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 News from Around Banderas Bay | March 2005 
2005 Puerto Vallarta Film Festival
 PVNN
| Apart from making dozens of enormously entertaining films, Roger Corman's place in film history is assured simply through his unrivalled eye for talent.
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Puerto Vallarta - At a recent board meeting held at the Sheraton Buganvilas Resort, it was decided that the 2005 Puerto Vallarta Film Festival will be held November 7-12. This year's festival will pay tribute to independent filmmaker Roger Corman, who having produced more than 550 films and directed fifty others is arguably one of Hollywood's most gifted film makers.
The saga of independent filmmaker Roger Corman ranks as one of the most amazing motion picture success stories. After a stint in the Navy, he took a job at 20th Century Fox and by 1949 was a story analyst at the studio. Disenchanted with studio protocol, he left Fox for England, where he did post-graduate work in modern English literature at Oxford's Balliol College. Upon his return to Hollywood Corman worked briefly as a literary agent.
In 1953, Roger Corman sold his first screenplay, entitled "Highway Dragnet," to Allied Artists and served as associate producer on the film. With the proceeds of the sale he made "The Monster From the Ocean Floor" the following year, his first film as an independent producer, on the remarkable budget of $18,000.
The triumph of his initial endeavor proved that a high quality film can be made with very little money. As a result, Corman began producing a wide array of low-budget features for American International Pictures; all were extremely successful. He tackled a variety of genres, from Westerns and gangster films to sci-fi, teen-age hot rod and rock`n'roll movies. In 1957 alone Corman turned out nine films - some of which were completed in two or three days.
With this string of box office hits to his credit, Corman began to procure larger budgets. Throughout the 1960s, Corman's cycle of Vincent Price/Edgar Allan Poe horror films earned him international acclaim. When the French Film Institute honored him with a retrospective in 1964, Roger Corman became the youngest producer/director ever to receive such an accolade.
Always a trendsetter, Corman made the first biker movie with "Wild Angels." Starring Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra, the film opened the 1966 Venice Film Festival to great acclaim. In 1967, "The Trip," written by and starring Jack Nicholson, began the "psychedelic" film craze of the late 1960s.
As American International Pictures' primary director, Corman's success built the company into a major force in Hollywood. Appalled by the intrinsic waste of time and money, as well as executive interference, Corman opted out of the major studio system. In 1970, he founded his own production and distribution company, New World Pictures. New World's first year in operation astonished even Corman, as all eleven pictures distributed showed substantial profits.
New World rapidly grew into the largest independent motion picture distribution company in the United States. In addition to providing the public with such fast-paced entertainment as "Big Bad Mama" and "Eat My Dust," or cult films such as "Rock and Roll High School," New World soon became the independent leader in presenting high-quality foreign films to the American public. New World releases included Academy Award-winning films by Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, and Werner Herzog.
Apart from making dozens of enormously entertaining films, Corman's place in film history is assured simply through his unrivalled eye for talent - among many world-class names who were employed by him at a very early stage in their careers are Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, Robert DeNiro, James Cameron, Ron Howard, Charles Bronson, and many others - which means that his influence on modern American cinema is almost incalculable. Roger Corman lives in Santa Monica with his wife, producer Julie Corman, and four children. |
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