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!

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics

Visit Amazon and Buy...

How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime
(Roger Corman's Autobiography)

You Think CoronaVirus is the Ultimate Disease?

It's NOTHING compared to...

...as you can see at our "brother" RetroBlog, The Secret Sanctum of Captain Video!

Part 1

Part 2

Conclusion

Dare You Miss It???

One-Stop Halloween Shopping at SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT!

Ah, Halloween...
One of our favorite times of the year here at Atomic Kommie Comics™!
And what better time to promote the ghoulish goodies of Seduction of the Innocent™ including Halloween-wear t-shirts, mugs and reusable trick-or-treat tote bags?
SEE: the moody moonlit graveyard of the full-color Italian poster for the original Night of the Living Dead!
SEE: the kitchy graphics of the rarely-seen Astro Zombies poster (believe it or not, the film was PG)!
SEE: the koolest ghoul of all...Vincent Price, on the classic poster for the original House on Haunted Hill?

And let's not forget

The Green Slime!

Last Man on Earth AND Omega Man!

The ORIGINAL Demon Barber of Fleet Street!

I Married a Monster from Outer Space!

The ORIGINAL Little Shop of Horrors!

Occhio de Uccide!

They Came from Beyond Space!

AND (You knew we had to have this one)  

Plan 9 from Outer Space!

Buy them! Trade them! Collect 'em all!

Happy 100th, Vincent Price

Born this day in 1911, Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was a man of many talents, chef, art connoisseur, writer, and of course, actor.
I'll leave it to other sci-fi, fantasy and horror bloggers to cover his accomplishments in those genres, and mention a category he's rarely associated with, but had an incredible knack for...
Comedy.

His very first film appearance was in a little-remembered 1938 screwball comedy called Service de Luxe, playing the male ingenue opposite Constance Bennett.


After this, he went on to a singularly successful career in films and radio, playing heroes and villains with great aplomb, but not appearing again in a comedy until 1950 (a voice-only cameo as The Invisible Man in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein isn't really an 'appearance')
As insane ad exec Burnbridge Waters, Vincent steals the movie from Ronald Coleman in a performance that can only be classified as "mad", man...

Here's an audio interview from 1990 with both Vincent and Art Linkletter, who played the game show host/toady in the film. They discuss the scene shown in the lobby card above.

And here's the entire film at one shot! (but with commercials)


While most of his roles had humorous aspects to them, these were the only two outright comedies he did until the mid-1960s, when people finally started utilizing his funny side, unfortunately in only mildly-funny films like the Dr Goldfoot flicks.
(Here's the tv special Wild, Weird World of Dr Goldfoot, which was funnier than either of the films!)



Thanks for the memories, Vincent.
When you didn't have us screaming, you had us laughing!

Dead Set...Reality TV Meets Zombies!

Britain is in trouble (or, at least, more than usual).
The dead are returning to life and attacking the living.
The people they kill get up and kill – and it’s spreading like wildfire.
Curiously, there are a few people left in Britain who aren’t worried about any of this – that’s because they’re the remaining contestants on the reality series Big Brother.
Cocooned in the safety of the Big Brother House set, they’re blissfully unaware of the horrific events unfolding outside. Until an eviction night when all hell breaks loose...
Currently running on IFC, the five-part miniseries originally aired in England in 2008 to rave reviews.

Besides the usual kool classics on TCM (including previously unaired uncut Hammer Horrors , Val Lewton and Roger Corman flix, and a Vincent Price tribute), it's the best scary stuff on tv this Halloween weekend. (The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" won't air until November 6th!)
Watch it!

I Am the Legend of the Last Omega Man on Earth

Richard Matheson's plague-disaster novel I Am Legend has now been filmed three times, first as the low-budget Last Man on Earth with horror villain Vincent Price as the (surprise!) hero, the medium-budget Omega Man with 60s-70s post-apocalypse hero Charlton Heston as Neville, and finally, the big-budget I Am Legend, with wise-cracking action-movie star Will Smith as Neville.

Since every trendnoid will be wearing an I Am Legend t-shirt, why not show your sci-fi savvy and be unique by donning garb with the cool retro artwork of the previous films?
Here's links to the long-sleeve dark shirts...
The Last Man on Earth
The Omega Man

And a link to these, and other Horror Flick shirts...
Horror Movie Shirts