Films produced by Roger Corman
TCM, beginning at 8 p.m.
Turner Classic Movies concludes its three-week celebration of prolific and influential filmmaker Roger Corman, who passed away May 9 at age 98, with several more of the low-budget Bmovie classics that Corman was behind. The five titles were produced by Corman and were each helmed by future big-name directors, just a handful of the now-major Hollywood names who got their starts working on Corman movies. Up first is (1972), a Depression-set crime drama that was Martin Scorsese’s second directorial feature. Barbara Hershey stars as the title character, alongside David Carradine. Next is Targets (1968), which marked Peter Bogdanovich’s theatrical directorial debut. Bogdanovich also wrote the screenplay for this crime thriller, which stars Tim O’Kelly and horror icon Boris Karloff. After that is Francis Ford Coppola’s feature directorial debut: the black-and-white slasher horror film (1963), which
Coppola also wrote. As the lineup enters late-night/early tomorrow morning, it features a couple of the more exploitative and raunchy and/or violent, yet still fun, Corman productions. There is 1974’s a women-in-prison film written and helmed by Jonathan Demme in his directorial debut. The lineup concludes with (1978), directed and co-edited by Joe Dante. A cut above the numerous imitators that followed that 1975 blockbuster, the film, with its screenplay by John Sayles, features some tongue-incheek humor alongside its killer-fish violence.