King of the B movies isn t finished yet
25 Jan, 2021 11:47 PM
7 minutes to read
Producer Roger Corman in his Los Angeles office. Photo / AP.
Daily Telegraph UK
By: Chris Harvey
For fans of Sixties horror films, the combination of Vincent Price, Edgar Allan Poe and director Roger Corman has an enduring ghoulish charm.
The man nicknamed the King of B-movies adapted eight of the 19th-century writer s more macabre works, and the inimitable Price starred in seven of them. Many a person has crept to bed chilled by The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), or Corman s 1964 masterpiece, The Masque of the Red Death. Few, however, have seen the latter as its creator intended it, an injustice that the release of a newly restored version on Blu-ray, DVD and streaming is about to reverse.
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A still from The Masque of the Red Death (1964), with Vincent Price as Satan worshipper Prince Prospero
Credit: Alamy
For fans of Sixties horror films, the combination of Vincent Price, Edgar Allan Poe and director Roger Corman has an enduring ghoulish charm. The man nicknamed the King of B-movies adapted eight of the 19th-century writer’s more macabre works, and the inimitable Price starred in seven of them. Many a person has crept to bed chilled by The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), or Corman’s 1964 masterpiece, The Masque of the Red Death.
Roger Corman s singular film career is often preceded by its reputation. There s its sheer volume (over 50 titles directed, over 300 produced). There s the slew of famous filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron and many more whose careers were effectively launched by his stewardship. Corman s nicknames include the Pope of Pop Cinema and the tag schlockmeister, which he always detested. And don t forget the almost avant-garde frugality that led Corman and his acolytes to turn financial bottom lines into playgrounds. Overshadowed in all this are the films themselves. In turn, Hollywood Theatre head programmer Dan Halsted began his online Roger Corman Master Class on Jan. 5 with a clear superlative: Corman is one of America s great filmmakers and grossly underrated.