At 87 years old, Roger Corman is a twinkly gent. He walks with a pronounced stoop, and speaks in careful, precise sentences, making considerable effort not to waste a word. It’s hard to believe the career this benign legend has had, not to mention the careers he’s given others – he gave Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Fonda, Jonathan Demme, Pam Grier, Ron Howard, James Cameron and Jack Nicholson their first breaks.

Along the way, Corman has written a handful of films, directed 56, had a couple of dozen, mostly uncredited acting cameos, and produced, in some capacity, about 400 movies. The titles include some of the most wonderfully lurid in film history – take 1957’s Attack of the Crab Monsters, or The Wasp Woman (1959), or Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia (1977). Astonishingly, he’s still working – something called Dance with a Vampyre would appear to be in production now – though he hasn’t directed a film himself since 1990’s Frankenstein Unbound.

Corman is in London for a stage interview as part of the BFI’s mammoth Gothic season. He’s using the invitation as an excuse for a European mini-break with his wife Julie, a fellow producer whom he married in 1970. And he seems happy to share any and every anecdote he’s collected on the job.

There are so many Corman stories out there that I first wonder if there are any he’d like to debunk. Did he really tell Coppola not to go to the Philippines to shoot Apocalypse Now?

“Having made films there myself, I said, ‘Francis, don’t go! You’re going into the rainy season.’ He said, ‘Oh, it’ll be a rainy picture.’ But it’s not rain as we know it. It starts in May and continues through to October. His set was wiped out. And the insurance paid out on the basis of a monsoon. But there was no monsoon! It was just normal July weather. He went back in good weather and made the film.”