King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen

A lifelong (anti) Hollywood hustler, Larry Cohen relishes recounting some of the fabulous tales that make up his subversive career. And what a career!

As a prolific writer, Cohen penned scripts for numerous television (remember television?) shows in the sixties (The Fugitive!), and soon the big screen bug bit, and Larry succumbed. Perturbed at losing creative control to others, Cohen began a string of independent films with a gonzo attitude and a very tight wallet, berthing such B-movie classics like "Bone" (aka: "Dial Rat for Terror"), "Q: The Winged Serpent" and "It's Alive". Even though those movies are quite, uh, unique, there's no denying the spirit of their cinematic father.

Cohen often worked directly on location, with no permits, using the unsuspecting public during his guerilla shoots, adding a decidedly unpredictability wow factor to many of his wildly uneven films.

"King Cohen" takes a fanboyish documentary peek at one of Hollywood's true, overlooked treasures. Glowing accounts from bigwigs like Martin Scorsese and J.J. Abrams, are interspersed with fond filming recollections from actors Michael Moriarty and Fred Williamson, but most importantly is Larry himself, who remains a crackerjack trove of crazy ideas. Well worth the watch.

The documentary is a classic cut for cut recollection of a truly unique and paramount figure in modern cinema. Larry Cohen if a frontiersman for the independent film community and "King Cohen" establishes this fact with informative and entertaining biography and interviews. The most value to this film comes in the form of first person accounts from Mr. Cohen himself offering back story to some truly monumental cult classic film and television projects given to us from his sheer genius of creativity.

"King Cohen" keeps with the standard documentary format, but still manages to be compelling and entertaining beyond your typical shtick seen in DVD extras, or basic documentary styles. With a fangasm worthy amount of first person accounts and anidotes from Larry about his work, plus the exploration and acknowledgement of the volume of his genre-bending films, "King Cohen : The Wild World Of Filmmaker Larry Cohen" is a great documentary, one truly a long time coming - and decades in the making...and it's about time!

This was a film that I was immediately intrigued by when some of the podcasts I listen to had the chance to see this when it was making its festival rounds. I knew who Larry Cohen was, because my father had his film The Stuff on VHS. It was a film I didn't fully grasp as a child, but still one that I have nostalgia for having it seen it all those years ago. The official synopsis for this is a feature length documentary acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen.

As the synopsis states, this film follows the career of Cohen. We learn about where he grew up and how he got his start in the movie industry. At the time of watching this film, I had seen some of his works and some of them I had seen without realizing it, so it is fun to learn more about a guy that I'm a fan of.

What I like about the structure of this documentary is that we learn about his early career as a writer and how that was his break into the industry through television shows. It was amazing to me how nice of a guy Cohen is, even thought the executives were screwing him out of money he probably was entitled to. It really inspires me to see a guy who despite things not necessarily going his way, his hard work still paying off.

This really picks up for me when Cohen decides to shift to directing. He is really one of the original guerilla filmmakers. Things that he did and got away with when not having permits and shooting in New York had me in awe as well as laughing. This works even more for me since I have worked on an independent feature length film and some shorts. Seeing what he could do with such small budgets is quite amazing.

Even more than that, I'm a big fan of seeing interviews and learning about the making of films. Many of the ones in this film I haven't seen yet, but after watching this they are going on my 'To See List' I have going. I knew that Cohen had done horror films, but I had no idea about the spy/crime thrillers or the blacksxploitation films he did. Having such a range of what he could produce is crazy to me as an inspiring writer. The film does interview and give the background story of pretty much every film he directed. It also does this for films that he produced or wrote as well. They brought in as many cast and crew member as they could. Not everything that he says meshes with what others say, but I do like the film got both perspectives.

The documentary really does focus on his works, but what I liked as well is that we got to really learn about Cohen as a man. Those he worked with pretty much only had good things to say about him and his works are lower in budget, but what he could pull off was great. Hearing about the great things he would do for those around him and trying to help those he could was what really touched about Cohen. Even his ex-wife is a part of the documentary and she really only had good things to say about him as well. As a cinephile, what he produced in the films is great, but knowing the true story behind it and how great a person he is makes it even better for me.

I would say this documentary is very well done. They got so many people from his films and those he worked with to appear in this documentary. That is part of a testament to how great of a person he is that they would be willing. I also like that we get film historians and experts as well to give some idea of the significance of some things to add just another layer to this film.

Now with that said, this is a shorter review as documentaries are a little bit harder to talk about it. This is very well made and the stories that are shared in this are interesting. It runs almost two hours long, but I had to admit, it doesn't feel like it. There is so much knowledge and information that it flies past. I would definitely say that if you are a fan of Cohen, his films or just interested in hearing stories behind the scenes of how films are made, I would recommend this. It is even more interesting that he did most of his work outside of the Hollywood model, which is even more interesting for independent filmmakers. I would say this is a good documentary and worth a viewing.

King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen (2017)

**** (out of 4)

Excellent documentary that takes a look at the career of screenwriter and director Larry Cohen. The documentary comes in just shy of two hours and it features interviews with the man himself as well as Martin Scorsese, Rick Baker, John Landis, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Robert Forster, James Dixon, Eric Roberts, Megan Gallagher, Michael Moriarty, Traci Lords, Daniel Pearl, Nathaniel Thompson, Yaphet Kotto and Fred Williamson.

KING COHEN is a terrific documentary for fans of Cohen and if you're not familiar with Cohen's work then there's no question that you're going to be curious about after watching this. It's really great that there are so many definitive documentaries being made about these types of filmmakers and especially since they're all getting up there in age. If you're familiar with the work of Cohen then there's no question that you're going to love the behind-the-scenes stories to his films as well as his life.

I think some of the greatest stuff presented here is the discussion about his early television work. I'm sure a lot of people have seen his credits at various sites but I doubt too many know some of the stories. What's great is that Cohen is on hand to discuss these early television programs and we get some terrific stories about them. Once the movie stuff comes along then you get even more details from Cohen as well as the other filmmakers paying their respects and discussing what made his films work and especially on their budget.

There are a lot of really great stories told here but some of the best deal with Cohen and his ability to steal scenes without getting permits. We learn about why he does this and we get some great stories including one dealing with Q THE WINGED SERPENT. The majority of the film's that he directed are covered and that includes WICKED STEPMOTHER with Bette Davis. We finally get to hear what really happened on the set of that picture that had Davis walk off and eventually badmouth Cohen. Other great stories include the production of ORIGINAL GANGSTAS as well as some dealing with Cohen's anger at what some director's did to his screenplays.

All in all, KING COHEN is a really great documentary that gives you a terrific insight into the filmmaker and his movies.

Steve Mitchell has captured a wonderful piece of work revolving around one of cinemas greatest pieces of work as Mitchell takes us from the beginnings of Cohens career on TV in the 60s to his prolific work on Blaxsploitaion through the 70s and 80s to writing one of my favorites of the 90s (Phone Booth) by tackling each project one by one. We hear some really interesting stories from some of the guys who knew him best and get a real good personal loving look at Larry Cohen and his long spanning career.