"CRAB MONSTERS, TEENAGE CAVEMEN, AND CANDY STRIPE NURSES: ROGER CORMAN, KING OF THE 'B' MOVIE" BY CHRIS NASHAWATAY; FOREWORD BY JOHN LANDIS
Review by Lee Pfeiffer
You can fill an ocean liner with all the tribute books that have been written about "B" movie mogul Roger Corman. The most elaborate so far is this superb coffee table volume by Chris Nashawatay, a long-time film critic for Entertainment Weekly. The book presents a plethora of outstanding movie posters, lobby cards and behind the scenes stills, some of which are from Corman's personal archives. They are all wonderfully presented, as this book is particularly well-designed to capitalize on the nature of the films it celebrates. So many big stars and directors had their initial success with Corman productions. In these pages you can relish Jack Nicholson as Cry Baby Killer, Ron Howard starring in (and directing for the first time) Eat My Dust, and Robert Vaughn as the Teenage Caveman. Best of all is the excellent, in-depth coverage and graphics of Corman's greatest successes: the string of Edgar Allan Poe film adaptations he collaborated on with Vincent Price. (This past Halloween, I watched several of them in succession on TCM and I am amazed at how well they hold up, despite low production values.). There biker films, sexploitation pics and low-brow comedies, all given the Corman touch of being slick and well-produced. Corman has lived to see his reputation placed on an exalted level (he received an honorary Oscar, something that would have seemed inconceivable back in the 1960s). The book has significant contributions from such esteemed figures as Peter Bogdanovich, James Cameron, Bruce Dern, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson and William Shatner- not to mention a heartfelt introduction by John Landis, who also credits Corman for distributing the works of Fellini, Bergmann and Kurosawa in the USA. In all, this book is an ambitious and highly entertaining work that retro movie lovers will find irresistible.
Click here to order from Amazon