A Centennial Celebration of Corman Cameos—Crooked Marquee
When Roger Corman died in 2024 on the age of 98, he left behind a filmography a whole bunch of titles deep. In addition to the 50-plus movies he directed (together with some the place he went uncredited) and the near 500 he produced in some capability, he additionally had a sideline as an actor. At first he solely appeared in his movies if he wanted an additional physique in a scene or an actor failed to point out up, however afterward he did cameos for administrators who wished to pay him again for giving them their begin within the enterprise.
The first to ask was one-time safety Francis Ford Coppolawho tapped him to play a senator on the committee investigating the Corleone group in 1974’s The Godfather Part II. At first, Corman merely sits and listens to the testimony, however he will get to ask a pivotal query afterward when their star witness all of a sudden claps up. Notifying a nervous-looking man seated subsequent to Michael Corleone, Corman asks who he’s and follows up with “Is he related to the witness?” Clearly, some unstated intimidation is going on proper in entrance of them, however the senators are powerless to do something about it.
Corman was on his dwelling turf at Paul Bartel’s Cannonball! (1976), wherein he performs the LA district legal professional out to cease a cross-country race. (Spoiler: he fails.) Considering how busy he was working New World Pictures, it isn’t stunning this was the one time he acted in a single of his productions, however that kind of factor grew to become extra widespread after his staff left the nest.
The New World alums who used Corman probably the most have been Joe Dante and Jonathan Demme. Demme received a head begin writing and producing biker and women-in-prison flicks, whereas Dante toiled on trailers within the enhancing division, however Dante put their boss to the work first, in 1981’s The Howling. Paying homage to the scene in Rosemary’s Baby the place producer William Castle is standing outdoors a telephone sales space whereas Rosemary makes a name, Dante stationed Corman outdoors one being utilized by his heroine. The capper on the scene, the place she tells him “It’s all yours” and the steps inside is that he instantly checks the change slot. As Dante says on the commentary, “The legend has it that in order to get Roger to turn around and do the scene, we had to actually put a quarter in the machine. Actually, when Roger tells the story, it’s 50 cents.”
Corman’s subsequent three cameos (after a bit half in Wim Wenders’s The State of Things as a lawyer) have been courtesy of Demme, beginning with the position of Mr. MacBride, proprietor of the plane manufacturing plant in 1984’s Swing Shift. Initially, he is solely a voice on a loudspeaker welcoming new staff, however he additionally seems on the finish to announce Japan’s give up and thank them “for a job well done.” He was once more solid able of authority in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambsas FBI Director Hayden Burke, who’s briefly seen calling Jack Crawford on the carpet for dangling a phony reward in entrance of Hannibal Lecter. Corman had a much bigger half in a deleted scene the place he suspends Clarice Starling from the Academy for her half in Crawford’s gamble, however that pointless beat correctly hit the reducing room flooring.
In a reversal of his position in The Godfather Part IICorman’s half in 1993’s Philadelphia (for which he acquired billing within the opening titles for the primary time) was that of Mr. Laird, a enterprise proprietor pressured to melt his reward for Andrew Beckett, saying he was merely “satisfied” with the result of the litigation accomplished for his firm. This time, it is Beckett’s lawyer who notices Laird’s nervous look on the defendants and calls out his sudden change in angle.
A extra relaxed and genial Corman turned up as Mr. Randolph in Joe Dante’s Runaway Daughters (1994). Part of Showtime’s collection of in-name-only remakes of AIP titles, Runaway Daughters solid Corman as the daddy of the boy who will get his girlfriend pregnant and runs off to affix the Navy. When the lady comes in search of him, she finds Mr. Randolph grilling the hell out of some steaks and beaming about how proud he’s of his son for enlisting. (Dante additionally solid Corman’s spouse Julie as Mrs. Randolph.)
The famously penny-pinching Corman got here to the fore in his subsequent three cameos. In Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995), he is a congressman who questions the necessity to hold funding the area program. (When Jim Lovell says he is slated to command Apollo 14, Corman grins and replies, “If there es an Apollo 14.”) Then, in Dante’s Second Civil War (1997), he is “network guy” Sandy Collins, whose first line is about how “the budget is all blown to hell” and who’s laser-focused on News Net’s advertisers, which impacts the tales they’ll cowl. (“Africa’s a mess,” Sandy says. “Use the Rwandan massacre. There are no Rwandan advertisers.”) And in Dante’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), Corman has his most entertaining cameo because the director of a batman film irritated when a safety guard blows a stunt, informing him, “That airbag cost a lot of money.”
Corman’s final two cameos for his alumni have been each for Demme, who included him in 2004’s The Manchurian Candidate within the backstage scene the place Senator Shaw is pushing her son Raymond for the VP slot at their social gathering’s conference. Corman does not do a lot other than shake Meryl Streep’s hand in the beginning and finish of the scene and trade a courteous “Senator”/”Mr. Secretary” along with her, however his presence alerts necessary deal-making is a foot. He additionally exhibits up in 2008’s Rachel Getting Married as a marriage visitor who’s all the time seen grinning from ear to ear. (He movies the ceremony as nicely, which is as touching as will be.) In a 1991 interview, Demme stated, “The only way to see him, he’s always busy working on his empire, is to offer him a part in a movie.” in Rachel Getting Marriedit is plain to see that Corman is happy as punch to be invited – and to see a filmmaker whose expertise he nurtured is doing so nicely.
