Is Roger Corman a bad director?

[Yaddo 42]

Corman was very good at what he did a lot of: b-movies, exploitation pictures, genre films, films made quickly to capitalize on trends, etc. He could obviously spot talent and would give opportunites to those who showed ability and initiative and could do good work within the restraints of time and budget his films had.

I think where he was weak was when he tried to move outside of the kind of films mentioned above. When he tried to make a serious mainstream war drama like "Von Richtofen and Brown" the results were unremarkable. That doesn't make him a bad director, just that he was much better at the kind of films he had already made plenty of.

While he has been hugely successful as a producer, I'm less of a fan of the films he's been involved with from the 80s onward. They certainly must make money, some may even be good, but most of it is pure product and nothing else. I don't find many very memorable, or even very fun which the films from his heyday managed to be and still make money.

He's made tons of money recycling the effects shots from "Battle Beyond the Stars" numerous times, cranking out those Don "The Dragon" Wilson "Bloodfist" films, and buying up the rights to scifi films from around the world to use pasts of them in dozens of other films.He even managed to sell the episodes of "Black Scorpion" in enough countries to make a profit to hear him tell it, so as a producer and businessman I respect his abilities, I just don't enjoy his stuff that much anymore.

When he did return to directing a full film (beyond shepherding troubled films and troubleshooting his own productions) in 1990 for "Frankenstein Unbound" he proved that he still had the ability. He made a $10 million film look as good as many big studio film with several times the budget, and one that was entertaining and clever to boot. While it did suffer a bit at the end in the effects department, I liked the film and it made me miss his work as a director.

[Hugomarink]

Absolutely! I was waiting for somebody in the thread to bring up "The Intruder." I think this is Corman's only attempt at making a truly serious film. It stars a very young William Shatner who plays a racist who travels from town to town in the south stirring up trouble. It's a powerful film that is very skillfully directed by Corman. Highly, highly recommended. And I agree that the Poe films are good as well. They're easily as good as a lot of the Hammer fare that people regard so highly. Based on the films I mention here I think it's clear Corman was a good director when he needed to be.

[peter johnson]

My wife and I had occasion to watch Creature From the Haunted Sea a few nights ago.
This is one of the funniest damn films ever made.  Even the jokes that don't "work" ultimately are still funny given the overall effect of the movie.  Based on this film alone, I would say that Corman is great as a producer and a director.
He also did "Frankenstein Unbound", which nobody mentions here, which is a very wonderful, overlooked entry to the Frankenstein lexicon.  I especially liked his inclusion of the poets Shelley & Lord Byron as characters, and Raul Julia is an impeccable Dr. F.
Corman as an auteur is somewhat overlooked too.  He basically rescued Ingmar Bergman from financial ruin in the '60's, by taking on American distribution of Cries and Whispers & other Bergman films when Bergman was losing money in Europe.  By introducing his work to American audiences, he kept Bergman from bankruptcy.  If you see Roger's name in the lead credits for Arthouse films from this era, yes, it is the same Roger "Crab Monsters" Corman.
peter johnson/denny crane