Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

Roger Corman may be the most prolific film producer of all time. Though, in the over 300 hundred films he’s written/produced/directed in his career, you wouldn’t tell, as most have been downright terrible.

But as writer/director Alex Stapleton explores in his latest documentary Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, the quality of his work isn’t where his legend lives, but rather in his work ethic and legacy.

Indeed, Corman’s World not only serves as a fitting and fascinating tribute to the prolific film producer, but also as an introduction to his unconventional and revolutionary work ethos: Shoot on the fly, under budget, and on time. Everything else is secondary to those rules.

The film opens with onset footage of Corman working on his latest film, Dinoshark, a SyFy Channel original film presumably about some sort of prehistoric shark wreaking havoc to beautiful bikini-clad women in some tropical oceanside paradise (just taking a wild guess here).

As the behind-the-scenes footage reveals, Corman’s production is cutting a lot of measures to come in under budget and make it a fast shoot. There are no trailers or green rooms on set, he hires production locals as extras, and in one particular scene, one of the actors jumps into water that they soon realize isn’t technically safe and is actually crocodile-infested.

This is the world of filmmaking Roger Corman has invented for himself, and as Stapleton examines, its been wildly successful for Corman,

Stapleton’s film doesn’t necessarily break any boundaries with the documentary format in Corman’s World, as it’s presented as a fairly straightforward doc combining archived footage of Corman’s films and interviews with a plethora of renown actors and directors who’ve worked with Corman (including Hollywood stalwarts and starlets like Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, David Carradine, Pam Grier, Quentin Tarantino, Peter Fonda, Peter Bogdonavich, Eli Roth, and William Shatner).

Fortunately, Stapleton’s subject is intriguing enough in of itself that it never needs to break format in order to succeed in the way it does.

As the king of the B-movie, Corman’s story proves to be an entertaining and endearing foray into his personality and method. It turns out that Corman, contrary to the B-grade schlock-and-horror reputation he’s so known for, is a very normal, genuine and humble person.

But what’s most fascinating about Corman is his insatiable desire to create and inspire. Sure, most of what he’s responsible for is pretty terrible, low-grade trash. But it’s fun trash. What makes both Corman’s legacy and Stapleton’s film so grand is the celebration of the escapism of cinema.

For cult/horror lovers, Corman’s World: Exploits of A Hollywood Rebel is a delight, and a thorough and in-depth tribute to one of Hollywood’s most notorious counter-culturalists. But for all other film lovers, the film is a treat—a simple, yet affective celebration of the pleasures of the cinema.

Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel is now playing in select theaters.

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