Directors, The: The Films of Roger Corman (1999)
*** (out of 4)
Fifty-five minute documentary features an interview with director Roger Corman as he discusses several films in his impressive filmmography. Corman starts off talking about what business he almost got in and how he ended up in films. From this point on he discusses a few of his films including A BUCKET OF BLOOD, THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, the Poe-Price films and his final one FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND. James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Bruce Dern, Jonathan Demme, Carl Franklin, Ron Howard, Nancy Sinatra and Diane Ladd are just a few of the faces who show up to give their thoughts on Corman. The special guests not only discuss the films that they did for Corman but also a few of them talk about giving Corman parts in their own movies. There's no question that this is a pretty fun documentary considering all the talent that is involved but at the same time you can't help but be disappointed because there's so much of the running time that's devoted to the "other" guests and not Corman. Since this is a documentary about Corman the director you'd come in expecting to learn more about his directing career but most of the running time is about the film's he produced. There's even one film credited to him as a director but he only produced it. There are clips from various films he was involved in and at least the documentary does a nice job at covering various jobs he had throughout his career.
