then the two of them had a falling-out of some kind.

I don't know what it was.

So, I was with Roger at this video convention

in Washington, D.C., in the '80s,

and I brought this up and I said,

"Roger, you're friends with everybody.

You're still friends with all these people you used

when they were unknowns.

You know, you're friends with Jack Nicholson

and Francis Coppola and Martin Scorsese

and Ron Howard and Peter Bogdanovich

and Dennis Hopper and Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd

and William Shatner.

Why would you be on bad terms with this one particular actor?"

And he said, "You know, I can't really understand it myself,

but I would explain it this way.

Lots of actors make one movie for me or two movies,

but if you make a third movie for me,

I tend to lose all respect for you."

So he expected all his students to go on to bigger things,

and most of them did.

Okay, roll the film. [Laughs]

-Who was it, actually? Can you tell us, please?

-Well, no, I'm not going to tell who it was.

-Oh, come on. Please?

-No, the person is no longer alive,

and they later became friends again

after Roger stopped directing, so...

-If he's not alive, that's a good reason to say it.

-No.

-Who would you say is the Roger Corman of today?

-The Roger Corman of today?

You mean the producer who finds raw talent

and gives them a chance?

-Lloyd Kaufman! -Exactly. Yes!

-Who? -Yes.

Lloyd Kaufman, from the audience.

-Oh, yeah. I don't know.

I really think the kind of movies

that Roger made and gave them a chance --

I don't think that exists anymore.

Maybe Blumhouse.

Although, you know -- -Ooh, no.

-Well, they've gotten really big.

They make expensive movies now, and Roger never did that.

He never made expensive movies,

even after he was successful enough to do so.

He never said, "Well, this one can't miss.

Let's spend 10 million on it."

Even when he had 10 million, you know?

-What would you do with 10 million?

-If I had 10 million? I'd make 40 movies.

-I know you well enough to know that that is exactly true.

-No, I'm not kidding. I mean, find me 10 million.

You can star in "Bucket of Blood 2."

We'll start with that one.

-What about "'Gator Bait 3"?

-Oh! -Yeah.

-Even better. We could shoot that in Boggy Creek.

-Yeah. I'm so there.

-"Hogzilla 2"! -"Hogzilla 2."

-"Hogzilla 2"?

As long as I don't have to be in it.

-You have to be in it. Your ghost is coming back --

-But you're serious, aren't you?

-Oh, heck yeah, I'm serious.

-You would be in "'Gator Bait 3"?

-Yes. -Alright. I'm serious.

-You're serious, too, right? -Yeah. Alright, let's do it.

-"'Gator Bait 3"! And "Hogzilla 2."

We're making movies.

[Cheers and applause]

-Well, I reported in here around midnight.

Lou, had already been gone over an hour.

No, nobody seems to know where he went.

Why don't you put an alert out on him,

and I'll check on him from here.

Okay, right.

[Soft music plays]

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Thud]

♪

♪

[Dramatic music plays]

♪

♪

[Tap]

-Little fraud.

♪

♪

-Louis Raby, age 29, 5'11" inches tall.

Dark complexion, hair black and curly,

last seen wearing blue jeans and a gray sweater...

♪

-♪ Tim Evans was a murderer ♪

♪ All in his prison cell ♪

♪ And those who read about his crimes ♪

♪ They damned his soul to hell ♪

♪ Saying, "Go down, you murderer" ♪

♪ "Go down" ♪

♪ For the murder of his own true wife ♪

♪ And the killing of his own child ♪

♪ The jury found him guilty ♪

♪ And the hangin' judge, he smiled ♪

-And dig the fuzz.

-♪ You murderer... ♪

-I mean, what do you suppose they want here?

-You, man. You.

-Hey, maybe they're looking for old Walter.

He's a criminal type.

Ain't you, Walter?

-I'm sorry, Mr. de Santis.

-That's all right, Walter.

Sit down. -Who, me?

-Sit down.

-Greetings, man.

-I-I'm not supposed to sit with the customers.

-Ring!

-Now, why shouldn't you sit at the table, Walter?

After all, you're a big artist now,

a true creator above mere mortals.

-What's the big idea?

-Idea?

I was just telling Walter the truth.

Man wanted to pay me $100 for the cat.

In fact, he's taking it home to show it to his wife.

Proves that I underestimated Walter's ability.

His work has enormous realism.

You can hardly tell it from the real thing.

-Boy that sounds like a real put-down.

-Get off Walter's back, Leonard.

-Am I on his back?

-Well, you're not very funny.

-I'm not trying to be.

Walter...

what are you going to make next?

A dog, maybe.

Or a bird.

[Gasps]

How about a few dozen cockroaches from your room?

-Hey, man, why don't you make an elephant?

-I-I got a new one.

-Great. What is it?

-It's a...

full length, life-sized figure.

-Crazy. What is it called?

-Uh..."Murdered Man."

-When do we get to see it? -Oh, anytime.

-Hey, that's a pretty far-out name for a statue.

-I saw a statue once -- it was called,

"The third time Phyllis saw me, she exploded."

-Now, what kind of a statue was that?

-I don't know.

It was made out of driftwood and dipped in fluoric acid.

Very wild.

-[Coughs] -What's wrong, Leonard?

-Nothing. Nothing at all.

-It's the food in this dump.

-Oh, man, you should try The Sorrel Sewer.

They got wheat-germ bagels.

Too much.

-[Groans] -Excuse me, please.

-I think he really is sick.

-So, who isn't?

-De Santis. I've been trying to get you all evening.

-I got to make a call. Got to call Lieutenant Valdez.

-Listen, I was wrong about my wife.

She wants that cat after all.

Do you hear me? I'll give you that $100 for the cat.

-I can't talk to you just now.

-Alright, then 200.

-No. No!

-$300, and that's tops.

-$300 for the cat?

-[Chuckles] I know I'm going out of my mind,

but I've been collecting art pieces

all over Europe for years,

and this boy, Walter Paisley, has got it.

I want to buy his first work.

And to make very sure that I get it,

I'll pay you $500.

$500 for the cat and the first look at his next stuff.

-Someone has the cat just now,

but I'll have him back in a few days.

And you can have it for the $500.

-Oh, thank you, sir.

I think I've made a bargain.

Call me when you're ready. Good night.

-♪ He walked behind and he saw the sign ♪

-Leonard?

You feel better?

Listen, I'm going over to Walter's later,

after the place closes, to see "Murdered Man."

You feel up to coming along?

-♪ The rope was fixed around his neck ♪

♪ And a washer behind his ear ♪

♪ And the prison bell was tolling ♪

♪ But Tim Evans didn't hear ♪

♪ Saying "Go down" ♪

♪ "You murderer, go down" ♪

[Ominous music plays]

♪

-Look at the size of it!

-Well, it's not really that big. I got it on a kind of a stand.

-Well, let's see it.

-I'm a little nervous. I never did a person before.

-You can do anything if you set your mind to it.

-It's hot in here.

-You want me to open a window?

-Oh, come on, Walter, take off the sheet.

♪

-Don't you like it?

♪

-Walter, it's a masterpiece.

I've never seen anything like it before.

And I hope I never see anything like it again.

-Neither do I.

-It's hideous and it's eloquent.

It expresses modern man and all his self-pity.

How did you ever find that in yourself, Walter?

-Well, it -- it wasn't easy.

[Tap] -What's the matter with you?

-Nothing. Nothing at all.

-I've never seen anyone so squeamish.

What's your opinion, Leonard?

-Don't ask me. -Oh, come on.

Now, even you must see its value.

Do you think that you or I could have conceived of such a thing,

much less executed it?

Well, then admit it. It's a work of genius.

-I admit it.

-Then let's take it down to The Yellow Door.

-No. -Why not?

-I'll tell you.

But, you, cover it up again, please, huh?

Please.

♪

Thank you. -What is all this nonsense?

Why do you want to hide it?

-Well...

I've been thinking.

I-I-I didn't realize how much talent Walter actually had.

It would be wrong to show his pieces one at a time.

Dead wrong.

-You're right.

He should build a collection first.

-Yes, that's the idea.

Maybe when it's big enough, we can have a show.

-A show? Just for me?

-No! Well, not exactly.

I mean, you take years and years...

It's getting hot again.

Well, it would take you years to make that many statues,

but your work would be featured.

-It's a wonderful idea, Walter.

It's the only way to gain recognition.

All the big art critics and art dealers will be there.

It'll be an event. -Yes, then we can unload.

We can sell this stuff for a lot more.

-But the show -- how soon can we go?

-Don't rush things. It takes time.

But first of all, you've got to stop

making these horrible statues.

Carla and I will guide you.

Maybe you can turn to free form. -Free form?

-Well, that's the movement today.

-With his talent for realism?

-But you can see the direction his realism takes.

It's unhealthy. -B-But you said I was a genius.

I don't want to be a busboy anymore.

-Yes, maybe you got a point there.

You shouldn't keep working at The Yellow Door.

Look, I'm sure that man is going to buy your dead cat.

So here -- here's your fee in advance.

$50. And if you need more,

I've got it, so don't worry.

I've got great faith in you, Walter.

-Gee, $50 for something I made.

-Now you're a professional.

-Let's go.

-Okay.

Good night, Walter.

Keep up the good work. -Yeah, but don't rush things.

You got all the time in the world.

Come on, Carla.

-Good night.

♪

Whoo-hoo!

-Did you holler, Walter?

-I'm an artist, Mrs. Swickert!

-Yeah? Oh, sure you are, Walter.

-I am.

Look.

♪

-Good heaven.

♪

-[Singing in Spanish]

♪

♪

-One of the greatest advances in modern poetry

is the elimination of clarity.

I am proud to say my poetry is only understood

by that minority which is aware.

-Aware of what?

-Well, not of anything stupid, just aware.

-Man, this place is beginning to feel like a lineup.

-Yeah, baby.

If it don't cool off pretty soon,

I'm going to haunt somebody else's joint.

-We may have to start drinking.

-[Singing continues]

♪

-Yes, man. Yes.

Yes. That's my man. Yeah.

[Applause]

Yes, man, yes.

-Good evening, Walter. -Good evening, Carla.

Sylvia, didn't you see me wave my Zen stick?

-Why, it's Walter Paisley.

-Bring me a cappuccino and a piece of papaya cheesecake.

A-And a bottle of Yugoslavian white wine.

-Yes, sir, Mr. Paisley.

-Good evening, Walter. -Maxwell, how have you been?

-I see the rewards of achievement have come your way.

-Well, after all, I'm a successful sculptor now.

-Indeed.

-Hey, man, dig Walter the wigger.

-He's coming out like he just cured cancer.

-Let us make the scene.

-Crazy.

-I was just suggesting to Walter

that he try his hand at free form.

-Why do you suggest anything to Walter?

-Are you the spokesman for society

come to put your stifling finger in his eye?

-Good evening, gentlemen.

-Oh, now, who invited these two down

from the clouds?

-Maxwell! Yoo-hoo!

-Clear the table, bring a bowl. I may be sick.

-It's Alice, the awful, come to spread cheer and color.

-Look at my suntan, everybody.

-Do we have to? -Where have you been, Alice?

-I went up to Big Sur to look for Henry Miller.

-You didn't find him, I hope.

-No. He's in Europe. -Good.

-Why is the busboy sitting here?

-I'm not the busboy anymore.

-That's right. Walter has become a sculptor.

-Oh, really?

I'm a model, you know.

I only charge $25 an hour.

Would you like to do me?

-I just might. -Never mind that.

Walter is going to try free form.

-There you go again.

I may take my business to The Sorrel Sewer.

-As a matter of fact, I was going to suggest to Walter

that he try a female figure

as a change from the violent death theme.

You really should, Walter.

You know what?

If you like, I'll be your model for free.

-I couldn't. Not you.

-Man, if you're going to be an artist,

you've got to do nudes, nudes.

-Right, right, right.

Ain't nobody an artist unless he does nudes.

-Will you get them out of here before we wind up

in night court?

-Oh, let's change the subject.

I'm sick of hearing about sculpture.

Nobody knows how to do that anymore.

Much less the busboy from The Yellow Door.

-Wh-Who do you think you're talking about?

-Don't shout at me.

-I don't like you. -[Laughs]

Nobody asked for your opinion, Walter.

You're just a simple little farm boy,

and the rest of us are all sophisticated beatniks.

-That's all, man.

Let's split.

-Yeah, man.

I gotta make me some air.

-See, you -- you made them leave.

-What did I do?

-The first beneficial service of your benighted life.

It proves we're all good for something.

-Are you saying that this busboy is better than I?

-Yes.

-I think this whole bit about him being a sculptor

is just a big put-on for my benefit.

-That's not true. I am a sculptor.

-Oh, yeah?

Prove it. Make something out of this.

-There. Hand.

-[Laughs] -That isn't a real hand.

If you were a sculptor, you'd create something for me.

-[Laughing] A harpoon would be very nice.

-I'm going home.

-Alice?

You're obnoxious.

-But he's such an idiot.

[Ominous music plays]

♪

♪

♪

♪

Yes? What are you doing here?

-I wanted to apologize for being nasty

to you this evening.

-So you're apologized. Good night.

[Door slams]

[Knocks on door]

Listen, twerp, why don't you get out of here

and let me go to bed?

-I didn't finish talking to you.

I decided to make that female figure after all.

-Oh?

-And I'd like you to pose for it.

-Remember what I said about my price?

-$25 an hour.

-If you want to pay it, I don't mind posing.

When do you want to start work?

-Tonight.

-You mean right now? -Uh-huh.

-Wait till I get my sweater.

♪

♪

[Door closes]

♪

♪

Could use a little more heat around this place.

-It's bad for the clay.

You'll get used to it.

♪

-Well, I'm almost ready.

♪

-Here.

Sit in this chair, and I'll pose you.

♪

♪

-Kind of rickety.

How's this pose?

-Well, that's fine. That's very good.

Just stay like that.

-That doesn't look like very much clay.

-Oh, it's enough.

Put this around your neck.

♪

♪

[Gasps]

♪

-Watch it. The plate's hot.

-Are these fertile eggs?

-Are these eggs fertile? Naturally.

-What did you fry them in?

-We ran out of the safflower-seed oil,

but I found a bottle of peanut oil on the shelf.

Don't worry.

It's not hydrogenated. [Doorbell rings]

-Is that the cold-pressed stuff or the junk

Hilda bought by mistake?

-Yes, man, yes.

-Hi. -Good morning. Walter.

-Hi, Walter. What brings you here?

-Have some breakfast, man. -What are you having?

-Soy-and-wheat-germ pancakes, organic guava nectar,

calcium lactate and tomato juice,

and garbanzo omelets sprinkled with smoked yeast.

Join us? -No, thanks.

Sounds great, though.

I brought something to show you.

Could I have some of the guys help me?

-Is it "Murdered Man"? -It's better.

-Come on.

-Boris.

Put it in the middle of the room.

-When did you do this, Walter?

-Last night. It doesn't take me very long.

-I should say not.

-Well, let's see it, man.

♪

♪

-Walter, I can't believe it.

-I'm honored to know this man.

-Do you think it's nice?

-Hey, she's beautiful.

-Do you think it's nicer than "Murdered Man"?

-Oh, I don't know, Walter. It's impossible to choose.

They're both great.

-Walter, I'm deeply moved.

To show my appreciation, I'm going to give a party

tonight at The Yellow Door in your honor.

And I shall compose a poem.

♪

[Indistinct conversations, laughter]

-Some more champagne, Your Majesty?

-Hear, hear. -Where, where?

-There, there.

That's fine.

After this, can I have another little kiss?

-Walter. You're a lech.

-I am? -[Laughs]

-Here we go.

[Applause]

-Hola, hola.

Walter.

The bird that flies now pays later

through the nose of ambidextrous apathy.

Necrophiles may dance upon the place mats

in an orgy of togetherness.

The highway of life cuts sharply through the shady ghettos

and the ivy-covered tombs,

and laughter rings from every time capsule

in the star-spangled firmament.

And in the deep freeze, it is the children's hour,

and no one knows that Duncan is murdered,

and no one knows that Walter Paisley is born.

Duncan knows,

Tuesday sunrise knows,

alley cats and garbage cans

and steaming pavements.

And you and I

and the nude descending the staircase.

And all such things with souls.

We know that Walter Paisley is born.

Ring rubber bells, beat cotton gongs,

strike silken cymbals,

play leathern flutes.

The cats and cans, and you and I,

and all such things with souls, we shall hear,

"Walter Paisley is born!"

And the souls become flesh.

Walter Paisley is born!

[Cheers and applause]

-Marvelous, darling. Marvelous.

-Man, like, that was the greatest gas I ever heard.

-Crazy, what did he say?

-Didn't you hear him? -No, man. I'm too far out.

♪

-Maxwell, that was magnificent.

-I feel so elevated.

-Walter deserved every word of it.

-It makes me so glad I'm aware.

-Did you hear what he said?

-Yes, Walter.

-All about me.

It's true, isn't it?

-Every word.

-You'd better hold off on the bubbly, artist.

-Yeah? Why?

-You might talk too much.

-What would I say?

-Most anything, I expect.

-Are you two trying to ignore the rest of us?

-Oh, not me, Maxwell.

I wouldn't ignore you.

I know what it is to be ignored.

-Tell us what you're going to do next, Walter.

-I'm going to make the most wonderful, wildest,

wiggiest things you've ever seen.

I'm going to make big statues and little statues,

tall statues and short statues.

I'm going to make statues of nobodies

and statues of famous people.

Statues of actors

and -- and poets

and people who sell things on television.

And a statue of the mayor

and some opera singers and their intimate friends.

And everybody will say, "Walter, let me shake your hand.

It's been a real pleasure to have known you."

[Applause] -Hear, hear!

Alley cats and garbage cans.

They know that Walter Paisley is born.

Ring rubber bells, beat cotton gongs,

strike silken cymbals.

Play leather flutes. [Chuckles]

"Tell us what you're gonna do next, Walter."

I'm going to make big statue, little statue,

movie stars and poets

and guys who sell things on television.

And the mayor and some opera singers.

"Whatcha going to do next, Walter?"

♪

What am I gonna do next?

♪

What am I gonna do next?

♪

I gotta do something before they forget.

♪

I know what it's like to be ignored.

♪

♪

-Who are you? What do you want?

-Life is an obscure hobo

bumming a ride on the omnibus of art.

-Huh? What'd you say?

What is not creation is graham crackers.

Let them all crumble to feed the creator.

-Eh, beat it. You must be nuts.

♪

♪

No! No!

No! No! No! No!

[Screams]

[Saw whirring]

[Cheers and applause]

-Yeah!

-Whoo!

-Alright. [Laughs]

Alright, well, if you're a Roger Corman devotee,

then you've noticed by now that "A Bucket of Blood"

has an enormous resemblance to "Little Shop of Horrors",

the movie that Corman would make a few weeks later,

the movie that would become

an off-Broadway musical in the 80s,

the movie that would play on late night TV for decades,

the movie that would become a big budget

remake starring Rick Moranis

and actually, "The Little Shop of Horrors"

is the only Roger Corman movie

that's on the National Film Registry

for being a work of great cultural significance.

So...

-Oh, I love "Little Shop of Horrors".

-I know. You love the remake one with Rick Moranis

because you love Rick Moranis. -Yes, I do.

-All right, well, the people involved

in the original "Little Shop" hated the remake.

Not for any artistic reason,

but because once the big budget version came out,

they stopped showing that black and white one on late night TV.

So -- But anyway,

the reason they're almost identical in structure

is that Charles B. Griffith had a habit

of making identically structured movies.

Structure is everything in screenwriting,

and the most notorious example

is a film he wrote called "Naked Paradise"

that he wrote for Corman in 1957.

And the same structure

that he used in that movie became

Monte Hellman's "Beast from Haunted Cave" in 1960.

It became Roger Corman's "Atlas" in 1961.

It became Roger Corman's "Creature from the Haunted Sea",

also in 1961.

But what's strange about the story that morphed

from "Bucket of Blood" to :Little Shop of Horrors"

is that "Bucket of Blood", in my opinion,

is a far superior film to "Little Shop of Horrors".

And so why isn't "Bucket of Blood"

on the National Film Registry?

Why isn't "Bucket of Blood" a popular musical?

Maybe we can ask Roger

when he gets out here in just a minute.

But in the meantime,

this movie is hurtling toward its conclusion,

with Walter Paisley holding court

with a so-called Zen stick --

What's a Zen stick? -- and a plunger as a staff,

and a goofy crown that's reminiscent of the fool

in a Shakespeare play pretending to be king.

And so the inevitable downfall can't be that far away, can it?

Let's watch the brilliant conclusion of

"A Bucket of Blood".

And in the meantime, Darcy will be moving amongst you,

gathering your questions and your comments

for our realtime mailbag that we'll be doing later.

-Oh, I will not be moving amongst them.

[Laughs]

We have a mailbag somewhere

at the front of the stage.

-We have a mailbag up here? -Somewhere. Right?

-Excellent. I thought it'd be more fun

if you were moving amongst the multitudes with the mailbag,

and they were, like, putting the mail in the bag.

-I will not be moving amongst the multitudes tonight.

-Okay. Just would have been more dramatic

if you were moving amongst the multitudes.

But -- All right, back to the movie.

-Perhaps youshould move amongst the multitudes.

-Well, all right, I just might do that.

I might go out to collect the mail,

but -- because we --

Look, we have a beautiful Nevada night, right?

We couldn't ask for better weather.

There's an air of anticipation

because Roger Corman is waiting in the wings, and...

-We have no wings.

-Well, Roger Corman is waiting in the car, so life is good.

-Do you have your questions ready for Roger?

-Well, unfortunately,

I've already asked him all my questions

the previous four or five times he's been on my various shows.

So I'm going to have to dig deep tonight for something new.

-I feel like you should've have done that in advance.

-Well, I'm going to go with spontaneity.

We're going with spontaneous tonight with Roger.

-All right, I will prepare to defend you on social media.

-What do you mean? What are you talking about?

-Whenever you say something off the top of your head,

you make everyone mad, and I defend you.

-Thank you, Darcy, for...

-You're welcome. It's what I do.

-You act like it's a regular thing, that I.

-[Clears throat] No comment.

[Cheers and applause]

-Hello, Leonard. Beautiful morning, isn't it?

-Was.

What's that you got in the box?

-Just wait till you see this.

-Extra, extra! Horrible murder in furniture factory!

Read about the man who got cut in half!

Extra, extra!

Police can only find part of him.

-Leonard.

-Read all about it!

What's the matter, Leonard?

-You made a bust?

-Yeah, isn't it wonderful?

-What's the matter, Leonard?

-Put it down, Walter, please.

Walter.

Walter, listen to me carefully.

I don't want you to make any more statues.

Do you understand? No more statues.

-Why not? I gotta make statues, Leonard.

You heard Brock, they want me to make them.

And if I stop making them, I'll just be a busboy again.

-Brock. He's behind all of this with his stupid, bitter poetry.

Listen, you've got to stop, and right away.

I'm beginning to feel responsible.

-Why? What did you do?

-Never mind.

Walter, I've decided to have that show for you right away.

-[Gasps]

-Yes, when Carla comes,

we'll have her work up some nice invitations.

We'll have them printed up.

We'll invite the critics and the art collectors.

We'll tell them.

-Well, I don't see why we can't go.

-Mr. Leonard de Santis is afraid to have you come.

You will buy his coffee and lure his tourists.

You are the heart and soul and meat of The Yellow Door.

He slighted you.

-Did you get an invitation?

-I did not, but I'm going anyway.

Not to drink his champagne, but to see Walter's triumph.

After that, we go no more.

-Hi, Maxwell.

-I won't say good luck, Walter. -Why not?

-It would imply you could not succeed

on your ability alone.

♪

-You look so handsome.

-I do?

So do you. -[Chuckles]

-I mean, you look so pretty.

-Thank you. -Are you ready?

-Oh, we've got plenty of time.

-I know, but I-I wanted to talk to you.

-Okay, we can go now, if you like.

Bye.

-Later, man. Later. -Swing.

-Man, why do you suppose Walter wants to get her alone?

-Do you suppose he could be physically attracted to her?

-No, man. He ain't the type. He don't get enough vitamin E.

-Maxwell gave him a bottle of wheat-germ oil once.

Maybe he just started taking it.

-What did you want to talk to me about, Walter?

-Well...

what kind of people do you like, Carla?

-Oh. Thinking people.

Artistic people, I guess.

-You think I'm artistic? -Of course I do.

-That means you like me.

-I like you very much, Walter.

-I thought you did on account of

how you kissed me the other night.

-Oh, that was for your sculpture of the girl,

your nude in the chair.

-Carla, I-I've been alone for a long time,

and I know you've been alone,

because you never seem to go out with anybody,

even though Leonard's always asking you to go out with him.

And I just...

-What are you trying to say?

-Carla, I-I don't want to make statues anymore.

I want to get married -- to you.

-How long have you been thinking about this, Walter?

-Oh, for -- for a long time.

Ever since you first came to work at the club.

You were the only one who was ever nice to me.

I didn't know you loved me until you kissed me.

-Walter, I do like you, and I did kiss you,

but that was because of your work.

There's more to being in love with someone than just that.

-You mean you don't love me?

-I'm afraid that's what I mean.

-But -- But you got to love me.

W-Why do you think I made that statue of Alice?

-Walter, I'm sorry, but I --

-You just can't be sorry. I want to marry you.

-Now, calm down, Walter, and let's go in there.

And -- And then maybe when the show's over,

we can talk about it some more.

-Well, I don't want to talk about it.

I get it.

I see the whole thing now.

Nobody knows that Walter Paisley is born.

Carla...

will you do one favor for me?

-Just about anything, Walter.

-Would you let me make a statue of you?

-Would you really like to?

That'd make me very happy.

-Okay. Tonight.

I'll make a statue of you tonight. Okay?

-Come on.

[Jazz music playing, indistinct conversations]

-Walter?

-No, thanks.

-This could bring about a return to realism.

-Yes. A one-man return.

We have many artists about, but no craftsmen.

This man knows his anatomy.

-I'll give $1,500 for this.

-After you read my review, it'll probably cost you $5,000.

[Both laugh]

-So, what's the trouble?

Why should you be so depressed?

Have you heard the things they're saying?

You can make $25,000 on these pieces alone.

-I thought you put money down.

-I do, but 25-thou?

-Oh, leave me alone.

-Out!

-Man, we have come to make this scene.

-How about some cappuccino, man? We got the bread.

-We're not open for business. This is an art exhibit.

No bums. Get out. -That art is a bum, man.

-And he's sober. -Yeah, well, that's his problem.

-Alright, man. Alright. We'll wait outside.

-Yeah, you wait outside, huh?

♪

♪

-Where are you going, Carla? What's the matter?

-Walter, there's a body inside that statue.

-Oh. Oh, that's Alice.

It's all right, Carla.

Maxwell says it's all right.

Let them become clay in his hands that he might mold them.

-Walter, you stay away from me.

-Don't you see, Carla? I made them immortal.

Don't you see? I can do the same for you.

♪

♪

♪

-[Screams]

[Screaming]

♪

-Call Valdez, have him send some cars.

I'm going up to Paisley's -I'm going with you.

-Hey, man, what is the score?

-Walter Paisley's a murderer. -Wow, man.

I saw him chasing Carla down the street.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-Walter.

-What was that?

Nobody knows I'm here.

-Walter.

-No. They couldn't know.

They're dead.

No. How could they know?

-Did you see him?

-He's hiding around here someplace.

-He can't hide just because we're in clay and he isn't.

♪

-Walter will go home.

-He won't know where else to go.

-Walter will go home.

-Where is he?

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Cat screeches]

♪

♪

♪

-What's the matter with you?

-Walter.

Walter.

-We'll find him.

-We'll have him soon, Lou.

-We'll teach him he can't murder us

and get away with it, won't we?

-Walter.

Walter.

Whatcha gonna do now, Walter?

-I'll -- I'll hide where they'll never find me.

♪

♪

-There's his room! He's -- He's gone crazy!

-Paisley! Paisley, open up!

Paisley!

♪

♪

-I suppose he would have called it "Hanging Man."

His greatest work.

♪

[Cheers and applause]

-All right. Ladies and gentlemen,

film producing partners for the last 53 years,

Roger and Julie Corman.

[Cheers and applause]

-♪ Hello, Roger, hello, Roger Corman ♪

♪ Hello, Julie, hello, Julie Corman ♪

♪ Thank you for coming on "The Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ Your movies are the best and everybody knows ♪

♪ We love you, we love you ♪

Come on. ♪ We love you ♪

-♪ We love you, we love you ♪

[Cheers and applause]

-I think you got that riff from "Rock All Night", right?

-Don't tell anybody. -Okay. [Laughs]

All right, Roger, I'm going to assume that

in the final shot of "Bucket of Blood",

Walter Paisley was just too inept

to completely cover himself with sculptor's clay,

and so the final shot

was not the result of having too little sculptor's clay

or too little time.

-Right. No, that was planned.

That was set up in advance.

-Oh, okay.

Well, welcome to the only film festival

that celebrates the drive-in movie

and the drive-in moviegoers of America and the world.

And you may remember this, but 40 years ago,

at the Gemini Drive-In in Dallas,

we stood together on the roof of the concession stand

And I gave you a lifetime achievement award

engraved on a Chevy hubcap. Do you remember that?

-I remember it. I still have the hubcap.

-Okay.

So, what you should probably get tonight

for your more-than-a-lifetime achievement award

is an engraved Lamborghini hubcap,

or maybe an engraved Ferrari hubcap.

But we don't recognize foreign cars at American drive-ins.

So the best we can do is an engraved Cadillac hubcap,

which -- Darcy, bring the Cadillac hubcap,

because if you rolled up to a drive-in

in a Cadillac in the '50s, '60s, or '70s,

you were probably showing up for the Roger Corman movie.

-Oh. Oh, that's great.

Great.

I love it. -Yeah.

And actually, we have one for you, too, Julie,

because you're a producer in your own right.

You deserve your own Academy Award,

your drive-in Academy Award.

And in fact, Roger,

you were the man who brought Ingmar Bergman to the drive-in.

So that's definitely kind of a Cadillac sort of billing.

-Yes. Right.

-How did that happen?

-Well, what happened was we were distributing

Bergman's film "Cries and Whispers",

and on a film like that, you open it

in New York and Los Angeles, and then you play college towns.

For instance, if you're going to play San Francisco,

you also play Berkeley and Palo Alto.

-Okay.

-So we had played all of these places,

and I knew that drive-ins in the fall

had trouble getting pictures because the weather was turning,

the kids were going back to school.

The major studios didn't want to give them a picture.

And we had all of these prints left over

from "Cries and Whispers".

So I said, "Why not put 'Cries and Whispers' in a drive-in

and see what happens?"

-And what happened?

-We were delighted to find we had done average business.

[Laughter]

-All right.

-So one of my favorite stories

about how Roger distributed films all over the map

was someone sent us a picture of a double bill

at a drive-in outside of Nashville,

and it was Jonathan Demme's women in cages

and Ingmar Bergman's "Cries and Whispers".

[Laughter, applause]

-The two extremes of Roger Corman's career.

All right, I want to take you back to 1953

and a movie called "Highway Dragnet",

which opens with a montage of all the neon on Fremont Street.

And this was your first film as writer and associate producer,

and it's not one of the expected Roger Corman genres.

It's a film noir. How did that come about?

-I had written this script,

which I called "The House in the Sea",

and I sold it to, I think, Bill Broidy, a producer,

and he changed the name on --

which I didn't think was good -- to "Highway Dragnet"

because Dragnet was popular.

And I told him I would work for nothing if I could come along

and be his assistant on that picture.

And from what I learned on that, I started producing.

I produced a couple of films,

and then I thought --

I was seeing what the directors were doing,

and I thought, "I can do that."

So on the next one, I became a director,

and the picture was successful.

And also, already, I was working as a director

and never stopped.

-Oh, well, all right.

We're calling tonight's program,

"Roger Corman's First 70 Years in Hollywood".

And I want to do something that we haven't done before, Roger.

I want to go through your 70 years

in about seven minutes. -Okay.

That could be done. -Okay.

And I want to do it in the following way,

because I believe -- if I'm not mistaken,

I believe you may be not only the producer-director

with the longest tenure in Hollywood --

I mean, there have been some actors

who started as child actors

who have almost an equal tenure --

but you're also the only filmmaker

who has worked in every genre,

because I was trying to think of a genre

that you somehow missed.

I thought maybe love story was the genre you missed,

and then I found,

no, you made a love story movie.

So during your 700 film career --

and by the way, your name is definitely on 700 films.

I see 500 as the most common number attributed to you,

but any explanation for the world

not knowing how many films you've made?

-Because I don't remember myself.

-[Laughs] Okay, well, let me put it this way.

There are two people in the world

who have watched all 700 of your films --

you and me.

Okay.

-And you lived through it.

-I did. And so I'm going to go through your career,

and I'm just going to list the genre

that you specialized in at various times,

and you tell me -- I want you to tell me

whether you have fond memories of that genre,

whether you have bad memories of that period,

and what you really think of that genre.

Do you love that genre? So, you have the concept?

-Yes. -Okay.

So you started with Westerns.

The first one I think was "Five Guns West".

Do you love Westerns?

-It wasn't that I loved them.

It was that they were very popular and salable.

So my first film as a director was "Five Guns West".

-Okay. And I remember in "Five Guns West",

you have a character say, "We're going to go across vast,

dangerous Indian territory,

and we have to be exceedingly careful."

And then I believe you had one Indian

who jumped off of a rock.

Is that right? -Yes.

-And and I think the Indian doubled

as one of the intrepid cowboys.

-Yes. -That's right.

-Actually, I made four Westerns,

and I can give you the titles

and you'll think of the season of the thing.

I made "Gunslinger"" -- which I picked --

"Gunslinger" and "Give Guns West".

Jim Nicholson picked "Oklahoma Woman" and "Apache Woman".

-Okay. [Laughs] All right.

The next one -- you made a movie called "Swamp Women",

which started a genre called redneck action movies.

And my question --

which you made a lot of in the '70s, by the way.

And so my question would be, do you love the South?

-I tolerated the South.

[Laughter]

-Because I would say you made more movies about --

both as a producer and a director,

more movies about -- "Nashville Girl" and "Eat My Dust"

and movies like this all set in the South.

And so we wondered, you know,

why was Roger in the South for so long?

-It was a territory that was immediately identified

as being different from the rest of the country.

-Okay.

-But don't forget, he put his life on the line

with "The Intruder" in Arkansas.

-Right.

"The Intruder", which I should tell you this, Roger,

I mean, you I've interviewed you a couple of times,

and you've always said that "The Intruder"

was the only movie you ever made that didn't make money.

But in the year 2012, it actually went into the black.

Now, I realize that didn't

go into your pocket, you know?

So maybe you still consider it a loser,

but it actually did eventually make money.

-We did, because that was Bill Shatner

and I did something for DVD or something,

and the money on that finally broke us even.

-Oh, so you did get the money.

That's great. All right.

Science fiction monster movies.

It conquered the world.

I think was your first one as a director.

-Yeah. -And an affection for sci-fi?

A special affection for sci-fi?

-Yeah. I've always liked sci-fi

because sci-fi is laid in fantastic areas,

but, to a large extent, it can be a comment

on the present day through science fiction.

-And I think you were --

actually, I think you were the last major filmmaker

who was doing relatively low budget science fiction

once outer space became a high budget type of genre,

but well into the '80s, you were still doing

fairly low budget sci-fi films.

-Yeah. Except I had two Russian science fiction pictures

that I bought that were huge pictures.

Science fiction was a big thing in Russia,

and I went to Moscow

and bought two

of their biggest science fiction pictures,

and then this is where Francis Coppola came in.

He had just graduated from the UCLA film school,

and I said, "Francis, your job is to translate

and recut these films to make them in English."

And he did a great job.

-And so you disguised the Russian pictures

as American pictures? -Yes, yes.

We made a Russ--

I guess we won the Cold War, but at least we won that.

-[Laughs] Okay.

-But, Roger, didn't you tell me

that the first thing you wrote was a science fiction story,

when you were young?

-Yes, I wrote a science fiction story,

but it didn't sell, so...

-Okay. Well, when I first met you in the '80s,

you had just finished "Mutant",

which became "Forbidden World", and the reason I remember it is

that the mutant had been cast aside

and was, like, moldering in a corner

of the New World studios,

but "Forbidden World" is actually

a very underappreciated movie.

Over the years, people have discovered it,

and it's become a fairly well known cult movie.

Film noir thrillers like "Naked Paradise".

-I always liked film noir,

and I made them simply because I liked that genre.

-So that is one that you did

out of your personal preferences.

-I'm a great admirer of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

-All right. And I've got to say,

you're probably a great admirer of James M. Cain as well,

because I think a lot of those erotic thrillers

were various versions of James M. Cain novels.

-I should have included him. Yeah.

-Okay. rock 'n' roll musicals.

"Rock All Night", I think, was the first one.

What are your real tastes in music?

-Actually, I liked early rock 'n' roll.

I thought early rock 'n' roll, with Elvis and so forth,

I thought they were great.

-Yeah. Okay.

And historical action movies.

I mean, the one that comes to mind immediately

is -- I always loved this title --

"The Saga of the Viking Women

and their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent".

But you would make a certain type of movie

that was a female action movie,

plus monsters, plus bikinis, right?

All your genres together.

-We put it all together. -[Laughs]

But you liked those period --

Even though they required expensive --

Well, I guess the costumes weren't expensive, were they?

-Well, what happened was Jack Raymond,

who was a special effects man,

came up with this idea that he would do special effects

and we'd make this huge picture.

The special effects were terrible, so...

But we made it anyway.

-So you made money anyway.

Now you did straight from the headlines

exploitation movies,

but the most famous one probably being "War of the Satellite"..

Did you do that often,

take a big story from the newspapers

and turn it into a movie?

-Yes. The head of Allied Artists,

when the satellite went up, I said to him,

"If you give me the money,

I can have a satellite picture in 90 days."

And he gave me the money,

and I made "War of the Satellites".

-And it was a big hit. -Yeah.

-All right.

I noticed there were three screenwriters on it.

You were carefully shepherding that script, right?

-Yes. Right. -All right.

Gangster films. "Machine-Gun Kelly". Great film.

You made Charles Bronson's career with that film.

-Actually, it was -- Strangely enough, I did.

It was a 10-day picture that I think I made for about $60,000.

It had got very good reviews in the United States,

but when it showed in France,

the French Nouvelle Vague critics and directors

acclaimed the film

and they hired an Italian company,

hired Charlie to come over and play the lead,

and he built his whole career overseas before he came --

He became a star overseas

before he came back to the United States.

-That's great. They always loved you in France, right?

Even from the earliest movies. -Right.

-They just honored Roger

at the Cannes Festival closing night.

[Cheers and applause]

-Yeah. It was very, very exciting.

Until now, one of the most exciting things

that happened in Roger's career, in my view.

So what happened was he was told

that he was giving an award to the first time director,

and then a surprise happened as he came out on stage.

But just before Quentin Tarantino came out and said,

"Ladies and gentlemen --"

You know how Quentin can be, right?

-[Laughs]

-"I am here to introduce the man who's filled my eyes,

my lust, my treasuring of films for decades,"

and on like that for a while, "Roger."

And all the while -- I don't know how many films.

I think Roger claims 400. I've seen 500.

This is the first time I've heard 700.

But all of the posters were scrolling

on the back of the stage

at the closing night film festival,

and Roger was honored that way.

-That's wonderful.

[Cheers and applause]

And then starting with the movie that we just saw, this is --

to me, this is your most interesting period.

With the movie we just saw, "Bucket of Blood',

movies that were sort of your own comedy genres,

"A Bucket of Blood", "Little Shop of Horrors" --

it's almost like they were larks or experiments.

-They were. Chuck Griffith, the writer,

and I, on the first one, which is "A Bucket of Blood",

we drifted around all the coffeehouses one night

along Sunset Boulevard,

and then based the script on that,

and it turned out very well.

And then the same thing for "Little Shop of Horrors".

-Right.

Well, it's a remarkably accurate depiction

of the beatnik coffeehouses of the day.

-Yeah.

-Then you had some pure action movies.

"Ski Troop Attack" was one of the early ones.

Just action, action, action, action, action in every scene.

-Yes. "Ski Troop Attack"

we shot in South Dakota, and we had --

we were supposed to have -- there was a German,

a former German ski trooper who was going to play the lead,

and he said he was injured and couldn't play the lead,

and I thought, "I'm stuck up here

and I've got to shoot in a few days."

I thought, "I don't know what to do."

I thought, "Okay, I'll play the lead."

The only problem is I couldn't ski,

and I was skiing all over the place,

so I almost killed myself on that picture.

-You brought back costume drama

when you started doing your Edgar Allan Poe films.

Costume drama was dead. -Yeah.

-And I know Vincent Price always gave you credit

for bringing back

upper class accents and costumes

because he said his career might not have survived

if that had not happened.

But "House of Usher", I guess, was the first one,

and all of your Poe movies.

Now, you did have a special affection for those, didn't you?

-Yes. Very much.

AIP wanted me to make some picture --

I've forgotten what it was -- and I said, "I'd rather make --

I want to make 'The Fall of the House of Usher'."

And I remember Sam Arkoff said,

"But there's no monster

in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'."

He knew the story. And I thought,

"Oh, how do I answer this?"

I said, "Sam, the house is the monster."

And he said, "Okay, you can make it."

-All right, that's great.

All right, now then you went through a period

of what I call the Roger Corman art film period,

meaning movies that don't really resolve in a traditional way,

like "The Wild Angels", like "The Trip".

You sort of merged the exploitation

and the art film world

in the mid '60s

in what I think is a really interesting period.

How did that happen?

-What happened was this. I had been cheated

a couple of times on distribution,

on some of the more successful films,

and it turned out that Ingmar Bergman felt

he had been cheated by Svensk Filmindustri also.

So he did show that a great artist

can be a great businessman.

He made -- I think it was "Cries and Whispers".

I'm not certain. He made it himself,

and what he said was, "I will give this picture

to every distributor in each country

who will give me an advance of what the film cost me

so that I will break even,

and then I will split with him on the profits."

And I immediately took that offer

and took "Cries and Whispers",

and "Cries and Whispers", of course,

was a giant success.

-Yes, but you were also making your own art films

like "The Trip" and "The Wild Angels".

-Yes. That was after I had done the Poe pictures

and I said -- they wanted me to do another one,

and I said, "I've done so many of these.

I'm repeating myself. I want to get out of the studio

and I want to get into the streets

and just shoot what's going on."

And they said, "What do you want to shoot?"

And I said, "I want to make a picture about the Hells Angels."

And I did.

And the picture was an incredible success.

And they cheated me again on that.

But it was such a big success,

they wanted me to make another one.

And I said, "Why would I make another one

when you cheated me on the last one?"

They said, "We will settle with you on the last one

and give you a percentage on the new one."

So I made "The Trip", which is about LSD.

It was again a giant success, and they cheated me again.

-Oh, no.

Oh wow. That's terrible.

But we love those films.

We're going to show them later tonight.

When you and Julie,

joined together later on New World Pictures in the 1970s,

you started defining all kinds of new genres as a producer.

Women in prison movies. -Yes.

-Whatever genre --

"The Student Nurses" and "The Student Teachers" movies.

What is that genre? That's feminist exploitation,

is what I would call that, you know?

And didn't you make several of those yourself, Julie?

-I did. I did. In fact, my favorite line out of any movie

was from "The Student Teachers",

and the line is the girls saying to the coach,

"I don't want to watch. I want to play."

-[Laughs]

And back to the redneck action movie

and when Burt Reynolds was such a big star.

You were making all kinds of redneck action movies

in the South.

The slumber party movie, the erotic thriller.

You were back to monsters with things like "Carnosaur".

If I'm not mistaken,

you had the first sword and sorcery movie in the '80s,

even before Conan came out.

Is that right? -Yeah. "Deathstalker".

-Oh, "Deathstalker". Well, yes,

and we love "Deathstalker".

We're going to show it in just a minute.

And throughout all these years of --

Throughout all these years of writing through the genres,

did you ever have a favorite genre

or a favorite movie or a favorite filmmaker?

-If I had a favorite genre, it might be science fiction.

-That's not surprising.

Did you ever have a favorite --

Is there one movie

that comes back to you as being full of good memories

and good feelings,

where they didn't cheat you?

-Uh...

"Grand Theft Auto",

which was Ron Howard's first film as the director.

He did a wonderful, wonderful job,

and I remember he wanted more extras on one scene,

and I said, "Ron, I can't give you more extras,

but if you do a good job on this,

you will never work for me again."

[Laughter]

-And that came true, right? -Right.

-All right. -But I worked for him.

-[Laughs]

Well, the reason I mentioned art films is

I think your most creative period --

I guess I would call it your auteur period --

came in the '60s with "The Trip",

which we'll be screening here later tonight,

and to make the trip, you took LSD,

in the company, I think, of most of the cast of "The Trip".

Didn't they join you in Big Sur?

-Yes. They they felt that

if I could try it, they could try it.

The trouble is I just laid down in the dirt

and went into this LSD dream, and I remember --

One thing I still remember, though --

I saw a clipper ship sailing towards me

out of the gold background,

and as it changed, the clipper ship became women,

and the women opened their arms to me in that trip.

It was a wonderful trip.

The problem was when we made the picture,

because it was partially written

and partially improvised, and all these guys here,

and I was saying, "I had such a great trip.

Didn't somebody have a bad trip?

This thing is going to end up as an ad for LSD."

-[Laughs]

Well, one of those cast members

who was with you at Big Sur, I think, is here tonight,

the character of John in the movie,

the character who is supposedly there to talk

the person through their trip in case it goes bad.

So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome --

Bruce Dern is with us.

[Cheers and applause]

-[Chanting "Bruce-ster!"]

-Thank you for being here, Bruce.

We wanted to get one outside take

on that little stock company of the '60s.

The stock company was yourself,

Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda,

Dennis Hopper, I think was in it.

-Yeah, Dennis was there.

-Was that just a chance of all those genius actors and writers

and performers all being together at the same time?

Because I can't imagine anything like that happening today,

because people just don't hang out like that anymore.

-Yeah.

Well, it wasn't by chance --

I chose them, as I recall.

This was so long ago, Bruce. I can hardly remember.

How do you remember?

-I remember all of it. -Oh.

-[Laughs]

-Who was the leader of the pack?

-Well, first of all,

none of the guys you just mentioned

or the girls ever went to college or finished college,

but we went to the University of Corman.

[Cheers and applause]

And in the three films I did with him --

We did them close together --

"The Trip" we did right after, actually,

we finished "The Wild Angels".

But the camaraderie on the set --

The thing this guy did more than anybody

I've probably ever worked with, except maybe Mr. Hitchcock,

was the guy gathered people together.

Alexander Payne does it today,

Quentin Tarantino does it today,

and he did it every movie he did.

He would come up with grips, electricians,

I mean, on the second unit,

which was me running off with the motorcycle

in "The Wild Angels".

Well, the cameraman and director was Peter Bogdanovich.

-Second unit director on "The Wild Angels"

was Peter Bogdanovich?

-And in the graveyard. He had to be in the graveyard, too,

and it was such a delight.

I remember I asked Roger -- I said,

after one day or someplace in the day,

I said, "How many of these goddamn movies have you made?"

And you said, "Well, this is somewhere in the two hundreds."

-Oh, that was early.

-Oh, what I liked most about Roger

was he perpetuated the movie business

without us ever realizing that's what he was doing.

-That's very true.

-And you do shit that's never been done.

[Cheers and applause]

And the only time I ever got bugged at him

was he didn't put me in. "Von Richthofen and Brown".

-[Laughs] "Von Richthofen and Brown",

another very underrated movie.

-Oh, wow.

I got two or three little stories here about Roger,

but the one thing I wanted you to know -- for example,

Laura was conceived on "The Wild Angels".

So when you go down to Palm Springs

and he says, "Now, go off down those trails by the river

and then turn around and come back as fast as you can."

We were 50 guys on motorcycles, and he did a really neat thing.

He got the real Hells Angels. He got -- Everybody was real.

I even got beat up one night

when I was going back to my dressing room,

because I had non-Hells Angel colors on,

and they grabbed me and beat me up.

And the next day, police came to the set.

"Are you okay, Mr. Dern?" I said, "Yeah, I'm okay."

And Earl Flinton and Sonny Barger came over to me

and said, "We like what you said to the police.

You said nothing. Because we will take care of this.

Believe me."

I don't know if he meant to do that,

Roger, or not, but he always seemed to gather steam

when we did scenes that nowadays, they say,

"Well, they were improvised." Chuck Griffiths wrote that shit.

I mean, the excitement about him

was everything happened right there, and he filmed it.

And he was just so unique

in his point of view and everything.

And I said -- I made a movie once called "Silent Running",

and it's a very good science fiction movie.

Douglas Trumbull directed it.

I said, "Where'd you get the idea for this?"

He said, "Well, I didn't get the idea for this

from what I'm going to tell you,

but I took a week with Roger Corman space films."

And I said, "He made space films?"

I mean, I didn't know anything about it

because when they said drive-in movies,

we were learning how to get an A

on the slate instead of a B.

And I got that the first minute I was there.

I mean, he did one wonderful thing for me.

In the Wild Angels, I die in a motorcycle accident

that Bogdanovich filmed, incidentally,

and then I'm in a coffin, with an open coffin,

and the Hells Angels celebrating my death

rip the church apart.

And I guess no one would say, "Don't do that."

And it's good, because if they'd have told them,

"Don't do that," they might have torn the whole block down.

You know? I mean, it was just --

I think the thing I still look forward to --

I'm 97 and he's 111.

-You're 97? I'm 97.

-No, I'm 93. Excuse me.

-Oh. -You're 97. I'm 87. Sorry.

And then when I drive up here tonight to come to this event,

I look up on the screen

and I don't think I'm wrong, but there's Dick Miller,

and he, I thought, was in almost every movie you made.

-Yeah. Dick Miller and I worked together many, many times.

-Oh, I thought so. I thought Roger was a relic,

and I got pissed off year after year

when the AFI or the Academy wouldn't just say, "Hey, bud,

you did all this shit.

Come on down. Let's give you something."

And they did, finally.

-They did give him an Academy Award.

-So... -Yes.

-And I got the biggest kick out of --

was I look around the set on "The Wild Angels"

and "The Trip" for a few times,

and the assistant cameraman was Francis Coppola.

The prop man was Jonathan Demme.

Jack Linsky was in charge of anything that moved on wheels,

and all these guys went to be big, big things

and that out of his tutelage,

and he had them on every movie.

The only guy I never met was Chuck Griffiths.

-Oh, yeah.

-Because I said, "Where is he?"

"Oh, he's in a room writing.

I don't know if it's for me, though." [Chuckles]

And what Roger did for us is not only would he pay us decently,

but he put our names above the title.

And that is the key thing you got,

is if you don't get paid real well, you need billing.

-That's great.

Let me ask both of you

about "The Wild Angels".

Do you think that that movie -- Many of the same people

involved in "The Wild Angels" end up in "Easy Rider".

Is there a direct connection between --

-"Easy Rider" was first.

-Yes. There was.

I don't want to get into it, but on "Easy Rider",

I arranged for American International to finance it,

and I was to be executive producer

because Dennis and Peter had never made a picture,

and I was to get a percentage of the profits.

But it's a long story.

Sam Arkoff wrecked the whole deal.

-I should mention -- I didn't mention

when I was going through all your genres

the motorcycle movie, but you did --

There was, like, a three or four year period of biker movies,

and then "The Trip" is a genre all of its own.

And both of those were, of course,

ripped-from-the-headlines type movies

filmed in a very '60s way,

which is to say, a free form story structure.

Jack Nicholson wrote the script

for "The Trip",

and yet they were big commercial hits.

Do you think that kind of thing could happen today?

-Yes, but it's more difficult

because theatrical distribution

is confined very heavily to Marvel Comics

and things like that.

So it's a little bit more difficult, but it could happen.

-All right.

-I was just going to say, before you go off that, Bruce,

did you know that on "The Wild Angels",

Roger got a death threat?

-What? -What?

-The Hells Angels put a contract on you?

The Hells Angels put a contract on you when you were --

-Oh, yeah. Oh, I remember I had a great contract

with a phone call with Big Otto Friedli.

He called me, and I remember the conversation.

I remember that conversation exactly. Otto called me

and he said, "Hey, man, we're going to snuff you out."

And I said, "Otto, think about this.

You've already announced and said

you're going to kill me.

If I slip and fall in the bathtub,

the police are going to come after you.

On the other hand, you're suing me for $1 million

for defamation of character.

How do you expect to collect the million dollars if you kill me?

My advice to you is forget the momentary pleasure of killing me

and go for the million dollars."

And he thought a little bit, and he said,

"Yeah, man, that's what we'll do.

We'll go for the million dollars."

-All right. Well, Roger,

I would love to see 70 more years of your movies.

Do you have a next movie?

Are you making a movie? What's your next one?

-With my old friend Brad Krevoy on remaking

"Little Shop of Horrors"

as a possible Halloween picture,

and we're working on that.

-That's great. That's great.

You're talking to the right audience about that.

-And I will do a cameo in that movie...

-Okay.

-...where I look into the camera and go, "Hmm."

That was Jack's birth.

-All right. -All right.

-Joe Bob, you forgot to mention Roger's acting career. Come on.

-I didn't mention your acting career.

You were in "The Godfather II". You were in...

-What happened was this.

I kept playing these little roles for friends of mine

who were directing,

and a guy from the Screen Actors Guild called me and said,

"You have to join the Guild." And I said, "I'm not an actor.

I've just played these little roles for friends of mine.

It's an in-joke."

And he said, "The joke's going far enough.

You're working more than half our members

and you have to join the Guild."

So suddenly, I joined the Guild,

and all of a sudden, I'm getting residuals as an actor.

-Actually, I think you should be on strike.

-As a matter of fact,

I thought about that.

I'm going to tell them I'm ill.

I can't make it out there.

-All right.

-Bruce, I wanted to respond

to what you said about the camaraderie

on the set of the young actors and so on,

and to say that when Roger got his Academy Award,

that Jack Nicholson raised his glass and said,

"Thanks for believing in me, Rog,

when none of the rest of them did."

-That's right.

-I can back that up for not only myself,

but I took Diane Ladd, who was my wife at the time,

with me to the interview,

and when we stood up to go,

he said, "Miss Ladd,

I've seen some of your work.

Why don't you come on down and do this?"

She said, "Do a Roger Corman motorcycle movie?"

[Laughter]

It's like Laura called me up one day

and she said, "Daddy, do I want to do a dinosaur movie?"

[Laughter]

And I said, "Well, it would depend on the ingredients.

I mean, who's directing and so forth and so on."

Anyway, it was always fun to be with him

and be able to say this kind of stuff about a guy who,

God damn it, deserves it.

40 years ago, he deserved it, you know?

-And we honored him 40 years ago. [Laughs]

So, listen, I want to thank you both for being here.

I know you both probably have plans

to spend the rest of the night experimenting with various

recently legalized narcotics, so...

And, Julie, make sure you don't take anything yourself.

You're the designated safe person for tonight.

But, Roger, I wanted to say this to you at last.

I know that you have been honored

by many prestigious film organizations.

You were kind of a bad boy

when you were young

and then you became, at some point, the elder statesman.

So many of these film organizations have honored you.

The British Film Institute has honored you.

The Cinema Francais has honored you at least twice.

The Academy gave you a lifetime Oscar.

But we like to think -- We like to think here

that the pulsing heart of your core audience

over the years was here at the drive-in,

and our fans wanted this opportunity.

The reason you're here tonight is we wanted this opportunity

to salute you in our own way for making the movies

that in 1955 and in 1965 and in 1975

and in 1985 might not have been that important

to the Motion Picture Academy

and might not have been that important

to the British Film Institute,

but they were always important to us and the drive-in audience.

-So thank you.

-And they were important enough

to change the business.

-Yes. But what I want to say to you, Roger,

is thank you for caring about the populist film audience

for all of those years.

-Thank you.

-♪ Thank you, Roger, thank you, Roger Corman ♪

♪ Thank you, Julie, thank you, Julie Corman ♪

♪ Thank you, Bruce, thank you, Bruce Dern ♪

♪ We had a great time, please do return ♪

♪ We love you, we love you ♪

Come on. Everybody.

♪ We love you, we love you ♪

♪ We love you, we love you, we love you, we love you ♪

♪ We love you ♪

[Cheers and applause]

-This is something that Joe Bob gave me 40 years ago.

The lifetime achievement award.

-[Chuckles]

[Cheers and applause]

-Now, Joe Bob,

it's my pleasure to give you the lifetime achievement award.

-[Laughs]

[Cheers and applause]

-Thank you very much, Roger.

It was an amazing first 30 years,

and it's been an amazing second 40 years,

and so now you have a suitable replacement for this one.

-Yes. Very good.

-Thank you very much.

And we expect at least 30 more years.

-Ah, yes.

[Cheers and applause]