Showing posts with label Roger Corman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roger Corman. Show all posts

Sunday, May 12, 2024

ROGER CORMAN 1926-2024

Roger Corman and Vincent Price

One of the most influential filmmakers from the 1950s onward, Roger was one of the greatest "hyphenates" (writer/director/producer/occasional actor/etc) in history.
He gave career-starting jobs to numerous future cinema icons from Francis Ford Coppola to Pam Grier to James Cameron to Jack Nicholson to Martin Scorsese to Peter Bogdanovitch.
He revived the slowing careers of numerous 1920s-1950s performers, and made some of them (like Vincent Price and Joan Crawford) pop culture icons!
Plus, Corman brought numerous foreign movies to America that no other US studio wanted to invest in, like Fantastic Planet, The Tin Drum, and Cries and Whispers.

Roger's works are a major part of the entertainment side of my life...and always will be.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go rewatch Gas-s-s-Or-It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It, Corman's final film for AIP!
You'd be surprised how timely it still is!
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How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime
(Roger Corman's Autobiography)

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

YouTube Wednesday: THE HUMAN TORCH

Continuing our weekly feature "YouTube Wednesday"...
 With the death of Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch II, let's take a look at several of his various media incarnations...
He first appeared in the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon...

BTW: the voice of Galactus is Ted Cassidy (Lurch from the The Addams Family tv series.) and The Silver Surfer is Vic Perrin (the Control Voice/narrator of the original Outer Limits.)


He also "appearared" on several lp albums including Golden Records "Amazing Spider-Man #1", "Fantastic Four #1" (Note: the most bizarre thing about these records is all the sound effects in the story were actually spoken with an echo effect.
So, when the cosmic rays hit the spacecraft, you hear an actor saying "RAK-TAK-TAK!"),
 and the Power Records book and record series including "The Way it Began"

His next "appearance" was audio-only when Bill Murray (SNL, GhostBusters, Groundhog Day, etc.) portrayed him on a 1975 13-episode radio series modeled after the dramatic shows of the 1930s-50s!
or if you want "visuals" with your radio show...


Johnny did not appear in the 1978 FF animated series, replaced by Herbie the Robot (The Jar Jar Binks of FF history)..
Jack Kirby's original model sheet for H.E.R.B.I.E.
BTW, Johnny was replaced because The Human Torch was optioned for a live-action tv pilot which never got beyond Development Hell, not because the network thought kids would immolate themselves imitating him!

And finally, the trailer for the low-budget 1994 Roger Corman movie version starring Jay Underwood as Johnny! (The music is from Battle Beyond the Stars!)

BONUS: the ONE scene of Johnny in action as the Human Torch!

Interestingly, his animated form seems based on the Fleisher Brothers Superman from "The Mad Scientist" (the first cartoon)!